Chapter 6 One Month, 3,000,000!
"Slap."
Shoes stepped into the polluted water, splashing up large, muddy sprays.
Rats, not much smaller than cats, scurried past Li Yan in fright. A rotten stench permeated the air, drifting from the fish ball factory behind the building.
No matter how legendary Kowloon City may seem in the eyes of later generations, dirtiness and decay were its true colors. The dazzling places within the city were, at least for the current Li Yan, out of reach.
Li Yan's thumb fiddled with a string of keys, belonging to one of the rooms inside this apartment with its mottled walls.
The keys were a welcome gift from Red Ghost, so Li Yan didn't have to squeeze into a room with those low-tier fighters. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from here to the ring on Longjin Road, which was convenient for Li Yan.
A fighter in Longcheng needed to find himself a suitable manager, also known as a Longcheng Coachman. The manager arranged when the fighters would enter the ring and how they would fight. Li Yan's previous manager in Longcheng was the small-eyed fat man called Fei Bo. And now, naturally, his manager was Red Ghost.
Compared to Fei Bo, who could only strut his stuff in the fourth ring, Red Ghost was a famous figure across all the rings in Longcheng. He made his debut using the name Chen Minhong at thirteen and became the lord of the sixth ring by twenty-one. Fierce in combat and heavy-handed, the nickname Red Ghost spread from then on. After stepping down from the ring, he worked with Taishuai, becoming one of the most relied-upon managers by his side, and even the chairman of the committee, Wu Haoxi, would greet Red Ghost with a beaming smile and call him "Ah Hong." To work under Red Ghost was considered a cause for celebration for someone like Fei Bo, akin to setting off firecrackers and buying roast goose.
However, Li Yan, whom Fei Bo saw as having ascended to the heavens in one step, was now fumbling with a few dozen coins in his pocket, his face sullen without any hint of self-satisfaction.
"Three hundred Yan Fu points, which means a full three million Hong Kong dollars. Should I go rob a bank or what?"
Even though Mo had given Li Yan three Yan Fu incidents' time to gather these three hundred Yan Fu points, clearly, Li Yan couldn't wait that long. He aimed to accomplish it all at once within 1986 in Kowloon City—to earn three million Hong Kong dollars in a month!
"Meow~"
Li Yan looked down to see a ginger kitten pacing back and forth near his feet, occasionally bumping its nose against his trousers.
"Ah Mi."
A childish female voice came from the stairway; Li Yan looked up to see a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl wearing a washed-out white shirt, barefoot, and frail-looking, with a somewhat fearful expression.
"Meow~"
At the call of its owner, the kitten leaped over to the girl's side and began to purr contentedly.
"Sorry, sir, Ah Mi always likes to wander off."
Li Yan smiled, "Your cat is very cute."
With that, he entered the apartment to find the room number Red Ghost had told him about.
"Little sister, do you know where room 413 is?"
The girl nodded at his question, picked up her cat, and gestured for Li Yan to follow her.
After about a minute or two, the girl stopped and pointed to the number on a room nearby.
"This is it."
"Thank you, little sister. Here, let your brother buy you some candy."
Li Yan took out two pieces of milk candy from his pocket and handed them to the girl. He had bought the candy on Longjin Road to ease his pain.
"Xiu, who are you talking to so late?"
A woman's voice came from the room behind Li Yan. It was a bit hoarse and clearly lacking strength.
"Nothing, mom, I went downstairs to look for Ah Mi."
Seeing the candy in Li Yan's hand, the girl hesitated, but after hearing the voice from the room, she quickly said goodbye and hurried back inside.
Li Yan peeled off the candy wrapper and popped a milk candy into his mouth, not thinking much of it. He took out the key and unlocked his room door.
Having a mother and daughter next door was preferable over the kind of troublemakers that flitted around elsewhere—it was the last thing the current Li Yan wanted.
The room was cramped but fairly clean. The only issue was the strong fishy smell from the fish ball factory in the back of the apartment; even with the doors and windows tightly shut, the odor was still noticeable. Since Li Yan was just looking for a place to rest his head, he wasn't too concerned, giving the place a quick tidy before falling into a deep slumber.
...
Late at night, inside a gambling stall.
"Open! A big twelve."
As the dice stopped spinning, the middle-aged man with disheveled hair and a receding hairline collapsed to the ground, the faint smell of alcohol still on him. Among the crowd gathered around the gambling table, some were elated, while others gritted their teeth in frustration, but no one spared a glance at the pale-faced man who looked as though he was about to have a heart attack, as if he were a pile of trash that needed to be swept onto the streets.
"Come on, place your bets, no more bets."
Hei Yatai, with his messy hair and teeth blackened by smoke, holding half a cigarette between them, was shouting with a flushed face.
"Wait, wait, I'm betting small this time."
The red-eyed middle-aged man screamed hoarsely in panic.
"Got the money, old man?"
Hei Yatai swallowed a lump of phlegm, shouting at the middle-aged man with a defiant tone. His piercing gaze could easily see that the man had not a single penny left on him. If he dared to cause a scene now, demanding to gamble with his fingers or something, Hei Yatai would surely have him dragged out back, strip him naked, and throw him into the sea to feed the sharks.
The middle-aged man's lips trembled as he took out a flat wooden box from his chest.
"How much is this worth?"
When the wooden box was opened, it revealed a piece of pale yellow rice paper with gold embossed patterns intertwined on it, depicting a vividly lifelike Kui Niu, its golden fur clearly visible, standing on one foot on the earth, sitting back and howling up at the sky. On the back of the paper were dense lines of small characters.
Without a second thought, Hei Yatai slapped both the wooden box and the paper inside onto the middle-aged man's face!
"Damn your mother, bringing a box of toilet paper here to trade for money? What do you think this is, Hell money? If you've got no cash, then get the hell outta here!"
The middle-aged man stumbled backwards from the blow, with streaks of blood flowing down from his nose to his lips, onto the ground. He got up and started to walk out, muttering to himself.
"Blind to the goods, it's an antique."
He brushed the dust off his body and wobbled out, oblivious to the fact that wandering the cramped streets of Kowloon City in such a drunken state was an invitation for trouble...
"Lousy guy, talking nonsense..."
While he was still complaining, he didn't notice a figure sneaking up behind him and, catching him off guard, a chunk of concrete struck him hard in the back of the head!
The middle-aged man fell down at the sound, and the figure crouched down, frantically searching his pockets, finding nothing and just as he started to feel vexed, he noticed the impressively gilded rice paper clenched in the man's hand. Without a second thought, he snatched it up, glanced around to see no one nearby, and turned to leave.
But at that moment, a hand suddenly gripped his pant leg tightly, tripping him to the ground.
The middle-aged man's head was bloody, and he moaned.
"Save, save me, save..."
The man shook all over, desperately kicking at the middle-aged man's chest, trying to make him let go, but his grip was very tight and he wouldn't loosen it at all.
Panting heavily, rage rose from his heart, courage grew from his anger, he groped for the bloody concrete block that had fallen to the ground, raised it high with both hands. And smashed it down hard!
"Bang!"
Li Yan's palm came crashing down, hitting the other's face, immediately causing him to lose consciousness.
"This young fella is sharp, winning five bouts in one night."
"What the hell, it's clear this guy isn't of the fourth ring's level, why are they still letting him fight?"
Red Ghost leaned by the fighting ring, waving his hand to signal Li Yan to come down.
"What's up, Red Ghost?" Li Yan asked half-jokingly.
Red Ghost sighed with a bitter smile.
"If you keep fighting like this, even idiots will blindly follow you, turning my ring into a joke, follow me, you're fighting the last bout today in the big ring."
"Alright. Where to?"
Red Ghost flicked his cigarette butt to the ground.
"Fuyi Building."