Task 1

  Hei Long walked over and had a conversation with Cui Dao, then walked over...

  Hei Long handed me a key and said, "Hello, I didn't expect you to be a friend of Stabber's. It seems I underestimated you. From now on, this place will be where you live. Later, I'll arrange for your accommodation. If there's anything you need, just let me know."

  "Do you want me to be your hatchet man?"

  "No, we are just interdependent friends, not in a superior-subordinate relationship. If you're willing to help, I'm happy; if you don't want to, we won't have any complaints either. You also don't need to feel burdened."

  "It's okay, as long as you can afford the price, it doesn't matter who does the hitting. Just mention the price when you hit, and as long as the price is right, that's all that matters."

  "Great! We will definitely become good partners and have fun." Hei Long said and then left.

  I stared blankly at everything in front of me, really not daring to imagine that I would become like this, becoming someone who sells themselves for money. But the world is just like this, what kind of job isn't selling oneself for money? Actually, they're all the same, it's just our way of life that's different.

  At this time, Cidao walked over and patted me on the shoulder, indicating for me to follow him.

  We went through a corridor and arrived at a dedicated elevator, which took us to the basement. The basement here is extremely spacious, several times larger than the building outside, with all kinds of facilities available. Other personnel were already resting inside, I was the last one to arrive.

  "Number Seven looked at me and said, 'You're finally here! You're already twenty minutes late, but you still chose to come, which makes me very pleased.'"

  I casually found a place to sit down. I picked up a Zhonghua cigarette and put it in my mouth, "If not here, where else? Now I don't even know what's the point of me being alive, what's worth my hard work, I just want to find a quiet place."

  Zhao Kaiqing jumped over, putting his arm around my shoulder, "What's wrong? Lost your love? Look at you, no guts! It's just a woman! After this mission is completed, I'll take you to Japan and let you experience the service there. Those women will make you forget life and death!"

  "Do you think everyone is the same as you? Every day, apart from watching small movies, it's all about various yellow research. Do you think he's also useless like you?" Tianyan Chen Kai had already started scolding on one side.

  "This is life, you know?"

  "Alright, stop arguing. Now let's explain our first mission." Number Seven threw a file on the table, "Our job this time is to help Hei Long and his team take down the organization with the tanks. Our reward is five million RMB."

  "Wow, so many! Looks like I can go to Japan right away."

  "Shut up!"

  "The local organization where the tank is located is a mainly drug-trafficking organization, their clubhouse is in Longteng Bathhouse in this city, and it's also a considerable place in Huaxian County. The nominal boss of Longteng Bathhouse is Li Tianxiang, he is the strategist of this organization, basically all transactions will go through his arrangement, transactions that have gone through his hands have never had any problems. In this border area where various forces occupy one side, every force has to be careful in responding. So far, no one knows who the highest leader of their organization is, so our main task tonight is to take care of Li Tianxiang, if everything goes smoothly, we can earn two million tonight."

  "We several people put together are probably not worth as much as his life, it seems like nothing good is going to happen!" Fang Yi said from the side.

  "It's not simple, the key is that we are a collective, if you don't want to take it on, I won't make things difficult for you. Everyone is in this together, we have no way out. There's no wall in the world that doesn't leak air, what we're doing will eventually be exposed. Caesar won't let us off easily, we must accumulate more strength and money before things are exposed, otherwise what can we use to counter Caesar? Caesar's power is all over the south bank of the Yangtze River, all the drugs in southern China are his doing. Can you hide from him?"

  "I didn't think of running away."

  "So are you afraid of death? The welfare here is absolutely not lower than the treatment in the army, everyone lives for money, what do you say?" Number Seven looked at Fang Wei.

  "Alright, you're impressive, now can we talk about our plan?"

  "Based on the information we have about Li Tianxiang, he leaves his house at 10 am sharp every day to take care of things at Longteng Bath City. He leaves there at 9 pm and heads to a villa in the northern suburbs to meet his mistress. He returns to his own villa before midnight. His villa is guarded by personnel 24 hours a day, so we can only make our move when he's at his mistress' place or on the road. From now on, all of us will take turns keeping watch and try to gather more detailed information to ensure that our mission is accomplished without any mistakes. I don't want anyone here to lose their life in this mission. It's just for money, there's no need to risk one's own life. That would be pointless.

  Alright, let's do it within a week.

  Seven paused and then added, "One more thing, Li Tianxiang is not an ordinary person, don't treat him like some small-time thug. His boss controls the entire drug market south of the Yangtze River. Don't lose your life over this, money can be sacrificed but lives cannot."

  Seventh said, stretching out his own right fist, "Together in life and death!" We all stretched out our fists as well, "Together in life and death!"

  An hour later, I stood in front of the Longteng Bath City. When I first saw it, I was shocked by its scale. Three words: "Too big."

  The Longteng Bath City is two hundred meters long and one hundred and fifty meters wide, with a fifteen-story building. From afar, the large sign with the words "Longteng" can be seen flying high in the night sky, with various colors of neon lights flashing in the night sky, and golden light illuminating the entire building of the bath city, majestic and magnificent. Even the largest bath city I've ever seen in Xi'an doesn't have a scale that's as shocking as this one, it seems that the rumors about this place are true.

  It is said that Huaxian originally had the qualifications to be upgraded to a county-level city, but due to the poor law and order and rampant underworld here, the documents were not approved. The county magistrate and county party secretary have been replaced seven times in two years, with no one willing to stay. Either they were driven out by the underworld or threatened, and would rather go elsewhere to be a small section chief. No one wanted to be the county magistrate of this city-level county. Now the current county magistrate is an iron-fisted person transferred from the army. It is said that on the day he arrived, he summoned all the big brothers of the underworld, over 200 people, and no one knows what happened in the end. However, since then, the underworld in Huaxian has been much quieter.

  I took a look at the bathhouse in front of me, thought for a moment, and walked towards the main gate...