Volume One, Chapter Thirteen: Both an Agony and an Excuse

Yan Nuo gazed out the window at the tranquil, ancient town; sunlight spilled across his crimson face, glinting with the sheen of middle age. He took a sip of tea—fresh leaves harvested from the imperial Pu'er trees during the Qianlong era—then turned with solemn gravity to his strategist, who had just turned thirty. “Old Bo,” he said, “if you believe that the flying squirrel risked his life to come here only to kidnap me, then you’re not a competent strategist. Are you being deliberately evasive, or are you simply afraid? He’s here to kill me.”

Dao Lao Bo’s face remained impassive; this was a reality everyone knew, and it seemed that no one could stop the flying squirrel. He simply chose not to say it aloud.

Without waiting for Dao Lao Bo to explain, Yan Nuo continued, “Kidnapping me, as he did Yu Han, means nothing to him. Our informant only told me he’d be coming to Mang City to deal with me. This man has never done anything for money—it’s as if, for him, the goal is the goal itself. Yet we’ve never truly understood what his goal is.”

Yan Nuo sighed softly.

At that moment, Ru A Ya entered. He was in charge of managing the organization’s armed guards.

“Boss,” Ru A Ya said to Yan Nuo, “the man you mentioned has entered Mang City.”

Although it was expected, Yan Nuo still relented in disbelief. “Didn’t the armed police catch him at the checkpoints? How do we know he’s here?”

Ru A Ya replied, “The police set up both visible and hidden posts on every road into town. In theory, everyone entering should pass through two layers of surveillance, but no one matching his description was spotted. A young soldier, before changing shifts at noon, went out on patrol as required and found a Winged shepherd in a nearby pit, his mouth and eyes taped shut, limbs bound. The Winged youth was completely naked. Upon investigation, it turns out a shepherd did pass the checkpoint before noon, so now he’s disguised himself and slipped in.”

The three men fell silent for a long time. Ru A Ya had never seen Yan Nuo so dejected; this figure, whose very name struck fear on both sides of the border and who killed without hesitation, now couldn’t utter a word.

What made Yan Nuo shudder was that, despite advance warning, despite overwhelming power, despite having every advantage of time, place, and manpower, and laying down an impenetrable net, the damned flying squirrel had anticipated it all and walked right past so many eyes, utterly unfazed.

And he’d been inside for so long before anyone noticed; everyone else was still standing guard, unaware, with not even a moment to react.

The game had barely begun, and already a move had been lost.

Ru A Ya said coldly, “The whole town is ours. I’ll lead a search right now—this place is tiny, how could we not find him?” With that, he left.

As soon as Ru A Ya closed the door, Dao Lao Bo muttered to himself, “We’ll find him, sure—but what if it’s too late? Maybe he wants us to find him.”

Yan Nuo returned to the tea table, poured himself another cup but didn’t drink it. He said to Dao Lao Bo, “Remember what I’m about to tell you. These words matter more than anything I’ve ever said.”

Dao Lao Bo immediately stood up. He knew this was nearly a last testament.

Yan Nuo sipped his tea. “When I first started trafficking drugs, it was small-time. I just wanted to improve a poor life. I never expected I’d end up where I am today. I know heroin ruins lives, but only by doing this could our descendants ever escape poverty, so they wouldn’t need to do this anymore. For that alone, I’m proud. Even if I become the most reviled trafficker, even if I end up with nowhere to run and die a terrible death.”

Yan Nuo seemed to realize he’d lost composure, took another sip of tea, and drew a deep breath. Dao Lao Bo said nothing; he knew Yan Nuo too well, and now was the time to listen and bury every word deep inside.

Yan Nuo steadied himself and continued: “Our ancestors have always lived on this border. When I was a child, we were so poor—my parents were poor, their parents poorer still, so poor no one even looked at us, so poor we couldn’t eat. Once, I went three days without a grain of rice, nearly starved to death. My uncle tried to steal some corn from the neighboring construction corps, but their security caught him, forced him to parade through the streets with the corn hanging from his neck, banging a broken gong, shouting his name and that he was a thief. When he was released, he hadn’t even brought the corn home and felt he’d failed his ancestors, his family—damn it, our Tai people don’t even have surnames. In the end, my uncle hanged himself with a frayed hemp rope.”

Yan Nuo paused in his story, gritted his teeth, and said, “You know, that rope was my grandfather’s old cattle rope. The cattle had long been confiscated by the commune, but he couldn’t bear to throw the rope away, kept it, and in the end it was used by his own son to hang himself. My mother fell ill, and we couldn’t even afford the clinic fee. I watched her clutch her liver, rolling on the floor in agony, dying right there.”

Yan Nuo’s voice broke; Dao Lao Bo tactfully offered him a cigarette. Yan Nuo took it straight to his lips, lit it, and drew a deep drag.

Staring at the smoke swirling above his head, Yan Nuo continued dully, “We make a living on the border—if we don’t traffic drugs, what else can we do? The ordinary folk might open a restaurant or run a small stall, but where does their money come from? It’s still the money we make selling heroin outside.”

The cigarette ash grew long, but Yan Nuo made no move to tap it away, and kept speaking: “I started out carrying goods, watched so many die from addiction, saw so many peers get caught, locked up for life, sentenced to death. I’ve personally eliminated many bosses. The money was overwhelming. But once I had it, I realized money is a bastard, and men who make money are the biggest bastards of all.”

The ash, brittle from Yan Nuo’s agitation, finally broke and fell onto the table. Energy seemed to return to Yan Nuo; he fixed Dao Lao Bo with a blade-sharp stare: “Money—at first you fight for it like your life depends on it, just to survive; as you earn more, greed grows, you want to prove your skills, live better, rise above others; but once you’ve made it, earned enough, you want out, and those peers, officials, soldiers, even you, who’ve followed me so long—will any of you let me go?”

Dao Lao Bo dared not meet Yan Nuo’s gaze, busying himself with brewing tea, but Yan Nuo’s eyes never left him. Yan Nuo continued: “No matter what I do, the people for miles around are grateful to me. Over the years, I’ve spent money and effort to build bridges and roads, donated five elementary schools. I’ve hired outstanding teachers from Yunting at high salaries to improve faculty at more schools. You know, some schools used to rank over a hundredth in the prefecture; in the past two years, they’re in the top ten.”

Dao Lao Bo handed Yan Nuo the freshly brewed tea, nodding in admiration. “Boss, everyone remembers the good you’ve done for the locals.”

Yan Nuo took the tea, drained it in one gulp, and spoke gently, “I can’t call myself kindhearted. First, I grew up on this impoverished land—I feel the people’s suffering as my own. And second, after all the terrible things I’ve done, I want to do some good as atonement.”

His cigarette was nearly burned to the butt; Yan Nuo drew a last deep drag, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and said, “Two years ago, I already wanted to quit—I don’t want this business anymore. You know, we’ve started moving some of our money and people into border casinos. Gambling can ruin people, but at least it’s better than heroin turning them into ghosts, isn’t it? Besides, heroin’s market has gotten worse; marijuana, ecstasy, and ketamine are everywhere now. I hear someone’s invented a new drug called ‘ice.’ People want convenience—they’re losing interest in ‘ant climbing the tree,’ ‘open the skylight,’ those injection tricks. The government’s not just sending troops to wipe out our poppy farmers and heroin processors—they’re investing manpower and resources to promote ‘alternative crops,’ getting farmers to grow sugarcane, rice, cassava instead.”

Dao Lao Bo sighed, “It’s true—raw materials are harder and harder to get, and the market’s worse. But, boss, why don’t we go into synthetic drugs?”

Yan Nuo lit another cigarette, took a drag, and said, “We’ve always trafficked but never produced—that’s my principle. No land for cultivation, no factories for processing. Low assets, small scale, almost no inventory; running channels is much less risky. Plus, our edge is proximity to the source—original goods, regular goods, we can get them all. If we move into synthetic stuff, where’s the regional advantage?”

Yan Nuo gestured with his cigarette hand toward the window. “These years I’ve bought so much mountain and forest land, planning to develop and build. I’ve figured it out—I don’t want to walk the dark road forever. Drugs are the darkest of all roads, a dead end. If you want to live, and you’ve got money, you have to move toward the gray—like casinos; then move toward the white, clean up, and even try to get red. But people like us, we’re born stained, never clean for three generations. The high and mighty, those who shine red and purple, didn’t earn that—they stole it, robbed it, or their ancestors did. The ancients said it best: the great thief steals a nation; the petty thief steals pennies.”

Yan Nuo stood and drew close to Dao Lao Bo, his voice unwavering and venomous. “What we’re doing now is to ensure that descendants we’ll never see rise high, shine bright. Today, the flying squirrel is here for my life—I won’t hide, can’t hide. That’s fate. I just don’t know how I’ll die. But since he’s here, it’s just like when I was a penniless young man—none of it matters anymore.”