Courtyard House: Home Alone

The man in the suit quickly walked around to him, his eyes narrowed into slits beneath his baseball cap. "Are your family worried about you traveling alone? Here's what we'll do: tomorrow morning we'll give you a ride, all the way to the platform, to make sure everything is alright."

Lin Yifan sneered inwardly. The man's hands remained in his suit's inner pocket as he spoke, and the bulge there didn't resemble a train ticket—it looked more like the grip of a miniature pistol.

"Okay," he looked up, revealing an innocent smile, "then I'll trouble you, big brother."

The man in the suit was clearly surprised that this "seven-year-old" agreed so readily. He paused for a moment before forcing an even warmer smile: "Great! This way, young master. I'll take you to get your tickets over there; it's crowded and noisy here."

He led Lin Yifan into a small alley next to the station. The alley was piled with coal ash and discarded sleepers, and at the end was a rusty iron gate. Lin Yifan's mental energy had already spread out, and behind the iron gate were three people, breathing heavily, each with a Mauser pistol at their waist.

"Big brother," he stopped in front of the iron gate and suddenly spoke, "how long have your companions been waiting inside?"

The man in the suit's expression changed drastically, and he yanked a pistol from his inner pocket with his right hand. But he was too slow—a bullet from Lin Yifan's spatial storage had already pierced his temple. The man's pupils dilated, and he fell straight down like a piece of wood.

The iron gate swung open with a roar, and three thugs rushed out. The leader was a fat man with a face full of scars, holding a 20-shot pistol, and was about to pull the trigger without saying a word.

Lin Yifan flashed and appeared behind the fat man. He pointed his fingers like a knife and gently tapped the man's neck, and the 200-pound body crashed to the ground. The remaining two men had just turned their guns around when they felt a sharp pain in their wrists; their pistols were already in the hands of the "seven-year-old child."

"From the Green Gang? Is he Huang Jinrong or Zhang Xiaolin's subordinate?" Lin Yifan asked coldly, his voice low and unnatural, unlike that of a child.

The two men stared at each other, cold sweat pouring down their foreheads. The "child's" skills were far too strange, clearly the kind of techniques only top masters in the martial arts world possessed.

The tall, thin man on the left swallowed hard and said in a trembling voice, "M-Young master, spare my life! We're under Mr. Zhang's tutelage, we have nothing to do with Boss Huang..."

"Zhang Xiaolin?" Lin Yifan frowned slightly. This Green Gang tycoon wielded immense power in Shanghai. He had sided with the Japanese after they entered the country and had committed countless evil deeds.

"Tell me, why did you start targeting me?"

"Young master, it must be that Rubberfish A-San saw you as a kid, and since you were going to a faraway place, he thought there was money to be made. So...so that's why he brought you here," another slightly stronger man chimed in.

"You guys are squatting here at the train station, are you planning to rob someone?" Lin Yifan continued to ask.

"No, young master! Our mission at the train station is to check suspicious people, especially Red Party and Skinhead Party intelligence agents, and incidentally... incidentally make some... some extra money..." The burly man's voice trailed off.

Lin Yifan's eyes turned slightly cold. Zhang Xiaolin's men were both spying for the Japanese and engaging in robbery, profiting from both sides. Keeping such scum around was a waste of resources. With a thought, he fired three bullets, each piercing the heads of one of the three Green Gang henchmen.

Lin Yifan found the train ticket in the inner pocket of the man in the suit's corpse; it was indeed a first-class ticket for 6 a.m. the next morning. He also found over a hundred silver dollars and a few Japanese yen on the bodies of the others, which he then stored in his spatial storage.

As he emerged from the alley, the rickshaw driver was still waiting at the street corner. Seeing him come out alone, he asked with some surprise, "Young master, where is that gentleman?"

"He had something come up and had to leave."

Lin Yifan jumped into the car. "Back to the Bund, Jiujiang Road."

The driver, unsuspecting, pulled the rickshaw and drove off. Lin Yifan closed his eyes to rest, but his mind was racing. Since Zhang Xiaolin had already defected to the enemy, he was a potential threat.

But right now, the more important thing is to head north to Tianjin and sabotage Okamura Yasuji's "iron wall encirclement" plan. As for those evil spirits and monsters of the Green Gang, he can deal with them slowly when he has the chance to return later.

The rickshaw stopped in front of the hotel. Lin Yifan paid the fare, sent the driver away, and walked into the hotel lobby. He said to the waiter guarding the lobby, "Prepare a serving of poached chicken, a crucian carp with scallion oil, a serving of mushrooms and bok choy, a serving of ham and winter melon soup, and half a pound of rice for me. Deliver them to room 311."

The waiter quickly responded, noting the names of the dishes in the register, and then put on a professional smile: "Young master, the poached chicken needs to be made to order, it will take about half an hour. The other dishes will be served in about fifteen minutes."

Lin Yifan nodded and went straight up to the third floor. The corridor was carpeted in dark red, and each step was silent. He had just taken out his keys when he suddenly stopped—a very faint smell of smoke was wafting from under the door of room 311.

He had never smoked before, and he had made a point of leaving the window open. The smoke smelled harsh and pungent, like cheap, homemade tobacco, definitely not the kind that a hotel guest would have.

His mental energy penetrated the door, revealing the entire room: two men dressed in shorts were sitting on his bed, one with his legs crossed, smoking, and the other rummaging through his luggage—though the suitcase contained only a few changes of clothes and a few books.

"Brother, this kid looks so delicate and fair-skinned, he doesn't seem like an ordinary family's child." The one rummaging through the luggage lowered his voice, "The suitcase is imported, and there's a pocket watch inside, worth at least several tens of silver dollars."

The man smoking scoffed, "Who cares what their background is? When they're on our Green Gang's turf, dragons have to coil up and tigers have to lie low. Look carefully; Shorty Six sent word back that the luggage felt quite heavy when he delivered it yesterday, so check for any hidden compartments."

Lin Yifan withdrew his spiritual power, a cold smile appearing on his lips. The Green Gang in this bustling metropolis truly lived up to its reputation; even in such a small hotel, they had their men. Luckily, it was him; if it were someone else, they would have had no choice but to accept their bad luck.

He unlocked the door with his key and went straight in. The two thugs who were rummaging through his luggage heard the sound and looked up sharply, meeting a pair of cold, unfathomable eyes.

There was no fear in his eyes, only a detached indifference, as if looking down on ants. The man smoking trembled, and the cigarette butt fell onto the bed, burning a black hole in it. The man rummaging through his luggage froze on the spot, still clutching a neatly folded school uniform in his hand.

"Looking for what?" Lin Yifan slammed the door shut behind him, the click of the lock ringing out crisply in the silence. "A hidden compartment? A secret room? Or—" He tilted his head, "Do you really think a kid can carry mountains of gold and silver and stay in a hotel?"

"You little brat..." The smoking man was the first to snap out of it, abruptly standing up, his short knife already half-drawn from its sheath. "Do you know whose territory this is? You'd better know better—"

The words came to an abrupt halt.

Lin Yifan was already standing in front of him, his right index finger lightly touching the man's throat. The man's eyes widened, and he felt all his strength recede like a receding tide. His short knife clattered to the ground, and he slumped down as if his bones had been removed.

Seeing this, another thug yelled and lunged forward, but Lin Yifan dodged him and slapped him on the back of the neck. His two-hundred-pound body slammed into the leather suitcase, deforming the fine leather box.