The Beetle nearly brushed the rear bumper of the Renault as it entered the club's parking lot.

Once the barrier arm lifted, the parking area stretched out like a highland pasture, with reinforced-concrete structures rising from the ground and seemingly extending endlessly into the distance.

A display screen hung down over the entrance, indicating that roughly two-thirds of the parking area was already full.

They had no choice but to turn the wheel and slowly follow the Renault toward Section D. Parking spaces were extremely difficult to find, and they nearly scraped another car several times while making the turns.

Jiang Yu held a cigarette between his lips. His lighter was tucked inside his jacket, but he didn't light it.

He had deliberately stopped at a nearby convenience store after leaving the apartment to buy them.

According to the shopkeeper, this old South American brand was especially popular with regular customers, and there had only been one pack left in stock. Jiang Yu had paid for it without hesitation.

“Young Master, what did the two people you took down earlier look like?”

Qiu Shihuan touched his index finger to his lips and stared at the roof of the car.

“Hmm. The taller man had very shifty eyes. The moment I walked in, he started staring at me. The other one had a beard that came down to here.” He gestured along his cheek. “He wore black-rimmed glasses and looked really fierce.”

“How did they speak?”

“Pretty rough. They talked loudly. Like they were shouting. I don't think I imitated it very well.”

“Got it.”

Jiang Yu checked the Renault's position once more, then said to Qiu Shihuan in the passenger seat, “Young Master, give me the VIP cards. Remember, once we get out of the car, you call me Uncle. I'll handle everything from there.”

“No.”

Qiu Shihuan slapped his hand away, looking rather sulky.

“I got the cards.”

“Young Master.”

Jiang Yu helplessly rubbed his temples a few times, his right arm resting on the steering wheel. He turned around and stared carefully into Qiu Shihuan's eyes.

“I'll replace the ice cream you didn't finish afterward, all right? This isn't the time to joke around. Be good.”

Supporting his chin in his hand, Qiu Shihuan grinned at him.

“Uncle, if I help you, will you sleep with me?”

Li Yuanxi in the back seat froze completely.

She stared blankly at the two people in the front, utterly unable to understand what they were talking about.

“No.”

Jiang Yu unfastened his seat belt.

“Why?” Qiu Shihuan raised his voice, refusing to let it go. “Don't you really like my face? You keep staring at it whenever you think I won't notice!”

“That's different, Young Master. You're only eighteen. You can't just say you want to sleep with someone because you feel like it.”

“That's not fair!”

Qiu Shihuan bit his lip.

“All right. Be good. Give me the cards.”

Seeing that he remained motionless, Jiang Yu could only lean over himself.

He pulled the two cleaned VIP cards out of Qiu Shihuan's back pocket, then couldn't resist patting him on the head.

“Don't be upset, Young Master. Whatever I promised to give you, I'll give you. I never break my word.”

Qiu Shihuan still turned his head away and sniffed.

He looked as though he'd genuinely been wronged.

He was far too willful.

What could Jiang Yu do about it?

As the sole heir to a major financial conglomerate, Qiu Shihuan had been raised with enormous expectations and thoroughly spoiled from childhood. He had never experienced hardship, nor did he even know what hardship was.

So perhaps human lives simply didn't mean much to him.

It wasn't difficult to understand.

Growing up in an environment like this, he had been taught the profit-first mentality of the major conglomerates and influenced by their ruthless methods. It wasn't particularly strange that such an environment had produced a spoiled heir with a pathological hedonism, someone who built his happiness upon the suffering of others.

It was only that, as far as Jiang Yu himself was concerned, the Qiu Shihuan he had first encountered had simply been a cold-blooded killer he desperately wanted to avoid.

But when had that changed?

Under that purely overwhelming sense of oppression, when had some strange emotion slowly and painfully emerged, like a difficult birth?

Even Jiang Yu himself couldn't quite understand it.

Once the Beetle was parked, Jiang Yu reached out and adjusted the rearview mirror, confirming the Renault's exact position behind them on the left.

His index finger tapped against the leather steering-wheel cover. As soon as the doors opened, he casually patted Qiu Shihuan beside him, grabbed the scattered portable tools from his backpack, and stepped out.

“Let's go, Young Master.”

The Renault was parked conveniently near the exit of Section D, with the Beetle directly behind it.

As soon as the owner and his friend got out, Jiang Yu and Qiu Shihuan followed one after another.

Li Yuanxi remained in the car, reporting their situation to them at regular intervals.

Jiang Yu's leather shoes struck the ground with steady, heavy steps. He took out his lighter with one hand and pulled out the cotton wick with the other, clicking the lighter repeatedly.

The wick fell beneath his shoe, and he kicked it underneath the chassis of a nearby car.

He clicked the lighter several more times, but no flame appeared. He couldn't help swearing under his breath.

Qiu Shihuan followed behind him angrily. But the moment he caught Jiang Yu's gaze, he immediately understood what Jiang Yu meant.

His face lit up with a smile.

“Uncle, what are you doing?”

“My lighter's broken.”

Jiang Yu couldn't resist patting Qiu Shihuan on the head as he complained, “What a piece of junk… Hey, guys up ahead. Wait a second.”

With the cigarette between his lips, he raised his chin and called out to the two men ahead.

They turned around in confusion.

“Could I borrow a light?”

Jiang Yu held up his cigarette pack and reluctantly put his lighter back into his pocket.

“This thing's broken. Can't light a single cigarette.”

The owner glanced at the cigarette Jiang Yu held out and nodded.

The three of them walked along side by side, smoking and chatting.

Qiu Shihuan silently followed behind them.

“Man, I was going crazy the whole way here,” Jiang Yu said, taking an urgent drag. “I have no idea what happened. The lighter just wouldn't work. And my nephew kept pestering me to get out of the car. I thought I'd suffocate.”

“Your nephew? You brought your nephew to a place like this?”

The man wearing a chain bracelet glanced at Jiang Yu, then looked over Qiu Shihuan.

Jiang Yu laughed and tapped the ash from his cigarette.

“My sister-in-law asked me to look after him. She usually has to take care of the business. Where would she find the time to look after a kid?”

“He's barely an adult, isn't he? Can he even handle a place like this?”

“What could be difficult about it? Once we're inside the club, I'll get the kid his own room and periodically give him some fruit and snacks. When we go home, he'll tell his mother what a great uncle I am.”

Jiang Yu curled his lip at the man and finished the cigarette in a few quick drags.

“By the way, you two came together?”

“We've got a business deal to discuss with the boss. After thinking it over, we figured this kind of place would be easier for negotiations.”

“True enough.”

Jiang Yu dusted off his hands and pulled Qiu Shihuan forward.

“Come on, come on. Say hello to your uncles.”

Qiu Shihuan glared at him resentfully.

Jiang Yu couldn't help whispering instructions into his ear.

“Young Master, be good. Just say hello. I'm not taking advantage of you in any other way. If you listen to me, I'll buy you braised pork knuckle and bayberries, all right?”

Qiu Shihuan pouted, his fingers clutching the hem of his clothes. Clearly unwilling, he finally called out,

“Hello, uncles.”

For some reason, that one greeting nearly made Jiang Yu's entire spine go weak.

Just as Jiang Yu had guessed, based on Qiu Shihuan's descriptions of the two owners of the VIP cards, he deduced that most of the members in this area were small-business owners. These people had started from nothing, and their places of origin were probably even worse off than District 19 in terms of public security and education.

Under such circumstances, membership screening here certainly wouldn't be particularly strict. Once the number of applicants increased, the guards would prioritize efficiency and simply let them all through.

After entering the club, they first encountered a long corridor bathed in purple-red light.

Glass display cases lined both sides of the passage. After walking only a few steps inside, it was already possible to see their contents clearly.

The display cases were divided into individual little rooms, each containing a blonde woman with a curvaceous figure dressed in tight leather clothing.

They wore masks. Some twisted their hips as they moved around poles; others used suggestive body language; still others used supports to hang upside down and spin.

Various kinds of music played throughout the club. Whenever the melodies changed, the bass and drums thundered down with tremendous force, pouring out as though they had gone mad. The music could have been reggae, hip-hop, or funk.

Figures crowded the walls, private rooms, and even the center of the dance floor, drinking and partying. Under the cube-shaped spotlights, they might be kissing or talking, or they might suddenly break into a fight.

Waiters came and went freely, while dancers of all kinds moved through the crowd.

The place was chaotic beyond measure, yet within only a few hours, it had captured the attention of practically every small-time businessman in District 19.

They were then divided into two groups and sent to different rooms.

The waiter explained that guests had to change into the designated clothing in their rooms and put on masks before entering the club. This was intended to prevent another attack like the previous one.

Jiang Yu seemed about to ask for more details, but when he noticed the badge on the left side of the man's chest, he swallowed the words he was about to say.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“Could you bring us some snacks and fruit?”

The waiter froze for a moment, then nodded and closed the door.

“I'll be waiting outside. If either of you has any questions, you can press the service bell to call me at any time. It's on the wall to the left of the wardrobe.”

The room generally followed a nightclub aesthetic. A luxurious red velvet sofa stretched from one end of the wall to the other, while several irregularly shaped tables held all kinds of strange objects.

Even the chandelier was made of crystal, and a sheet of one-way glass offered a direct view of the stage.

Jiang Yu opened the wardrobe and looked at the black suits arranged from smallest to largest on the shelves. He couldn't help rubbing his temples.

From the angle of the open wardrobe door, he could vaguely see a ventilation opening overhead, with a tiny red light blinking intermittently.

Without making a sound, he opened a drawer. Inside were masks of various designs.

Meanwhile, Qiu Shihuan stood with his hands behind his back, staring in amazement at the dazzling assortment of toys hanging on the wall behind the sofa.

“Uncle, after all that, this is why you brought me here? It's fine. I don't really mind.”

He casually took down a riding crop and lightly flicked it against his palm a few times. Then he spread his fingers in surprise, admiring the increasingly visible red marks.

“Ah! It's red. If you hit someone with this, it must really hurt, right? Would they cry? Can I keep it?”

“All right, stop messing around with those things.”

Jiang Yu walked over carrying a suit.

“Get changed. And your hand? Let me see the one you injured.”

Qiu Shihuan obediently held out his palm.

“Uncle, look. Is it red?”

Jiang Yu had only just leaned closer, his breath barely brushing the back of Qiu Shihuan's hand, when a sudden, hot sensation touched his fingertips.

He shuddered, only to see Qiu Shihuan's upper lip pressed against his middle finger while his thumb rested against the soft lower lip.

Perhaps because Qiu Shihuan habitually bit his lips, his lowered lashes and focused expression as he sucked on Jiang Yu's finger made him resemble a small animal trying to charm a human into giving it food.

Jiang Yu's finger stopped resisting and stroked back and forth across Qiu Shihuan's lower lip.

The tip of Qiu Shihuan's tongue traced from Jiang Yu's palm toward his fingertip, saliva slipping down his chin. This willful young master seemed to have calculated that Jiang Yu wouldn't use force and boldly took the finger deeper into his mouth.

Qiu Shihuan's tongue was remarkably nimble. Although he was only sucking on a finger, the outline formed by his tongue and mouth seemed deliberately provocative.

Seeing Jiang Yu's body stiffen, he narrowed his eyes flirtatiously.

“Uncle, you've been so quiet. Is it because there's a camera? Then… Do you want to put on an act? —Make us look trustworthy?”

Qiu Shihuan spoke without waiting for an answer, undoing his jacket and ignoring the suit Jiang Yu was holding out.

Instead, he tugged at the tight-fitting shirt underneath, making the contours of his chest and waist clearly visible. He caught Jiang Yu's hand and pressed it against his chest.

“…Young Master!”

“Uncle, don't you want to feel it? I heard chest muscles like this are really soft.”