The Man Standing on Top of the Food Chain

Taking the lift, Li Anping’s Uncle Li Liping and Aunt Jiang Li were headed towards their deceased mother’s house with a fl.u.s.tered expression.

When the two had heard of Li Anping’s disappearance this morning, Li Liping immediately brought his wife to their late mother’s house. Jiang Li asked worriedly: “They won’t find us so quickly right? Moreover, that rascal going missing has nothing to do with us. What reason do they have to find trouble with us.”

“You know nothing.” Li Liping stared at Jiang Li: “Someone wants to find problems with that lad, now that he has gone missing and they can’t find him, they will definitely take it out on us instead. That’s why I got here quickly, to take whatever is valuable, especially my mother’s remaining dowry, there is still a few gold necklaces left for us.”

Soon, after the lift had gone to the right floor, the door opened and the scene left Li Liping staring in shock. The walkway was full of people, all muscular men wearing T-shirts, with a metal pipe or baseball bat in their hands, staring fiercely at Li Liping.

By this time, it was too late to run as two muscular man rushed up and grabbed hold of the couple. The other pa.s.sengers in the lift did not dare to say a word regarding this action and rapidly pressed the close b.u.t.ton to get away from them.

The couple being surrounded by a group of strong men, shivered. Li Liping plucked up his courage and asked: “Who are you people? What do you want?” From the corner of his eye, he could see Li Anping’s house, the door was already forced open and the things inside were thrown all over the place.

“Who are these two?” The leader of the gang was a tall bald man wearing sungla.s.ses, and he asked arrogantly.

One of his henchmen flipped his notebook and replied: “They are the old woman’s son and daughter-in-law.”

The bald man looked Li Liping in the eye and asked in disdain: “Li Anping has got into trouble, do you know where he is now?”

Hearing this, Li Liping hurriedly explained the situation to him, afraid that the gang might hurt them.

“He has nothing to do with us, we even helped Lawyer Xu to find that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but who knew that he was so ungrateful and even gave us problems. In fact, he even caused my mother’s death. If I see him, I’ll definitely beat him to death.”

Internally, he thought that since it was broad daylight now, and he did in fact have no contact with Li Anping, the other party would probably not dare to hurt them.

But who knew the bald man only snorted, and stretched him hands towards Jiang Li. Li Liping wanted to stop him but was given a tight slap and fell to the ground. The bald man grabbed Jiang Li’s hair causing her to screech in pain. Li Liping stood on the ground looking pale as a ghost, with his face swollen, looked at the bald man in fear.

The bald man only snorted lightly, took out a dagger from his belt, and pinned it on her face. The sharp blade moved along Jiang Li’s face, causing a trail to blood to form, causing her to scream in terror.

“F*ck you, trying to play dumb in front of me? Do you have any idea who the **** I am?”, as he said that, a few of the bald man’s henchmen started to kick at Li Liping’s body.

“Kneel down!”

“You don’t even recognise Brother Chang?”

“MLGB!” (TL: A swear phrase in China, like an alternative version of mother f*cker)

Brother Chang moved the knife about, causing an ugly scar to form on Jiang Li’s face. She screamed maniacally, but was kicked on her leg and fell to the ground.

“Shut up, scream some more and I will give you a few more scars.” Immediately Jiang Li went silent.

Chang Zheng walked towards Li Liping, and gave him a flying kick on his face. Li Liping only hugged his head on the ground, letting the other party beat him up.

Another kick on his lower back caused him to spasm in pain.

“d.a.m.n, I can’t believe this coward dared to come here. You wasted my entire night waiting.”

Li Liping took a few more hits. Since ordinary blows were already quite severe, and due to his weak body, after a few blows Li Liping could already feel his consciousness fading.

Chang Zheng was very furious. Yesterday, Brother Huo had called him in the middle of the night explaining the situation at the hospital and wanted him to capture Li Anping as soon as possible. He thought that as the other party was penniless, he would be forced to return home. As a result, he camped at Li Anping’s house with his henchmen.

However, even after waiting for a night, Li Anping did not return home, instead what he got was Li Liping.

“d.a.m.n it, where is Li Anping? Tell me!”

“I really do not know where he is, stop hitting me, I really do not know.” Li Liping hugged his head on the ground, crying profusely.

Chang Zheng flew into a rage, landed another kick on Li Liping and said: “F*ck, still lying to me?”

Suddenly, his phone rang. Chang Zheng picked up the call and said to Li Liping: “You got lucky. Knock him out and bring him with us.” He then threatened Jiang Li while pressing the knife on her throat: “We’re bringing your man with us, if you dare to call the police you’ll get back his corpse. If Li Anping contacts you, immediately call us, understand?”

After he spoke, one of his men gave her his name card.

Jiang Li quickly nodded: “I understand, I will not call the police. If Li Anping comes I will definitely contact you.”

At this time, two security guards rushed out from the lift, pointing at Chang Zheng: “What are you guys going? Let him go, we’ve called the police.”

“F*ck your m*ther”

Before Chang Zheng had finished responding to them, his henchmen already swung their bats and pipes at the security guards. They were merely 40, 50-year-old security guards who were no match for these triad members. They were beaten to a pulp almost instantly, the weapons smashing on their heads, causing blood to spill all over the floor.

Only when the guards were left with their last dying breath did Chang Zheng stop his men.

He stepped on one of their hands and upon hearing their painful groans, nodded in satisfaction. He took over one of the pipes from his men and hit it on a steel gate nearby, screaming: “Don’t think I do not know who called them here, whichever busybody it is, if you try to meddle in this again, you can get ready to buy your coffin,” causing the neighbours to shiver in their homes.

“Leave two men here to wait for that lad, the rest follow me.” Saying that, Chang Zheng brought Li Liping away with an arrogant look.

Li Anping was still walking home, although he did not know what to do next, exacting revenge for his grandma was certainly on the list of things to do. Before that, he had to get home first to retrieve his money and change his clothes.

But the moment he got back to the estate, he heard a bunch of middle aged woman discussing incessantly, as if something serious had happened.

Just as Li Anping was feeling perplexed, he found that even he was more than 10 metres away from them, he could hear clearly what they were speaking.

“Sigh, the Li family is really unlucky. Li Anping just committed a crime, and his grandma pa.s.sed away. Now that the elder son had returned, he immediately got captured by the triads.”

“Be careful, don’t say it, they were Huo Qing’s men. The person who can kill without blinking. Did you see Jiang Li’s scar? She didn’t even dare to utter a word.”

“Really that formidable?”

“Hmph, the person who came this time is called Chang Zheng, one of the debt collectors under Huo Qing, merciless and ruthless with a strong backing. See how they beat the security guards, I heard they even got crippled in one leg.”

Li Anping hearing this, flew into a rage, and said: “You mentioned Li Liping that stayed at the 13th floor? Seeing how he was captured, no one called the police? Just letting the triad member go scot free?” He could not believe that under broad daylight, there was such a brazen triad gang.

The few middle-aged women seeing how someone had suddenly appeared, jumped but after seeing the beggar-like Li Anping, calmed down.

“You scared me, I was wondering who had overheard us.” The middle-aged woman patted her chest and looked at Li Anping: “Little beggar, what do you know? Behind Chang Zheng stands Huo Qing, the big brother in Zhongdu, both the police and the triads must give him face. Moreover, Chang Zheng is a specialized debt collector, he is extremely ruthless.”

“How ruthless?” Li Anping asked while frowning.

“I heard he was collecting debt last month in the city area, hacked someone to death and had no implications afterwards.”

“These kind of sc.u.m, are the police doing nothing about it?” Li Anping asked furiously: “Is that Huo Qing greater than the government?”

“There’s nothing the police can do, there is too many relationships involved in this.”

Li Anping found that there was no more information that he could get from them. After all, it was just a few gossipers. Being able to know about Zhongdu’s darker rumors was already proof in showing how experienced their gossiping skills were.

Next, he continued going to his house. But now that he knew Li Liping was taken away, he was more careful and took the stairs instead of the lift. These kinds of building which have lifts resulted in no one taking the stairs normally since it was a high-rise building and the stairs were built slanted and narrow, making it tough to walk. For the average person, just taking a few steps was enough to leave them panting in exhaustion.

But Li Anping was different. He who had received strengthening climbed up the stairs at an unbelievable rate, getting to the 13th floor without feeling any tiredness.

He looked outside from a slight opening in door panel and found two men strolling about on the walkway, chatting away non-stop.

“When do we have to wait until? If this lad hears the news and doesn’t come, wouldn’t we be wasting our time?” One of them complained.

The other person laughed helplessly: “There’s no other way, n.o.body knows who had attacked Wolf and Ruo, causing Brother Huo to be furious and determined to exact revenge. He woke everyone up in the middle of the night, not just Brother Chang, but also Brother Fei and Brother Bao were mobilized. The only clue we have now is the missing Li Anping. Brother Huo has already set his eyes on him.”

“This lad, first he provoked Young Master Shang, next he provoked Brother Huo. After he is caught, I think he can’t die even if he wants to.”