Apartment buildings held more poisonous insects than Li Ang had imagined.

Drugs, crime, and poverty were known as the three major chronic diseases of Philippine society.

Even before Duterte launched his war on drugs, drug lords had been using money and power to open the doors to the upper class.

From the lowest-level police officers to the Secretary of Justice, Lilia de Lima, half of the Philippine administrative and law enforcement agencies were involved in the drug interest chain.

Out of the Philippines' total population of one hundred million, three million seven hundred thousand people were involved in drugs, and that number was growing wildly every day.

Poverty, corruption, backwardness, and ignorance—every factor was driving the expansion of drugs.

A large percentage of Philippine youths, even teenagers, who had not received a basic education, had not been properly disciplined by their parents, had no decent jobs, and had no hope became drug addicts.

Many people even joined various gangs in order to get more money to buy drugs, actively entering this black interest chain.

It was difficult to determine whether the so-called "civilians" living in this apartment building were truly just ordinary people slightly involved in drugs, or members of the drug interest chain.

Seventeen, fourteen or fifteen, even twelve or thirteen-year-old Filipinos roamed the hallways.

They held either handguns or machetes, in groups of three or five, shouting loudly.

When the special operations team entered the building, Tama Riyadi, in order to reduce the losses of his subordinates,

deliberately used the broadcasting system to tell all the residents in the building that as long as they killed or eliminated a special operations agent, they would be exempt from all rent and receive one million Philippine pesos from him, or the equivalent value in drugs.

Heavy rewards bring brave men. After the special operations team was dispersed by regular gang members, these thin, short teenagers plucked up the courage to walk out of their rooms and wander around in the corridors.

They held handguns and machetes, constantly tapping the ceramic walls of the corridor with the blades, making a crisp sound, their eyes full of desire for money.

A skinny teenager in a red shirt violently kicked open a door.

He rushed into the house with a machete and looked around, seeing faint bloodstains on the ground, pointing towards the bedroom.

The red shirt silently lay on the ground, peering through the bedroom door.

He excitedly got up, ran to the corridor, his hand still gripping the door frame, and shouted excitedly to his wandering companions, "There's someone here!"

"Where?"

"Coming, coming!"

A group of people shouted chaotically, rushed into the house in a swarm, squeezed together, and violently smashed open the bedroom door with the handles of their knives.

Behind the bedroom door was a young woman, and on the bed in the bedroom lay an old woman with a sallow complexion. The air was filled with the smell of herbal medicine.

The woman glared at the teenagers and shouted, "What are you doing?!"

Her name was Ligaya, and according to Philippine custom, she was usually called "Joy."

{Filipinos, regardless of gender, age, or status, all have a catchy nickname, such as Junjun, Big Ghost, Dingdong, Lingling, Jojo}

The teenager in the red shirt stared at Joy for a while, a smile flashing across his face, and pushed her away, came to the bed, and lay on the ground.

Under the bed, a special operations agent was lying on his back.

His right arm and left leg had been wounded by bullets, and blood was flowing all over the ground.

The agent struggled to raise his gun, but the red shirt quickly jumped up from the ground, grabbed Joy, and shouted under the bed, "If you dare to shoot, she's dead!"

After saying that, the red shirt gave his companions a look. Two teenagers jumped onto the bed, flipped to the other side, leaned sideways, and dragged the agent out from under the bed.

The agent tried to raise his gun to fight back, but someone kicked the gun out of his hand, and he also took a few kicks to the face. A tooth flew out, and his face swelled up instantly.

"Take off his coat!"

The red shirt let go of Joy. The teenagers happily dragged the agent to the living room.

Some people took off the agent's bulletproof vest and put it on, some people waved the agent's walkie-talkie, and some people brandished the heavy handgun back and forth.

The red shirt looked at his excited companions, turned around, looked at Miss Joy, who was trying to stay calm, and said with an evil smile, "Are you hiding him?"

Joy shook her head, looked at the face that was once familiar but now extremely strange, and said stiffly, "He has a gun. He forced me to do it, Kaka. You should go home."

The teenager nicknamed Kaka stared at the shirt Joy was wearing, and the lean but clearly contoured body under the shirt, licked his lips.

Joy was not involved in drugs. She lived in this building simply because of the cheap rent here.

Kaka once liked Joy—when he was a pure teenager.

But the more beautiful the fantasy, the more cruel the reality.

How could a woman like Joy, who had no job, afford to support herself, and even have money to treat her critically ill mother?

The answer was self-evident.

Kaka stared at Joy, his eyes a little red. Joy seemed to realize something, and her trembling body paused.

She said with difficulty, "Not in the bedroom."

Kaka grinned, inserted the machete into the waistband around his waist, and dragged Joy towards the balcony.

At this time, the group of teenagers were still punching and kicking the agent. After hearing no screams, they picked up their machetes listlessly, preparing to cut off the agent's head.

Da—

A gunshot, a short and decisive gunshot, rang out by the door frame.

There stood a dark gun barrel.

The teenager who was about to slash down with the machete was shot in the head, his body convulsing, and fell to the ground.

Before the teenagers could digest this death that had happened before their eyes, there was another gunshot.

The second person fell to the ground, also shot in the head, blood mist spreading.

A companion, splashed with red and white matter, was about to scream when a bullet, no one knew where it came from, hit the bridge of his nose, and his entire face caved in.

Da, da, da, da.

One bullet, one gunshot, one life.

The teenagers in the living room had never experienced such fear. They either crawled on the ground, climbing towards the sofa, or stood up and ran towards the bedroom.

But the muzzle of the gun standing by the door frame seemed to have eyes, tracking their body trajectories, and steadily and calmly sending bullets towards them.

The gunshots finally stopped. The living room was littered with corpses. At this time, less than three seconds had passed since the first gunshot.

On the balcony, Kaka, still in the posture of tearing at his belt, pulled Joy and squatted on the ground.

In front of the balcony's floor-to-ceiling windows, there was a pile of cardboard boxes, with some sundries inside.

Step, step, step.

The sound of military boots stepping in blood echoed in the living room. Li Ang, smelling the strong smell of blood, murmured to himself, "One more to go."

One more to go.

On the balcony, Kaka's body suddenly trembled. He took out his handgun, and tried to shoot while sticking close to the cardboard boxes.

However, the living room was empty. Kaka subconsciously looked up and saw that Li Ang had somehow reached the edge of the balcony.

The dark muzzle of the handgun was pointing at Kaka's forehead. At this moment, Kaka remembered many things.

His father, who had abandoned his wife and children and was goofing off somewhere, his mother, who earned money by washing clothes for others to supplement the family, and ended up working so hard that she fell ill and died,

his younger brother, who followed him around all day, the so-called "gang leader" who gave him a piece of colored sticker and dragged him into the abyss...

Those people, those things.

If he hadn't accepted the colored sticker given to him by the gang leader that day, maybe he wouldn't have become addicted, and he wouldn't have dropped out of school, bringing his younger brother, who should have had a bright future, to live in this damn apartment.

If he had another chance, he would definitely study hard, as his mother had told him before she died, and take his brother to the city to find a decent job.

Ah, I almost forgot, his younger brother was also dead, in the living room, the one who raised the knife just now.

Pa—

The muffled sound of a suppressed handgun rang out. A blood hole appeared in Kaka's forehead, his face still frozen with a juvenile, ingratiating smile.

Another corpse fell to the ground. Li Ang didn't even look at it, and said to Joy, who was squatting on the ground, her face covered in blood, and unable to speak due to extreme shock, "Are you okay?"

"Ah, I, I'm okay," Joy stammered.

"Very good." Li Ang nodded, walked back to the living room, dragged the bruised and swollen agent out of the pile of corpses, bandaged his wounds a little, and placed him on the living room sofa.

"Help me take care of him."

Li Ang casually ordered, "When the gunshots have completely stopped, take him to the hospital, okay?"

"Uh, okay."

Joy nodded like a chicken pecking at rice, watching Li Ang skillfully strip the corpses of the teenagers of grenades, stun grenades, rifle magazines, and other equipment, and push the door and leave.