“Who would’ve thought? That kid is actually this fierce. How long has he even been in the business? And he already dares to assassinate a minor boss of the Skeleton Iron Society!”
“Tell me about it. I still remember when that kid first showed up—no matter how you looked at him, he seemed like some newbie whose brain had been fried from watching too many black braindances~”
“Exactly. I remember Yellow Dog even wanted to introduce him to a rich sugar mommy!”
“Hahaha…”
Inside the Yellow Flag Bar, the regulars who often saw John had also gotten the news. They reminisced about the not-so-distant past, trying to borrow a little glow for themselves from having witnessed the rise of this formidable figure.
Just as the atmosphere was growing lively, the faux-wooden bar door was shoved open with a bang. The customers who had been making a racket fell silent all at once, as though someone had cast a group-wide mute spell.
Faced with the air that had abruptly gone still, John, however, seemed completely unaware that he was the cause. He greeted Gladys, then staggered up to the bar counter as usual. Wearing that same smile that had once looked clear and foolish, but now seemed profound and inscrutable, he delivered the same line as always:
“Done. Give me another commission!”
……
Saint Luotan City was located on the southwestern plains of the vast territory of the Ge Union. Its urban area was divided into eleven major districts. Apart from the Factory District and the Academy District, the other nine major districts were all controlled by gangs. They implemented a system similar to tax farming: the nine top-tier gangs with Tower District backgrounds occupied the most lucrative territories, then distributed the remaining blocks to mid-sized gangs backed by the Building District. These mid-sized gangs, in turn, would not gather too many people under them, but would continue developing downward, selecting lackeys from the Street District and Garbage District to establish small gangs that paid tribute to them.
Because the backgrounds of large and mid-sized gangs were often different yet intertwined, they ultimately formed a web of influence as complex as a spider’s web.
As one of Saint Luotan’s nine great gangs, the Skeleton Iron Society nominally controlled the entire West District’s underworld. It bordered the Factory District to the north and Huayan District to the south. It could not be considered the best location, but it was connected to that lord’s interests.
There were quite a few people in Saint Luotan who could live in the Tower District: municipal officials, corporate executives, top doctors, military police officers, transcendent shock troops, plus their families, playthings, and servants. There were always around a hundred thousand of them. But those truly qualified to be called “lords” were not many. Compared to those people who could directly carve out lawless zones in the Building District, running gangs in the Street District was somewhat unpresentable. Yet Carlos knew very well that the reason he was here playing local emperor was not for that bit of profit—
Or rather, among those underworld gangs with Tower District backing, few had come for money.
As the mission that lord had entrusted to him churned through his mind, Carlos grew increasingly irritable. It was not because rebellious thoughts had arisen in him, but because his intuition told him that he might have been targeted.
There was no evidence, not the slightest sign; even his auxiliary brain had failed to analyze any physiological changes that warranted anxiety. But as an old hand who had spent the first half of his life making a living in the wilderness and then roamed lawless zones for years, he had absolute confidence in his intuition. That sensation, as if he were being tailed by a mutant beast out in the wilds, made him certain: someone had definitely set their sights on him.
“Has that lord’s affair been noticed?”
Carlos inevitably had such a thought.
As a former underground boxer equipped with five-star cyberware, his strength was absolutely in a league of its own in the Street District. For someone to be capable of monitoring him and bypassing his pair of five-star cybernetic eyes—unless it involved a big shot from the Tower District, he could think of no other possibility!
And compared to this matter, the assassination of a mere minor boss was not even worth diverting his attention!
“Chairman, the young master is back!”
Suddenly, a subordinate’s voice rang by his ear. Carlos took a deep breath and said in a steady voice tinged with authority:
“Have him come to my office!”
After a brief wait, there was a knock on the door, followed by Theodore’s sloppy, frivolous voice—
“Dad, you were looking for me? I heard that kid Venom Scorpion got taken out? Should we—”
“Come in!”
Carlos’s stern voice rang out. Theodore, who had still been chattering nonstop, immediately shut his mouth and hurried over to Carlos, waiting cautiously for what would come next. But all that awaited him was silence.
It was not because Carlos wanted to teach his son a lesson, but because the instant Theodore entered the room, that feeling of being watched became even stronger!
“It isn’t just me—even this idiot son of mine has been targeted? And the pressure on him might be even greater than on me?!”
Alarm bells blared in Carlos’s heart. He did not suspect that his son had caused trouble. After all, he understood better than anyone what his own son was capable of. If Theodore could really provoke this kind of trouble, he would have been casually killed long ago; there was no way he could have drawn surveillance of this level. The only possibility was that certain existences were wary of Carlos’s alertness, and had therefore chosen the easier-to-monitor Theodore as their breakthrough point!
Once he figured this out, Carlos felt as though a blade had already been pressed against his neck. The slightest carelessness, and his head might be lost. Yet this was precisely something he could not take to that lord. He knew very well that he was merely a black glove. If he went to that lord without proof or evidence, being cursed out would be the lighter outcome. The most likely course that lord would take was to directly discard this glove that might dirty its owner’s hand.
Unless absolutely necessary, he would resolve it himself!
Although he had not set foot in the wilderness for many years, because of the mission that lord had entrusted to him, his methods had not grown rusty in the slightest. At this moment, he had already made up his mind: he would play a game of hide-and-seek with the fellow secretly monitoring him, with life and death as the stakes!
Carlos adjusted his breathing and said in as ordinary a tone as possible:
“Things haven’t been peaceful these past few days. Stay obediently at headquarters and don’t go anywhere. I have some matters to handle!”
“Huh? Isn’t it just one killer? I heard he’s trash who just crawled up from the Garbage District. Just send a few bodyguards and—”
Theodore did not understand what his father was thinking at the moment and immediately objected to the imminent loss of his freedom. But before he could finish, Carlos cut him off—
“That is an order!”
Shocked into silence by the shout laced with killing intent, Theodore instantly shut his mouth. Carlos was about to say more when another communication came through.
Seeing that the communication account belonged to the gang’s strategist, Carlos relaxed slightly. He did not avoid Theodore and directly accepted the call—
“What is it?”
“Chairman, Hammer has been assassinated. Judging from the traces at the scene, it was the same person who assassinated Venom Scorpion!”
“Fxxk! That piece of shit actually killed another one of my—” Theodore instantly bristled, but Carlos silenced him with a glare.
Only after his son shut up did Carlos ask grimly:
“Have you investigated the reason? Revenge? Or…”
Hearing the boss deliberately leave the question half-finished, the strategist immediately picked up the cue and said, “Based on the intelligence we’ve gathered so far, he should be a brat who wants to make a name for himself through force. But his strength is indeed decent—he should have four-star cyberware. Several of the assassinations were all commissioned through intermediaries. His consecutive killings of our people are probably because he wants to step on us to climb up.”
“He’s nothing but trash who doesn’t know the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth. Handle it as you see fit. I have some matters to deal with recently. Don’t contact me unless it’s necessary!”
After Carlos finished speaking, he hung up the communication without giving the other side time to respond. Theodore still wanted to make one last struggle for his freedom, but when he saw his old man put on the pair of boxing gloves that he carefully maintained every day, yet had not actually worn in a long time, he finally swallowed his words…
Regarding the population distribution of megacities like those in the Ge Union—
Garbage District: tens of millions of renewable beasts of burden left to roam freely. Their births are absurd, their deaths random, and at a cost of 50 points each, they can be refreshed at will.
Street District: several million permanent residents, but they share tens of millions of beasts of burden with the Garbage District. The permanent residents are actually beasts of burden as well, just with slightly stronger money-making ability—elite beasts of burden, in other words. With the slightest carelessness, they will fall back into the Garbage District. But since there are beasts of burden, there will naturally also be sheepdogs and jackals.
Building District: hundreds of thousands of high-end beasts of burden. Most are programmers, technicians, and scientific-research laborers, precious beasts of burden that require large amounts of time or money to cultivate. Of course, there are also fierce beasts and hunting dogs—in the arenas of the lawless zones.
Tower District: several thousand nobles and their hundred thousand servants. Basically, these are the families that control the lifeblood of the entire city, directors of small and mid-sized enterprises, official authorities, and the like. Subdivided, there are only a dozen to a few dozen such families. You can understand them as the bubble-helmet Celestial Dragons of this city.
Heaven: excluding slaves, elite security, and other service personnel, each city’s Heaven only has a few families’ worth of permanent residents. However, nobles from the Heavens of other cities will sometimes come visiting or on vacation. Basically, only the upper echelons of transnational megacorporations can settle in Heaven. You can understand it as an ecological zone exclusively reserved for a very small number of people; simply match it to the description of “Heaven” directly.