Chapter 460 - The Shaker

The man was still not talking, only had his head bow while staring at the fading color of his jeans.

"How about a hammer?" he suggested to Wuming who was inspecting the weapons that were strapped to grills.

Wuming pulled out a hammer with rounded edges. "This should be fun," he grinned. "Alright let's get started."

It was already established that Qing Chen did not like resulting to violence. But this man had the audacity of being La Hiena's spy in this organization. Right on one of the fingers of Enigma, huh?

La Hiena had not even bothered enough to try to woo some of smaller gangs. Qing Chen thought he would be more persistent. But he guessed that La Hiena gave up that early.

"What are you doing over there?" Qing Chen asked his youngest brother whose eyes were trained on the screen. It looked like he had not blinked in a while.

"Trying to find the person with the neck tattoo."

"There must be thousands."

"Yeah," said Qing Lok. "But the bartender said it looked like a gear."

"Where is he?"

"At the other room. Should we get rid of him?"

He shook his head. "He's an innocent party in this. He did not know what he was doing and what he was getting into."

"I think he shat himself though," said Qing Lok. "There was kind of a foul smell coming from him earlier."

That brought a smile to Qing Chen's lips. That had to be funny. A person crapping themselves in fear and nervousness was kind of a guilty p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e joke for him.

"That's enough," said Qing Chen to Wuming.

His brother's back was glistening with sweat already.. "That's not even a lot yet!"

"Calm down," Qing Chen waved for Wuming to get out of his way. The man's face was still clear but bruises would soon appear. It looked like Wuming was reserving the little hammer for later and settled with his fists for the first round. "What did La Hiena offer you?"

The man shook his head but he visibly swallowed.

Wuming g.r.o.a.n.e.d. "Do we have another… what's his name? Little dude with huge eyes from The Zookeeper?" snapping his fingers, trying to recollect.

"Koala," he answered. "You know, it did not end well for that person," said Qing Chen. "I know that you have a family. Would you like me to have your dead body delivered to them?"

The man shook his head again.

"We're going to call this man," began Wuming, "The Shaker!"

Qing Lok made a sound that resembled suppressed laughter.

"I'm trying to help you," said Qing Chen, scraping the last bits of rice at the bottom of his box. "Let's talk business. What can I do for you? What did we not give you that La Hiena did?"

"He's not talking, Chen," Wuming said after a huge gulp of water.

"Proceed then."

All people cracked under pain. Sometimes because it already hurt too much and they want to die. End it all. If you were going to ask Qing Chen, he would rather he was sliced than get blunt trauma. At least if the torturer was Wuming. He would certainly go for the joints once he got his hands on that hammer.

The sound of the force of skin on skin, as Wuming continued to land punches around the body of the older man. Qing Chen sent a quick text to Clown. "Where's his family?"

Clown replied to him. "Boss, a few of our people are standing by outside their house."

"Okay, thanks."

It provided him ease to know that the family was at least safe. But he pulled out his phone again and typed: Go check. Make sure they're alone in that house. If not, you know what to do. Bring them here.

"Copy," was Clown's reply.

Then to his brother's back he said, "Do your best, Wuming. We don't have that much time."

=========

Wuming was resting on the floor, his c.h.e.s.t heaving. "You know, we could hae tried a different approach. I should've gotten Addison here. We might have gotten answers without pain."

"I think I found someone," said Qing Lok. He brought the screen towards the man. "Is this him?"

No response.

"Damn, I could've sworn it was this one," he said. "I can't see it properly but it looked like a gear." He was hacking through the datebase of the local police. With the use of keywords, he thought that he would glide through this, but apparently, gear neck tattoos were quite popular nowadays.

Qing Chen's phone started vibrating. "Clown."

Clown told him what happened. Before they got close to the house, they already heard gunshots being fired. They stormed the place and found three foreign men. They shot on sight.

He instructed for the bodies to be left. They did not have enough time to clean it up. One of the neighbors probably called the police already at the first gunshot. 

"Also," Clowned added. "There's a letter for you, boss."

"Great, now we are back with letters," he sighed. He hated these freaking letters. "Are they readable?"

He heard something crunching from the other line. "Yes, boss. Nothing of the sort with The Zookeeper," laughed Clown.

"Alright, Clown, I'll see you soon. You know what to do."

"Wuming, stop," Qing Chen said.

"What now?"

"That's enough."

Wuming slipped to the floor, sweat dripping. "I'm not going to workout until tomorrow," he rasped.

Seeing his brother fazed was a rare sight. "You're getting weaker, Wuming. You might want to try something different to keep up with your body."

The man now had an almost purple face. Two of his teeth were on the floor with droplets of blood marking their spot.

"Your family's dead," said Qing Chen.

Finally, there was a response. The man started sniffing, tears falling on his swollen cheeks.

Qing Chen sighed. It was going to be a long night.