After that little interlude,
the five of them chatted over bowls of mung bean soup, discussing what they would do once they entered the site.
Uncle Wang didn’t have many customers either. Selling food by the roadside was an unpredictable business, after all.
With nothing better to do, he couldn’t help pricking up his ears and listening in.
But when he heard that the five of them were planning to head to the construction site, he finally couldn’t resist offering a word of warning.
“Miss, are you girls heading to the construction site up ahead?”
The girl leading the group looked over and nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“Oh, dear, I’d advise you not to go. Things aren’t safe over there today.”
“What do you mean?”
Uncle Wang glanced around. Only after making sure no one else was nearby did he lower his voice and say, “Haven’t you noticed? A whole lot of rough-looking men have shown up today—several hundred at least. They’re all here for a fight! I’ve been selling boxed meals around here for several months, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it. Something major must be going down!”
“You young people should listen to your uncle. Don’t go looking for trouble. Finish your mung bean soup and leave as quickly as you can. If you wait too long, you may not be able to leave at all.”
The girl exchanged a glance with the others before asking curiously, “Uncle, you said there’s going to be a fight here. Which two groups are involved?”
At that, Uncle Wang’s spirits immediately lifted.
For a street vendor who roamed from place to place, his greatest hobby was chatting with people about gossip. And when it came to underworld gossip, he had plenty to share.
“Miss, judging by your accent, you’re not from around here, are you?”
“No. This is my first time in Jinchuan.”
“Then let me tell you, Jinchuan has been quite lively these past few days!”
“I heard an outside gang called the Wanlong Society came to Jinchuan to seize territory.”
“The Wanlong Society?”
“That’s right, the Wanlong Society! I’m telling you, they’re no ordinary gang. They’re an outside power—a dragon crossing the river—and they’re vicious, absolutely ruthless! A few days ago, Tiger Qi’s son—the son of the Underground Emperor of our city—well, guess what happened to him?”
“What happened?”
“He went flying out of a building! Smack! He hit the ground and became a pancake right on the spot!”
“.........”
“Is it possible the story is fake? Maybe the Wanlong Society wasn’t responsible.”
“How could it be fake? Everyone outside is saying it was the Wanlong Society! They forced him to perform a midair stunt right in front of the police. Just imagine how ruthless they must be! Who wouldn’t be terrified?”
“If the rumors are true, they do sound pretty ruthless.”
“Pretty ruthless? They’re downright vicious!”
“I’m telling you, I heard the leader of the Wanlong Society is a young woman, called The Young Lady. Tsk, tsk, tsk… For a young woman to control so many roughnecks, she must be some kind of terrifying monster!”
“I bet she has a hideous face, with blue skin, fangs, and three heads and six arms—the kind of monster that eats people without even spitting out the bones. Otherwise, how could those murderous thugs obey her?”
The girl: “.......”
The others all lowered their heads at the same time, pretending to drink their mung bean soup, while their shoulders trembled uncontrollably.
The Young Lady’s reputation was getting worse and worse!
Uncle Wang was far too engrossed in his story to notice the strange expression on the girl’s face. He continued speaking enthusiastically.
“I’m telling you, these days you can find people dressed in black all over Jinchuan. No matter where you go, you’re liable to run into them. They’re like locusts—enough to make your skin crawl. My wife sells tea eggs near the bus station, and she saw several groups of people from the Wanlong Society in just one morning. Every one of them was big and muscular, with a dragon emblem hanging on their chests. Tsk, tsk, tsk… In all my years, I’ve never seen a gang this ruthless. They’re even worse than Tiger Qi!”
“Have the people from the Wanlong Society ever bullied ordinary people like you?” the girl asked.
Uncle Wang thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Actually, they haven’t. That’s the strange part. They look like a bunch of vicious thugs, but they’ve never really harmed ordinary folks. My wife told me that while she was selling tea eggs at the bus station, a few local punks came looking for trouble. They ate all her eggs, refused to pay, and even tried to overturn her stall. Then, guess what happened? A few people from the Wanlong Society nearby came over, knocked those punks flat in no time, and afterward even asked her whether she wanted to call the police.”
“Honestly, how can they be gangsters and still act like Lei Feng and do good deeds? Now even I can’t tell whether they’re good people or bad people.”
“Maybe they aren’t gangsters at all,” the girl said.
“How could they not be?” Uncle Wang exclaimed.
“If they weren’t a gang, how could they have so many people? If they weren’t a gang, how could they have forced Qi Tiger's son to his death? Miss, you’re still too young. You don’t understand how these things work in the underworld. I heard the Wanlong Society has a powerful backer behind them—someone with an even greater background than Tiger Qi.
“Tiger Qi ruled Jinchuan for twenty years, and no one dared cross him. But the moment the Wanlong Society arrived, they took care of his son without a second thought. That’s not something an ordinary power could accomplish.”
The girl: “......”
While they were talking, a convoy appeared in the distance near the construction site.
Uncle Wang glanced toward the site and suddenly let out a surprised cry. “That’s strange. Another group has arrived. They’re wearing black, and it looks like they have badges pinned to their chests. Could they be people from the Wanlong Society?”
“Could it be that Tiger Qi and the Wanlong Society are going to fight here today?”
The convoy drove into the open area at the entrance of the construction site and came to a stop.
The car doors opened in perfect unison, and a group of young men in black suits filed out. There were quite a few of them, and they were clearly better trained than the ragtag thugs standing opposite them. The two sides weren’t even in the same league.
Uncle Wang clicked his tongue in amazement. “My goodness, that looks even more intimidating than something out of a movie. But aren’t they a little short on numbers? There are several hundred people on the other side, while this group seems to have only seventy or eighty. If they really start fighting, won’t the smaller side be at a disadvantage?”
The standoff at the construction site had already begun.
Qi Tianhu stood at the very front with several old comrades. Behind them was a dense crowd of thugs he had summoned at great expense—at least a thousand men.
Every one of them was holding a weapon: steel pipes, machetes, baseball bats, and the like.
Qi Tianhu swept his gaze over the group of men in black opposite him, a contemptuous smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
That was it?
That Yang fellow had said The Young Lady wanted to meet with him in person, yet she had brought only seventy or eighty men?
Looks like the Wanlong Society was nothing special after all!
Meanwhile, after seeing the Wanlong Society’s people arrive, Uncle Wang finally realized that a large-scale brawl was definitely about to break out.
He hurriedly began packing up his stall. As he worked, he anxiously called out to the young people beside him, “Quick, quick, quick! Miss! You need to leave right now! You can’t stay here any longer! Those two groups are about to start fighting. When this many people clash, it won’t be a joke. You could get caught in the crossfire and be seriously hurt! I need to pack up and run too!”
But just as Uncle Wang was halfway through packing up, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet trembling faintly.
The sound was muffled and heavy, like some enormous beast growling under its breath.
Uncle Wang instinctively turned toward the source of the noise.
A vehicle appeared on the asphalt road in the distance.
It was a black Mercedes-Benz.
Then came a second, a third, a fourth… More and more vehicles poured out from around the bend in the road, one after another.
Nearly all of them were black Mercedes-Benzes, along with a few buses. The convoy was so enormous that it stretched out like a long dragon, its tail disappearing beyond sight.
Uncle Wang’s mouth slowly fell open.
He had never seen so many expensive cars in his life. No—if he added together every luxury car he had ever seen on the streets, there still wouldn’t be as many as there were in this convoy.
Just as he stood there, stunned by the sight, the convoy stopped not far from the stall.
The doors opened in perfect unison, and large numbers of young men in black suits filed out.
Ten, fifty, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand…
A sea of black-clad figures advanced toward them, making it feel as though they had wandered into some gangster movie. Their terrifying presence weighed down on everyone so heavily that they couldn’t stop trembling, and even breathing became difficult.
Uncle Wang was scared senseless. His legs felt as though they had been filled with lead, making it nearly impossible to lift them.
When he finally came to his senses, he immediately shouted anxiously at the few customers, “Miss! Run! Hurry! If you don’t leave now, it’ll be too—”
Before he could finish, the mass of black-clad men arrived in front of his stall. In perfect unison, they bent at the waist and respectfully called out:
“Good day, Young Lady!”
“Good day, Young Lady!” × three or four thousand.
Uncle Wang felt as though the top of his skull was about to explode. He stiffly turned to look at the beautiful girl, his face filled with terror.
“You… you…”
For the life of him, he couldn’t force out another word.
Only then did he notice that the girl and the other four people all wore dragon-shaped badges on their chests, though their materials differed from those worn by the black-clad men.
The black-clad men wore mainly silver badges, while the other four wore gold-edged platinum badges. Only the girl’s badge was pure gold.
Because he had never seen badges of that color before, it had never occurred to him that they might be connected to the Ten Thousand Dragons Society.
“Uncle, your mung bean soup is delicious.”
The girl rose to her feet and gave him a slight nod before turning toward the vehicles.
The black-clad men quickly split into two lines, leaving a straight passage between them.
When the girl reached the car, one of the men had already opened the door and respectfully welcomed her inside.
Soon afterward, all the vehicles started up one after another. The black dragon began moving again, heading toward the construction site.
Uncle Wang stood as motionless as a stone statue, watching the convoy disappear into the distance.
The chubby young man carried his half-finished bowl of braised food over to Uncle Wang and joked, “Uncle, do you think our Young Lady looks like a man-eating demon?”
Uncle Wang’s inner thoughts: I was wrong! I shouldn’t have run my mouth! Please spare me!
Ma Da didn’t give him any trouble. Seeing that the convoy was getting farther and farther away without the slightest intention of stopping for him, he hurriedly grabbed his lunchbox and chased after it.
“Wait for me! I haven’t gotten in yet!”
After a while, when the convoy had finally disappeared into the distance, Uncle Wang gradually came back to his senses.
He dropped heavily onto the ground, then raised his hand and slapped himself across the face.
It was real. He wasn’t dreaming.
“Oh, my God!”
