3. Blood for Pleasure

The industrial quarter sprawled along the northern bank of the canal, a forest of smokestacks and corrugated iron sheds where the sky was perpetually overcast with coal dust. Shi Zhen had been here before, covering labour disputes and factory fires, but never like this—never as a fugitive with a dead man's letter in his pocket and the weight of his family's life pressing against his ribs.

The textile mill was the largest building in the district, a five-storey brick monolith with windows painted black to prevent workers from watching the daylight pass. Its whistle had just blown for the midday shift change, and a tide of exhausted men and women poured through the gates, their faces grey with fatigue and cotton fibres clinging to their clothes like frost.

Shi Zhen waited near a tea stall that served bowls of bitter black tea for a single copper coin. He scanned the crowd until he spotted a man he recognized: Deng Kuan, a union organizer he had interviewed two years earlier after a strike at the match factory. Deng was broad-shouldered and walked with a slight limp from a beating administered by the warlord's police. His eyes, however, remained undimmed.

"Deng Kuan," Shi Zhen called, stepping into his path.

Deng stopped, his face hardening with instant recognition and instant wariness. "Reporter Shi. I heard about your trouble. Everyone in the quarter has heard." He glanced around, lowering his voice. "You should not be here. Jia Hu's men have been through twice already, asking questions and leaving threats."

"Then you know what I am up against."

"I know you poked a hornet's nest and got stung." Deng's voice was not unsympathetic, but it was cautious. "What do you want from us?"

Shi Zhen took a breath. "My wife and daughter are being held at the eastern reservoir hunting lodge. Tomorrow night, Jia Hu is planning one of his hunts. They will be the prey."

Deng's expression did not change, but something flickered in his eyes—a memory, perhaps, of other hunts, other victims. "That is a tragedy, Reporter Shi. But it is your tragedy. The union does not exist to rescue individuals. It exists to protect the collective."

"This is not about one family." Shi Zhen stepped closer, his voice dropping. "You know what Jia Hu is. You know what he does. The workers who disappear from the picket lines, the organizers who are found in canals. He is not just a sadist. He is the warlord's enforcer. If he falls, Jin Jinggong loses his sharpest blade. And if the warlord is weakened, the union grows stronger."

Deng was silent for a long moment. A tram rattled past, its bell clanging. "Come with me," he said finally.

He led Shi Zhen through a maze of alleys to a warehouse behind a dye works, where the air smelled of indigo and chemicals. Inside, a dozen men and women sat on crates and barrels, their faces lit by a single hanging lantern. They were union delegates, the backbone of the labour movement in Jinyang. Their names were known to the police. Their lives were already forfeit if the regime decided to crack down.

Deng introduced Shi Zhen, then stepped back and let him speak.

Shi Zhen told them everything. Not as a journalist, but as a husband and father. He told them about the ammunition crates filled with sand. He told them about General Xun's confession. He told them about the photographs in Old Wu's box, the clearing in the forest, the kneeling figures, the laughing hunters. He told them about the braid tied with a green ribbon.

When he finished, the warehouse was silent. Then a woman rose from her crate. She was perhaps forty, her hands scarred from chemical burns, her hair pulled back in a severe knot. Her name was Lian, and she was the delegate from the match factory, where workers died young from phosphorus poisoning.

"You ask us to risk our lives for your family," she said. "Why should we? What has your newspaper ever done for us? You write about our strikes when they are crushed. You write about our dead when they are buried. But you have never stopped a single beating. You have never saved a single life."

Shi Zhen met her gaze. "You are right. I wrote about you from a safe distance. I told myself that telling the truth was enough. It is not enough. I know that now." He pulled the letter from his pocket, General Xun's confession, and held it up. "But I am not asking you to save only my family. I am asking you to help me expose a monster. The same monster who hunts his prisoners for sport is the monster who breaks your strikes and murders your organizers. He is one man, and he can be brought down."

"And what happens after?" Lian demanded. "Another adjutant takes his place. Another warlord's blade. Nothing changes."

"It changes if we make it change." Deng stepped forward. "I have been organizing for fifteen years. I have seen men like Jia Hu come and go. They are not invincible. They rely on fear. When enough people stop being afraid, they fall." He looked around at the delegates. "Reporter Shi is right about one thing. This hunt tomorrow night is not just about his family. It is a message to all of us. It says no one is safe. It says Jia Hu can take anyone, anytime, for his amusement. If we let this happen without response, we are telling him he is correct."

The debate continued for another hour. Some delegates argued for caution. Others for action. Lian remained skeptical, her arms crossed, her scarred hands still. But in the end, the vote was taken, and the result was close but clear.

"We will help you," Deng said. "Not for your newspaper. Not for General Xun. For our own dead. And because if we do not stand together against men like Jia Hu, we will all die separately."

They planned through the afternoon. The eastern reservoir was a man-made lake surrounded by dense pine forest, the hunting lodge accessible only by a single road that wound through the hills. Jia Hu's private guards patrolled the perimeter. The hunt was scheduled for sunset, when the light was dramatic and the photographs would be striking.

"We cannot attack the lodge directly," Deng said, sketching on a scrap of paper. "Too many guards. Too many guns. But the hunt itself—when they take the prisoners into the forest—that is when they are spread thin. That is when we can intercept."

Lian, who had stayed despite her earlier opposition, pointed at the sketch. "The prisoners will be released first, given a head start. The hunters follow after, on horseback usually. If we position people along the escape routes, we can extract the prisoners before the hunters reach them."

"There is an old logging trail here." Deng marked an X. "It leads to a disused rail spur. If we can get the prisoners there, we can move them out of the district before dawn."

"And Jia Hu?" Shi Zhen asked. His voice was quiet, but it carried.

The room went still. Deng looked at him. "This is a rescue mission, Reporter Shi. Not an assassination."

"If Jia Hu survives, he will hunt us all. You know this. He will not stop until every person in this room is dead. And their families. And their friends." Shi Zhen looked around at the delegates. "I am not asking you to kill him. I am telling you that if we do not, he will kill us. It is that simple."

Lian spoke, her voice hard. "He is right. I have seen what happens to people who cross Jia Hu and live. A year ago, a union man from the steel mill tried to expose the hunting parties. Jia Hu did not kill him. He killed his wife. His parents. His two sons. Then he let the man live, so he would have to carry that weight forever. That is what we are dealing with."

The vote on Jia Hu's fate was not taken aloud. It passed in the silence between them, a shared understanding that some evils could not be contained, only ended.

As darkness fell, the delegates dispersed to gather their people. Deng walked Shi Zhen to a safe house above a noodle kitchen, where the steam from the boiling pots would mask their conversation.

"There is something else," Deng said as they climbed the narrow stairs. "Something you should know about Jia Hu. It is not just the killing he enjoys. It is the anticipation. He likes to watch his victims wait. He likes to see the hope drain from their eyes. That is why he takes them a day before the hunt. He visits them. He talks to them. He tells them exactly what will happen."

Shi Zhen's stomach turned. "He is with them now."

"Probably. But that means he is distracted. It means he is at the lodge, not in the city. His attention is on the hunt. That gives us an advantage." Deng opened the door to a small room with a mattress on the floor and a single window overlooking the canal. "Rest if you can. We move at dawn."

Shi Zhen did not rest. He sat by the window, watching the moonlight on the water, and thought about Ying and Peony in that hunting lodge. He imagined Jia Hu visiting them, his voice soft and conversational, describing the forest, the head start, the sound of the dogs. He imagined Ying's face, trying to stay brave for their daughter. He imagined Peony, too young to understand, asking when they could go home.

He opened his notebook and wrote by moonlight. He wrote down everything he could remember about the labour delegates, their faces, their words, the vote that had turned strangers into allies. He wrote about Lian's scarred hands and Deng's limp and the courage it took to stand against a monster when standing meant dying.

Then, because he could not stop himself, he wrote a letter to his wife.

"Ying. If you find this, it means I am gone. I want you to know that I tried. I tried to be the man you married. I tried to do the right thing, even when the right thing cost everything. I am sorry I could not protect you. I am sorry I could not protect Peony. You were the best part of my life. You and our daughter. Everything I did, I did for you. I hope that is enough. I hope you can forgive me."

He folded the letter and tucked it into his coat. He did not cry. He had no tears left.

Dawn came grey and cold. Shi Zhen descended to the noodle kitchen, where Deng and a dozen men and women were gathered, drinking tea and eating steamed buns with the grim efficiency of people who did not know if this would be their last meal.

The group was a cross-section of the city's underclass. Dockworkers with arms like tree roots. Textile women with nimble fingers and sharp eyes. A former soldier who had deserted after being ordered to fire on strikers. A student who had been radicalized by reading banned pamphlets. They carried an assortment of weapons—cleavers, iron bars, a few rusted pistols—the improvised arsenal of the desperate.

"We have a truck," Deng said, gesturing toward a battered flatbed with wooden slats for sides. "It will get us to the logging trail. After that, we walk."

They climbed into the truck, sitting among sacks of rice and bolts of cloth to disguise their purpose. The engine coughed to life, and they rattled out of the industrial quarter, past the sleeping factories and the shantytowns where workers lived six families to a room, toward the eastern hills where the wealthy had built their pleasure retreats.

The road climbed through terraced fields and orchards, the city shrinking behind them. Shi Zhen watched it disappear and wondered if he would ever see it again. He thought about Old Wu, who had probably been arrested by now, or worse. He thought about the edition they had printed, spreading through the city like ripples from a stone. He wondered if it was making any difference at all.

At midday, they reached the logging trail and abandoned the truck. The forest was dense and quiet, the pines towering overhead, their needles muffling every sound. Deng sent scouts ahead, and they reported back within the hour.

"The lodge is about two miles east," one scout said. "There are guards at the gate—six that we could see, maybe more inside. They are preparing for something. We saw them bringing horses from the stable."

"The hunt is still on," Deng said grimly. "Despite the newspaper. Despite everything. Jia Hu is not backing down."

"Of course he is not," Lian said. "If he cancels the hunt, it looks like fear. He cannot afford to look afraid." She turned to Shi Zhen. "Your wife said there are other prisoners. How many, we do not know. We need to be prepared for anything."

They moved through the forest, staying off the main path, using deer trails and dry creek beds. The afternoon light slanted through the pines in golden shafts. It was beautiful, Shi Zhen thought, this place where terrible things happened.

At dusk, they reached a ridge overlooking the hunting grounds. Below them, a clearing opened in the forest, and at its center stood the lodge—a sprawling wooden structure with a wide veranda and stables to the side. Lanterns were being lit, their glow warm and inviting against the gathering dark.

Shi Zhen pressed himself against a fallen log and watched through a pair of field glasses Deng had provided. He saw guards patrolling the perimeter, their rifles glinting. He saw horses being saddled, their breath steaming in the cold air. He saw men in hunting jackets gathering on the veranda, drinking from silver flasks and laughing.

And then he saw Jia Hu. The adjutant emerged from the lodge, wearing a tailored hunting coat and polished boots. He moved with the easy confidence of a man who owned everything he surveyed. He spoke to one of the guards, nodded, and then turned toward the forest, toward the ridge where Shi Zhen lay hidden, as if he could sense eyes upon him.

Shi Zhen's finger tightened on the trigger of the pistol Deng had given him—an old Mauser with a cracked grip and a tendency to jam. He forced himself to breathe. Not yet. Not yet.

As the sun dropped below the treeline, the guards brought out the prisoners. There were five of them, their hands bound, their clothes torn. Shi Zhen's heart stopped when he saw Ying. She walked with her head high, her back straight, refusing to stumble even when a guard shoved her. Peony was beside her, clinging to her mother's sleeve, her face streaked with tears but her mouth set in a determined line that broke Shi Zhen's heart.

The other three prisoners were men Shi Zhen did not recognize—probably union organizers or political prisoners who had crossed Jia Hu. They looked like men who had already accepted death.

Jia Hu addressed the prisoners from the veranda, his voice carrying across the clearing. Shi Zhen could not make out the words, but the tone was unmistakable—the gentle, reasonable tone of a predator explaining to its prey why this was all perfectly fair.

Then the guards cut the prisoners' bonds and pushed them toward the forest. The hunt was beginning.

"They will give them a ten-minute head start," Deng whispered. "Then the hunters follow on horseback. The dogs will track them. We need to intercept before the dogs catch the scent."

Shi Zhen was already moving. He slid down the ridge, keeping low, moving parallel to the path the prisoners had taken. Behind him, the union fighters spread out in a skirmish line, their weapons ready.

The forest was dark now, the pines blocking the last of the twilight. Shi Zhen moved by instinct, his feet finding purchase on roots and stones. He could hear the prisoners crashing through the underbrush ahead, the sound of their flight. He could hear something else too—the distant baying of hounds.

He caught up to Ying at the base of a dry waterfall, where she had stopped to catch her breath. Peony was clinging to her, sobbing quietly. Ying looked up as he approached, and for a moment, her face was not relieved. It was furious.

"You came," she said. "I told you not to come alone."

"I am not alone." Shi Zhen pulled her into his arms, feeling her heart pounding against his chest. Peony wrapped her arms around his leg. "There are others. We are going to get you out of here."

"The other prisoners—"

"We will get them too. But we have to move. The dogs are coming."

Deng appeared through the trees with two of his fighters, and together they gathered the other prisoners. One of them, a union man from the railway yard, had a broken arm and could barely walk. They supported him between them and pressed on toward the logging trail.

The hounds were closer now, their baying a frantic clamour. Shi Zhen could hear the hoofbeats of the horses, the shouts of the hunters. A gunshot cracked through the forest, then another.

"They are shooting into the trees," Lian said, her voice flat. "Trying to flush us out."

They reached the logging trail just as the first hunters broke through the treeline. Shi Zhen pushed Ying and Peony behind a fallen tree and raised his pistol. His hand was shaking.

Jia Hu rode at the head of the hunting party, his horse lathered, his face alight with a joy that was almost ecstatic. He saw Shi Zhen and reined in his horse, a smile spreading across his face.

"Reporter Shi!" Jia Hu called, his voice carrying easily over the chaos. "I wondered if you would come. I must admit, I underestimated you. Most men would have crawled into a bottle and stayed there." He gestured at the scene around him—the fighters, the fleeing prisoners, the milling dogs. "But this? This is positively theatrical. I am impressed."

"This ends tonight," Shi Zhen said, his voice steady despite the trembling in his hands.

"Does it?" Jia Hu tilted his head. "Look around you. My men are everywhere. The hunt is proceeding exactly as planned. The only difference is that now I have an extra guest to add to the guest list." He smiled, a thin crescent of teeth. "Your wife is very brave, by the way. She did not beg. She did not cry. She only asked that I spare your daughter. I told her I would think about it."

Shi Zhen pulled the trigger. The Mauser jammed.

Jia Hu laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Old weapons. So unreliable. You really should have—"

A shot rang out, and Jia Hu's horse screamed and collapsed, throwing him to the ground. Lian stood behind Shi Zhen, a smoking rifle in her hands, her scarred face set in grim satisfaction.

"Go," she said. "Get your family out of here."

Shi Zhen grabbed Ying and Peony and ran. Behind him, the forest erupted into chaos—gunfire, shouting, the screams of wounded men. He did not look back. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs gave out, and then he kept running.

They reached the rail spur as dawn was breaking. A handcar waited on the tracks, manned by a young student who had been part of Deng's network. Shi Zhen lifted Peony onto the car, then helped Ying climb aboard.

"Deng?" he asked the student.

"Still fighting. He said to get you to safety. He said the story is not finished."

The handcar began to move, its wheels squealing on the rusted rails. Shi Zhen looked back at the forest, where columns of smoke were rising through the pines. The hunting lodge was burning.

Ying leaned against him, her body exhausted, her eyes closed. Peony was asleep in her lap, her face peaceful for the first time in days. Shi Zhen put his arms around them both and watched the sun rise over the hills.

They had escaped. But Jia Hu was still alive—Shi Zhen was certain of it. He had seen the adjutant rise from his fallen horse, had seen him shouting orders, his face contorted with rage. The hunt had not ended. It had only changed its target.

The handcar clattered on through the morning, carrying them toward an uncertain safety. Shi Zhen pulled out his notebook and began to write. The final edition was still to come. And this time, it would be written with something far sharper than ink.