Just over twenty minutes later, a large area around the wharf under the Red Blood Gang’s control fell silent.
’Finally, a chance,’ Lin Li muttered to himself, standing in the woods before stepping out from among the trees.
He was wearing a black mask that concealed his face—the very same one he’d worn when he taught Zhou Tianci a lesson.
After emerging from the woods, Lin Li immediately began to make his way toward the living quarters of the Red Blood Gang members.
...
The workers’ dormitories were dark and silent, but the area where the Red Blood Gang members lived was brightly lit, with boisterous noise echoing out from time to time.
Listening closely, one could tell the clamor was the sound of Red Blood Gang members laughing and carousing as they ate and drank.
In a courtyard with a scholarly air, Fang Jingtang, dressed in a white robe, sat in a grand armchair in his study. His brows furrowed as he listened to his subordinate’s report.
"You’re saying they left this morning and still haven’t returned?" Fang Jingtang said, setting down his teacup.
"Yes, Mr. Fang," the Red Blood Gang underling nodded.
Fang Jingtang’s brow remained furrowed. He pondered for a moment before waving his hand, dismissing the man.
After the Red Blood Gang underling had left, Fang Jingtang stood up and began to pace back and forth in his study, muttering to himself.
"Could something have happened?"
"No, that’s unlikely. The men he took with him were quite skilled."
"Even if the target was tough, they couldn’t have wiped out the entire team. Someone surely would have escaped to report back."
The area where the Red Blood Gang members lived was brightly lit. A figure in a black mask approached a surrounding wall, jumped straight up, grabbed the edge, and with a slight exertion of his arms, vaulted over to the other side.
’What was that sound?’
Just as Lin Li landed after scaling the wall, he suddenly heard a strange sound coming from a distance.
He listened carefully and determined it was the sound of crying.
So, he began to sneak in the direction of the sound. Two or three minutes later, he arrived at a dark, gloomy courtyard.
The courtyard wasn’t large and gave Lin Li an eerie feeling. The continuous sound of sobbing emanated from one of the rooms within.
The courtyard gate was unguarded. Lin Li pushed it open and walked inside.
Approaching a room that glowed with a dim, yellow candlelight, Lin Li peered through a grimy glass window. Inside, he saw many young girls sitting on wooden plank beds, crying ceaselessly.
The crying Lin Li had heard earlier was coming from these girls.
’Could it be that these girls were kidnapped by the Red Blood Gang?’
This thought surfaced in Lin Li’s mind as he watched the crying girls in the room.
It wasn’t strange for him to think so. After all, from what he knew, the members of the Red Blood Gang were rotten to the core; it was no surprise they would do something like this.
SOB, SOB...
The girls in the room were crying when, suddenly, the door was pushed open and a figure in a black mask walked in.
Hearing the noise, the girls looked up. When they saw the masked figure, their crying immediately stopped.
After entering the room, Lin Li saw the girls staring at him with fearful expressions. They had clearly mistaken him for a member of the Red Blood Gang, which was why they were too scared to cry.
"Um... I’m not with the Red Blood Gang," Lin Li said to the girls.
The fearful girls remained silent, not quite believing his words.
To avoid being discovered by the Red Blood Gang, Lin Li knew he couldn’t afford to linger here for too long.
So, he didn’t waste time on pleasantries with the pale-faced girls and got straight to the point.
"Were you captured and brought here by the Red Blood Gang?"
The pale-faced girls still said nothing.
However, when they heard him ask if they had been captured by the Red Blood Gang, a few of the girls couldn’t help but cry out, though they quickly clamped their hands over their mouths.
Although the girls didn’t answer his question directly, their reaction was a clear enough answer.
"Come with me. I’ll get you out of here..." Lin Li said to the girls in the room, his voice gentle and soft.
Hearing Lin Li say he would help them escape, the pale-faced girls immediately shook their heads, refusing to leave.
Lin Li froze when he saw the girls shaking their heads. He truly couldn’t understand. ’If they were captured by the Red Blood Gang, why wouldn’t they want to escape with me?’
There were over twenty girls in the room, most of them between the ages of twelve and fifteen.
Just then, a girl who looked to be seventeen or eighteen years old stepped forward and spoke, clearing up Lin Li’s confusion.
"We can’t leave with you. Our families all owe money to the Red Blood Gang. We’ve already signed indentures. If we leave with you, they’ll go after our families... SOB, SOB..."
After saying this, the girl couldn’t help but start crying again.
...
After hearing what the girl said, it was Lin Li’s turn to be silent.
The intelligence he had gathered on the Red Blood Gang mentioned that they engaged in loan sharking.
When borrowers couldn’t repay their debts, they were forced to use their children to settle the account.
When he first heard about this practice, Lin Li had merely thought it was a vile custom that had vanished from Blue Star over a hundred years ago. To think it still existed in this Otherworld—and was even legally sanctioned—only made him sigh at how thoroughly rotten the Red Blood Gang was.
But now, seeing the girls used to pay off debts with his own eyes, the visceral impact was immense.
Without another word, Lin Li turned and left. He didn’t linger in the room any longer, quickly exiting the gloomy little courtyard where the sound of sobbing still echoed intermittently.
Strangely, even as he moved far away from that gloomy courtyard, the cries of the girls he had only just met seemed to linger in his ears, refusing to fade.
"Who’s there? Whose man are you? What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be in this area, don’t you know?"
A member of the Red Blood Gang, just coming out of a latrine, saw a figure running toward him from a distance. The lighting was poor where he was, so he couldn’t make out the figure’s appearance and shouted at them.
Lin Li saw the Red Blood Gang member up ahead and realized he’d been spotted.
He instantly accelerated, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
With a mere thought, the Spiritual Artifact Dagger he had acquired today appeared in his hand in an instant.
He mobilized the Spiritual Energy in his Dantian. A faint golden Spiritual Light emerged in the darkness, and then a thread of gold streaked through the air.
SHLICK.
Lin Li ran past the Red Blood Gang member, the Spiritual Artifact Dagger in his hand glowing with a faint golden Spiritual Light as it grazed the man’s neck.
Then, without looking back, Lin Li continued onward, Spiritual Artifact Dagger in hand.
"Urk..."
The Red Blood Gang member who had shouted at Lin Li only felt a slight pain in his neck.
Then, something gushed out from the painful spot. He reached up to touch it, and his hand came away wet.
The familiar smell of blood filled his nostrils. The Red Blood Gang member tried to scream, but no sound came out.
It was hard to breathe—no, he couldn’t breathe at all. He clutched his wound with both hands, but the blood gushed out ceaselessly, impossible to staunch.
THUD. He collapsed to the ground, his body twitching a few times before falling still.
After Lin Li had eliminated the Red Blood Gang member blocking his path, the lingering cries of the girls in his ears miraculously vanished.
...