Three Tribute Port was located on the outskirts of Fan City. It used to be a remote port for fishermen just like the Lower Ninth District, but with the progress of the land reclamation projection and the completion of a new international airport, the area gradually transformed into a tourist district with an emphasis on fishing and beach tourism.
It was far from the city center, but was only separated from the busy CBD by the bay. Many tycoons who worked in the city center would live in the vicinity of the Three Tribute Town, either buying or renting small villas by the sea. Every day, they would commute by ferry across the sea, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
There weren’t many beachgoers on a working day. People gathered under parasols in groups of two or three. Either standing or sitting, they would drink, have heart-to-heart chats, and suntan. They seemed exceedingly content.
The jeep proceeded along the coastline. Ying Wan had thought that Yu Baiqing was bringing him to the Three Tribute Beach. But before he knew it, they were nearing the fringes of the port town without his brother having any intention of stopping the car.
The beautiful coastline was left far behind by the jeep. Yu Baiqing drove along the stretch of seafood restaurants at the roadside and into a desolate power plant.
On the outside, the power plant appeared to have been abandoned for a long time. The cement road had only been half-filled. Small stones and glass fragments were scattered all over the ground.
Ying Wan silently scrutinized his surroundings. He wasn’t sure why his ge had brought him to this place.
Yu Baiqing got down the jeep first.
He opened the door to the front passenger seat before retrieving the cane from the boot and placing it in Ying Wan’s grip. “The road isn’t even, walk slowly.”
Ying Wan slowly made his way towards the entrance of the power plant, continuously tapping the cane in his hands against the ground. There were indeed many small stones piled all over the ground. In order not to expose himself, he did his utmost to slow his pace. He knew that Yu Baiqing was also walking with intermittent pauses behind him, the distance between them never exceeding half a meter.
Yu Baiqing never liked walking in front of him.
In Ying Wan’s childhood, he was lazy and disliked using his cane outdoors. He would always hold the corner of Yu Baiqing’s clothes and follow him around like a small animal.
Back then, Yu Baiqing was worried that Ying Wan would grow overly reliant on him for directions. As such, he changed his approach when going out. He would walk soundlessly behind Ying Wan and get Ying Wan to determine the correct direction on his own. Only when Ying Wan went the wrong way would he step forward to correct him.
Ying Wan had once asked Yu Baiqing why he had to learn how to walk and go out on his own. Yu Baiqing had merely ruffled his hair without giving him an answer.
Yu Baiqing had taught him how to find his way home, taught him that he needn’t feel scared when walking amongst a crowd, and taught him that he could still advance even without anybody to rely on behind him. And then, Yu Baiqing had quietly vanished from his life.
He’d only learned afterwards that Yu Baiqing had made preparations for his departure a long time ago.
Ying Wan walked through the doors of the power plant, pausing after every step. He discovered that someone had placed a stinking, wet bag of trash in the middle of the sidewalk. Filthy water seeped along the cracks in the ground. Many flies were flying haphazardly around the trash bag.
There was an imperceptible pause in his footsteps.
The white sports shoes he had on now were bought for him by Yu Baiqing after they started living together. If he stepped into the dirty water, it would definitely be soiled. He didn’t want dirt to stain this pair of shoes.
But if he continued walking ahead like this without any change in path, his shoes would make direct contact with the puddle of filthy water.
To avoid giving himself away, he had already subconsciously raised his foot to continue walking ahead. Suddenly, the person behind him gripped his wrist.
Yu Baiqing walked ahead without speaking, leading him around the dirt on the ground and continuing along the sidewalk to a cleaner area.
The palm that was wrapped around his felt hot, though the five fingers around his wrist had a loose grip. Ying Wan could feel the warmth from the skin pressed tightly against his. His heart suddenly skipped a beat.
His lips parted slightly. He was about to say something when the other person suddenly released their grip.
“…”
The two of them rounded the corner. This time, Yu Baiqing was walking in front. His footsteps grew increasingly large, his subtly knitted brows revealing the uneasiness in his heart.
Yu Baiqing simply took a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it as he walked.
A while later, he heard Ying Wan call out to him from behind. “Ge.”
He turned back amidst the swirls of smoke and realized that he’d walked too hastily. His di was several meters behind.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing much.”
Seeing that Yu Baiqing was finally willing to look back, Ying Wan suppressed the corners of his lips. Cane in hand, he chased after his ge.
He had wanted to say: Ge, when you held my hand, my heart was beating very quickly.
–
Ying Wan followed Yu Baiqing past several streets in the desolate town. When they could no longer see the carpark, they at long last reached their destination.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Three Tribute Town’s Pilta Street.
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They arrived at the entrance of a bar packed with people. Yu Baiqing instructed Ying Wan to wait for him at the roadside before walking into the store. He handed a cigarette to the baldie at the counter and uttered a few words to them with practiced ease.
Baldie turned his gaze in the direction Yu Baiqing pointed, eyeing the little blind person standing at the entrance somewhat doubtfully. He stood up from the chair and gestured for them to follow him.
Baldie led Yu Baiqing and Ying Wan to an alley behind the bar, eventually stopping in front of an unremarkable tattoo shop.
Beside the tattoo shop, there was a flight of stairs extending underground. A black curtain hung at the end of the stairs, preventing passersby from looking in.
“Same old rule – hand over your phone first,” Baldie told Yu Baiqing. “Once you’re out of this place, you don’t know me and I don’t know you. No hard feelings, just business.”
Yu Baiqing took his phone from his pocket and placed it in Baldie’s hand. At this point, Ying Wan keenly picked up on a detail – the phone his ge brought today was not the same one he usually used when going to work.
Baldie walked over to Ying Wan. “And yours.”
There was still half a cigarette remaining between Yu Baiqing’s fingers. He shook it, telling Baldie mildly, “He doesn’t have a handphone. He can’t see anything either, it’s very safe.”
In the end, Ying Wan’s phone remained in the pocket of his trousers. Baldie led the two of them down the flight of stairs. He lifted the curtain hanging in front of the door. “Go on in then, they’re already waiting for you.”
Ying Wan followed Yu Baiqing through the small door concealed by the curtain and discovered a completely different world.
A long corridor lay behind the door, at the end of which was a large metal door that opened up on both sides. Despite there being a considerable distance to the door, Ying Wan could already smell the moist, turbid smell of tobacco and alcohol.
The closer they got to the door, the stronger the scent of testosterone in the air. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered on and off, glowing with a faint deep blue light.
A piercing beam of light came from the hall. At the same time, wave after wave of shrieks erupted. It dawned upon Ying Wan what sort of place this was.
He’d heard a few LEON regulars mention this place. There was a place on the outskirts of Fan City where money flowed even faster than the lottery. As long as you were daring enough and didn’t die or end up disabled, just one time on stage could net you a generous appearance fee.
If the Club was considered a legitimate business, then this place was a cave hidden on the fringes of a gray zone.
Pilta Street’s underground boxing ring.
The underground boxing ring did not care about your origins, not your gender or age. Whether you were usually an impeccably-attired finance elite in the CBD, a hoodlum along the roadside who stole for a living, or even an illegal immigrant, everyone was equal in this place. All dialogue was through your two fists.
Customers of LEON who visited this place mostly came in the capacity of spectators who bet on the winner and loser. As long as your luck was good, you could rake in tons of money. It wasn’t a big deal even if some money was lost; the sensory stimulation could still be enjoyed and experienced.
As Ying Wan followed Yu Baiqing through the official entrance to the boxing ring, a large, four-sided boxing ring entered his vision. Two boxers were on stage, heads pressed against each other in confrontation. Sweat dripped from their entire bodies. They stared intently at each other with bloodshot eyes.
Close to a hundred spectators surrounded the stage. Their arms were raised high up in the air as they let out impassioned howls towards the two people on stage.
More than ten seconds later, the boxer standing on the left moved to make a clinching action, and the two people tumbled onto the ring. One of them ferociously pressed the other against the railing, sending a fierce right hook towards their nose.
The other boxer’s head was thrown back from the strikes. Their bloody teeth streaked across the air, landing in a glass of wine raised high by a spectator in front of the bar. The golden alcohol was dyed red with blood in an instant. A sound of displeasure immediately emitted from the crowd.
Unlike normal boxing matches, there were no referees and no time-outs here. Matches only ended when one of them could no longer hit back.
The defeated contestant on stage was dragged down by staff, while the winner knelt on the ground, body unable to hold him up any longer. The surrounding spectators cheered, tossing fistfuls of cash onto him. Before long, a mountain of red bills formed before him.
The crowd off-stage gradually dispersed after the match ended. Some took their winnings to the screen at the bar and continued placing bets; some gathered around the dealers and started betting; some even got into an argument over the match outcome and fought in the corridor outside the door.
“Don’t walk around recklessly,” Yu Baiqing stubbed out his cigarette butt on the railing and spoke into Ying Wan’s ear. “We’re waiting for someone.”
They stood at the entrance for less than five minutes before being approached by two waiters in monochrome uniforms.
“Are you Eagle?” A waiter glanced at the number plate Yu Baiqing handed them. “There are still twenty minutes until the start of the match.”
He looked past Yu Baiqing to the pretty youth standing beside him. “This is your witness tonight?”
Yu Baiqing’s eyelids raised. His reply was a little absent-minded. “En.”
The waiter looked Ying Wan up and down for a long time, but was still rather doubtful.
This person was carrying a cane for the blind and had a pair of vacant, unlively eyes. From the looks of it, he was blind. How was such a person going to be a witness?
Yu Baiqing didn’t say anything superfluous. Taking off his jacket, he passed it to the waiter. “Bring him to the second floor.”
As if suddenly picking up on something, Ying Wan’s grip tightened around his cane. He hurriedly asked the person in front of him. “Ge, where are you going?”
Yu Baiqing took the boxing hand wraps from the other waiter. He pulled out the bandage strip using his teeth and started winding it around the back of his hand. He slung the big towel offered by the waiter over his shoulders. “Be good and wait for me. I’ll come get you later.”
Ying Wan stared blankly as Yu Baiqing followed the staff standing in the corridor out of the door. He suddenly wasn’t very sure why his ge had come to this place.
Why did Yu Baiqing suddenly want to take part in matches at the underground boxing ring?
…For money?
Blinking, Ying Wan ruled out this idea.
Impossible. Forget about the fact that his ge was an official police officer. Even when Yu Baiqing had to scrounge for money to pay for his university fees, he would rather work a few more jobs all day than make money through such means.
The waiter guided Ying Wan to the second floor, where there was a row of private booths. Every booth had an exclusive couch, meal station, and drinks. It appeared that this underground boxing ring was similar to LEON in that it also had a VIP zone specially for making money from the rich.
The waiter led him into one of the booths. After filling the glass on the table with red wine, the waiter bowed towards him. “Mister, as Eagle’s witness, if he wins in the next match, please come to the balcony outside the booth and hold the wine glass up as you witness his victory.”
Ying Wan’s eyelids trembled slightly. “What is a witness?”
“Here, it is a tradition to have witnesses,” Concerned that he did not understand, the waiter conscientiously provided him with an explanation. “Every year, we choose a boxing champion. The boxing champion will receive fifteen percent of the boxing ring’s annual profits. But at the same time, they have to accept all challenges.”
“Anyone who applies to participate in the single-elimination tournament against the boxing champion can bring along a witness. But there is a condition for the invited witness – it has to be someone both parties know. That makes matches more interesting.”
“Who is the person he is challenging?”
“Everybody who comes here uses an alias, we only know him as Snake. Except for last year when he did not take part in the competition, he has already held onto the title of boxing champion for three years.”
Cheerful background music indicating the start of the match resounded through the entire hall. The dealers at the tables for playing cards scooped up their game tokens. Spectators returned to surround the boxing ring.
Two overlapping gold fists appeared on the screen above. A wave of cheers erupted from the spectator stands; their visit today was rather timely. After a year, the boxing champion had finally received another challenge.
The numbers in the prize pool grew higher and higher as people crowded around the bar and started wildly placing bets in the defending champion’s pool.
The shorter the fight, the bigger the reward. If the boxing champion could KO his opponent within three moves like how he had done in the past few years, then their potential winnings would not be little.
The sound of bells rang out, kicking off the match. The staff standing at the aisle behind the boxing ring lifted the curtain.
A familiar figure appeared behind the curtain. Ying Wan’s pupils contracted.
He first saw the white boxing bandages wrapped around his ge’s wrists. The bandages coiled tightly around Yu Baiqing’s palms and back of his hands, making his slender finger joints all the more distinct.
Yu Baiqing’s figure was tall and straight. When he pulled off his shirt, the smooth contours of muscle appeared even tighter and more proportional.
Exercising his neck, Yu Baiqing put his hands together, cracking his knuckles. His eyes looked upwards towards the second floor where Ying Wan was.
He was currently hidden behind the booth’s hanging screen. From Yu Baiqing’s position in the boxing ring, he would not be able to see Ying Wan’s face.
All of a sudden, Ying Wan felt their gazes intertwining midair for a brief moment.
Soon after, the staff lifted the curtain on the other side of the boxing ring. The moment the person walked through the door, the atmosphere in the venue instantly reached boiling point.
Spectators threw up their hands, yelling out the defending champion’s name, “Snake–Snake–”
The man took the towel tossed to him off-stage and wiped the droplets of water on his head. He made his way onto the stage amidst thunderous cheers and stood opposite Yu Baiqing.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, shoulders that were sturdy yet broad, and the familiar expression on his face that was just asking for a beating–
The wine glass that Ying Wan was holding up stiffened abruptly midair.
–
Otto quietly sized up the man facing him. The man seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen him.
He had decades of training in boxing under the exclusive tutelage of personal trainers, and could be considered half a professional.
Ever since coming to Fan City three years ago to carry out missions, he’d picked up his old hobby. Every weekend, he would come to Three Tribute underground boxing ring and participate in matches.
He’d essentially never tasted defeat after his first match. Over time, he was referred to by insiders as the ‘defending champion’. Subsequently, he bought over the underground boxing ring so he could earn the money from his own boxing matches. It wasn’t like Fan City’s police force would ever manage to find him.
In his hands, the underground boxing ring was resurrected. He set up rules such that no human lives were lost in the old-school boxing ring after he took over.
Last night, he returned like always to his residence after a round of social niceties. That was when the manager of the underground boxing ring called him, saying that someone had reached out to the boxing ring and challenged him to a one-on-one match.
He’d originally wanted to decline. After all, he had not openly returned, so he ought to be as low key as possible. However, the manager told him that the other party’s witness was also someone he knew.
Upon receiving the photo forwarded to him by the waiter, Otto discovered with surprise that the person depicted in the photo was Bird, who’d appeared at the doors to his room at the club that night.
Brimming with curiosity, he agreed to the challenge. He decided that he would meet this guy who had vastly overestimated his own abilities.
But Otto had not expected the other party to send a fist flying towards his right lower jaw the moment he stepped onto the stage, leaving him no time to even ask a question!
Otto hurriedly angled his head rightwards in a dodge. But the other party was even quicker. It was just an instant of negligence, but the man flashed behind him within a few steps and slammed his bandage-wrapped fists against Otto’s ribs.
“…”
Otto forcibly took a punch from the man. A fishy sweetness welled up in his throat. His expression turned serious.
The spectators sunk into a state of silence at the defending champion’s feeble opening. Otto took a few steps back. He spat out a mouthful of saliva with traces of blood. “Shit, do you have a f*cking grudge with me?”
The man’s grave face couldn’t be seen clearly under the hall’s dim lights, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to answer Otto’s question.
This man had clearly resolved to give him a fierce beating. It had been a long time since Otto faced such a gaze.
He resembled an eagle patrolling its territory. The moment a poisonous snake appeared from its cave, he would immediate swoop down with outstretched claws, intending to kill him right there and then.
Otto’s brain worked rapidly. Apart from occasional conflicts on the business front of things, he usually kept a low profile and didn’t provoke any foes that would be difficult to deal with.
According to what was shared previously, he also knew–
As if abruptly recalling something, Otto raised his arms, exercising them. Just as the two of them charged at each other with fists waving, he whispered into the man’s ear, “You know N too? You’re his customer?”
He did not directly say Robin’s name, only using his alias in the club. After all, he did not have a good understanding of the other party. Since the photo the man gave was taken in the club, he must have gotten to know Bird in the club.
The man’s fists stalled midair for an instant upon hearing the question.
Taking advantage of the man’s half a second of hesitation, Otto sent a right hook at him, which landed squarely on the man’s lower abdomen. The man took a step back with furrowed brows, back slamming into the fencing. A thin line of blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth.
Excited shouts exploded from the spectator stands, urging the defending champion to KO him while he was off guard.
The golden-haired man exercised his fingers as he walked forward. Yu Baiqing saw a figure appear on the balcony on the second floor.
Ying Wan had walked out of the booth. He stood above, his soulless eyes trained on the elevated stage below. He appeared to be staring in Yu Baiqing’s direction.
–
The moment Yu Baiqing sent his fist flying at Otto, Ying Wan realized why he brought him to this place today.
The day he bumped into Yu Baiqing at the club with his shirt in disarray, he had wondered what kind of reaction Yu Baiqing would have after seeing his wretched appearance.
Back then, Yu Baiqing had turned and left without saying anything.
But when he was staggering down the stairs intoxicated, Yu Baiqing had draped his jacket over him from the back.
All of a sudden, a story that Ying Wan’s mother had recited to him during his childhood came to mind.
A long, long time ago during the age of the Bourbons, the nobility rode into battle with fervor. They would take off their gloves, raise their swords high, and engage in duels for honor.
That man wasn’t fond of talking, but was not without edges.
Certain things had nothing to do with right or wrong. He was simply safeguarding a certain thing.
And Ying Wan knew what this thing was.
In the boxing ring, Yu Baiqing propped up his knees, getting to his feet. He wiped the red streaks of blood at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked up, meeting Ying Wan’s gaze from a distance.
“Wish him luck,” said the waiter standing at the side. “He is fighting for you.”
Ilyz: Happy Lunar New Year~!
happy lunar new year!!
I feel so bad for yu baiqing… And rip otto… You’re messing with the wrong robin lmaoo. The robin’s taken. By a fierce predatory eagle nonetheless 😌
Translator thank you sm for the chapters!! It’s been the highlight of my day 😭😭🫶
I fell into this so hard 😭