‘Come on, Ngai… wake the fuck up,’ he muttered to himself, stripping off the blood-soaked Adidas track top because it was the only thing he could manage. His hands were dead, legs barely answering, head pulsing like it was being squeezed in a vice, his neck feeling loose and wrong, and he forced himself to take inventory. Under the harsh white work light his vision finally caught: 2 industrial washing machines to his left, their metal drums streaked and dull; a green rubber hose snaked across the floor from an outlet at his 11 o’clock; to the right, a porcelain sink with a mirror already fogged and spattered; behind him, a dehydrator unit still sweating condensation. No first-aid kit in sight, and it wasn’t known if the compound secretly was bought up, if the apartment itself was just a shell property, or whether the renter is disposed off. He dragged himself upright anyway, fighting not to slip in his own vomit or the water pooled across the tiles. ‘Ugh, shit… I’m going to get some military-ass motherfuckers on all of you one day…’ he hissed, legs wrecked, balance gone, bracing himself against the sink and smearing it red with his hands. He lifted his head inch by inch and met his reflection: blood ran down his face in thin lines, his nose bridged kicked inward and off to the left, his right brow swelling fast with also a laceration, the back of his head bleeding enough that he didn’t trust himself to peel off the wife-beater or even look below the waist. He turned the tap, gripped his nose, and snapped it back into place in one ugly motion. ‘Ahh, ssibal—son of a bitch…’ he breathed, watching blood spill into the basin and swirl away. Somewhere in the fog of pain he did the drunken math: maybe 4 or 5 minutes before they came back, enough time to rinse himself, steal clean clothes if they existed, wipe the room down or do at least to the best of his abilities. Escape wasn’t an option, and he didn’t see a way to retrieve his HTC either—ID was with the triads, and so was the burner phone; whatever pop-up triad outfit was running that Fanshen Road compound would have eyes everywhere, and picking a lock would just get him killed faster...

SECURITY ISSUE - The Transgressive Crime Novel extract

ACT 1: UNPROVEN ANTIDOTE FOR DESTRUCTION

24/12/2025

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