4. Blindfold of the Law

The photograph changed everything.

Qin Mu sat in the hospital room long after his sister fell asleep, the phone screen glowing in his palm like a brand. The image of the three of them at the teahouse—him, Liu Wei, Sheng Jiu—was perfectly framed, perfectly timed. Someone had been watching from the moment they arrived. Someone who worked for Mu Ziang.

The boss sends his regards.

He should have known. Of course they were watching. A fighter who had just been involved in a death, suddenly summoned by the boss, suddenly rewarded with a bonus—he would be monitored. His movements tracked. His associations catalogued. Mu Ziang hadn't built an empire on brutality alone; he had built it on information, on knowing everything about everyone before they knew it themselves.

The second message was worse. See you at your next fight. Not a threat of violence. Worse than that. A threat of normalcy, of business continuing as usual, of him stepping back into the ring and facing whatever consequences had been arranged.

He didn't sleep that night. He sat in the plastic chair beside Qin Wei's bed, watching the monitors trace their green lines across the screen, and tried to think through the possibilities. Running was impossible—he had no money beyond what was already committed to the hospital, and his sister couldn't be moved. Going to the police was pointless—Officer Huang was only one cop, but he was representative of a system that had been paid to look the other way. The journalist, Lin Yao, was working on the story, but stories took time, and his next fight was only ten days away.

By morning, he had made a decision. If Mu Ziang wanted to see him at his next fight, he would be there. But he wouldn't go unprepared.

The Jin Xuan gym was across the river, in a district that had once been warehouses and was now a patchwork of artist studios, tech startups, and businesses that existed in the gray space between legitimate and not. The gym itself occupied a converted printing factory, its facade painted a clean white that stood out against the weathered brick of its neighbors. A sign above the door read "Jin Xuan Athletic Association" in bold, professional lettering.

Qin Mu stood outside for a long moment before going in. This was the point of no return. Once he walked through these doors, he was a defector in fact if not yet in name. The ancient ministers of Chu who had fled to Jin must have felt this same hesitation, standing on the border between loyalty and survival.

Inside, the gym was brighter than Chu Ting's. Cleaner. The equipment was newer, the mats less stained, the air less heavy with old sweat and older fear. Fighters trained in small groups, working combinations on focus mitts, their movements crisp and practiced. No one shouted. No one cowered.

A woman at the front desk looked up as he entered. She was in her forties, with the kind of muscular build that suggested she had been a fighter herself. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Coach Sun."

"Which one? We have two."

"Sheng Jiu sent me. He said to ask for Sun Tao."

The name triggered something in her expression—recognition, and a flicker of something deeper. She picked up a phone and spoke into it quietly. A moment later, a door at the back of the gym opened and a man emerged.

Sun Tao was not what Qin Mu had expected. He had pictured someone old, hardened, a veteran of the underground circuit. Instead, the man walking toward him was perhaps forty, with the build of a middleweight and the face of a scholar. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a polo shirt with the Jin Xuan logo. Only his hands gave him away—knuckles thickened by years of impact, the skin scarred and reformed.

"You're Needle," Sun Tao said. It wasn't a question.

"Qin Mu. My real name."

"Good. We use real names here." He gestured toward the back office. "Come. Sheng Jiu called me this morning. He said you'd be coming. He also said you're in danger."

The office was small and cluttered, filled with training schedules and medical reports and, on one wall, a corkboard covered in photographs of fighters. Qin Mu recognized some of them—men he had seen at Chu Ting, men who had disappeared without explanation.

"Defectors," Sun Tao said, following his gaze. "Every fighter on that board came to us from Chu Ting. Some came because they were tired of being treated like animals. Some came because they saw something they shouldn't have. And some—" He paused. "Some came because they were marked for an accident and knew they had to escape before the fight was scheduled."

"You know about the accidents."

"I know about the murders. Everyone at Jin Xuan knows. We've been trying to expose Mu Ziang for years, but he's protected. The police, the athletic commission, even some of the hospitals—he has people everywhere." Sun Tao sat down behind his desk. "Sheng Jiu said you're willing to help us."

"I'm willing to help myself. And my sister."

"The sister with cancer. Yes, Sheng Jiu mentioned her. We've already arranged the advance—thirty thousand yuan, transferred to the hospital's billing office this morning. It should be credited to her account by noon."

Qin Mu felt something loosen in his chest, a knot he had been carrying for weeks. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Thank Sheng Jiu. He's been feeding us information for years, trying to bring Mu Ziang down from the inside. But this is the first time he's ever sent us a fighter directly. That means something has changed. He thinks you're important."

"Or he thinks I'm a loose end that Mu Ziang is about to cut."

"Same thing, in his world." Sun Tao leaned forward. "Tell me everything. From the beginning."

Qin Mu told him. The underground arena, the red gloves, the lump of metal. The way the referee had stepped in so quickly. The cop who asked scripted questions. The bonus from Mu Ziang, the reward for making things interesting. The meeting at the teahouse, the photograph, the text message.

When he finished, Sun Tao was silent for a long moment. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a file folder, thick with documents.

"This is what Liu Yang was working on before he died," Sun Tao said. "His investigation into the death of Wei Guo. Wei Guo was our trainer—a good man, one of the first to defect from Chu Ting. Two years ago, he was matched against a Chu Ting fighter named Iron Fan. The fight was supposed to be routine, but Iron Fan had been given special gloves. Wei Guo collapsed in the third round. Heart failure, the report said."

"The same as Liu Yang."

"The same as seventeen others." Sun Tao opened the folder and spread the documents across the desk. Medical reports. Witness statements. Financial records. "Liu Yang spent six months gathering this. He was close to something—something bigger than just the glove devices. He had found a connection between Mu Ziang's operation and a legitimate pharmaceutical company. They were using the fights to test compounds. Performance enhancers, sedatives, paralytics. The gloves were just the delivery system for a much larger enterprise."

Qin Mu stared at the documents. The scale of it was staggering. This wasn't just about illegal boxing. This was about human experimentation, wrapped in gambling, protected by corruption.

"Why didn't Liu Yang go to the police?"

"He did. He went to a detective named Zhang in the organized crime unit. Two days later, Zhang was transferred to traffic enforcement. The day after that, Liu Yang was matched against you." Sun Tao closed the folder. "The system is closed. Mu Ziang owns it from top to bottom. The only way to break it is to create a crack so wide that even he can't seal it."

"How?"

"Evidence. Undeniable evidence. And public attention so intense that the authorities can't look away without losing face." Sun Tao gestured at the folder. "Liu Yang gathered the evidence. What we need now is the public attention."

Lin Yao's story ran three days later.

It was front page of the Southern Metropolitan's weekend edition, under the headline: "Blood in the Basement: The Underground Boxing Ring Where Fighters Die for Profit." The article was meticulously reported, citing anonymous sources within Chu Ting, financial records obtained from an unnamed whistleblower, and the testimony of a fighter who had witnessed a death firsthand. It described the glove devices, the betting pools, the bribed officials. It named names—not Mu Ziang, not directly, but people close to him, associates whose connections to the operation were documented and provable.

The reaction was immediate and explosive.

By noon, the story had been picked up by national outlets. By evening, it was trending on every social media platform. The athletic commission issued a statement announcing an investigation. The police department, caught off guard, promised a thorough review. Officer Huang's name appeared in a follow-up piece, along with details of his unusually lavish lifestyle on a civil servant's salary.

Qin Mu read the article on his phone in the hospital room, Qin Wei sleeping beside him. The money from Jin Xuan had arrived as promised. The first course of the new treatment had begun that morning. For the first time in weeks, the numbers on the monitors looked not like a countdown but like a clock.

His phone rang. Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"You think this changes anything?" Mu Ziang's voice was calm, almost amused. "You think a newspaper article can touch me? I've survived investigations before. I've survived journalists before. They make noise for a few days, then something else happens, and everyone forgets."

"Maybe. But they won't forget the next article. Or the one after that."

"And who will write those articles? Your friend Lin Yao? Journalists have accidents too, Needle. Everyone has accidents."

The line went dead.

Qin Mu stood in the silence of the hospital room, his heart pounding. The threat was explicit now, no longer veiled in politeness. Mu Ziang was declaring war, and in war, he had always won.

He called Lin Yao. No answer. He called Sheng Jiu. No answer. He called Liu Wei.

"Hello?" Liu Wei's voice was tight, breathless.

"It's Qin Mu. Have you heard from Lin Yao?"

"She's fine. She's with me. Someone tried to break into her apartment last night. She's staying at a safe location now, working on the follow-up piece."

"And Sheng Jiu?"

Silence.

"Liu Wei. Where is Sheng Jiu?"

"He didn't show up at the teahouse this morning. We had a meeting scheduled. He never misses meetings."

Qin Mu felt the knot in his chest tighten again. "I'll find him."

He took a taxi to Sheng Jiu's apartment, a small unit in a retirement complex near the old city wall. The door was ajar. Inside, the apartment had been ransacked—drawers pulled out, books thrown from shelves, the old man's wheelchair overturned in the corner.

But no blood. No body.

On the desk, a single sheet of paper had been left untouched, weighted down by a teacup. It was a page from Sheng Jiu's record book, the one with the seventeen names. Someone had circled the last name on the list—Liu Yang—and written beneath it, in fresh ink: "The punishment must fit the crime."

Qin Mu recognized the handwriting from the documents Sheng Jiu had shown him at the teahouse. But the ink was different from the faded entries above it. This had been written today, under duress, a message left behind for whoever came looking.

He called Sun Tao. "Sheng Jiu is missing. His apartment has been torn apart. There's a message—something about punishment fitting crime."

Sun Tao was quiet for a moment. "That's from the ancient texts. The legalist philosophers—they believed in harsh punishments as deterrence. Sheng Jiu was always quoting them, using them to explain Mu Ziang's philosophy. If Mu Ziang left that message..."

"He's telling us he's going to execute Sheng Jiu the way he executes fighters. As an example."

"Yes. And he's telling us where to find him."

"The gym?"

"The ring. Fight night. In front of an audience. That's how Mu Ziang operates—everything is a spectacle. Everything is entertainment."

Qin Mu looked at the overturned wheelchair, the scattered books, the violated space of a man who had spent forty-three years trying to hold back the darkness. "When is the next fight?"

"Three days. Your fight. He hasn't canceled it. The card is still posted."

"Then I'll be there."

"Qin Mu—"

"He wants to see me at my next fight. He said so himself. I'll be there. But not the way he expects."

He hung up before Sun Tao could argue. Then he sat down in the wreckage of Sheng Jiu's apartment, surrounded by the scattered records of forty-three years, and began to plan.

The next three days passed in a blur of preparation. He visited Qin Wei every morning, sitting with her through the early stages of the treatment, watching the drugs drip into her veins and praying they were doing what the doctors promised. She was weaker now, the side effects hitting her harder than the previous treatments, but her eyes were still bright, still watching him with that unnerving perception.

"You're going back," she said on the second day.

"Back where?"

"To that place. The place you go at night. The place that gives you bruises."

He didn't deny it. "One more time. Then it's over."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

That night, he met Sun Tao and Liu Wei at the Jin Xuan gym. The journalist Lin Yao was there too, along with a man Qin Mu didn't recognize—tall, gray-haired, with the weary posture of someone who had been fighting losing battles for a long time.

"This is Inspector Gao," Lin Yao said. "He used to be with the organized crime unit. He was Detective Zhang's partner, before Zhang was transferred."

"Used to be?"

"I retired last year," Gao said. "Officially. Unofficially, I've been building a case against Mu Ziang for six years. Liu Yang was one of my informants. His death... it was a failure. My failure." He looked at Qin Mu with eyes that had seen too much. "I'm not going to fail again."

"What's the plan?"

Gao spread a diagram across the table—a schematic of the underground arena, marked with entry points and security positions and the locations of the VIP room. "Mu Ziang will be here, in his private viewing box. The referee Duan will be in the ring. The medic will be stationed here, near the locker room. Officer Huang will be at the main entrance, running security."

"How do you know all this?"

"Because nothing has changed. Mu Ziang is arrogant. He thinks the article is just noise. He'll proceed with the fight as scheduled, because canceling would look like weakness. He'll be there, in his box, drinking his champagne, betting on your death."

"My death?"

"You're scheduled to fight a man named Iron Fan. The same Iron Fan who killed Wei Guo two years ago. The gloves he'll be wearing will be the same kind you wore against Liu Yang. Mu Ziang isn't just punishing you for talking to the journalist. He's making an example of you. The punishment must fit the crime."

Qin Mu felt a strange calm settle over him. Fear was still there, but it was distant now, muffled by something stronger. Purpose. "So we know what he's going to do. What are we going to do?"

Gao smiled for the first time. It was not a pleasant smile. "We're going to give him exactly what he wants. A spectacle. An entertainment. A fight that everyone will remember."

"And then?"

"And then we're going to arrest him. On camera. In front of his entire audience. With evidence so overwhelming that even his friends in the department won't be able to protect him."

Lin Yao held up a small device, no larger than a button. "This is a camera. It transmits live to a server outside the building. I'll be in the audience, filming everything. Inspector Gao has a team standing by—officers he trusts, from outside the usual chain of command. When the signal comes, they move in."

"What signal?"

"You," Gao said. "When you're in the ring. When Iron Fan is wearing the gloves. When the evidence is literally in front of the cameras. That's when we move. But you have to survive until then. You have to stay in the fight long enough for us to document the crime."

"Survive. That's all?"

"That's all." Gao's expression softened. "I won't lie to you, Qin Mu. This is dangerous. Iron Fan is a killer—he's done this before, and he knows what the gloves can do. If he lands the right punch at the right angle, you could die before we can intervene."

"I know."

"And you're still willing?"

Qin Mu thought about his sister, sleeping in her hospital bed, the drugs dripping into her veins. He thought about Liu Yang, who had died because he was asking questions. He thought about Sheng Jiu, old and frail, dragged from his home to be made an example. He thought about the seventeen names in the record book, and the eighteenth that had almost been his.

"I'm not just willing," he said. "I'm ready."

The night of the fight arrived with a cold rain, the kind that soaked through clothes and made the city's lights blur into streaks of color. Qin Mu stood outside the entrance to the underground arena, the same alley he had walked three weeks ago, feeling like a different person. He was a different person. The man who had come here that first night had been desperate and blind, a needle searching for a vein. The man who stood here now was still desperate, but he was no longer blind.

Lao Xiu met him at the door. "Needle. You came."

"I was told to."

"The boss is... not happy with you." Lao Xiu's voice was strained, almost apologetic. "I tried to warn you. When you took the bonus, I thought you understood how things work."

"I understand now."

"You should have stayed in your lane, kid. You should have just fought and taken the money and kept your mouth shut."

"Like you?"

Lao Xiu flinched. "Like me. I've been here fifteen years. I've seen what happens to people who ask questions. I've learned not to ask them."

"Where's Sheng Jiu?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know." He stepped aside, letting Qin Mu pass. "Your fight is third on the card. Iron Fan is already in the locker room. Good luck, Needle. I mean that."

The locker area was the same as before, cordoned off by the same stained tarp, smelling of the same sweat and fear. Old Zhao was there, and Mountain, and Sparrow. None of them looked at him.

"You're back," Old Zhao said. "Heard you've been busy."

"Word travels."

"Word always travels down here. It's the only thing that moves faster than fists." He paused. "Is it true? What the article said?"

"Yes."

Old Zhao nodded slowly. "Seventeen. I knew some of them. Good fighters. Thought they just had bad luck." He stood up, his massive frame casting a shadow across the locker room. "Iron Fan is in the back. He's been warming up for an hour. The ref's been talking to him. The medic too."

"What are you telling me?"

"I'm telling you to watch his right hand. That's where they put it. Always the right hand."

Before Qin Mu could respond, the tarp rustled and Mu Ziang stepped through. The boss was dressed impeccably as always, his charcoal suit spotless, his cream shirt crisp, his tie the color of dried blood. Behind him stood two men Qin Mu didn't recognize—security, large and silent and empty-eyed.

"Needle," Mu Ziang said. "My little needle. You've been very busy."

"I've been preparing for the fight."

"The fight. Yes." Mu Ziang stepped closer. "You know, I really did see potential in you. That reach, that stamina—with proper training, you could have been a champion. But you chose the wrong friends. You listened to the wrong old man. You talked to the wrong journalist."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't." Mu Ziang smiled his practiced smile. "But you will. After tonight, you'll understand everything. The ancient philosophers had a saying: severe punishments for minor offenses prevent major crimes. It's a principle I've always believed in. Sheng Jiu understood it, in the end. He's been helping me refine my philosophy."

The words hit Qin Mu like a physical blow. Sheng Jiu, helping Mu Ziang? "You're lying."

"Am I? Ask yourself: who has been feeding you information? Who told you about the glove devices? Who gave the journalist her documents? Who arranged for you to defect to Jin Xuan?" Mu Ziang's smile widened. "Sheng Jiu is an old man with old grudges. He's been trying to destroy me for years, using fighters like you as his pawns. But every pawn he sends me, I turn into a lesson. Liu Yang was a lesson. You'll be a lesson too."

Qin Mu's mind raced. Sheng Jiu had been the one to reveal everything—the devices, the betting pools, the murders. He had provided the records, arranged the meetings, pushed Qin Mu toward Lin Yao and Sun Tao and Inspector Gao. But he had also been the one who knew every detail of Mu Ziang's operation. He had been inside for forty-three years. He had survived when others hadn't.

What if he had survived by becoming part of the machine?

"No," Qin Mu said. "You're trying to confuse me."

"I'm trying to educate you. There's a difference." Mu Ziang nodded to his security men. "Take him to the ring. The audience is waiting."

The men grabbed Qin Mu's arms and marched him through the tarp, down the narrow corridor, into the blast of light and noise that was the arena. The crowd was larger tonight, packed into every seat, lining the walls. They had come for the spectacle. They had come to see the punishment.

The ring was the same—gray ropes, patched canvas, buzzing fluorescent tubes. But everything else was different. In the VIP box, behind the darkened glass, Qin Mu could see figures moving, champagne flutes glinting. The referee Duan was already in the ring, his face blank. Officer Huang stood near the entrance, his uniform crisp, his eyes carefully averted.

And in the opposite corner, Iron Fan was waiting.

He was bigger than Qin Mu remembered from the descriptions—six feet tall, two hundred pounds at least, with a shaved head and a face that looked like it had been carved from granite and then cracked. His right glove was a deep, dark red. The same color as the ones Qin Mu had worn three weeks ago.

The bell rang before he was ready.

Iron Fan came forward like a landslide, slow but inevitable. His right hand stayed low, protected, while his left jabbed and probed. Qin Mu circled, using his reach, flicking out punches that glanced off the bigger man's guard. The crowd roared with every exchange, hungry for the violence they had been promised.

First round. Qin Mu survived, barely. Iron Fan's punches were heavy, each one carrying the threat of something worse—the right hand, the glove, the device that could end everything with a single blow.

Second round. Iron Fan pressed harder, backing Qin Mu into the ropes, throwing combinations that forced him to cover up. The right hand flashed once, twice, missing by inches. The referee Duan watched closely, too closely, waiting for the moment.

Third round. The moment almost came. Iron Fan feinted with his left, then brought the right hand around in a hook that grazed Qin Mu's temple. He felt something hard in the glove, something that scraped against his skin. A fraction of an inch closer, and the device would have found its mark.

He clinched, holding on, buying time. Over Iron Fan's shoulder, he could see the VIP box. The glass was dark, but he could feel Mu Ziang behind it, watching, waiting for the lesson to be delivered.

Fourth round. Qin Mu was tiring. His legs were heavy, his arms slow. Iron Fan's right hand was hunting him now, seeking the right angle, the right amount of pressure. And then, in the final minute, it found him.

The punch came from nowhere—a short, chopping right that caught Qin Mu just below the ear. He felt the impact, the hard lump in the glove, the sharp sting of something entering his skin. His vision blurred. His knees buckled.

He went down.

The referee started counting. The crowd was on its feet, screaming. In the VIP box, a champagne glass was raised in toast.

Qin Mu lay on the canvas, the world swimming around him. He could feel the fragment in his bloodstream, dissolving, spreading, doing whatever it was designed to do. But he was still conscious. Still alive. The device hadn't worked perfectly—the angle had been wrong, or the dose insufficient, or something else had intervened.

"Five... six..."

He got to his knees. The crowd noise shifted, surprised. Iron Fan stepped forward, but the referee held him back.

"Seven... eight..."

He got to his feet. The arena tilted, then steadied. Iron Fan was staring at him, disbelief in his stone eyes. In the VIP box, the champagne glass had stopped moving.

The bell rang to end the round.

Qin Mu stumbled to his corner. Lao Xiu was there, his face pale. "You should stay down. You should let it end."

"No." The word came out slurred but certain. "One more round."

"Needle—"

"One more round."

The bell rang for the fifth. Iron Fan came forward with murder in his eyes, his right hand cocked and ready. The crowd was delirious, sensing the climax. The referee was poised to stop it the moment the right punch landed.

And then, from somewhere above, a voice rang out.

"POLICE! NOBODY MOVE!"

The lights came up—not the fluorescent tubes, but the harsh white beams of police flashlights. Figures in uniform poured through the entrances, through the emergency exits, through doors that shouldn't have existed. Inspector Gao was at their head, his badge gleaming, his voice cutting through the chaos.

"Iron Fan, step away from the ropes. Duan, stay where you are. Officer Huang—yes, I see you—don't even think about reaching for your weapon."

The crowd was panicking, scrambling for exits, but the police had sealed everything. The VIP box was being breached, its door splintering under a battering ram. Qin Mu stood in the ring, swaying, the fragment still dissolving in his blood, and watched as Mu Ziang was dragged out in handcuffs, his charcoal suit rumpled, his practiced smile finally gone.

Lin Yao was in the front row, her camera still filming, her face triumphant. Sun Tao was beside her, along with a dozen Jin Xuan fighters who had come to witness the end of Chu Ting.

But there was no sign of Sheng Jiu.

Qin Mu stumbled to the ropes. "Inspector Gao. Sheng Jiu—the old man—he's not here."

Gao looked up, his expression darkening. "What do you mean he's not here?"

"Mu Ziang said... he said Sheng Jiu was working for him. That the old man had been using me, using all of us."

Gao was silent for a moment. Then he said, very quietly: "That's not possible. Sheng Jiu has been my source for six years. He's the one who first brought me the case."

"Then where is he?"

The question hung in the air, unanswered. Through the chaos of the raid, through the arrests and the evidence collection and the triumphant chaos of the broken machine, the absence of the old man loomed like a shadow.

And somewhere across the city, in a retirement complex near the old city wall, an overturned wheelchair sat in an empty apartment, and on a desk, a single sheet of paper bore a message written in fresh ink:

The punishment must fit the crime.

But whose punishment? And whose crime?

The answer, Qin Mu realized, was still out there. Waiting to be found.