Ruixi Li (李瑞希, Li Ruixi) is an executive member of the Kakyuu Association and Suzuki's boss. He is Long Fang Wang's advisor and takes over managing the group's operations following Long Fang's assassination.
Characteristics[]
Appearance[]
Li is a slim man who wears a gray suit and glasses. He has sharp eyes and a distinctive scar on his left cheek. Like his boss, he carries an intimidating air that makes him difficult to forget. Due to having a different mother than his older half-brother, Renyi, he has a much different build and appearance.
Personality[]
As personal assistant to an international organized crime leader, Li is composed and fearless. He is clever, always being able to take advantage of a situation, and he is able to discern whose information and opinions are worth listening to. He is also a habitual smoker with an addictive personality. His assistant, Suzuki, notes that becoming an advisor to Long Fang has changed him and that he smiles less than he did before. Prior to working for Lang Fang, he would not have ordered that subordinates be executed solely based on suspicion.
Background[]
As children, he and his half-brother Renyi were close, and they stayed in close contact into adulthood. Li was appreciative of Suzuki's loyalty to his brother and impressed by Renyi's high opinion of him. After Renyi was shot and killed by a rival organization, Li stopped Suzuki from cutting off his own finger and hired him as his driver.
After Zhang's death, Li was tasked with finding the killer responsible for the association's subordinates' murders, but he has so far been unable to orchestrate the death of the Niwaka Samurai.
Synopsis[]
Niwaka Samurai Impersonator Arc[]
Li is first seen accompanying Long Fang Wang to Club Eve, where they discuss the Kakyuu Group's affairs in the presence of Xianming Lin, disguised as a hostess named Rinko. Li reveals his plans to hire more killers to find Zhang's murderer. Long Fang remarks that their target, the Niwaka Samurai, is the strongest killer in Hakata, but Li discloses that the legendary killer G.G. has returned from retirement.
Li decides to host tryouts for external killers at Club Eve and invites G.G., Shunsuke Saruwatari, and Two-Hand Gun Ricky. He has Ricky removed after finding the man passed out cold due to a punch from Saruwatari, and he offers the two remaining candidates a large advance payment for the death or capture of the Niwaka Samurai. He orders his subordinates to fit them with tracking anklets for the duration of their contract.
His subordinates watch the tracking anklets closely for the next several days, finally alerting him when Saruwatari has found the Niwaka Samurai. Li and roughly ten of his men interrupt their fight and capture the samurai, covering his head and taking him away in their car. Li thanks Saruwatari and informs him that the orders from the president have changed, and the killer is now wanted alive in order for Long Fang Wang to execute him himself. With that, Li departs and leaves two of his subordinates behind to pay the ninja.
When Li learns that the Niwaka Samurai has escaped with Saruwatari's help, and the unlikely duo are fighting the Kakyuu Group members on the rooftop of their headquarters, he watches in interest for a short while. As it becomes apparent that the Kakyuu Group subordinates are being mowed down, he apprehensively orders his men to kill the two killers on sight. When the thirty-odd subordinates have been whittled down to a half dozen, another subordinate appears with the news that Long Fang's body has been discovered in his hotel suite. Li is suddenly disinterested in the two hitmen on the rooftop, and he and his men depart the building.
Shou Wang Arc[]
The sudden absence of a leader has left the Kakyuu Association in a chaotic situation, and Li is trying to hold the organization together as various other executives argue over succession and a rival organization, the Shou Wang, expands its influence in the city. Shortly after disposing of one traitor within the organization, Li has identified another and orders his right-hand man, Suzuki, to find and eliminate him.
Li receives a call later that evening after Suzuki has visited the office of Takashi Unoyama and discovered that the Submarine Ninja is targeting Kakyuu Group executives. Li and the other executives are ordered to go into hiding in hotels and holiday homes, leaving only Suzuki acting openly in the interests of the Kakyuu Group.
Suzuki has a hitman hired from Murder, Inc. accompany Li as a bodyguard, but the hitmen prove useless against the Submarine Ninja and are dismissed the next day. After the Chinese hitman Zhao proves successful in stopping the Shou Wang, Li and Suzuki attend a peace talk with Tony Lau, leader of the Shou Wang's Fukuoka operations. Li is pleased with the outcome but regretful that their highly talented new killer has to be disposed of, and he orders Suzuki to invite Zhao to dinner the following day.
In a traditional Japanese restaurant in Nakasu, Li compliments Zhao on his work and offers a celebratory toast. Zhao detects the poison in his glass, however, and distracts Suzuki before plunging a syringe filled with an unknown virus into Li's neck. Zhao informs Suzuki that Li has one week to either receive the antivirus or die, and Li is rushed to the hospital.