"Yo! Who the hell dares to cause a ruckus on my turf? Don't you know I was in the middle of a nap? I am incredibly pissed off right now!"
A woman draped in countless heavy iron chains strolled out from the shadows. She wore a bright yellow martial arts uniform, identical to the one worn by the female Street Fighter, Gallina, but with a heavy leather overcoat draped loosely over her shoulders.
However, she clearly didn't recognize Li Ke right away, mostly due to her dramatic entrance. She had been preoccupied casually flipping a combat dagger in her hand as she walked out, completely ignoring her surroundings. It was only when she finally cast a look of utter disdain toward Li Ke and Roche...
That her entire body stiffened mid-stride.
"Yo! Long time no see!"
Li Ke immediately smiled and waved his hand in greeting. He actually harbored plenty of goodwill toward this particular Street Fighter lady. After all, they shared the kind of close relationship where they had previously negotiated the exact price of going to bed together. One could say they were practically intimates.
But for the lady who called herself "Lightning Wolf," this reunion was anything but a pleasant surprise. Staring at Li Ke, the corner of her eye twitched violently.
Though she was merely the boss of a localized back-alley gang, maintaining her fearsome street credibility and prestige was paramount in a place like this. If Li Ke blabbed aloud that she had once tried to sleep with him—and had fucking asked him to pay her for the privilege—her authority over her gang would instantly evaporate into thin air.
Before he could say another word, she lunged forward, ripping off her leather overcoat and hurling it blindly into the arms of an underling. Reaching out with a vicious grip, she fiercely balled up Li Ke's collar in her fist.
"Yo your ass! Why the hell are you on my turf stirring up trouble?!"
Even though the two fresh corpses cooling on the cobblestones weren't her own men, having bodies drop in her territory meant the city guard would inevitably come knocking to make trouble.
When that happened, she would be the one stuck dealing with the fallout. That was the sole reason she had mobilized her crew to hunt down the perpetrators.
"Technically, I was ambushed by those two bastards," Li Ke explained calmly. "They were clearly after my wallet. So, strictly speaking, this was purely legitimate self-defense."
Lightning Wolf let out a sharp, mocking sneer.
"Ha! Tell that to the guards!"
Those corrupt city guards didn't give a damn about what was legal or whether it counted as self-defense. They would simply use the incident as an excuse to shake her down for cash, seeing as she was the undisputed boss of this block.
"So?" Li Ke asked with genuine curiosity.
Staring at his relaxed, smiling face, Lightning Wolf instantly felt a profound wave of regret over why she had ever let greed blind her into offering her body to him for a mere ten gold coins in the past.
Granted, she was heavily strapped for cash right now, but if that embarrassing transaction ever leaked out, she would never be able to show her face in the underworld again.
Still, she didn't want to spend a single copper of her own money to grease the palms of the city guard!
Gnashing her teeth, she spat out her terms through a forced whisper.
"Ten gold coins. Pay up, or this matter doesn't end cleanly."
Ten gold coins, huh.
Hearing that specific number, Li Ke's expression instantly became incredibly smug and amused. The sudden shift in his eyes provoked Lightning Wolf so much that she violently hoisted him off his feet by his collar.
Though Lightning Wolf wasn't particularly tall—standing only about twenty or thirty centimeters higher than Roche—she carried herself with an aggressively domineering aura. But in reality...
Standing just to the side, Roche watched the gang leader hoist Li Ke into the air. Her spear-tipped staff immediately began pulsing with a dangerous, ambient magical glow, ready to launch a sudden strike on Lightning Wolf at a moment's notice.
"It's just ten gold coins. Not a big deal," Li Ke chuckled, his expression remaining utterly relaxed.
Hearing that he was actually willing to cough up the cash, Lightning Wolf begrudgingly set him back down onto his feet. She glared at his face, aggressively punching him in the chest out of sheer annoyance.
"What the hell is up with that look on your face?!"
"Don't sweat the small stuff," Li Ke smiled smoothly, rubbing his chest. "But since I'm happily paying up out of respect for your reputation, you owe me answers to a couple of questions in return."
Li Ke stroked his chin, his gaze sweeping over the fierce female fighter, Tangji, whose combat attire was designed for maximum mobility in the back alleys. With a polite tone, he presented his request.
Tangji let out a cold snort. Avoiding Li Ke's teasing smirk, she crossed her arms and snapped, "Spit it out. What do you want to know?"
Li Ke looked at the formidable woman and asked his first question. "What's your name?"
"Tangji. Lightning Wolf, Tangji," she replied, an annoyed twitch lifting her eyebrow. "If you're looking for a rematch later, feel free to find me."
She found Li Ke deeply irritating. It wasn't just his habit of challenging her authority in this district; it was the way he looked at her with such confidence, making her feel restless and agitated.
"Tangji, huh. Second question." Li Ke leaned closer, curious about the unique abilities of a Street Fighter. "Is the venom you use in combat actually dangerous to someone with high resistance?"
Tangji blanked for a second, then a cold smirk played on her lips. "Duh. While I don't use lethal toxins for every skirmish, paralyzing your senses is a walk in the park. My hidden weapons and strikes can make you watch helplessly as you lose all sensation bit by bit. I can leave you completely immobilized!"
To punctuate her threat, Tangji applied a small amount of a numbing agent she carried to Li Ke's forearm. Instantly, a bizarre sensation bloomed where the substance touched his skin. It wasn't painful, but a localized numbness—precisely mimicking the weight of a limb that had fallen asleep.
A strategic realization clicked in Li Ke's mind regarding the mechanics of her class. Before he could speak, Tangji scoffed.
"Most of us in the alleys use manageable paralytics. We're here to make a living and maintain order, not to be mindless monsters. As long as you follow the local rules, you won't have to experience it firsthand."
"So give me the money," Tangji demanded, rolling her eyes and sticking out her open palm.
Excluding what she needed to grease the guards' wheels, she'd still walk away with a tidy profit, so she wasn't about to play nice with Li Ke.
But the next moment—
She stared down at the twenty gold coins dropped into her palm, completely dumbfounded. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers as her mind instantly flashed back to their previous, scandalous agreement.
"You... what the hell is this supposed to mean...?"
"I just want to see if your fluids will actually poison me to death," Li Ke grinned, stepping forward boldly. "How about it? Come over to my place tonight..."
With a smooth, confident smile, Li Ke reached out and slid his hand straight toward Tangji's slender waist, his palm naturally gliding down to firmly cup her soft, incredibly elastic backside.
Tangji froze in absolute shock. The very millisecond before Li Ke could fully savor the voluptuous, bouncy sensation under his palm, she snapped out of it. Blushing a violent crimson from the sheer audacity of his groping, she aggressively smashed her fist right into his chest, knocking him flat onto the cobblestones.
"Go to hell, you absolute degenerate!"
Hurling the curse at him with a flaming red face, Tangji spun on her heel and fled the alleyway in a panicked, embarrassed rush.
Standing just to the side, Roche watched the entire shameless display unfold. Once the gang had vanished, she walked over with a completely deadpan expression and squatted right above Li Ke's head. Looking down from above at his blissfully smiling face, she couldn't help but let out a biting critique.
"You really are a pervert, Big Brother."