Participants:
| Scene Title | Blood and Trust |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Chang Ye, leader of the Flying Dragons finds himself severely wounded after an encounter with Tyler Case. |
| Date | February 18, 2009 |
Chinatown, Flying Dragons Headquarters
Two in the morning is too early for screaming.
A litany of curses spilling in Mandarin through halls of the eight story residence of the Flying Dragons. Long ago this luxurious building was one of many run-down tenements lining the streets of Chinatown, and even during the height of the Triad's influence it was never truly as opulent as it is now. Life had been good, for the Ye family, since the fall of the Civellas. Though as they say, all things come with due price.
"«Get him to the table! Get him to the table!»" A panicked cook shouts, carrying a bloodied man through the halls of the building's enormous kitchen. A drooling trail of crimson follows in the wake of this slouched figure. Two chefs carry the thin and old man arm in arm, his feet dragging through the drizzled trail of vital fluid. "«Get him up on the table! Up! Up!»" Their cries carry through the entire first floor, panicked and confused, "«Where is the doctor! Did anyone call the doctor!?»"
This is the first time in over a year that Cong Bao-Wei has been roused from his sleep for purposes of legitimate business. Never, however, has he needed to perform his surgery on the grounds of the Ye family's residence where he is so graciously afforded space.
The kitchen is in chaos, cooks that were preparing morning meals covered in blood, and a rail thin man lifted up and laid down upon a steel table that is cleared of prep work with one swipe of an arm. His legs kick, arms shaking, choking and coughing up blood, "«Where is the doctor!?»"
Waking Bao-Wei from slumber has to have more than a viable reason- you have to be ready to face the man when he does respond, and that has never ended well. Ever. At first, it's like a slow realization that you have possibly doomed yourself, and as the second moment goes by, it is like rousing a beast from a subterranean den. Rumbling, growling, something will probably rattle off of shelves- Bao-Wei is a small earthquake unto himself.
There are few other men that he would stop this slumberous fit for, and Mister Ye is one of them.
It does not take him long to get to his senses, but somehow he finds that it takes him longer to grab what he thinks he may need before leaving. As the elevator dings onto the first floor, Bao-Wei is hardly ready for the cacophony that assails him when the doors open. Yelling, visible blood on the floor- more than these brings a frown to his face, one hand moving to smooth his hair as he begins his trek to where the fright is most concentrated. Regardless, he's probably herded that same direction even if he fails to notice. Though his body refrains from putting itself into a harried state, his mind is going at a thousand miles a minute and the knuckles clutched into the large black duffel bag at his side are ghostly white.
Only when he reaches the kitchen does Bao-Wei's body seem to catch up to his brain. "«Why has no one stopped this blood?!»" Is his first harassment, dropping the half open bag to the floor beside the table and hands going to move the man's head so he doesn't drown in his own coughing fit. "«Stop running around like headless chickens and hold him down.»" The demand goes to those still around the steel table.
"«He— We're just cooks!»" One of the young men pleads, looking down at the old man writhing on the table, screaming in pain. Up close, it's clear to Bao-Wei that something terrible has happened. Chang Ye is an old man — twenty years his senior — and while he is healthy for his age, the amount of blood lost here and presumably on the way here is life-threatening. The wounds he suffers are just as mysterious as his sudden appearance at the rear entrance of the building. His head is split in two spots near his temples, two inch long slices that cut down to the bone, but not into it. Other picture wounds are visible on his clothing, blood spilling forth from what look like knife wounds in his shoulders, arms and legs. Several thin cuts are made all along his back, having torn right through his dinner jacket along his vertibrae. It looks like he was tortured.
"«He just showed up! He— he was out with Han— »" One of Liu's men, but not one brave enough to try and take Chang's life, no matter how much he was offered. "«He just showed up at the house bleeding!»" The kitchen staff is panicking, and Chang, upon seeing Cong Bao-Wei's face stares up at him with wide eyes, hissing out slurred words, delerious from pain.
"«Case— Case—»" His bleeding fingers curl into the doctor's arm, a cut on each knuckle and one on the tip of each of his fingers trailing with blood.
"«You also have arms with thumbs on the ends. Use what evolution gave you and stop jibbering- One of you help me hold him down.»" Bao-Wei does not even need to look up at the cooks to be intimidating- they know who he is well enough; that seething growl of a voice makes his presence even worse to the witless and scared. "«One of you find Han.»" Even if that man would not have enough courage to do this, he might know who did.
Now that the doctor has laid his eyes on Ye, it's clear that even if they had wanted to, it is likely that none of these men together could have stopped this bleeding. "«Towels. Now.»" When Chang's eyes meet his mismatched set, and his fingers dig into Bao-Wei's shirt, the doctor keeps his face still long enough for Ye to get that word in. Case? Bao-Wei's features crease on the edges. He doesn't know the significance of this word, and this obviously bothers him greatly. Guessing and knowing are situations that hit him so much differently. There is only one way to find that out.
"«He's lost too much blood for me to handle this alone. Call an ambulance.»" The words spit like fire, and he doesn't want to say them; Bao-Wei is already tearing into that bag he's brought with him, finding supplies he needs in order to close the largest wounds. The second that he does, there are scissors and fingers prying clothing away to get at them.
The chefs franticly work to appease Bao-Wei's rumbling demands, one rushing to a wall phone to dial 911, another helping hold the elderly patriarch of the Flying Dragons down, "«Y-Yes Sir!»" Of all the times for Liu and Song to be off on Staten Island, now is the worst. Cutting open Chang's jacket, Bao-Wei discovers no wounds on his chest, just on the old man's shoulders, elbows and his knuckles. It all starts to piece together very quickly that the majority of these cuts are where bone is closest to the surface of skin, and what isn't obvious to the untrained eye is the yellow-purple brusing beneath the skin in other places.
Old, stern eyes stare up at Bao-Wei, his hands shaking as he watches his most trusted surgeon tend to bleeding wounds, where the head of the family is at his most vulnerable. But words fail now, and it is all Chang Ye can do to stay conscious, head laid down on the steel top of the table.
"«Here! Here!»" One of the cooks returns with several towels, laying all but one down on the table, the other is quickly held out to the surgeon. Another cook arrives with a large kettle filled with water, one more looking helpless holding a first-aid kit as he stares down at Chang's bloodied body.
"«The ambulance is on the way!»" One of the cooks from by the phone calls out, even as two of the cooks are stripping off their aprons and donning jackets, heading out th eback door to look for Han.
At the very least, Bao-Wei is able to throttle the reins in the right places to get these men to screw their heads back on. That's good enough for him. His eyes travel only marginally past his work as he takes the towel and the kettle from their respective hands; those contusions under the skin and the closeness of bone not going unnoticed. It is his job to see them.
Bao-Wei takes the water to the towel, and the towel to the more threatening wounds before he begins to try and sew them shut; any other time, he would be using gloves, but there has been too much blood loss to be worrying about smaller things. His fingers, despite the man attached to them, are deftly working at the needle and stiff thread.
"«Start mopping, boy.»" The nearest cook gets a new order, but then Bao-Wei concentrates back and forth from Chang Ye's face to his hands. "«Case?»" The doctor only ventures to find a better answer when it seems like the old man is about to pass out. Keeping him awake is just one more task.
"«Tyler Case.»" Chang hisses out the words thorugh clenched teeth, eyes forced shut from either the pain of hs many wonds, or the needle and thread sewing them shut. "«Han is dead. He — »" There's just a moment of time where Chang carefully reconsiders his words, "«Case killed him. Fish market — Donny Yoo's. The police will be asking questions…»" Swallowing dryly, Chang's eyes open, brow lowered as his jaw clenches tightly, words strained through his teeth.
"«Where is my son?»" He demands, with all of the authority age and station should give him, despite being shirtless and bleeding on a kitchen table in the back room of his very own residence. Humility, it seems, has no part in the genetics of the Ye family.
Humility is the last thing Bao-Wei expects from the Ye name, so there is no surprise when Chang starts to talk more fully, and with willful vigor. "«Staten Island.»" You'll be feeling a pinch- and the doctor ties off one set of stitches already, and starting another.
He looks down into Chang's eyes after absorbing everything, that look behind them a familiar one- the cogs in Bao-Wei's head are so much a part of him that they are practically visible as they click and turn. A grandfather clock- pieces of a machine- a machine with an impassive face, except for at ten-and-two.
"«They always ask questions, mister Ye.»" Bao-Wei cocks his head up, eyeing a near employee. "«Get someone out to Yoo's.»" Either to clean up Yoo's, or to survey the police doing it. If the Doctor wants to know something, you had best help him figure it out. Knowledge is power, remember?
"«Get my son,»" Chang rattles, teeth gnashing together, "«Tell him to find Tyler Case and kill him.»" Something that perhaps is more Song Ye's delight, but the odds are Liu wouldn't look twice at the orders, though given the state of Chang Ye at the moment, it's a wonder if perhaps Liu would give Taylor a pat on the back, rather than a knife in it. "«I want him dead.»"
At Bao-Wei's orders, another one of the cooks abandons the kitchen, removing his apron and snatching his jacket before running off to catch the others who left to look for Han. Woo's Fish market is only a block from here, so they thankfully don't have far to go. On the same token, it means whoever did this to Chang Ye can't be that far away yet.
"«Bao-Wei Sir!»" Finally house security arrives, a pair of young men in dark suits, who immediately are taken aback and avert their eyes when they see Chang's bloodied form on the table. "«Sir, the ambulance has arrived out front.»"
"«Get me a jacket.»" The ragged only man hisses, glaring up at one of the cooks, "«I will not be hauled off into the streets shirtless, I will take my dignity.»" The cook nods and sharply turns, rushing towards the nearest room to try and find Mister Ye something to wear. Even in that, Chang's dark eyes settle on Bao's again. "«Find him, Cong. Find him and make him pay.»"
They gave him a week, and now he has nothing. So much for being merciful anymore.
Bao-Wei responds after he is addressed by name, cutting off the second of the stitches over the heavier wounds. "«Consider it done, sir.»" After meeting Chang's, the paler of his eyes seems like an entity all its own in the fluorescent light, flickering back and forth to make sure that Chang will be fine in being hauled away to a real hospital. Physically, hopefully. Emotionally, he is likely to be even more pissed than he is now, later. Especially so if that blood loss happens to be worse than it looks. "«I have something special in mind.»"
Struggling to sit, even as the sound of many footsteps in a distant hall and the creaking wheels of a stretcher are heard, Chang Ye looks up at Bao-Wei with gray brows lowered. The look on his face explains it all, that cold ruthlessness that has allowed a man in his seventies to retain control of a cut-throat criminal organization, that palpable presence of authority and ferocity that he retains even in his advanced age. He has not grown weaker over time, but simple ripened like a fine wine. When finally looks do nothing to solve Chang's true resolve, he lays back helpless on the table as paramedics come in with a stretcher, pausng at the sight of all of the blood.
"«Good.»" Is Chang's growled response to Bao-Wei. The bitter taste of humiliation at the hands of Tyler Case will only be sweetened by the thought of Bao-Wei doing the one thing that terrifies others most.
Being Creative.
 February 17th: What Makes A Monster |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 February 18th: It Starts With A Body |