Hong Kong Storm: The King of Jobs

Chapter 427, Part 8: The Mad Couple

January 2, 1979, Haojiang, Grand Empire Arcade.

Chi Mengli arrived in Haojiang on the second day of 1979 by speedboat. This was his first visit to Haojiang after his soul traveled to Hong Kong. Haojiang today is very different from what it will be forty years later.

Simply put, it's boring!
Although this place is a paradise for smugglers and a den of iniquity for criminals, Haojiang is not prosperous, with dilapidated streets, narrow roads, and old Portuguese buildings.

The Pearl River Delta was never the promised land of the Portuguese. In their eyes, the Pearl River Delta was like sugarcane, and they would extract as much juice as they could from it.

Chi Mengli gulped down the mineral water in her hand, screwed on the cap, and threw it forward with force, the mineral water bottle landing accurately in the trash can.

yes!

A long-range three-pointer.

Besides the pachinko machines, the arcade also features pinball machines, which are essentially pachinko games from Japan.

Chi Mengli picked up a paper cup and began dropping the game tokens she had exchanged into the pachinko machine one by one.

In fact, locals in Macau prefer to call the pachinko machine "passing three levels." In the very center of the machine, there is a thin tube. Only when a small steel ball falls into this tube can you pass the second level.

It sounds simple, but it's difficult to do because the tiny steel balls have to pass through hundreds of small iron nails. When the steel balls collide, they constantly change direction. Out of a hundred steel balls, only a few will fall into the transparent tube.

After passing the second level, there is a third level. Fish with numbers will flash on the screen. You have to keep slapping them to match three of the same number in order to win the grand prize of 10,000 patacas.

The price of small steel balls is not high; one Hong Kong dollar can be exchanged for one game coin, and one game coin can be exchanged for ten steel balls, but the success rate is low.

In just over half an hour, Chi Mengli's two hundred game coins disappeared completely, and he didn't win a single big prize out of his two thousand steel balls.

This is a great business!
Chi Mengli patted the pachinko machine in front of her and discovered a new business opportunity.

Although Hong Kong has pachinko parlors, they are all small-scale operations. If you opened a three-story arcade in Yau Ma Tei, like the boxer's bar, with a points-based prize system, you would definitely make more money than underground casinos.

You should know that Japanese pachinko boys, once they become obsessed, will all go bankrupt and start a second business at host clubs.

Spinach Dong stood behind Chi Mengli, feeling a bit itchy to grab his hands. He watched for a while and found that Sheng Ge's hand speed was too slow, his eyesight was not good, and most importantly, his luck was terrible!
If it were me, I would have won hundreds of thousands by now.

However, Brother Sheng told him to keep watch and even said that if he gambled again, he would cut off his own hand, so he could only mutter a few words to himself.

In fact, Chi Mengli's hand speed is not slow, and his eyes are also very sharp. Simply put, he has the speed of a cheetah and the eyes of an eagle. However, the worst thing for a person is to do two things at once. His attention was always on the entrance and exit, so of course he couldn't hit the numbered fish on the screen.

According to the staff at the Shui Fang Haojiang branch, Lei Gong would take his child to piano lessons every morning at nine o'clock, and then go to the tea restaurant downstairs at the Great Empire Arcade to buy a pineapple bun, two egg tarts, and a cup of milk tea, eating as he walked.

By the time I arrived at the arcade by elevator, the morning tea was all gone. I bought a hundred dollars worth of game tokens, sat in front of the pachinko machine, and played pachinko all morning.

One hundred game coins, one thousand steel balls, and I'm done playing. I'm off to pick up my precious daughter, Zhu, from her piano practice so we can go home for lunch.

For the past few days, without fail, this has been my itinerary.

Chi Mengli raised her wrist, looked at her newly bought pure gold and diamond-encrusted Rolex, and realized that it was almost time.

As usual, at 9:05 a.m., Lei Gong appeared at the entrance of the arcade with a milk tea cup in his hand, took out a Redfin Fish card, and prepared to buy game tokens.

Xi Zai, along with two 49-year-olds, blocked the entrance to the arcade and stood right behind Lei Gong.

Sensing something was wrong, Lei Gong quickly turned around and saw Xi Zai and the others. He immediately realized that the three scoundrels behind him were there to cause trouble. He put on a smiling face and said, "The three big shots look unfamiliar."

"I don't think we've ever interacted before!"

"Even if I have offended you, it doesn't matter. You three big shots, I admit I was blind to your greatness. Tonight, I'll book all the VIP rooms at Fu Lin Men. You can be punished with three cuts and six holes as you please!"

Xizai sneered and remained silent. He simply had his two henchmen hold down Lei Gong's shoulders, while he took pity on Lei Gong and used the game tokens Lei Gong had bought to escort this bastard, who deserved to be torn to pieces, to Sheng Ge's front.

When Lei Gong saw Chi Mengli's handsome face, he immediately thought to himself that something was wrong. Someone had come looking for him. He didn't play the trick of the greenhorn, telling him to kill or torture as he pleased. Eighteen years later, he would be a hero again.

This method no longer works in Hong Kong. He knelt down on the ground and kowtowed three times to Chi Mengli, who was smoking.

"Brother Sheng, I was blind to your greatness and offended you."

Although there was a carpet on the ground, Lei Gong's forehead was still bruised red, with a bluish-purple tinge. It didn't even take until the next day; after about five or six minutes, it would turn into a bluish-purple mess.

Chi Mengli, smoking a cigarette, looked at the man in front of her with a smile, blew out a smoke ring, and said with a smile, "Get up first, I just want to talk to you."

Standing to the side, Spinach Dong reached out and pulled Lei Gong up from the ground, then punched him in the liver, teaching this arrogant idiot a lesson.

Having taken a hard punch, Lei Gong vomited bile, his body hunched over like a boiled shrimp. "I want to know something I don't know!"

"So think it through before you speak, don't put me in a difficult position."

Chi Mengli stubbed out her cigarette in the paper cup, fiddling with her Dupont lighter, preparing to give Lei Gong a chance, a chance for this bastard to die a clean and easy death.

“Brother Sheng, I admit I’ve been tricked by you! Please spare my Zhu Nu. According to the rules of the underworld, family members should not be implicated. I will tell you everything I know.”

Now that things have come to this, Lei Gong has nothing left to hide. Since Handsome Sheng was able to find him, it means that this newly emerging figure in the underworld has already found out all about him.

"Who hired you to do this job?"

Chi Mengli didn't say much or make any guarantees. The idea that "the sins of the family will not be visited upon the innocent" was just empty talk, because everyone in the martial arts world knew that "wildfire cannot burn it out, it will spring up again with the spring breeze." He couldn't leave trouble for himself or his descendants.

Upon hearing Chi Mengli's words, Lei Gong immediately lowered his head, pondered for a moment, and then said with difficulty, "I don't know!"

"The rules of the underworld are that I do things without asking why or who I work for; I only know the goal."

Who contacted you?

Chi Mengli knew that Lei Gong was not lying, so she didn't press him on this issue and continued to ask.

Betraying the middleman is also a dead end, but in order to protect the little one in his family, Lei Gong had no other choice. He simply said, "The judge contacted us."

"Let us wait in the ambulance until you arrive, Brother Sheng. As long as we put the Binding Immortal Lock around your neck, we can get our bonus."

"Brother Sheng, I really didn't know it was you. If I had known it was you, I wouldn't have dared to take this job!"

Chi Mengli didn't believe he had such a large influence in the underworld that he could intimidate villains just by raising his own signboard. Don't be ridiculous. As long as the money is right, even the governor of Taiping Mountain would have his head blown off.

Judge!

He's been annoyed by how often this name has appeared lately.

It seems I need to pry Song Ci's mouth open as soon as possible. Song Ci knows who Song Sheng is and where he is hiding. As long as I get his name out, he will have a way to get it out of me.

However, Chi Mengli was hesitant to touch Song Ci, because Teacher Li and Song Sheng's attention were always on her. Song Sheng was the prime suspect, and if she could dig Professor A and Song Ci out of the ground, Song Sheng would find out.

Sending out an attack team at that time will shut Professor A and Song Ci up completely and eliminate any future worries.

"How did the judge contact you?"

Thinking about the many enemies he still hadn't dealt with in the three islands of Hong Kong, Chi Mengli became extremely excited. Fighting against the heavens, the earth, and man was an endless source of joy.

"I made contact through newspapers."

“The Star Daily News posts part-time job ads every Wednesday. We leave a message for the judge with our pager number, and we usually receive a text message within 24 hours.”

"But we don't have much contact with the judge, and we haven't cooperated many times. The judge usually uses disposable dirty rats that he raises, just like disposable chopsticks. He uses them once and then replaces them."

Once is never enough. Since Lei Gong had already broken the rules, there was no need for him to continue hiding it. So he simply revealed all the ways he contacted the judge.

That's definitely the judge's style—using short-lived men to get things done!
Those who are nearing the end of their lives are very tight-lipped. After all, they don't have long to live, so for the happiness of their wives, children, and elderly parents, they take all the blame on their heads.

Chi Mengli took out a cigarette case, first handing one to Lei Gong and helping him light it, before lighting her own Double Happiness cigarette: "How did you make the deal?"

"Don't treat me like an idiot. Tell me the judge is depositing the money into your pager number to use as phone credit!"

He took a deep drag of his cigarette, the nicotine entering his body and relieving his tense nerves and physical pain. Lei Gong exhaled a puff of smoke and continued, "The judge will put the check in the locker at the Basha Swimming Pool in the New Territories."

"As soon as the pager message arrives, I go to the locker to get the check."

"HSBC cashier's draft?"

Chi Mengli hesitated for a moment, then tentatively asked in return.

Lei Gong quickly shook his head and said with a wry smile, "We nobodies in the martial arts world can't exchange promissory notes for cash."

"It's a private check, which is a fixed-amount check from an underground bank."

(End of this chapter)