Chapter 10: Someone Caught at Black Horse Billiards Hall!
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“Five words?” Jin Ling repeated.
Sun Feiyan, however, trembled violently and stared at Su Chen in disbelief. “How—how did you know he would come to the gathering today?”
“The gathering? You know my boyfriend too?” Jin Ling asked hurriedly, then lightly slapped her own cheek. “Bah, bah, that’s not the point. The point is, Feiyan, are you saying this fraud guessed right again?”
Sun Feiyan looked toward Su Chen, but he had already withdrawn his gaze and sat quietly, eyes lowered.
She stamped her foot and nodded reluctantly.
“Earlier, he said I was born into a moderately wealthy family. I didn’t believe him at all. I thought he had figured it out from the way I dressed. After all, this coat was brought back from Harbor City by my aunt. It cost more than three thousand, and it’s a designer brand. But…”
Taking a deep breath, Sun Feiyan gritted her teeth. “Fine. Five words. We’ll know soon enough whether they’re true.”
“Anyway, you’ll be keeping this stall open all day, right? If you’re wrong, I’ll call the police and have you arrested.”
“Lingling, let’s go!”
Lin Jingyu watched the two girls walk away and clicked his tongue twice.
“People are strange. Anything else may soften, but their mouths are the hardest of all!”
“Big brother, call the police.”
The voice was very soft. It came from Su Chen.
“What?”
“Even if she refuses the cigarette her boyfriend offered her, they’ll force her to smoke it. Call the police. Someone’s using drugs at the Black Horse Billiards Hall up ahead.”
Lin Jingyu’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You have connections. You can get there faster.”
“Oh, right, right. I’ll go at once.”
The beauty had left, and the crowd had dispersed. Across the street, Old Liao happened to see Lin Jingyu and Su Chen with their heads close together.
“Jade, what are you two whispering about? Is there something we can’t hear?”
The auntie who sold paper cuttings laughed along. “Exactly! Don’t tell me you’ve taken a fancy to those girls and are thinking of introducing them to someone?”
“Well, they’re college students. No one on Springbright Street is good enough for them.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Jade’s younger brother is studying abroad. How could he not be good enough?”
“You said it yourself—he’s studying abroad. He’s surely brought back a foreign girl. Why would he still need a match?”
…
All the stallholders and shopkeepers here were neighbors, and the topic quickly carried everyone away.
When they turned around to ask Lin Jingyu about his younger brother, they discovered that he had vanished. Meanwhile, Biao had opened his hardware store and, seeing Su Chen at the stall, stepped forward to offer him a cigarette.
Su Chen waved it away. “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
Someone joked, “You were talking about finding a partner for Jingchun. If you ask me, Biao is the one who really needs a girlfriend.”
“Biao, there was just a beautiful girl here.”
Biao held the cigarette between his lips and curled them disdainfully. “Auntie Chun, don’t make such a fuss. If you’ve really got nothing better to do, why not keep an eye on Brother Ming? He quarrels with Sister-in-law every other night, and the noise keeps me awake. Just look at the red veins in my eyes.”
The auntie who ran the yarn shop immediately fell silent. She shot Biao a furious glare and turned into her store.
Biao shouted toward the front of the street, “Uncle Three, bring me a bowl of noodles!”
Then he dragged over a chair and sat beside Su Chen.
After blowing smoke for quite some time, he threw the cigarette butt onto the ground and ground it out with his shoe. Only then did he ask, “Brother, do people have past and future lives?”
Su Chen nodded.
“I heard you talking about destined partners just now. Tell me, are marriages in the next life destined too?”
Su Chen gave a quiet assent.
Biao opened his mouth, seemingly about to say something else, but Su Chen patted him on the shoulder.
“You and her are destined to meet, but not to be together.”
“I—I wasn’t thinking…” Biao began to explain, but Su Chen cut him off.
“From your features, I can tell that your brows and eyes are bright. If my reading is correct, your destined partner will appear within three to five days at the earliest, or ten days to half a month at the latest.”
Biao froze, then hurriedly rose to his feet. “No, that’s impossible! I have no intention of getting married!”
He slipped into the hardware store. A long while later, he emerged with a pink mirror and carefully examined his face. Unable to contain himself, he muttered, “I’m this dark-skinned. How could anyone see brightness in my face?”
Meanwhile, Sun Feiyan led Jin Ling around in troubled silence, circling again and again. In the end, she gritted her teeth and entered the Black Horse Billiards Hall.
Lin Jingyu caught sight of this and quietly gave a thumbs-up.
“Unbelievably accurate!”
When he saw several plainclothes officers enter, he jogged toward the billiards hall. At the doorway, he came face-to-face with a pair of sharp eyes.
“Brother Mao?”
The man glanced at him. “What are you doing here? Leave. Quickly.”
“But, Brother Mao, I was the one who gave you the lead…” Lin Jingyu began, then heard faint sounds of arguing from inside.
A woman happened to be walking along the street with a little girl. Upon hearing the commotion, she hurriedly moved away.
“Come on, come on. Huanhuan, this place is full of hooligans. You must never come here, understand?”
“Even if you hear someone crying for help, you’re not allowed to go inside. What if they’re traffickers who sell you?”
The little girl nodded repeatedly. “I understand, Mommy.”
The woman was not the only one. Other passersby also hurried out of the way.
Lin Jingyu had long since grown used to it.
After reform and opening, some people in Emerald City had grown rich before anyone else. Along with them came the street thugs who collected protection money. He knew that when certain people acted so arrogantly, they usually had someone powerful backing them. His cousin had brought people to investigate the Black Horse Billiards Hall before, but they had encountered considerable resistance.
But this time…
Lin Jingyu stole a glance inside. The beautiful girl from earlier was being held by the arm by a young man. She struggled desperately while someone nearby laughed lewdly.
“Go on, scream. Even if you scream the roof down in our billiards hall, no one will come to save you.”
The next instant, the young man struck the woman hard across the face. She covered her cheek and stared at him in disbelief.
“Li Bin, you hit me?”
Li Bin gave a soft laugh. “So what if I hit you? Brother Leopard and the others only wanted to give you a taste because they thought highly of you, and you still refuse to appreciate it? I’m telling you, you’re going to smoke this cigarette today whether you want to or not!”
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With that, he tried to force the lit cigarette into Sun Feiyan’s mouth.
Seeing this, Brother Leopard burst out laughing. “I’m telling you, Bin, your girlfriend isn’t very obedient. Take my advice and get another one. Leave this girl here for us to enjoy.”
Li Bin paused, but soon forced a smile.
“Brother Leopard is right. But my girlfriend is still a virgin. We could get a good price for her.”
Brother Leopard’s eyes lit up. “You’re something else, kid. Excellent, excellent. Director Fu mentioned earlier that he wanted a girl. If you get this done, your share for the entire year will be free.”
“Really? Thank you, Brother Leopard! Thank you, Brother Leopard!”
“Li Bin!” Sun Feiyan stared at him in disbelief and shouted angrily.
Smack!
She was struck hard across the face again.
“You filthy woman! Who gave you permission to call him Li Bin? From now on, you’ll call him Brother Bin!”
“Brother Bin, come on, let me feed her. Once she smokes it, she…”
The men exchanged glances and broke into lecherous laughter.
Sun Feiyan shook her head in terror. “No, no!”
She looked desperately toward Li Bin. “Li Bin, we’re classmates. We…”
Seeing him turn his head away guiltily, her shoulders slumped. Despair overtook her, leaving her dazed and broken.
“I—I was wrong. I had already calculated it. I clearly knew, but I…”
“Stop struggling. Come here!” Brother Leopard took a drag from his cigarette. “Since you won’t smoke it, I’ll smoke it for you and pass it over.”
The corner of Li Bin’s mouth twitched, and he quickly gave a dry laugh. “Brother Leopard really is something. I never would have thought of that.”
Just as Brother Leopard’s thick, dark lips were about to cover hers, someone suddenly burst inside.
“Police!”
…
Twenty yuan for a fortune-telling session was still too expensive for most people.
As a result, Su Chen’s stall went unattended for quite some time. With nothing else to do, he picked up one of the picture-story books from Lin Jingyu’s stall and began to read.
Just then, a voice approached from far away.
“They’ve arrested people! They caught people at the Black Horse Billiards Hall!”
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