Lin Qing is a promising business management graduate, always impeccably dressed in Taipei, until a letter from home pulls him back to the heart of the storm: Anping, Tainan. His father, Lin Shuisu, rules the docks with an iron fist as the gang boss of the Shuishu Gang. This world reeks of the sea, rust, cheap betel nut, and unrestrained violence, a stark contrast to the orderly life of Taipei.
His first lesson after returning home is watching his father hack off the fingers of a debtor named A Shun in front of a tea table, to collect a debt of six hundred thousand. Lin Qing tries to persuade his father to reform with a blueprint for “professionalizing” and “legitimizing” the business, only to be met with cold mockery: “You’ve read too many books.” The elegant butterfly knife in his suit pocket becomes a chilling mark of his fractured identity.
The conflict erupts in full when his father forces him to change into a floral shirt, the symbol of gang membership, and he witnesses A Shun’s wife jump into the sea and take her own life. In a fit of rage and despair, Lin Qing accidentally stabs his father’s right-hand man, Hei Xiong, to death with his butterfly knife. Lin Shuisu uses the last of his authority to take the blame for the bloody crime and exiles his son to the even more dangerous city of Kaohsiung.
On the chaotic fringes of Kaohsiung Harbor, Lin Qing is like a wounded lone wolf. With his father’s cruel words ringing in his ears, “Either be ruthless enough, or wait to die,” he puts away his suit and brings out the butterfly knife stained with his brother’s blood. Starting with low-level thugs who come over to join him, he relies on extraordinary courage, cold calculation, and a deep understanding of the rules of bloodshed. A meticulously planned ambush sets off a war on Qixian Road. With the iron nerve his father left him, he smashes the head of the first traitor to charge him in the most primitive and bloodiest way, heralding the arrival of a new era and the expansion of his underworld empire.
Recommended, first person, the psychological growth of the protagonist is written out
Will there be trouble later?