Shudi opened his eyes, but nothing could be seen other than a dim glow from the other side of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a growing fear and dread crept into his spine when he realized his situation. He was in a prison with a heavy metal door blocking the only form of escape, and the only source of light was a narrow gap from the bottom of the door. The walls and floor were made of solid concrete. He moved, but a metal chain shackle on his feet kept him bound to the rear wall.

“S******! Let me out of here!” He screamed and frantically shook the chain.

No response.

Instead, a rattling noise of chainsaw could be heard on the other side. Then a deadly scream. A scream so dreadful and piercing that Shudi flinched and shuddered.

“What the hell!?” Shudi internally shouted to himself. He was in some sort of torture chamber.

The ripping chainsaw continued to rip through the scream, and when the scream stopped, the chainsaw stopped. Shudi cowered into the corner. He wasn’t sure what was going on and why he was in prison, but he remained close to the ground, hoping that someone would save him.

Suddenly, the door opened slightly, and something was thrown inside. Shudi was momentarily blinded from the harsh light from the outside, but managed to dodge whatever was thrown into his direction. The item bounced from the wall and onto the ground. The cell door closed once again. Shudi’s eyes readjusted as he stared at the item, which looked like a piece of bread. Shudi was too frightened to eat it. 

After a long period of time, starvation took over, and he immediately grabbed onto the loaf and ate it without caring whether it was poisoned. A moment later, the chainsaw turned on again, and another round of screaming appeared. Shudi tightened his hand around the piece of bread, hoping it wasn’t his turn. There were other people in the room that were kidnapped. If they wanted information, wouldn’t they interrogate him by now? What did these sick people want to do with him? Shudi wasn’t sure, but he prayed that his boss, the police, and whoever would come to save him.

An unusual sensation squeezed his stomach, it growled, urging him to take a dump. He noticed a hole in the other corner and realized its purpose. He took a dump. Although he felt better afterward, the odor within the room made it difficult to sleep. He sat back in his corner, plugged his nose, and attempted to sleep. When he thought sleep had finally arrived, the sound of the chainsaw snapped him out of his stupor. The chainsaw stopped, the door opened up again, and another loaf of bread flew in.

Shudi caught it this time, and screamed out. “If you let me go! I’ll give you 1 million yuan!”

The door slammed shut.

“10 million yuan!” he screamed out again.

Shudi waited for any moment, but nothing happened. He tried to sleep, but fear and dread lingered, making it impossible to sleep. 

On the third day, another piece of bread. Shudi’s insomnia had kept him awake that night, and his mind entered a state of delirium. He heard voices and whispers in his head of everyone he had killed. With his mental state at the lowest, he merely glanced tirelessly at the masked man who appeared in front of him.

“Mr. Shudi, do you know why you are here?” a mechanical voice appeared.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Shudi asked.

“I believe you are scheduled for execution tomorrow,” said the masked man. “We are the government trash collector here to clean out this city.”

Shudi’s hands both shook. There were rumors of a secret underground group that carried out executions for the government. No one had ever confirmed of its existence or even talk about it, but some thought it was a possibility.

“Help! Let me go!” Shudi pleaded. “I’m not the real leader of my gang, everything is orchestrated by that woman!”

“Woman is rather vague,” the masked man said.

“I overheard Wing Bo call her Esther.”

“A woman name Esther? Foreign or an alias? How did you meet?”

“I don’t know. One day, I got a call from her asking if I want to take over a city as the boss. I have never met her, only the lawyer Wing Bo showed up with instructions of what I should do.”

“You’re quite willing to follow orders for someone who considers yourself a boss.”

“They are offering me 50% of profit and they would provide me with bodyguards. Of course, I was willing to take part.”

“Your information doesn’t provide you with much leverage. I’ll come back tomorrow, as it will be your last day to think about what other information you can provide.”

The masked man left the room.

“Wait!” Shudi cried out again.

The door slammed shut.

Shudi honestly had no idea what other information he could provide. His phone was already confiscated, and he was sure the government could already crack his password.

****

Li Yun walked out of the secret wine cellar guarded by a heavy metal door and removed the ski mask. In the adjacent room, he looked at Ju De playing around with the chainsaw. The walls were filled with wine barrels and cheese, hiding the poorly constructed concrete walls that Qi Sho’s friends had labored over for weeks.

Aside from the secret rooms, Li Yun had excavated out storage area used for keeping his collection of collected Taoist texts. There were three prisons, and all were currently occupied.

“Are you sure the other tenants can’t hear you?” asked Ju De.

“We soundproof everything as much as possible," said Li Yun. "And there is construction work on the other floors, so the regular tenants will assume it’s just construction noise.”

They walked to the freight elevator and pressed the ground floor. The button to the sub-basement was hidden behind the fire emergency icon and only accessible with the keycard. The elevator lifted up to the ground floor and the bell dinged on its arrival.

As it was after hours, only the front security remained, who greeted Li Yun and Ju De. Li Yun and Ju De returned a curt bow back to the security guard and entered from the wine bar to meet up with Qi Sho and Nimbo.

"Hey boss! Good to see you back in regular form!" said Nimbo.

"Thanks for your help," said Li Yun. "So, what do you think about managing this place?"

"You sure I won't scare away clients?" asked Nimbo.

"Manager normally sits in the back, so you only need to scare your workers," said Li Yun.

Nimbo laughed. "But boss, you should have let me infiltrate that club, it would have been fun."

Li Yun didn't want Nimbo to make such a risky maneuver. For him, it was relatively simple to poison everyone with the cigar.

“What is the current status of Shudi's gang without their boss?” Li Yun asked.

“Still clueless about everything,” Qi Sho responded. "Are you sure this will work out? What if they find out?"

"It has only been eighteen hours," Li Yun replied.

Eighteen hours had passed since they kidnapped Shudi, but creating an illusion of three days wasn't difficult for Li Yun. He did not like prison, but he wasn't planning to keep them for long. Not only did he have to feed them, but he also had to mentally torture them to reveal any sort of information. It was too much work.

“What are you going to do now?” Asked Qi Sho. “We still don’t have much information about who is behind Shudi and Wing Bo.”

Li Yun looked at the time, in another three hours, he needed to visit Shudi.

****

“Please! I’ll tell you everything! I'll give you the names of our police contact! Please don’t hurt me!” Shudi screamed and pleaded to the masked man.

Li Yun approached Shudi and then injected him with a medicine.

“This is called the Five Poison,” Li Yun explained. “You will do as I say or die in exactly seven days if you don't get the medicine. You can try the hospital if you like, but don’t blame me if they kill you by accident.”

“How will I find you?” Shudi asked, a bit relieved that he was being released, but concerned about the strange poison. 

“You won’t need to. We will find you.”

A part of Li Yun would rather get rid of Shudi, but as his powers grew stronger, the idea of killing seemed so easy in his mind that it frightened him. It was better to keep him alive and punish him in another way.