Chapter 4: Ghost Street

Chapter 4: Ghost Street

Chengdu Prefecture, located on the southwestern frontier of the Great Ming Empire, comprised thirteen administrative districts. Though Jie'e District was numbered among them, the entire district consisted of a mere three main streets, falling far short of the wealth and bustle of the others.

Among these three main streets, Ghost Street—where the vast majority of Chengdu's black-market dealings converged—appeared even more lively than Sinfolk Street, a den of dragons and snakes, or Nine Dragons Street, held in the grip of the Paoge Society.

Li Jun, having narrowly escaped death, blended into the thronging crowds. He now wore a bomber jacket acquired via a five-finger discount, a style of dress originating from the Western Barbarians that had become exceedingly common among the Great Ming's poor.

Li Jun popped the collar of the jacket high, obscuring half his face, shielding himself from covetous gazes.

Li Jun was evidently no stranger to this street. He moved swiftly through the crowd, and moments later slipped into an inconspicuous, gloomy alleyway.

Compared to the bright, neon signs lined up like fish scales on the main street, the so-called "stalls" here were mostly just tattered cloths spread on the ground. Yet the goods piled upon them were terrifying enough.

Mass-produced prosthetics and chips with their serial numbers ground off; entire sets of artificial meridians soaking in glass vats; acquired Dao Foundations shaped like embryos; Buddha relics of every description...

All three teachings and nine streams, a miscellany of everything, nothing excluded.

Contraband rarely seen in other districts of Chengdu Prefecture lay brazenly on the ground here. The passing clientele wore expressions of utter nonchalance, long since inured to the sight.

"Sir, I've got the latest 'Yellow Millet Dream,' built on the foundation of *Liaozhai Erotic Tales*. Absolutely fresh, absolutely thrilling. Care to give it a try?"

A squat peddler sidled up to Li Jun, a crudely packaged bio-chip resting in his damp palm.

For these obvious pirated goods, Li Jun couldn't muster a shred of interest.

First off, he didn't even have a neural interface implanted. Even if he did, he wouldn't touch an illegal Yellow Millet Dream.

God knows how many people had already entered that illusion. Even if the AI intelligence inside hadn't been played into madness, it was likely teetering on the edge of losing control.

One wrong move, and those demons and monsters would invade the user's brain, seizing the body and becoming a yaoguai.

"No need. Not interested."

Li Jun, having serious business to attend to, replied coolly and turned to brush past the peddler.

The man, however, took a sharp step back, blocking his path once more.

"Give it a try, it's cheap. Thirty Great Ming Treasury Notes for one go."

The peddler hunched his shoulders, his expression seemingly servile, but Li Jun caught a glint of coldness in his beady eyes.

At that moment, a burly man squeezed in from the side, planting himself beside the peddler, fiddling with his mechanical prosthetic right forearm in a display of force.

*Crunch.* An antique brick, God knows where he'd scavenged it, was crushed to powder. Under the pouring rain, it turned to red mud, oozing from between his fingers.

Li Jun looked the two over, a smile playing on his lips. "Since when did Ghost Street stallholders start doing business at knifepoint?"

"Ghost Street never cheats anyone."

The short peddler shook his head in a show of mock sincerity, craning his neck like an old hound, his mechanical nose sniffing the faint scent of blood on Li Jun.

His smile widened, revealing a mouthful of dark yellow, rotten teeth.

"But if you don't want complications, you'd best do this deal with me."

A fresh face, body intact save for a gunshot wound—this was simply the perfect mark.

The burly man beside him clearly took Li Jun for a soft persimmon. He reached out to grab his collar.

"Cut the crap, pay up. A minute's passed already. One second, one time, sixty times total. That's eighteen hundred notes. I'll round it down for you—two thousand Great Ming Treasury Notes!"

The short peddler stepped aside leisurely, folding his arms across his chest. He was dead certain Li Jun wouldn't fight, but would pay to avoid disaster.

After all, anyone entering Ghost Street with a gunshot wound was either here for treatment or to hide.

Whichever it was, this fat sheep wouldn't choose to start a conflict with them.

The previously bustling alley fell abruptly silent. Many stallholders and customers lifted their heads, waiting to watch the show.

Just then, the burly man's right arm was already in Li Jun's face. A pungent, metallic stench of rust assaulted his nostrils.

Against this heap of metal scrap passing for a prosthetic, Li Jun couldn't be bothered to move his feet. He simply raised his left hand in a circle, clamping the mechanical arm under his armpit, and yanked hard.

A series of sharp *cracks* rang out. Rusted nuts and gears flew everywhere. The prosthetic snapped at the joint, tearing away a huge chunk of the burly man's flesh in the process.

The burly man stared at his mangled right forearm, pupils trembling like they'd been electrocuted.

His mouth gaped open, but before a scream could tear free, a following knife-hand strike shattered his throat.

"Urk..."

The massive body toppled backward, slamming hard onto the street, splashing rainwater that drew gasps from the onlookers.

The short peddler reacted fast. The instant the burly man fell, he ducked and tried to worm his way into the crowd. But he hadn't taken two steps before a sharp pain spiked in the back of his neck, and every ounce of strength drained from his body.

Li Jun tossed the corpse aside casually, his expression utterly placid, as if he'd merely swatted two flies.

The surrounding people scrambled left and right, clearing a wide path, watching him stride deep into the alley.

After Li Jun walked away, the silent alley suddenly erupted in cheers. Several stallholders lunged from behind their stalls like starving wolves, fighting over the corpses on the ground.

Fresh corpses were essential raw materials for manufacturing 'artificial meridians' and 'Buddha relics,' and were one of Ghost Street's hard currencies.

Li Jun naturally knew what was happening behind him from the faint commotion, but such things were commonplace in Jie'e District. His heart didn't ripple in the slightest. He raised a hand and knocked on the iron door before him.

Moments later, the iron door slid open a crack, revealing a pair of cold eyes. Pure, deep black pupils denoted the owner's status as a Ming citizen.

"What business?"

"Treatment. Seeking medicine."

The pupils behind the door flickered slightly, the tone softening. "Which doctor are you looking for?"

"Wu Ya Hua."

The iron door slid open soundlessly. From the cold light flashing along the door's edge, one could see that beneath its rust-mottled exterior, the core was a solid block of composite steel.

Beyond the door appeared to be a private clinic. Equipment Li Jun couldn't identify lay scattered haphazardly around. The air was thick with the biting smell of disinfectant.

In Jie'e District's Ghost Street, aside from the contraband trade, there was one famous industry: the ubiquitous black clinics.

These clinics handled a vast range of business: prosthetic replacement, device implantation, meridian transplantation... Whatever you could buy outside the door, they could install inside.

Purchase, installation, after-sales maintenance—the business chain of Ghost Street was already highly refined.

The owner of those cold eyes turned out to be a petite young girl. Her features were delicate, yet her aura was utterly frigid. She had zero intention of conversing with Li Jun.

Li Jun tactfully kept his silence, following quietly behind her.

They passed through a cluttered, cramped corridor, and the view suddenly opened up. A massive room, hundreds of square meters in size, lay revealed.

In the very center of the room stood a spacious operating table. An old man in a floral shirt stood beside it, tinkering with something unknown.

"Old man, someone's here to see you."

The girl called out, then perched on a pile of debris to the side, pulling a yellowed paper book from her bosom and beginning to read.

"Is the golden scale but a pond..."

Li Jun glanced at the cover. The title felt strangely familiar, but before he could recall it, the old man in the floral shirt had already stopped his work and turned around.

"These vessels are stripped clean. No processing needed to make meridians. Worth at least fifty thousand Great Ming Treasury Notes."

The old man cradled a net-like vascular structure, laughing heartily.

Then he lifted his gaze to appraise Li Jun. After a scrutinizing look, he smiled with playful interest. "To know the name Wu Ya Hua... you must be Paoge Society people, eh?"