Mystery: The Witch of Desire

"Is 'White Socks' Rowling, the leader of the Hyena Gang and Samira's second-in-command, a coward who remains unmoved after being provoked by a woman?"

Reeve wasn't sure if his wording was appropriate, since both sides in the conflict were women in appearance.

Rowling sneered:

"If you were a man, I would have beaten you half to death and fed you to the dogs."

As she spoke, she got up from the bed, walked to the window, and looked at the street scene outside:

"Get out of here before I change my mind,"

Levi looked Rowling up and down carefully, showing great interest.

Chapter 12 Assassination

"You really don't seem like a gangster."

Reeve said with a smile.

"He's more like a... gentleman."

Rowling turned her head and looked at Reeves without a trace of emotion:

What exactly do you want?

Reeves smiled and said meaningfully:

"I'm very interested in you. I want to join the Hyena Gang."

Rowling raised an eyebrow:

"What's the connection between being interested in me and joining the Hyena Gang? You don't have to join the Hyena Gang to become my mistress..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't join the Hyena Gang because I wanted to be your mistress. I just wanted to join a gang."

Levi, unable to bear it any longer, interrupted Rowling.

Upon hearing this, Rowling decisively replied:

"I refuse your application."

"Why?" Levi asked instinctively. "I've studied martial arts, as you saw downstairs just now. I'm quite good at fighting."

Rowling gave a disdainful look:

"What do you think gangs represent? Gangs represent blood, filth, sin, betrayal; they represent bullying the weak and trampling on conscience, not the fighting and killing and justice-seeking scenes in those brainless novels you read..."

“I know, I know what gangs are, I’ve seen blood and filth.”

Reeve interrupted Rowling again, speaking expressionlessly.

Rowling fell silent, coldly scrutinizing Levi.

After a long pause, she sighed and said:

“Alright, I can give you a task. If you complete it, I will take you to see ‘Red Lady’ and she will decide whether you can join the Hyena Gang.”

"Speak, what's the mission?"

A glint of light flashed in Reeves' eyes; he had finally seen progress.

Rowling thought for a moment, then slowly said:

“I have a henchman named Luca. He borrowed a lot of money from prostitutes to gamble, and lost it all. After he was exposed, he ran to our mortal enemy—the Black Scorpion Gang. Go and kill Luca.”

Then, she described Luca's physical characteristics and whereabouts.

"Okay, should we bring his head back?"

Levi nodded, then asked, feigning seriousness. He said this only to maintain his image as a cold-blooded and ruthless person; he didn't actually intend to cut off someone's head.

"Whatever, as long as you can prove he's dead. But... don't force yourself, or you'll die a horrible death."

Rowling glanced at Reeves, but didn't show much of an expression.

"Alright, that kid won't live much longer."

Levi made a harsh statement and prepared to leave the room.

"Wait, what's your name?"

Rowling watched his retreating figure and asked hesitantly.

"Livia".

Levi didn't look back and walked out of the Kingfisher Bar amidst the noise.

Walk a few hundred meters down Iron Cross Street and you'll arrive at the Black Scorpion Gang's territory.

The Black Scorpion Gang did not operate any entertainment venues such as bars, because most of the prostitutes and dancers on Iron Cross Street were controlled by the Hyena Gang, which naturally monopolized the dance hall and bar business.

The Black Scorpion Gang's influence is mainly in factories and workshops. They make money by lending money at high interest rates, selling poor people who cannot repay their debts to factories, and also engage in human trafficking and kidnapping.

Those targeted by them will be sold to dark and dreary factories and workshops to work until they die, without wages or freedom; in their own jargon, this is called 'illegal labor'.

The government has specific legislation to combat illegal workers and human trafficking, but the effect is minimal. This is because the Iron Cross Street slum has a complex terrain with various old buildings intertwined. A normal grocery store might have a small workshop controlling a dozen or so illegal workers in its basement.

Secondly, there is some kind of illicit exchange of benefits between these gangs and police departments, which is something even a fool could guess.

Considering that entering the factory workshop as a beautiful woman would be too conspicuous, Levi bought a common light blue factory uniform from a grocery store beforehand, put it over her own clothes, and then bought a large baseball cap, tucking all her hair into the cap to cover her beautiful face.

Feeling his disguise wasn't enough, he put on a mask covered in oil stains.

From her appearance, she looked like an ordinary factory worker, except that she had a good figure...

Even loose-fitting factory clothes couldn't completely conceal his graceful curves.

"Next time, try to use less cotton padding..."

Reeve sighed and began to venture deeper into the factory area.

As an ordinary person with no special skills, and having just joined Black Scorpion, Luca is unlikely to take on any important tasks. Instead, he will likely work as a henchman in a factory.

Levi used his abilities to carefully hide in the shadows and investigate the illegal factories and larger workshops.

Reeve was lucky; when he explored the seventh workshop, he found Luca: he was exactly as Rowling described, thin but with a bloated, bulbous nose and striking green hair.

He was sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair in front of a one-story house, leisurely smoking cheap tobacco and looking at the gray sky above. Inside, a dozen female workers were weaving cloth on hand-cranked looms, making it look like a normal textile workshop.

Revi surveyed the surroundings and, finding no one lying in ambush, slowly approached, hugging the shadow of another house. In the gloomy weather, he effortlessly reached Luca's side and pulled the sharp Feneport dagger from his inner pocket.

At that moment, his heart began to pound in his chest.

Whether in his past life or this one, Reeves had never killed anyone. And now, the sharp, cold glint of the dagger was pressed against Luca's neck.

"He's a damn gangster, he cheated a lot of people out of money, he was involved in human trafficking..."

Revi kept repeating these words to himself, trying to ease his psychological burden, but it wasn't very effective. From his past life's moral perspective, simply cheating someone out of money wasn't enough to warrant the death penalty, and Revi hadn't personally witnessed Luca engaging in human trafficking...

After taking several deep breaths, Revi finally managed to calm his rapidly beating heart and fixed his emotionless gaze on Luca:

May you be a good person in your next life.

He suddenly sprang from the shadows, unleashing the full power of an assassin's strike, the blade slicing across Luca's carotid artery.

*Pfft!* A large amount of bright red blood spurted out, splattering all over Levi's light blue factory uniform.

In that instant, Rivi, splattered with blood, felt a strange sensation within his body, as if some valve had loosened, a feeling of comfort and ease.

Luca collapsed without making a sound. Revi caught his limp body, dragged him away from the doorway, and threw him against the wall to prevent the female workers inside from finding out and causing a commotion.

He watched as Lucan's face rapidly lost its color, gripped the dagger, but couldn't bring himself to cut off his head.

Left with no other option, he cut off a lock of Luca's green hair as evidence.

Levi stood up, took off his blood-stained work clothes, and prepared to return to the Kingfisher Bar to report.

Just then, a gunshot rang out, and a bullet, accompanied by a sharp whooshing sound, hurtled towards him!

Chapter 13 Darkness

Revi twisted his body almost reflexively. Thanks to the significant enhancement brought about by becoming an assassin, and the fact that the bullet was not accurate, it only grazed his shoulder. The huge impact caused a bruise and brought intense pain, but it did not damage his bones.

Reeves looked up in the direction of the gunshot. Four or five gangsters were rushing towards him from around a corner, and the one leading them, holding a revolver, was less than ten meters away from him! Even if they were all ordinary people, Reeves was not confident that he could handle them alone.

"Damn it! There's no time to get anywhere else!"

Levi cursed under his breath and turned to rush into the house. The bungalow was very long; if Levi ran along the wall, he would have to walk twenty or thirty meters before turning a corner, and he would inevitably be caught by the gang behind him. He had no choice but to enter the bungalow filled with spinning machines and use the complicated terrain inside to outmaneuver his opponents.

Bang! Bang! Several more gunshots rang out. Levi leaped into the room, quickly scanning its layout amidst the screams and commotion of a dozen textile workers. Unfortunately, he couldn't find a second door, and all the windows were sealed shut. Behind him, he could already hear the clattering footsteps of pursuers.

Damn it!

Levi's eyes darted around quickly, and he suddenly noticed an iron door embedded in the floor with a crack in it in the open space surrounded by several boxes by the wall.

“The basement! Basements are usually connected to the sewers and are always in shadow, which is perfect for showcasing my assassin skills…”

Without thinking twice, Levi pulled up the iron gate and jumped down.

Duang!

As soon as he landed, before he could even steady himself, an iron pipe swung violently at him. Levi only had time to slightly turn his head, allowing the pipe to hit his shoulder, avoiding a vital spot, but he still grimaced in pain.

He quickly gripped the dagger, and without caring who was behind him, he turned around and stabbed out!

With a soft "thud," the sharp blade pierced through the soft flesh and then was pulled out sharply, bringing with it a string of white intestines stained with thick blood. The thug holding the iron rod lost his sight and quickly collapsed to the ground, limp and lifeless.

At that moment, another thug in the basement swung his iron bar, smashing it down on Reeves' head. Reeves nimbly crouched down and then stabbed the thug in the Achilles tendon. The thug screamed and fell to the ground, his neck instantly slashed by the sharp dagger, and then everything went black.

In less than a few seconds, Levi killed two people. He was panting heavily, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to jump out of his throat!

He looked around the dimly lit basement with a slight dizziness and saw pairs of numb, lifeless eyes.

He froze, his dizziness subsided, his pupils focused, and he saw clearly the owner of those eyes:

They were people, both men and women, with hunched backs and as thin as sticks, their feet shackled and chained to the wall with thick iron chains.

They carried large wooden barrels on their shoulders, filled with coarse, colorful hair, and stood in front of them a water vat about half a person's height, filled with a grayish-white liquid.

Bang! An elderly woman, withered and emaciated like a matchstick, collapsed to the ground as if she had exhausted all her strength. The wooden bucket on her shoulder spun halfway on the ground, and snow-white, gray-white, and brown hairs drifted out and covered her body.

Her cloudy, aged eyes looked at Rivi, flickering with a faint light that quickly went out again.

She closed her eyes.

"Mother……"

A similarly thin and hunched man next to him paused for a moment, then, as if nothing had happened, poured the hair from the wooden bucket into the water vat, picked up a stick standing beside him, and began to stir it.

He seemed to have lost consciousness and become a machine that only knew how to work.

His back was turned to Reeves's thin back, which was covered with dense whip marks.

Reeve fell silent.

His hands clenched uncontrollably, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms.

The shock of killing Luca and the two henchmen had subsided, and he even felt a little regretful for letting those three bastards die so easily.

Just then, the sound of thumping footsteps came from above.

"Boss, he jumped from here! Damn it, Master Luo's divination was right after all, someone really did try to sabotage us today!"

"Jimmy, Vic, did you guys take care of that son of a bitch?"

No one responded.

"Damn it, Jimmy and Vic are dead! Frank, go find Master Luo and the others, I'll take some men down there and catch that son of a bitch!"

Reeve quickly snapped out of his anger and looked around, but found nothing that resembled a sewer entrance.

Just then, a wooden ladder was thrown down from the iron gate above. The bottom of the ladder touched the hard ground, while the top secured itself firmly to the iron gate. At the same time, in the darkness, a figure jumped directly down from the iron gate!

Reflexively, Levi leaped out of the shadows and swung his knife at his target, only to be surprised to find, just inches from his opponent, a terrified textile worker!

She was thrown down by the gang as bait!

Boom!

Several gunshots rang out. Levi quickly rolled away and hid behind a large water tank, escaping the bullets. However, the female worker who had been thrown down was shot in the thigh and let out a shrill scream.

Taking advantage of the moment when Levi was suppressed by gunfire, two gangsters swiftly jumped down the ladder, wielding iron bars and daggers, cautiously searching for Levi. The group of laborers, terrified by the gunfire, screamed in terror and frantically searched for cover, the chains rattling loudly in the chaos, effectively concealing Levi's presence.

Reeve, hidden behind the water tank, drew his revolver from his chest. Now was the perfect opportunity to retaliate, but he did not fire.

There were five people on the other side. One of them went to the so-called "Master Luo" for support, leaving four people. If we shoot and kill these two gangsters now, the other two will know that he has a gun and will not jump down. Instead, they will stay at the exit and wait for support.

Without knowing whether there are other exits in the basement, doing this would undoubtedly put you in a desperate situation!