Born with Luck

Meanwhile, a few kilometers away, several people were facing their own dilemmas.

After Fang Chao and Liu Zhi stole the Land Rover two days ago, they first drove to a neighboring city. There, they took the car to an underground auto shop they knew through the underworld to repaint it and swap the license plates. Upon returning to Three Rivers Estuary, they found themselves at a loss about what to do with the car's owner. Liu Zhi's suggestion was simple—dig a hole and bury the man alive. Fang Chao hesitated. They had never killed anyone before. If they were ever caught, their previous crimes were just robberies, which wouldn't carry the death penalty. But once they had blood on their hands, it would be a different story. Yet, if they didn't kill the Land Rover owner, he would surely report them to the police once released.

As it turned out, they only agonized over the decision for two days before the problem resolved itself.

Early this morning, Liu Zhi arrived at a desolate wasteland where their stolen Land Rover stood alone. He opened the trunk and found the owner stuffed inside, motionless. Thinking the man was pretending to be dead, Liu Zhi kicked him, but there was still no reaction. When he touched the body, it was already cold—the man was truly dead.

To be fair, the owner's death was rather unjust, for he was no ordinary man.

Over a decade ago, before Three Rivers Estuary had transitioned from a county to a city, the local underworld was a mixed bag of characters. Back then, four young men formed a gang known as "Mei Lin Yang Xie"—a crude pun implying "syphilis, gonorrhea, impotence, and premature ejaculation." The owner was none other than Lin Kai, nicknamed "Gonorrhea," the second-in-command. The social landscape today was entirely different from what it had been over a decade ago. Most gangs had either been arrested or gone into hiding to reinvent themselves, and Lin Kai had long left his swashbuckling days behind to become a businessman. However, his aura as a former gang leader remained. Wherever he went, people respectfully addressed him as "Brother Kai," and no one dared to cross him—except this time, when his luck ran out and he encountered Fang Chao and Liu Zhi.

All he had done was grow impatient with traffic and try to cut in from the bus lane. Not only was he bumped by that Limited Edition Xiali, but Liu Zhi also spat a thick glob of phlegm at him and flipped him off. How could he swallow such an insult? So he gave chase, only to be overpowered by the two men and unceremoniously stuffed into the trunk. Once bundled up like cargo, Lin Kai realized he had messed with the wrong people. In his gangster days, he had mostly relied on intimidation, but these two were the real deal—men who wouldn't hesitate to kill.

At first, he struggled desperately, but after being brutally beaten by Liu Zhi each time, he stopped resisting. He begged for his life, swearing he would never cut in line while driving again. The two ignored him, eventually gagging him with a towel.

Who would have thought that just two days later, by the third morning, he would be dead?

Fang Chao stood in front of the trunk, his lips pressed tightly together, helplessly staring at the corpse before glaring at Liu Zhi.

Under his intense gaze, Liu Zhi trembled and hastily explained, "Brother Chao, I swear I didn’t kill this bastard. Yeah, I beat him up—he kept trying to escape—but I only kicked him a few times. It’s not like he was made of tofu; how could a few kicks kill him? You told me not to kill him, so I even let him out to relieve himself, fed him, took care of him like a baby..."

"Shut up!"

Fang Chao barked, his face icy as he stepped closer to Lin Kai’s corpse and examined it silently. The dead man’s mouth was stuffed with a large towel, now soaked in saliva, slippery and revolting. Fang Chao found a thin stick and used it to pry the towel out. A few seconds later, a foul-smelling stream of vomit oozed from Lin Kai’s mouth.Fang Chao thought for a moment and figured out the cause of death: "He choked to death on his own vomit. You must have kicked him in the stomach, making him throw up. With a towel stuffed in his mouth, he couldn’t spit it out, so the vomit went up his nose and suffocated him!"

Liu Zhi patted his chest in relief. "So he choked himself to death? Then it’s not our fault, right?"

"You wish," Fang Chao said through gritted teeth. "We stole his car, tied him up, locked him inside, and now he’s dead. You think the cops will buy that it’s not our doing?"

"I would!"

"I—" Fang Chao swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and had to admit, "Most cops aren’t as dumb as you, so they won’t believe it. This death is on us now."

"What do we do then? Good people get framed by the cops all the time!"

Fang Chao stood still, scanning their surroundings before frowning. "Two days ago, he raced us, and most of the road cameras probably caught it. We can’t let anyone know he’s dead—just bury him. This wasteland was recently cleared, and construction won’t start for at least a year. By the time they dig here, the body will be long gone. Let’s do it here."

Liu Zhi snorted in annoyance. "Should’ve just dug a hole and buried him alive like I said from the start. Would’ve saved us all this trouble. Two days of wiping his ass—I’m not even married yet, and I’m already playing dad to this guy!"

"Can you pull your head out of your ass and stop acting like a damn idiot?" Fang Chao, already seething, smacked Liu Zhi hard on the head, shutting him up instantly.

After that, Liu Zhi stayed behind to keep watch while Fang Chao went to buy a shovel. When he returned, Fang Chao stood guard by the car while Liu Zhi dug a hole behind it to bury the body.

After half an hour of work, Liu Zhi finally finished digging, pushed the body in, and packed the dirt back in, patting it down with the shovel. Fang Chao turned around and nearly spat blood. "I told you to dig a hole and bury him, not build him a damn grave?!"

Liu Zhi’s hole was too shallow. After filling it back in, the mound of dirt looked unmistakably like a grave—just missing a tombstone. If a grave suddenly appeared in the middle of the city, the body would be discovered the next day.

After some deliberation—neither had experience burying bodies—Liu Zhi suggested driving over the mound to flatten it. He got into the Land Rover, rolled the tires over the mound, and rocked back and forth. Before long, Fang Chao outside the car urgently signaled him to stop. When Liu Zhi got out, he was stunned. While the mound was flatter, the body was now fully exposed, with chunks of gelatinous flesh scraped off by the tires and smeared across the dirt—utterly disgusting.

Fang Chao sighed and told him to stop cutting corners. "Just dig a deeper hole nearby and rebury him properly." Liu Zhi had no choice but to comply. This time, it took a full hour to dig a new, deeper pit. They shoved the mangled body in, filled it with dirt, and compacted it with the car. For good measure, Liu Zhi even fetched a yellow concrete pillar from afar and stuck it into the ground above the grave. On the pillar was a warning: "Underground cables—no digging allowed."He clapped his hands, looking smug. "Brother Chao, what do you think this time?"

"You've mastered the art of 'protesting too much,' haven't you?" Fang Chao had completely lost faith in him, but after surveying the surroundings, he couldn't help but admit the setup looked natural enough, so he didn’t object.

With the body finally dealt with, Fang Chao turned his gaze to the Range Rover. Now that they had blood on their hands, the car would have to be abandoned sooner or later, so Zhou Rong’s job needed to be wrapped up quickly. Three Rivers Estuary was no place to linger!

The southern part of Three Rivers Estuary was the transportation hub of the city. Here stood the train station, bus terminals, freight distribution centers, and all sorts of transit points.

Like most areas around stations, this one was dirty, chaotic, and rundown. The surrounding zone was filled with uneven rows of old houses, flanked by factories and dotted with urban villages housing a mix of people.

Two kilometers south of the bus station was a chemical industrial zone. Wedged between several factories were a few scrap collection yards, one of which was run by Gang Ge and Xiao Mao.

Gang Ge’s real name was Xia Tinggang, a thirty-year-old bachelor with no ambitions in life except to strike it rich. He had no real skills and wasn’t willing to endure hardship—his primary path to wealth was through daydreaming.

Gang Ge had ended up in Three Rivers Estuary out of sheer necessity. Born in the countryside, he had watched as fellow villagers left to work in cities, returning with money to build houses and buy cars. But he wasn’t envious—he preferred staying in the village. With most of the young men gone, only the elderly, women, and children remained, and he played the role of a self-styled emperor, forming relationships with the left-behind wives. Several women even fought over him, until the scandal became village-wide gossip. When the husbands returned, they confronted him collectively, nearly breaking all "three" of his legs. After that, he dared not stay in his hometown and fled overnight to another city.

After drifting around the local county for a while, he met Xiao Mao, a lazy distant cousin from a neighboring village who shared his lack of ambition. The two hit it off and embarked on a life of petty scams—staging fake accidents, breaking into homes, stealing phones, and extorting money. Despite their wide-ranging "business," they never managed to save much, and a few run-ins with tougher characters nearly got them killed.

Years later, they drifted to Three Rivers Estuary, where they met a kind-hearted fellow villager. The man ran a small scrap collection yard—not a big business, but at least it was legitimate and provided a living. Seeing the two had nowhere to go, the man told them he was planning to return home and offered to sell them the yard, along with the property and scrap, for a mere 30,000 yuan—practically giving it away. Gang Ge and Xiao Mao thought it was a great deal, so they signed a simple contract and handed over most of their savings to take over the yard.

The very next day, the kind-hearted villager’s phone number was disconnected, and the property’s landlord showed up to inform them that the place was 30,000 yuan behind on rent. If they didn’t pay, they couldn’t take anything. Having already spent their 30,000 yuan, they had no choice but to scrape together another 30,000 to cover the rent.

The yard held nothing but piles of scrap metal, broken bottles, and a decommissioned taxi. They managed to sell the scrap for a little over 10,000 yuan. As for the taxi, though it was officially scrapped, it still ran. Unwilling to dismantle it for scrap metal, they tinkered with some parts and planned to sell it as a used car to some unsuspecting buyer.Today, Gang Ge and Xiao Mao were fixing a car in the yard when a loud knocking sound came from the gate, accompanied by an angry voice shouting, "Xia Tinggang, get your ass out here!"

"Who is it?" Gang Ge crawled out from under the car and glanced at Xiao Mao, who was working on the window seal. Xiao Mao shook his head, indicating he didn't know.

"What the hell are you yelling for?" Gang Ge gripped a large wrench, his face full of displeasure as he strode to the gate and yanked it open, glaring outside. "What do you want?"

Standing at the gate were three men. The leader had a protruding belly, wore a tight T-shirt and jeans, and had a shiny gold chain hanging on his chest. His arms were covered with tattoos of dragons and tigers—though they were done in his youth and now resembled a fat dragon and a fat tiger. His eyes were wide with a fierce expression. Behind him were two skinny men in patterned shirts—one with his hands in his pockets, the other crossing his arms over his chest—both lazily eyeing him with sidelong glances.

These three were clearly street thugs, but definitely not the big shots. The real big shots had long since passed civil service exams and were now wholeheartedly serving the people. Only these small-time hoodlums would flaunt flashy clothes and endure the pain of tattoos, thinking people would fear them just by standing on the street. Fear them? What a joke.

"So you're Xia Tinggang, huh?" The fat leader smirked disdainfully at him.

"Yeah, that's your Gang Ye. What about it?" Seeing the hostility in their approach, Gang Ge didn't back down. Instead, he stepped forward, blocking the entrance.

"Oho, that's quite the name. Really living up to the 'Gang' part, aren't you?" The fat man turned to his lackeys with a laugh, and all three burst into mocking laughter.

"What the hell do you want?" Gang Ge took another step forward, raising the large wrench in his hand.

The fat man flinched at the sight of the wrench, taking a step back. He gestured behind him, and one of his lackeys handed him an envelope. He threw it at Gang Ge's feet and sneered, "Xia Tinggang, this is your overdue bill. Six months now. The bank has called you countless times. Be smart and pay up!"

"Pay what? When the hell did I owe money?!" Xia Tinggang was about to explode in anger when Xiao Mao lightly tugged his sleeve from behind. He turned and saw Xiao Mao's guilty expression. "Did you borrow money from the bank?" he demanded.

Xiao Mao nodded timidly and bent down to pick up the envelope.

"I—" Xia Tinggang stared at Xiao Mao, too furious to speak.

The fat man snorted coldly and pointed at Xia Tinggang. "I don't care which one of you owes the money. Just remember this—you've got one week. One last week. If you don't pay up, we'll make sure you regret it!"

His fat finger kept wagging in Gang Ge's face, and Gang Ge's temper flared. This fat bastard looked like a hog ready for slaughter, and his two lackeys were as scrawny as if they'd been fed lean-meat powder. How dare these nobodies point at him? He swung the wrench at the fat man's arm and kicked out hard. "Get your chicken claws away from me!"

"Damn it!" The fat man's eyes bulged—this was the first time in his debt-collecting career that a debtor had struck first. The three thugs instantly erupted in anger. "You've got guts. Real guts. Just you wait! You wait!" Their voices faded as they retreated, hurling threats over their shoulders.

After they left, Gang Ge slammed the gate shut and smacked Xiao Mao on the head. "Why the hell did you borrow money from the bank?"Xiao Mao cowered in fear, clutching an envelope in one hand and rubbing his head with the other. "I... I went to buy scratch-off lottery tickets. Kept missing the jackpot by a hair... Then... then I ran out of money, so I used the bank's credit card."

"You, a professional scammer, actually went gambling on lottery tickets?" Gang Ge was furious. "How much do you owe the bank?"

"Not... not that much," Xiao Mao stammered.

Gang Ge thrust out his hand. "Show me the bill!"

After a moment's hesitation, Xiao Mao handed over the envelope.

Gang Ge tore it open and skimmed through, letting out a cold chuckle. "With your credit history, they actually gave you a 30,000-yuan line? That bank's gonna go under sooner or later. Huh... 'Xia Tinggang, you are 180 days overdue.' Since when did banks get so sloppy? They put my name on your debt!"

"My... my ID's blacklisted. Couldn't get a card, so I borrowed yours."

"You—" Gang Ge froze for a second before grabbing a wrench and charging at Xiao Mao.

Xiao Mao bolted, circling around the taxi as the two chased each other with the car between them.

Gang Ge wanted to throw something but feared damaging the car he'd painstakingly repaired. He could only point angrily from a distance. "Get your ass over here!"

Hiding on the opposite side, Xiao Mao pleaded, "Gang Ge, calm down! Beating me to death won't solve anything—the money still won't get paid back."

"Not my fucking problem! What does your damn lottery habit have to do with me?"

"But... but it's your name on it."

"I'll kill you today!" Gang Ge resumed the chase.

Dodging, Xiao Mao shouted, "Gang Ge, I swear I'll pay you back! Just help me settle this debt first. Otherwise, they'll keep coming after us. Once you're blacklisted, you won't even be able to buy train tickets later!"

Gang Ge stopped, panting, and glared at Xiao Mao's pathetic state. "Where the hell would I get 30,000 yuan to bail you out? I couldn't get that much even if I skinned you and sold your hide!"

"Let's... let's think long-term. There's always a way to get 30,000. With some luck, we could score it all at once."

"What do you mean 'all at once'?"

Xiao Mao pointed at the taxi in front of them. "With this car, we can try a different way to make money."

"This piece of junk would fetch 6,000 at most."

"Not selling the car! It's a taxi, isn't it? Now's the time to burn our boats—let's go for one big score!"