Outside the Law

Chapter 1

The private parties of Ping City were always extravagant.

Regardless of how terrible the economy was according to Ping City's local newspaper reports, the only deviations at these gatherings were the different faces among the ever changing crowds, the locations of the parties, the areas the live bands were situated, and the types of purses women carried around.　

Luo Yu was a common visitor of such places. He wore a form fitting steel grey three-piece suit and had a beautiful female companion on his arm as he smoothly chatted with the head officer of Ping City's city hall.

"——Mr. Luo!"

A sudden shout cut through the air, causing several guests to look in the direction of the door.　

Hearing this, Luo Yu turned his head; it was his personal a.s.sistant, Lu Yi. Lu Yi's face was pale and his forehead sweaty as he jogged over. Behind him, two bodyguards followed.　

The person who shouldn't have shown up at tonight's party most of all was Lu Yi.　

Luo Yu's eyebrows slightly furrowed. He lifted an arm to check his watch, then politely excused himself from his conversation with the man across and hurriedly walked over to Lu Yi.　

Lu Yi should've been completing a transaction for him.

There was a batch of firearms scheduled to arrive at the small cargo pier of Li Island north of Ping City. Lu Yi was the one Luo Yu had a.s.signed to receive it.　

"Mr. Luo." Large beads of cold sweat dripped down Lu Yi's forehead, his voice shaking uncontrollably. Lu Yi was an extremely calm person, the only reason he would be so frightened was if something had happened to that shipment of cargo.

　

Luo Yu guided him behind a relatively hidden Roman pillar and gestured for him to wipe his sweat before speaking.　

"Our cargo ship," Lu Yi swallowed, "was empty."

He handed his phone to Luo Yu; on it were some pictures he had taken.　

The setting in the pictures was dirty and messy. The ship's crew had been tied up and thrown in the storage area, tape over their mouths and backs leaned against a container. The official load on this ship were cotton and children's toys, but in the lining of five cargo containers were a shipment of Barrett M82A1 sniper rifles and over ten thousand Browning automatic rifle bullets.

Luo Yu was only the middleman for this haul of firearms. He had reached an agreement with a Middle Eastern buyer. The M82A1 rifles and their bullets would only need to stay in Ping City for 10 hours before being transported to the buyer's warehouse. Luo Yu would then receive a hefty payment of eight figures.

For Luo Yu, this wasn't considered a big transaction, which was why he had sent Lu Yi to receive the shipment. But if he couldn't complete his end of the business deal, then he would have a bigger problem on his hands.　

After the photos was a short video, taken when Lu Yi accidentally switched from photo to film mode. The video was filled with shaky shots of the ship crews' faces. Lu Yi had someone tear the tape off a crewman's mouth, but upon regaining freedom, the other only knew to scream as loud as he could for help.

Lu Yi held the phone in one hand and an extra bright flashlight in the other. He shifted the lens from the man's face to the rusted wall of the boat, only to see a piece of A4 paper crookedly nailed into a panel. On it, typed in large, bolded STSong font, was a single character: Ruan.

"Ruan Zheng."

Luo Yu lightly spat out a name. Lu Yi's head lowered even further.

He pondered for a few seconds, then deleted the video and pictures. He strolled back to the place still filled with laughter and song, and told his female companion a bit of disappointing news: he had things to do, so would be leaving first. He then asked his female companion if she would like to leave with him, or if she would be staying.