In the main hall.
Seeing his sister had already reached the second floor, Su Tianyu first meant to hold the stairwell—then looked up and froze. Da Xiong was ringed by six or seven men, spinning in panic with the shattered registration desk hoisted over his head, swinging at anything that moved.
Along the left wall, the Su company workers were squatting in a neat line, heads down, hands clasped over their skulls—no one lifting a finger. Tianyu understood at once: if he didn't move, the big man would be maimed or dead within seconds.
He stopped thinking and moved. He cut hard toward Da Xiong's flank, fast and straight, no wasted motion, no flinch.
"That one!" a thug shouted when he spotted Tianyu. "He's the one who stabbed Brother Feng's ear!"
In his panic he blurted out what he shouldn't have—admitting they were Changqing's men. Idiots came in all sizes, on both sides.
Two of them broke off at once, weapons up, charging Tianyu.
For a man his sister called "the Su family's top coward," Old Six didn't even blink. He slipped aside on the first swing, turning his shoulders, so the blow whistled past his head.
Thud!
As the first man re-cocked his arm, Tianyu drove a straight punch into the hollow of his throat.
The knife-man gagged, stumbled back three steps, bent double and clawing for air, eyes bulging.
The second thug, a heavyset brute, came in hard, blade flashing twice.
Tianyu fell back on short, clean footwork—side-step, half-step, retreat—like a soldier fencing with a bayonet. The big man over-swung both cuts and lost balance.
Smack.
Tianyu caught his weapon hand at the wrist, yanked him forward, and the man pitched by reflex.
Tianyu pivoted, heel snapping twice into the thug's right knee—each kick answered by a crisp, ugly crack.
Whump.
The brute folded. With the wrist still trapped, Tianyu stamped three times with his heel—temple, back of the skull, mastoid. The knife clattered from limp fingers.
He didn't fight pretty; he fought to end it—fast, precise, every strike to a place that mattered.
More men were coming. Tianyu gave ground toward the dim corridor, a stolen knife now in his hand. He stood square in the mouth of the passage, face calm, eyes flat.
"Get him!"
They surged.
From the floor, the floral-shirt leader dragged himself up, blood slicking his scalp.
"A damn porter, and you dare swing back?" he spat. "Pin that idiot down!"
Before the rush could break against Tianyu, a roar of feet flooded the doorway.
Three or four dozen men burst into the hall without warning.
Bao-ge turned, startled stupid by the sudden wave.
At the front, Su Tianbei—bare arms, gauze on the bicep—pointed and spoke in a level voice:
"Drop the shutter."
Clatter—clatter—clang.
At the rear, three Su cousins yanked the rolling gate and kicked the iron pins into place.
Locked.
Silence fell—tight, morgue still. The ten-odd thugs stood bunched and sweating under the lights.
"Bring a few more bodies and then what?" Bao-ge snarled, forcing bravado. "First one who steps up, I kill him first!"
Footsteps pounded from above.
Su Miaomiao flew down the stairs, hair wild, two cleavers snatched from the canteen.
"You dare storm our house? Break in with blades? Put them down!"
"Pin every last one!" Tianbei barked—and he was the first to charge.
The three or four dozen who came weren't hired hands. They were blood—core cousins and uncles—more than twenty with the Su surname alone, and the rest were foremen-partners who'd built this yard with Second Master Su from nothing. These men stood together.
They'd come fast because Tianyu had set it up days ago.
The tools in their fists were the tools of their trade: two-meter trash hooks, long triangular iron pry-bars, spools of steel chain for binding scrap—ugly things with weight and reach.
Bao-ge felt the room tilt. The tough talk didn't land; the tide was already coming down.
By the time he thought of running, it was too late.
Hooks and iron swung from overhead like a squall, crashing down on the cluster of thugs in the center.
Screams, curses, bone and iron—everything erupted at once.
They had broken into a workplace, armed and organized, with intent.
Anyone in the yard had a right to fight back.
If a few of these bastards died tonight, the law would still call it self-defense.
Tianyu had an education, and he had plans beyond this. He wasn't about to play gangster.
Even in retaliation, the line had to be clean—legal, measured, controlled.
Bao-ge lasted less than three seconds at the front.
Four or five men folded him onto the floor, and he didn't rise again—trampled thin as chewing gum.
Not two minutes later, glass shattered along the side wall—
A clutch of thugs broke through the windows, hurled themselves through, and scattered for the fence.
Su's men chased a hundred meters, saw them split and jump, and let them go.
Tianbei crouched, fisted a handful of Bao-ge's hair, and hauled his head up.
"Paratrooper, are you? Big-ring tough guy, huh? Thought you were hard?"
Bao-ge's voice rasped, still defiant through blood:
"If you're a real fighter, take me one-on-one…"
"Fine. Give him a round," Tianbei said without looking.
A dozen boots came down. The "one-on-one" proceeded under twenty feet.
Tianyu hadn't thrown another punch since his brother entered.
He crossed the floor quickly, hooked an arm around Tianbei's neck, and murmured low:
"The busted warehouse on the left—we cleared it yesterday…"
"I know. There are people outside," Tianbei answered under his breath.
They had barely finished when flames licked up behind the main building—
Two derelict sheds on the left side flooded into fire.
"Fire!" someone shouted from the yard. "The bastards lit the warehouses!"
Zhannan District.
Lu Feng was still at the mahjong table when his phone buzzed.
He answered without looking up.
"What's the status?"
"Brother Feng—Su's yard was ready for us. We'd just gone in when fifty, sixty men hit us—"
"What?" Lu Feng stood so fast his chair skittered. "How the hell were they ready? Where's A-Ming?"
"I—I don't know. We got split up in the hall—everyone ran for it. I don't know if he made it out."
Tiles toppled as Lu swept the table clean and strode for the door.
Ten minutes later, Kong Zhenghui got the word and dialed Su Tiannan at once.
Have the police arrived yet? Right—keep the injured where they are. Don't let anyone leave.
I'm bringing people now.