Hou Qing ended the call and smashed his phone into the ground.
Li Xiu raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
Hou Qing's jaw was tight. "Some bastard from South Korea beat up our boys."
Li Xiu traced a finger along his cheek. "That's not something to be angry about."
Hou Qing looked at her, then the fury came back. "He challenged my authority."
Li Xiu smiled. "That's his mistake. Shall I inform the leader?"
Hou Qing shook his head. "No need. The enemy is one person. I'll handle it myself." He paused. "Though I do wonder who posted such a large bounty on his head. Whatever. I'll kill him and claim it."
---
Baki walked through Shanghai openly. Since leaving the warehouse he had already been attacked three times.
He thought about it as he walked. A bounty this size meant serious money behind it. Among the people he had crossed, T Group was the only one with that kind of reach.
He dialed his employer. No answer. He tried twice more. Nothing.
He ducked into a local market and found a food stall selling baozi. He ordered and ate standing up, watching the crowd. Several pairs of eyes were watching him back. He finished, put his money on the counter, and crouched to pick up a coin he had dropped.
The boy who had bumped into him stopped pretending. His face changed and he pulled a machete and swung it at Baki's skull.
Baki's fist came up and caved his face in before the blade arrived. The boy dropped dead.
People around them ran. Men stepped out of the crowd from multiple directions, surrounding him. Baki counted thirteen who stayed after the rest fled.
He straightened up and looked at them. "It was fun at first. Now it's just annoying. Like mosquitoes." He looked up and closed his eyes for a moment. "Anyone who wants to leave can leave now."
Several felt the killing intent and ran. Four were too scared to move. Thirteen stayed.
What followed was fast and ugly.
Baki moved through them without pausing. Chests caved. Throats broke. One man's pipe got taken from his hands and used on the next man before he hit the floor. A knife came from the left and Baki caught the wrist, turned the attacker into a shield, and let the bat that was meant for him hit the shield's skull instead. He stepped on the bat-wielder's throat on the way past.
One man managed to put a blade into Baki's side. The cut opened flesh. Baki grabbed the man's head with both hands and twisted. The neck snapped.
Three were left. One turned to run. Baki grabbed a cleaver from a nearby stall and threw it. It spun through the air and buried itself in the back of the man's skull.
The last two came out of panic rather than courage. Baki put them both down in seconds.
He stood in the middle of the market. Bodies everywhere. Blood soaking into the concrete. The stalls were empty, owners long gone.
He walked to a juice stall, grabbed a premade bottle, drank it, and left money on the counter. In the distance, sirens were getting louder.
A motorcycle was parked nearby. He checked the bodies until he found one in a biker suit and pulled the key from the pocket. He got on and rode out before the police arrived.
He tried the White Tiger Job Centre again as he drove. No answer.
He clicked his tongue and thought. The client hadn't answered since he landed. The mission had gone sideways immediately. Either the whole thing had been sabotaged or it was a trap from the start. The old man wouldn't do that deliberately, which meant someone else had gotten to it first.
The bounty was the more pressing problem. To find out who issued it, he needed to find the Black Market's Shanghai branch. The King of Black Market was arrested but the organization wasn't. Its people were spread across the world and Shanghai was too big a city to have none of them.
He accelerated through traffic and started thinking about where to look.