Chapter 79: Drinking Contest

Chapter 79: Drinking Contest

Li Jun was visiting the Shenghua District for the first time, yet the environment here gave him a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had returned to the Jie'e District.

Merely a Jie'e District with public order and infrastructure comprehensively upgraded.

There were even more Fan people living here than in the Jie'e District!

However, unlike those Fan people in the Jie'e District, brimming with hostility, who liked to go shirtless to reveal their gang tattoos.

The Fan people here mostly wore crisp suits, leaned on civilized canes, spoke fluent Great Ming Officialese or Shu dialects, chatting and laughing merrily with the Ming merchants walking beside them.

Rarely did one see extremist slogans like "Ming People Supreme" spray-painted on the street walls; depicted were almost exclusively Fan Li and Bi Gan holding gold ingots.

The entire block exuded an atmosphere of harmony, the air thick with the scent of Great Ming Treasure Notes.

Li Jun squeezed through the bustling crowds, turning into a moderately wide alley according to the signposts.

A bar named "Mingyi" sat at the very end of the alley.

The bar's entire storefront was composed of hundreds of massive, old-fashioned display screens. This imported technology, already eliminated by holographic projection, exerted a brutal visual expressiveness in the narrow, cramped alley.

Amidst a background of golden yellow, a Western girl with exquisite makeup half-reclined in the center of the screen, the collar of her tight skirt opened wide, perfectly interpreting what it meant to be wealthy and generous.

The bar's entrance lay beneath that bottomless cleavage.

Li Jun, having just left the Jiaofangsi, currently had a heart as still as water, even looking down somewhat on this wild, brutal style.

"Though... why did Lord Ma arrange to meet here? Could it be he likes this sort of thing? No, what does he have to rely on?"

Wearing an expression of curiosity, Li Jun pushed open the bar's heavy doors, and a pungent smell instantly rushed to the crown of his head.

It was a bizarre mixture of machine oil and alcohol.

His olfactory organs had just collapsed when his auditory nerves immediately followed with a warning.

The combination of electric guitar and heavy drums made one's hair stand on end; amidst the undulations were interspersed the grotesque tones of a shamisen. The whole musical style was like a female corpse tumbling in stormy seas.

Li Jun, whose palate had been cultivated at the Jiaofangsi, suddenly felt a weightless sensation of falling from the clouds into the mud.

He stood in place adapting for a moment, waved off the approaching bunny girl to indicate he needed no guide, and walked straight toward a burly back wrapped up tight at the bar counter.

"A drink."

Li Jun hailed the Kunlun slave dressed as a bartender, turning his head to look beside him.

A mechanical body was hidden beneath a voluminous black robe, swaying continuously to the music.

Amidst the excitement, there was a trace of lewdness.

Not until the song ended did the black robe finally stop swaying, the left hand grabbing a thin tube from the counter and stuffing it beneath the robe.

Li Jun's just-adapted breathing was once again filled with the strange stench of machine oil mixed with alcohol.

"Such a tune, such a sound, demands a full cup!"

Lord Ma let out a satisfied moan, leaning back in a long chant, his hood slipping off to reveal an empty, hollow helmet.

That Kunlun slave bartender seemed to have long known what lay beneath the black robe; with a calm face, he returned the thin tube to its place, even thoughtfully passing over a cup of plain water.

"Just how much has he drunk? No need for sobering soup."

Lord Ma pushed away the water, placing a palm-sized metal box before Li Jun.

"Seventh Grade, Goumang Technique. Also an internal art focused on recovery capabilities, same root and origin as your Azure Emperor Canon. I swapped for it from Zhao Qingxia's collection within the Heaven's Will Society. Thoughtful enough?"

Hearing this, Li Jun's dazed face slowly returned to awareness.

He didn't rush to take the box, but glanced at the Kunlun slave bartender wiping glasses to the side.

The Kunlun slave sensed Li Jun's wariness and smiled: "Rest assured, sir. You are Mr. Ma's friend, so you are our friend. Everything is safe here."

"Friend?"

Li Jun looked at Lord Ma in astonishment.

"The Mohists advocate universal love; friends all over the world. And the people here are basically all technical researchers from various nations. They crossed oceans to come to my Great Ming, to follow in the Mohists' footsteps; technical exchange knows no borders."

So this is a Heaven's Will Society stronghold?

Li Jun not only failed to relax, but grew even more tense.

He knew the attitude of the Yamen and the major conglomerates toward the Heaven's Will Society: explicit flags raised to exterminate them posthaste.

Gathering so openly, wasn't the Heaven's Will Society afraid of being wiped out in one fell swoop?

"The Mohists are the Mohists, the Heaven's Will Society is the Heaven's Will Society; there is still a difference between the two. Explaining it to you wouldn't help you understand."

Lord Ma seemed to have guessed Li Jun's thoughts. "This bar flies the Mohist banner; the Confucian Congregate won't come raid the place."

Li Jun rubbed his aching temples, too lazy to ponder the intricacies, and pocketed the box on the table.

Seeing him not even bother to open and inspect the goods, the red eyes in the helmet flickered brightly, like a man smiling in satisfaction.

"You mentioned earlier you wanted something custom made. What is it?"

Li Jun waved a hand before him. "Some little gadgets to hide my face. Best if they're precise. Price is no object; the key is that no one can tell."

Lord Ma stared blankly. "What? The matter that thorny, even you need to hide your identity?"

"I'm just wearing a layer of Shu Road Logistics' skin. There are plenty of things I can't afford to provoke. Better to be careful."

Li Jun smiled. "Can it be done?"

"There is nothing the Mohists cannot make."

Lord Ma spoke confidently: "Forget just hiding the face; even hiding fingerprints and bone patterns is doable. The effect is better than those plastic surgeries on the underground black market."

"However, your Martial Dao sequence is a bit special. Implants aren't possible; only external attachments."

Lord Ma stroked his chin, pondering for a moment before saying: "Anyway, by the time someone can check your fingerprints and bone patterns, you're probably not far from death. Might as well focus on hiding appearance and scent. There's technology now that can track via body odor; we must guard against it."

"Professional matters you decide. When it's done, I'll pay."

"Money isn't necessary. It's not a high-difficulty construct. Just spare some time to give pointers to that kid Zhao Qingxia. He's recently become obsessed with Mimicry Martial Arts again; ruining his ambition over a toy!"

Lord Ma's tone was filled with the frustration of hating iron for not becoming steel regarding his offspring. Seeming to feel worse the more he thought, he reached for that tube and drank again.

This time Li Jun specifically watched; the other party inserted the thin tube into the interface at the helmet's chin, pouring directly inside.

Rather than drinking, it was more like refueling.

"Burp."

Lord Ma, having drank heavily for a minute, seemed steeped in drunkenness, his tongue knotting.

"You... what's so good about mixing with the Gu family? Those people eat men and don't spit out bones. Better come to the Hea... Heaven's Will Society. Grandpa Ma will cover you. Universal love, right?"

Li Jun laughed loudly. "Can you cover me?"

"What nonsense! I definitely can! Do you know how fierce those warriors wearing Mohist armor were back then? Invincible within the same sequence!"

Lord Ma flew into a rage, grabbing the tube and shouting at Li Jun: "Come, drink!"