Nine-Snake Street intersection.
This was the westernmost slum neighborhood in Xili District. Ji Tan changed subway trains three times, then rode a motorcycle taxi for another stretch before finally finding the place.
Unlike Broken-Wire Street, with its haphazardly built clusters of low, ramshackle houses, Nine-Snake Street was considerably more prosperous. Seven- and eight-story buildings lined the roads, their ground-floor storefronts occupied by all kinds of businesses: clothing shops, massage parlors, restaurants, nightclubs, and plenty more.
Most conspicuous of all was a boxing gym. A huge fist outlined in purple neon stood at the busiest intersection, and the place was filled with noise and activity.
Ji Tan bought a bottle of something to drink from a street stall and asked the elderly vendor about the area.
Nine-Snake Street got its name from the nine streets that crisscrossed the neighborhood. The intersection where all nine met was known as Nine-Snake Street intersection.
“There’s another explanation, though,” the old man confided mysteriously. “Each street is controlled by its own local boss. Nine local snakes, so you’ve got Nine Snakes.”
As he spoke, three young men in yellow floral shirts, their arms covered in large tattoos, came swaggering over. One stopped, casually tapped a finger against the glass display case, and said, “Uncle Cai, there’s going to be a gang clash here tonight. Whether you shut up shop is your call.”
“I’ll close in a minute. Thanks.” The old man tossed the three of them a pack of cigarettes.
The young men waved their tattooed arms and moved on to the next shop.
“Those are the people who run our street. Golden Snake Hall.” The old man, whom they’d called Uncle Cai, began packing up his wares even as he talked to Ji Tan.
This place… was starting to look rather like the turf of a triad gang in an old Hong Kong movie.
Ji Tan’s throat went dry. He unscrewed the cap of his drink and took a sip. He was beginning to understand exactly what kind of “headcount” this job wanted him to fill.
Two gangs were about to fight. One side didn’t have enough people, so they’d hired killers from Killed Yet? to swell their ranks and make themselves look more imposing.
“Is that even legal?” Ji Tan turned to ask Uncle Cai, only to discover that the little shop, brightly lit a moment ago, had already closed. Its metal shutter was pulled snugly to the ground, without so much as a gap big enough for a fly.
Ji Tan: “…”
He’d originally planned to find a decent restaurant, ask whether the client needed any more people, and then send Xie Xi the address. Now, however, that didn’t seem particularly appropriate.
Asking the head of the Order Administration Bureau to come pad out a gang fight… Neither the client nor Xie Zhi would agree to that.
“Handsome, over here.”
Just as Ji Tan was at a loss, he heard someone calling. He turned toward the voice.
In a broad alley not far behind him, a man in a purple Killed Yet? vest sat on a concrete step, beckoning to him.
At that moment, Ji Tan suddenly understood the importance of a standardized work uniform. It fostered a sense of belonging to the company culture. When he was feeling completely out of place, seeing a colleague from Killed Yet? was unexpectedly reassuring.
“You take the headcount job too, eh?” The man patted the ground beside him with easy familiarity. Once Ji Tan sat down, he offered him a cigarette.
Ji Tan didn’t smoke, but he accepted it and held it between his lips anyway.
Only after entering the alley did he notice a dozen or so young men in gaudy clothes squatting or sitting around, all puffing away on cigarettes. He took the cigarette so he wouldn’t stand out too much and could blend in with the others.
“Just joined, didn’t you? I’m Cheng Bin. You can call me Brother Bin.” The man glanced at Ji Tan’s brand-new purple vest and introduced himself with a smile. “I’m from Guangdong. Where are you from?”
Ji Tan: “?!”
The cigarette nearly fell out of his mouth.
He caught it between his teeth, slowly turned toward the man whose eyes were shining with interest, and asked with an expression of blank confusion, “Guangdong? Is that the name of a neighborhood?”
“That’s right.” Cheng Bin nodded with a beaming smile.
He looked twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with hair dyed flaming red and streaked purple. Both sides of his head were shaved close, with lightning bolts cut into the hair at his temples. If not for his purple vest, he would have looked more like a gang member than any of the actual gang members sitting there.
“I used to live on Broken-Wire Street.” Ji Tan lowered his eyes and put on an embarrassed, self-conscious look to conceal the storm of shock raging inside him.
He’d memorized the map of Xili District when he saw it at the real estate agency. There was no street named Guangdong anywhere in the district, nor any housing estate by that name.
This man was a transmigrator too! And he’d just been testing Ji Tan.
Xie Bei had warned him not to reveal his identity as a transmigrator to anyone.
Come to think of it, neither Xie Bei nor Xie Xi had ever said anything like, “We’re the only two transmigrators in City A.” In that case, “anyone” must also include fellow Earthlings who had transmigrated into the book.
When in doubt, play dumb.
Ji Tan pretended he hadn’t understood anything and treated the other man as though he were a native of this world.
“I know Broken-Wire Street. So you’re a Hooligan too, right?” Cheng Bin nudged Ji Tan with his elbow and raised his brows.
Ji Tan shook his head. “I’m in a different Sequence.” What a blabbermouth. Before Ji Tan could get anything out of him, the fellow had already given himself away.
“Huh? If you’re not a Hooligan, why’d you take this job?” Cheng Bin couldn’t understand it.
When he learned that Ji Tan hadn’t the faintest idea what the job involved and had simply accepted it blindly after joining, Brother Bin immediately became eager to chat.
“Well, if you’re a Butcher, you should take more jobs slaughtering fish and sheep. If you’re a Bodyguard, take jobs protecting people from domestic violence or escorting children to and from school. As for us Hooligans, we can take fish-slaughtering jobs too, but we’re actually better suited to this sort of shady business.” Cheng Bin rubbed his heavily tattooed arm as he spoke, sounding rather resigned.
Ji Tan raised an eyebrow. It seemed Brother Bin had already figured out the trick behind the various “states.”
“I normally wouldn’t bother with a little job like this. But a few days ago, a customer on a fish-slaughtering job was so generous that he gave me two whole kilograms of frogfish meat. I got greedy and ate the lot.” Cheng Bin patted his red-and-purple hair in deep regret. “These past few nights, I keep dreaming about the deep sea. My mental state is awful. If I don’t finish integrating those powers soon, I’m afraid my sanity level will start dropping.”
“Sanity level?”
Ji Tan was surprised. Could failing to integrate a power actually cause a decline in sanity? He’d once gobbled down 1.6 kilograms in one go without making the slightest preparation. That really had been dangerous.
Cheng Bin tipped his head back toward the sky and let out a long sigh. “Yeah. You can’t just eat the flesh of the Favored Kin without consequences, especially frogfish meat. It accumulates madness all on its own. An old-timer once told me that every bite you take leaves you owing another bite. If you can’t subdue it, then it’s not you eating the fish. It’s the fish eating you.”
Every bite you take leaves you owing another bite.
The saying sounded remarkably profound, and Ji Tan couldn’t help falling into thought.
“Well? Pretty cool line, right?” Brother Bin abruptly broke into a smug grin, clearly delighted at having successfully shown off. “Heh, I say it every time I meet a newcomer.”
Ji Tan: “…”
And here he’d been listening in awe. The fellow had only wanted a chance to look impressive.
“Very cool. Next time I meet a newcomer, I’ll say it too.” Ji Tan gave Brother Bin’s showing-off skills his full approval and decided that such a useful trick now belonged to Brother Tan as well.
Cheng Bin happily patted Ji Tan on the shoulder. “You’ve got taste. You’re my friend now. Brother Bin will look after you.”
No sooner had he spoken than a man in a teal floral shirt and a thick gold chain came over. He clapped his hands to summon the Hooligans forward. “You killers from Killed Yet?, take off those vests and hide them. Change into our Green Snake Hall shirts.”
Still somewhat dazed, Ji Tan accepted the floral shirt shoved into his hands and pulled it over his purple vest. He was also carrying a plastic bag containing the tentacles. With nowhere to put it, he could only tie it around his waist.
“Hey, not bad! The plastic bag makes the outfit even better,” Cheng Bin praised him indiscriminately. He draped an arm around Ji Tan’s shoulders as though they were old friends, leaned closer, and whispered, “When the fighting starts, we’ll just stay hidden at the back. Don’t be an idiot and charge forward. It’s only a twenty-thousand job, not worth getting yourself killed over.”
Ji Tan nodded. That was exactly what he’d been thinking.
“One more thing. If the Sequence-snippers show up, remember to run,” Cheng Bin emphasized.
“Sequence-snippers?”
“The Sequence-Breaking Unit. It’s underworld slang.”
While they were talking, the two sides had already lined up at the intersection.
The two of them were paid Orderbearers, so they’d been placed in the first three rows to make the gang look impressive. Most of the underlings behind them were ordinary people.
The gang facing them was Golden Snake Hall, the one that collected protection money from Uncle Cai. Every member was dressed in a gleaming gold floral shirt.
“You Green Hall lot! After scraping together everyone you could, this is all you’ve got? Stop embarrassing yourselves. If you know what’s good for you, kneel and kowtow to our boss, then join Golden Snake Hall. We’ll all be brothers from now on!”
“Cut the crap! Green Snake Hall isn’t a bunch of pushovers!”
Both sides were spoiling for a fight, like fighting cocks with their feathers bristling, ready to leap at one another and peck out each other’s eyes.
“Aaargh! Hack them to death!” Cheng Bin suddenly let out a tremendous shout.
The Hooligans in teal shirts immediately joined in the shouting, raised their clubs and machetes, and charged. The Golden Snake Hall members were no less eager. Their leader swore and rushed forward with his men.
At the junction of the nine streets, a golden current and a teal one converged and collided, sending sprays of blood flying.
“Aaargh!” Ji Tan raised his fist and yelled along with them, but Brother Bin was already dragging him backward.
While the people at the front were beating one another’s brains out, the two of them hopped about at the rear, waving their arms and shouting encouragement.
“What the hell are you two doing?!” A burly man in a gold shirt spotted the pair making noise without a scratch on them and charged over with a baseball bat.
Cheng Bin twisted aside, dodging with a swagger. He moved far faster than an ordinary person, presumably thanks to an E-rank Hooligan skill from the Crown Prince Sequence.
Ji Tan wasn’t nearly so agile. He could only rely on the Butcher’s Enhanced Strength to catch the baseball bat head-on. “Brother, we can talk this over. We’re only here to make up the numbers.”
“Headcount, my ass!” The blood-crazed man didn’t care about excuses. He tried to yank the bat free and swing again… but it wouldn’t budge.
Ji Tan gave him an innocent smile.
“Watch out!” Cheng Bin shouted.
Another big man in a gold shirt came down at him with a heavy machete. Cheng Bin lunged into him and used some technique Ji Tan couldn’t identify to disarm him on the spot.
Ji Tan gave a violent wrench, flinging the man with the baseball bat aside, then leapt up and caught the machete as it flew through the air. The moment the hilt met his palm, he felt the wonder of the Butcher skill “Proficiency with Bladed Weapons.” The heavy blade seemed to become one with his arm.
He tried swinging it. The weighty blade felt almost effortless in his hand, slicing through the air with several sharp swishes.
From where he’d ducked aside, Cheng Bin saw only strips of fabric flying everywhere. He blinked and looked again. The two big men’s gold floral shirts had been shredded into rags that scattered with the slightest breeze.
For an instant, time seemed to stand still.
“The Sequence-snippers are here!” someone suddenly yelled, and whistles sounded all over the intersection.
The two bare-chested men abandoned any thought of dignity and ran away shouting. Cheng Bin also drew on his favor-power and made himself scarce.
Orderbearers in the Hooligan state seemed to have some kind of speed boost, or perhaps a skill along the lines of “Escape with Your Life.” Cheng Bin fled at astonishing speed, covering dozens of meters in the blink of an eye. When he looked back and saw Ji Tan lagging behind, he shouted anxiously for him to hurry.
The Butcher had no such skill, so Ji Tan had to rely on his own legs. But even a former school sprint champion was no match for an Orderbearer’s abilities.
The silver-uniformed Sequence-Breaking Unit and officers from the Public Security Office had already charged into the crowd. A gleaming chain of light shot straight toward Ji Tan.
“Whoa!” Ji Tan suddenly felt the back of his collar tighten. He flailed his arms and legs a couple of times, but couldn’t break free. He could only turn his head stiffly and offer an ingratiating smile. “Officer, actually, I’m…”
His words died halfway out. The person holding him by the collar was none other than a furious, glaring Xie Xi.
“Brother, you’re in trouble now!” Cheng Bin called helplessly as he ran, cupping both hands around his mouth. “Remember to tell them you’re from Killed Yet?! The Crown Prince will get you out!”
Ji Tan gave his newly met fellow Earthling a strained smile and waved goodbye.
“Heh. Look at you now, Big Boss Ji.” Xie Zhi gripped the back of Ji Tan’s collar with one hand and seized the wrist holding the machete with the other, giving it a shake. Through gritted teeth, he demanded, “You stood me up just so you could come out here and join a gang fight?”