Taoist priest goes to America

The warehouse of this Japanese yakuza "ice factory" has narrow aisles between shelves, with chest-high cardboard boxes and goods wrapped in waterproof tarpaulins piled on both sides.

A Japanese man in a suit walked slowly down the aisle, holding a Bluetooth headset in his hand, his gaze sweeping over the shelves on either side. He stopped, glancing left and then right to make sure nothing was amiss.

"No abnormalities," he said into the earpiece.

He continued walking, around a row of crates piled up to the ceiling. On the other side of the crates, his partner, whom he was inspecting, was leaning against the pile of goods, his body splitting in two and slowly sliding to the ground.

The partner's left and right halves were separated, with a cut running from the top of his head to his groin, as if he had been vertically cleaved by something. Blood had soaked the tarpaulin on the cargo, dripping down the folds and forming a small patch on the cement floor.

The Japanese man had just reported that everything was normal and was about to go to the other side to check on his partner when he stepped into his partner's pool of blood.

He looked down in surprise and saw a patch of dark red liquid.

The Japanese man's eyes widened. He was so frightened that he was about to shout for help when a hand reached out from in front of him and covered his mouth. The force was so great that he slammed into the wall behind him, his upper and lower teeth clashing together, and his tongue getting stuck between his teeth.

Then another hand reached up from under the Japanese man's chin, its five fingers spread out like claws, covered with a layer of dark red, hard shell, like five hooks for hanging meat.

The five fingers pierced through the base of the chin, through the root of the tongue, through the bridge of the nose, and then pushed forward to pierce the brain.

Then, Ang Lee's five fingers simultaneously opened in the Japanese person's mind, like a blooming flower. The Japanese person's body tensed up abruptly, then went limp.

When Ang Lee pulled his finger out of the wound, the dark red outer layer of the skin was free of blood. The blood was absorbed the moment it came into contact with the skin, just like water being absorbed by a towel, and the surface dried quickly.

Ang Lee shook his hand, then laid the body down on the ground, leaning it against the side of the shelf. He crouched in the shadow of the iron gate and glanced inside.

Inside the iron gate was a factory, with exposed metal beams on the ceiling and fluorescent light tubes hanging in mid-air, casting a blinding white light onto the tabletops. There were about twenty people inside, gathered around several long tables.

Several plastic mats were laid on the table, covered with white powder. Next to them were an electronic scale, a sealing machine, a stack of transparent plastic bags, and several bundles of finished products that had already been sealed.

White powder was poured from a plastic bag, spread on a mat, and smoothed out with a hard plastic card, forming a thin white line.

Then the white line was pushed into the scale's tray. The numbers on the scale jumped a few times. The person loading the goods used a spoon to push a little in or a little out until the numbers on the scale stabilized.

Next came bagging and sealing, with the finished products placed into cardboard boxes next to the table.

"Sigh... Finally found a gang hideout with lots of people."

Ang Lee spent nearly an hour running around Brooklyn, starting from abandoned construction sites and going to each address he read on his phone, but to no avail.

Either there were no events scheduled for tonight and the place was deserted, or there were only one or two people left. The lazy American gangsters had already left and gone home to rest, leaving only the Japanese still working overtime.

As expected, Asians are indeed diligent. Excellent, excellent. I didn't make a wasted trip.

Li An's gaze swept across the shelves, finally settling on the electrical distribution box in the corner. The box was at the far end of the shelf next to him; its metal casing was rusted, and the cover was half-open, revealing a row of switches and wires inside.

He walked to the front of the distribution box, raised his hand, and inserted it directly into the box. With a forceful pull, blue sparks flew from between his fingers, producing a dense crackling sound that illuminated the dark red patterns on Li An's mask, and more sparks shot out.

A burnt smell emanated from inside the electrical distribution box, then all the lights went out, the ventilation fan slowed down, and the blades continued to spin a few more times before stopping, plunging the entire ice factory into darkness.

The Japanese workers loading goods in the factory stopped. Someone cursed in English, followed by several short Japanese phrases overlapping.

Someone stood up in the darkness, and the sound of a gun being cocked was clearly audible in the darkness. Then, the group pushed back their chairs and rushed towards the door.

Several people ran out of the darkness, paused near the gate, and then came gunshots, loud and rapid. The sound was reflected off the walls of the enclosed space, becoming sharper and more piercing than it was outside.

"Bang bang bang—" The chaotic gunfire was mixed with screams and the sound of things being thrown out, like many heavy objects hitting the iron frame, and then the gunfire stopped.

Only the sound of one person's footsteps remained; this was the only sound they could hear now.

The footsteps were very light, and they moved slowly as if dragging something, making a rustling sound on the concrete floor, before finally stopping in front of the factory's iron gate.

The warehouse fell silent again. Someone started calling out names, three or four times, growing more and more anxious, but no one answered.

The others also started calling out their companions' names, their voices growing louder and louder, but still no one responded.

The area outside the factory was eerily quiet, and the pitch-black darkness only exacerbated the oppressive atmosphere.

No one spoke; they stood there, listening to the continuous echo of their own heartbeats in their ears.

People started reaching for their phones, and the phone flashlights shone a small beam in the darkness, followed by a second, a third... Several beams of phone flashlight light swept around the factory, trying to see their surroundings and reduce the feeling of tension.

Just then, a rustling sound came from the doorway, as if something was being dragged into the factory.

Everyone turned their flashlights at the same time, and several beams of light converged at the doorway.

There stood a figure, one of their companions who had been sent out to check the electrical box. He tilted his head, his posture somewhat unnatural, and dark red liquid dripped down his chin, staining a large dark patch on his chest.

Someone closer to the door recognized him. "Tono..." The person took two steps forward, "Tono! What happened outside? You—"

The man called Tono opened his mouth, and a dark red whip emerged from it. It was wet and covered with a thin layer of sticky fluid, gleaming strangely in the light of the cell phone flashlight.

The whip didn't stop; it continued to extend forward, piercing the eye of the person closest to it, passing through his eye socket, and then retracting.

The man whose head was pierced by the whip fell backward, his cell phone slipping from his hand and falling to the ground. The beam of the flashlight shone obliquely on the pale faces of all the Japanese people.