Chapter 31: A Sea of Flames
Qi Mo did what she asked, frowning as he crushed the object between his fingers. There was a clear, albeit faint, snapping sound when it crumbled, turning into several broken pieces. The instant he destroyed the device, a shrill banging sound pierced the air and all the windows of the gla.s.s building in the sea of flowers blew outwards, shattering and scattering into the air. Everyone winced at the faint but high-pitched ringing that pulsed through the area.
Just as he was cringing uncomfortably against the noise, Qi Mo suddenly felt a hand cover his right ear. He turned around to see Li Xin covering one of her ears with one hand and the other one on his own. “Cover them,” she mouthed, the surrounding noise drowning out the sound of her voice. “Otherwise you’ll go deaf.” These frequency waves were no joke — they seemed small enough to counter, but were capable of tremendous damage.
Qi Mo furrowed his brows tensely and narrowed his eyes at the sight of Li Xin covering only one of her ears since her other hand was occupied. He reached out and covered her other ear for her. She frowned impatiently. Was this guy dense? He wouldn’t drop the high and mighty act even then, when there was a high-tech device literally about to murder him. Would it kill him to sacrifice a bit of dignity for the sake of self-preservation?
She huffed in frustration and grabbed his other hand, yanking it to her other ear, then placed both of her hands on either side of his head to cover his ears. If the powerful overlord became deaf, he would be a joke in the world of crime. Nearby, Red Falcon and Yellow Falcon had taken note and followed suit, blocking out their own ears as well.
When the noise finally seemed to dissipate, Li Xin took her hands from Qi Mo’s ears and poked her head out from her hiding place, surveying their surroundings. The gla.s.s building and long disappeared, leaving nothing but dust in its place. “That technology is insane,” she commented, impressed. “I wish I knew how to build something like it.”
Red Falcon and Yellow Falcon had gone over to inspect the remains of the building, where they found the unfortunate guide that had been left behind. His body was in a horrific state: he had died from blood loss, the red liquid seeping out of every possible opening in his body. They shared a glance and Yellow Falcon said, “Seems like that woman is our lucky charm.”
Red Falcon turned to look at Qi Mo and Li Xin, who had their heads bent together and were fervently discussing something. “She’s the boss’s lucky charm,” he corrected.
After the two men gave their reports to Qi Mo, he inspected Li Xin from head to toe and suddenly reached out to touch her earring. “What is this?” He asked.
The entire building had been searched inside out for nefarious devices; the outside had been guarded by their own clan members. Qi Mo was confident enough in his men that he doubted they were ignorant enough to be bad at their jobs. If they weren’t able to find the device, yet Li Xin was, she definitely had the help of some high tech device of her own, and there was nothing of note on her except her earrings.
She shied away from him, covering her ear. “This belongs to me,” she said resolutely, backing away.
Qi Mo looked at her for a long moment, but surprisingly chose to ignore her and did not try to forcibly take the object from her. Instead, he turned to Red Falcon. “Clean this place up. Don’t spare a single life.”
Li Xin watched the exchange and turned her head upwards, sighing helplessly. “So many enemies,” she muttered.
Her utterance drew Qi Mo’s attention. He eyed the look of tragic pity on her face in distaste and felt affronted. “You want to take over this business?” He asked coldly. “What do you plan on doing exactly?”
She knew he was inquiring after what she had just said, but waved her hand, gesturing around them. “Do whatever you want. I have no interest in stepping foot in this business, though I wouldn’t mind if you gave me some of the profit,” she added. “But really, what’s going on here anyway? What business of theirs did you plan on cutting off?” Getting rid of someone’s source of livelihood in the underworld was unethical; it was no wonder that people wanted to kill Qi Mo left and right.
“Drugs,” the overlord replied. He turned his gaze towards the field of flowers.
Li Xin’s eyes widened. “Drugs,” she echoed, suddenly understanding. The vibrantly coloured flowers were a specialty of the region: poppies. For the first time since they met, she looked up at Qi Mo with an ounce of admiration. “This is an extremely financially profitable business.”
The slightly appreciative look in her eyes seemed to mollify him. He clasped an arm around her waist and pulled her along. “I’m a weapons dealer, not a drug lord,” he said as they walked along. The reason he had come here today was to put an end to all drug dealings within his territories. True, drugs garnered a huge profit, but it was not as profitable as weapons, and therefore he was uninterested.
They stood at the entrance to the sea of flowers. Li Xin could see tendrils of thick, black smoke rising from the field as the acrid smell of fire burning spread through the air and reached her nose. Angry, relentless flames blazed through the field, tinting the sky an ominous red and turning the once colorful array of flowers into an ocean of fire. The flowers seemed to glow even more brightly amongst the flames. For a second, the myriad of colours mixed with the equally vibrant flames presented a striking picture as they clashed for dominance, before the fire won and the flowers were rendered into white hot ash.
“You’ve really done it this time,” Li Xin observed, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “You just literally set fire to the livelihood of a bunch of people. No wonder everyone here hates you. I was wondering why they kept trying to kill you despite knowing you were now their overlord. Turns out it was because of this?” She laughed, beaming at Qi Mo. This was exciting. “You’ve just made yourself an enemy of the entire Southeast Asian region.”
Qi Mo’s dark blue eyes shined with the reflection of the flames. His lips quirked up in a rare arrogant smile. “I do what I want to do,” he stated bra.s.sily, “and no one can prevent me from doing so.”
She raised her eyebrows at his unabashed c.o.c.kiness, though she couldn’t help but agree… drugs were no good. “True,” she said, smiling. “Your territory, your rules.” As she spoke, she noticed more smoke rising in the distance from the opposite direction. “What, is setting things on fire suddenly trendy or something?”
“Today, all drug sources will disappear from every inch of this territory.” Qi Mo’s voice was even and unaffected, emotionless as always.
Li Xin scratched her head, startled. What the overlord was doing was huge. She wasn’t part of the organized crime world, but even she had heard of the fact that Southeast Asia’s main source of profit came from their drug production and exportation. A business that Qi Mo destroyed mercilessly within a day, accomplished by the fact that he had won two-thirds of the region from the Blue Clan through the car race. This was a huge blow to the drug trafficking industry. It was insane, excessive and utterly impressive.
“No wonder you’re the overlord,” Li Xin laughed.
Qi Mo swept a glance at her before walking off to the car waiting for them at the gate where they had gotten off. She followed readily, for once in high spirits.
Her buoyant mood didn’t last — she had just started walking when it occurred to her that now Qi Mo had really done it. By making an enemy of every single drug lord in the region, she didn’t need to be a genius to predict that their journey from now on would be riddled with a torrent of bullets and gunfire. They’d be running for their lives again and again; the thought of that made her face shutter once again.
And speak of the devil, naturally, she and Qi Mo hadn’t even reached the car when there came the sound of a sniper’s gun and a torrent of bullets rained down on them. The Qi Clan members were adequately prepared for such scenarios — they split immediately into two groups, one team surrounded Qi Mo and Li Xin, the other heading off the gunfire and moving towards the direction of the bullets, surrounding their enemy.