Off to the side of a store was a door, and on it hung a rotten slat of wood. A few crooked words were carved into it with a dagger—The Bullet Shell Bar.
This was the place Zhou Guoping had talked about. According to him, it was an entertainment hub of Sixth Street.
After arranging for Zhou Guoping to handle the renovations, Jiang Chen personally came here to do some market research since he didn’t know the tastes of the people. The best way to find out was to personally have a drink or two.
While the renovations weren’t the best, there was a surprising number of customers.
Strange individuals covered in large trench coats sat alone at a table near the door, drinking alcohol that stung the nose. A young man with a red headscarf had a cigarette in his mouth and one foot on a chair as he dealt cards. There were lone travelers, bandits, and those of the profession that recently came into popularity—hunters. Women in exposed clothing leaned against the bar under the flickering lights and waited for tonight’s prey to take the bait. And among the shadows, a black market merchant hid, selling “harmless” products….
The air in the bar was shrouded, and the noise cluttered the already limited room. This was Jiang Chen’s first impression upon stepping into this space.
It was not an illusion that when he took a step onto the dry wooden floor, at least ten pairs of eyes flicked over at him.
Some were friendly, most were not.
After a second’s pause, Jiang Chen continued to walk and directly approached the bar counter.
“Are you not going to buy me a drink? Handsome.” A woman in heavy makeup leaned against the counter and displayed a charming smile.
Jiang Chen ignored her with a smile and looked beyond the counter at the bartender who was silently wiping a cup.
White shirt, black pants—a relatively clean appearance. But the slight beer belly turned what should have been suave movements into rather comical motions.
“What do you have here?” Jiang Chen sat on the chair and asked casually.
Hearing Jiang Chen’s words, the bartender stopped and glanced at Jiang Chen.
“Your first time here?”
“Mhmm.”
“Lots of things. Alcohol, Nut Coke, eOrange, Kaka Tea.” The chubby bartender resumed wiping the glass cup that had been cleaned countless times.
“Also, hamster milk tea and cockroaches smoothie.” A young man whistled and laughed.
“I won’t sell those things to newcomers.” The bartender kept his head down.
“Looks like I don’t have the opportunity to experience those.” Jiang Chen shrugged as he joked, then said, “Give me one of each.”
The bartender’s hands stopped. He turned around to open the fridge and placed odd glass bottles on the counter.
“2, 1, 2, 3. A total of 8 crystals.”
Jiang Chen reached into his pockets and took out eight crystals from the storage dimension. He casually slapped it onto the table. His ostentatious moves led to a wave of whistle-blowing and looks of avarice.
The bartender quietly took the crystals and didn’t say a word as he continued to work.
He looked over the four bottles of “drink.” Jiang Chen’s eyebrows twitched. These things looked as suspicious as they could get.
The alcohol seemed relatively normal—should be like Baijiu? The Nut Coke was the oddest; its fluorescence did not seem potable at all. The eOrange was similar to orange juice, and the Kaka Tea was green like seaweed, its cloudy liquid interspersed with questionable fragments.
“These things are drinkable?” Jiang Chen couldn’t resist asking.
Howls of laughter erupted from behind him. A giant of a man walked up with a smirk on his face before planting his foot on the chair beside him to roughly ask, “Yo noob. These drinks are too much for you. Why don’t you play with us? If you’re lucky, one crystal could become ten.”
His tone and expression assumed Jiang Chen was already in the bag, and the play he referred to was obviously gambling.
Jiang Chen glanced at him and instead of showing anger, smiled.
“Then why don’t we play a game as well?”
As he said this, Jiang Chen didn’t allow the man a chance to say yes or no. He slowly withdrew a crystal worth fifty energy crystals from his pocket and waved it in front of the giant who was showing off.
“Two crystals per turn. Guess which hand the crystal’s in. If you’re right, then it’s yours.”
The giant was at a loss at Jiang Chen’s abrupt actions, but his expression soon became ecstatic. He thought, [This dumba*s. If I guess ten times, regardless of how you trick me, I’m guaranteed to be correct at least once.]
But he wasn’t a dunce. If Jiang Chen left after two turns, his crystals would have gone to waste.
“Twenty crystals and I guess ten times.” The giant smiled viciously and slammed the crystals onto the table.
The people standing around all gave sympathetic looks at Jiang Chen.
“Unfortunate that he was targeted by Liu Mang.”
“Hehe, this noob is really unlucky.”
The ones who were gloating were mainly the giant’s comrades.
[Liu Mang? That’s a good name.] (Liu Mang is homonym for the word thug.)
His lips moved as he muttered in his mind. Jiang Chen didn’t seem bothered as he took the twenty crystals on the table.
“No problem. It’d be fine even if you wanted to guess one hundred times.” Jiang Chen yawned as he threw the energy crystal into the air with nimble hands.
Liu Mang’s vision blurred, and the crystal seemed to disappear from his sight. Upon seeing Jiang Chen’s movements, the gloating expressions of the people suddenly twisted while those who were compassionate rejoiced.
It was going to be a good show.
Cold sweat rolled down Liu Mang’s forehead. He wasn’t able to see where the crystals went. He estimated that the reflex of this person was at least 25. And though he was also injected with the genetic vaccine, it had been the standard E-grade.
“Take a guess.” Jiang Chen placed his hands before Liu Mang with a bored expression.
Since he hadn’t been able to see it clearly, Liu Mang took a wild guess.
“Right hand.”
Jiang Chen laughed.
“Congratulations…. you’re wrong.”
There was nothing in his right hand.
“You’re a fraud!” Liu Mang was immediately unhappy. His eyes bulged, and his companions inched closer with unfriendly expressions. So what if he had the genetic vaccine—who hadn’t? Even if it was a lower-quality version, they had an advantage in numbers.
Jiang Chen rolled his eyes and opened his left hand; on his palm was a bright purple crystal.
“There are nine more chances. Are you still going to guess?” He did not seem afraid at all.
Liu Mang was surprised. He originally thought that since Jiang Chen hadn’t immediately revealed his left hand, the crystal must have been hidden away, but it was actually in the left hand.
Under everyone’s watch, although he had always acted recklessly, he didn’t dare to start a fight. After further thought, there were still nine more chances.
Liu Mang signaled his pawns away and let up on his act. He glared at Jiang Chen.
“Yes, start.”
A hint of mockery appeared in Jiang Chen’s smile as the crystal was thrown into the air again.
He must be joking. Was he the type to use fraud?
The answer was definitely.
No matter which hand Liu Mang chose, the crystal would always appear in the other hand.
The storage dimension was a fraud’s holy grail. Jiang Chen imagined that if he went to Macau, all of the legendary gamblers would have to move aside for him.
“Last time. You better be careful.” Jiang Chen lazily waved his hands in front of Liu Mang.
Liu Mang’s eyes were pure red as they locked on to the two fists. He tried to spot differences in size, but it was futile.
This was the gambler’s mindset; they would not stop until they lost every single crystal.
He had already lost the previous twenty crystals, and he immediately put up the last ten that he had.
He only needed to win once to make all of the money back… so close!
But when Jiang Chen opened his hands, he was wrong again.
“That’s impossible! A fifty percent probability, how could I not even guess it right once? You’re a fraud!” Liu Mang immediately flared up as he cursed and kicked the chair away with his feet with a fighting posture.
Seeing Liu Mang’s actions, everyone around exposed looks of disdain.
Anyone could see that Jiang Chen was cheating, but if there was no evidence, why was he trying to act like the big man?
But the reckless Liu Mang didn’t care. Instead, he ordered his thugs to surround Jiang Chen.
“Buddy, you dare to cheat me? You think you’re tough. Let me tell you, if you don’t return the crystals you cheated me out of with both hands and knees on the ground, I’ll make sure you don’t leave standing up.”
Jiang Chen flicked his eyes over at the furious Liu Mang and opened his mouth calmly.
“You lose nine times out of ten in gambling, has no one taught you this before? Also… speaking of this, does the civil force care enough to come here?”
The young man that whistled at Jiang Chen earlier still sat in his original seat. He sipped at his alcohol and laughed without regard to the atmosphere.
“Of course, but the cop is always late.”
“That’s perfect then.” Jiang Chen laughed.
Being ignored, anger shot straight to Liu Mang’s head, and he reached for Jiang Chen’s collar.
“Fu*k you, I’m speaking to you—”
Boom—!
Without warning, Jiang Chen kicked out. Liu Mang felt like his chest was slammed by a hammer as he flew backward like a kite with its string broken. He slid across a table and directly cannon-balled out the door. The bartender looked at Jiang Chen with shock before placing the glass cup aside and subtly pressing the emergency call button beside the counter. The crowd, seeing the conflict, began to whistle and cheer.
“Fu*k hit that bit*h.” Seeing their leader kicked away, the thugs all grabbed weapons to swarm Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen calmly avoided a side swipe as fury immediately activated. He pinched the dagger in front of him and used the suddenly explosive power to drag it aside and stab it into a thug’s shoulder.
“Ahh!” The thug screamed in pain and fell backward.
Jiang Chen didn’t stop there. He dragged a thug to him with his right hand clenched over his chest and blocked a few bats from falling on him.
“Haha, amazing.”
“Give him the upper chin.”
“Use the chair, dumba*s!” The crowd did not shy away from trouble. Sometimes they cheered for Jiang Chen, and sometimes they swore at the thugs for being useless—a group of people couldn’t even beat one man.
With all of the banging, the thugs didn’t manage to land any hits on Jiang Chen. Instead, the bats hit all of their own people.
Fury deactivated.
Cheering, the crowd celebrated the winner. The woman who tried to strike up a conversation with him earlier gently licked her seductive, red lips with bright eyes, but Jiang Chen continued to ignore her.
He clapped his hands and glanced at the thugs on the floor.
The young man drinking alone beside the counter smiled. “I was waiting for you to lose so that I could get a few drinks out of you.”
“Looks like you won’t have the chance.” Jiang Chen shrugged as he laughed.
“Fu*k, you dare to hit me. I’ll beat you to—” Liu Mang limped into the room limping as he cursed. But when he saw the thugs on the ground and the mocking looks on the crowd’s faces, his mouth froze.
Meeting Jiang Chen’s mischievous grin, he looked at the thugs on the ground again as if he couldn’t accept this reality.
“You, do you know who I am?” Once he saw that he couldn’t win the fight, Liu Mang began to threaten him with a malevolent stare at Jiang Chen.
“Oh? You are?” Jiang Chen casually picked up the eOrange and took a sip, but the saccharine taste nearly made him throw it back up.
[What, people drink this?]
The crowd was also shocked as they thought, [What, people drink this directly?]
Jiang Chen put the drink back with the same mischievous expression.
“I-I’m close to the Huizhong Mercenaries. Hehe, since you’re wandering around in the area, you must know about them.” A sneer surfaced on Liu Mang’s face as he stared directly into Jiang Chen’s eyes. He wanted to see a hint of fear in those pupils.
But he would inevitably be disappointed by Jiang Chen’s reaction.
When he heard the name Huizhong Mercenaries, he resisted the urge to laugh.
“Are you close with them?” Jiang Chen looked at him impishly.
“That’s right, and if you don’t want to lie in a casket the second you step out of Sixth Street, then you better apologize, and—”
“And give you some compensation?” Jiang Chen laughed as he said uncaringly.
Liu Mang paused, finally realizing that this person’s reaction was off.
“That’s right. If you know any better, then take out the crystals.”
Jiang Chen glanced at him and slowly said, “Since you know them so well, do you have any idea where they are now?”
“They’re in the Songjiang area. I’m close to their leader,” Liu Mang said cockily.
“No, they’re in Qingpu.” Jiang Chen shook his finger. “Their bodies are sprayed with formalin and hung up on light posts.”
Liu Mang was speechless as he looked at Jiang Chen in disbelief. “What, what nonsense are you spouting. Are you in your right fu*king mind? You better—”
“He’s not lying.” The young man sitting beside the counter laughed as he pointed his cup in Jiang Chen’s direction. “Because he took care of all those dumba*ses.”