Chapter 199: The Rival

[Jake’s POV]

The Rua de Cinco de Outubro was a sensory overload even on a quiet night. By ten p.m. on a Friday, it was a suffocating, chaotic river of humanity. The narrow street was lined with open-air food stalls, the air thick with the smell of roasting pork, boiling chili oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of cheap fireworks going off in the distance. Neon signs bled harsh red and green light onto the wet pavement, reflecting off the puddles of dirty water and spilled beer.

Ethan and I moved through the crowd with the practiced ease of men who had walked this route a hundred times. We were in our third week as runners for the Golden Koi. The routine had hardened us, stripping away the last vestiges of our tourist personas. Ethan’s gray hoodie was stained and frayed, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd with a nervous, twitchy energy that perfectly suited his role as the degenerate gambler. I wore a faded black canvas jacket, my posture slightly hunched, my expression locked into a mask of exhausted indifference.

We were ghosts. We were nobodies. And we were exactly where we needed to be.

"Last stop," Ethan muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead as we approached the end of the street. "Mr. Zhang’s duck stall. Then we take the cash back to the parlor and I can finally take off these damn shoes. My feet are killing me."

"Keep your head in the game, Liam," I murmured, using his cover name. "The street feels wrong tonight."

It wasn’t a System notification. It was pure, raw instinct. The *Emperor’s Presence* might have been suppressed, but the tactical awareness that had kept me alive against the world’s deadliest assassins was still razor-sharp. The crowd around Mr. Zhang’s stall was too thin. The usual chaotic chatter of haggling customers was missing. People were giving the stall a wide berth, their eyes averted, their heads down.

As we pushed through the last knot of tourists, I saw why.

Mr. Zhang, the heavy-set butcher who usually greeted us with a tired smile, was backed against the stainless steel counter of his stall. His apron was stained with fresh blood, but it wasn’t from the ducks hanging in the window. A thin cut ran across his cheek, welling with dark crimson.

Standing in front of him were three men. They weren’t Golden Koi muscle. They wore cheap leather jackets, and the leader—a lean, wiry man with a shaved head—had a black lotus flower tattooed on the side of his neck.

The Black Lotus. The faction Chen had been paying off.

"I told you," Zhang stammered, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "I pay Madam Bai. This is Golden Koi territory. I don’t have anything for you."

The leader smiled, a cruel, jagged expression. He reached out, grabbing a heavy meat cleaver from the cutting board. He didn’t raise it to strike; he simply dragged the flat of the blade across the stainless steel counter, the screeching metal cutting through the ambient noise of the street.

"Madam Bai is a relic," the leader hissed, his Cantonese fast and guttural. "The Golden Koi is bleeding out. The Black Lotus is taking over the Outer Harbour. You pay us now, old man, or we take it out of your hide."

Ethan tensed beside me, his hand dropping instinctively toward his pocket. I caught his wrist, my grip like a vice.

"No weapons," I breathed, my voice barely audible. "We’re low-level runners. We don’t carry guns. We brawl."

"Jake, there’s three of them, and that guy has a cleaver," Ethan whispered back, his eyes wide.

"Follow my lead. Be loud. Be stupid."

I let go of his wrist and stepped forward, letting my shoulders slump, projecting the image of a tired, overworked enforcer who just wanted to collect his envelope and go home.

"Hey," I called out, my voice rough and heavily accented. "What’s the holdup, Zhang? We’re on a schedule here."

The three Black Lotus thugs turned to look at us. The leader sneered, resting the cleaver on his shoulder. He looked us up and down, taking in Ethan’s frayed hoodie and my cheap canvas jacket.

"Gwailo," the leader spat, using the derogatory term for foreigners. "Madam Bai is sending white ghosts to collect her money now? The Golden Koi really is pathetic."

"We’re just here for the envelope," I said, keeping my hands visible, my posture non-threatening. I took another step forward, closing the distance. "Whatever dispute you have with Madam Bai, take it up with her. Let the old man pay his dues so we can leave."

"The old man pays us," one of the other thugs said, stepping toward me. He was built like a tank, his knuckles heavily scarred from years of street fighting. He shoved me hard in the chest. "Walk away, ghost. Before we send you back to Bai in a garbage bag."

I stumbled backward, playing up the impact of the shove. I let my eyes widen in feigned panic, my hands coming up defensively.

"Okay, okay," I stammered, looking at Ethan. "Liam, let’s just go. It’s not worth it."

"Screw that!" Ethan yelled, playing his part flawlessly. He lunged forward, swinging a wild, uncoordinated haymaker at the tank-like thug.

It was a terrible punch, telegraphed a mile away, but it served its purpose perfectly. It created chaos.

The tank easily dodged Ethan’s punch and countered with a brutal hook to Ethan’s ribs. Ethan grunted, doubling over, but he grabbed the thug’s jacket, dragging him down into a messy, grappling struggle on the wet pavement.

The leader with the cleaver cursed, stepping forward to help his man.

That was my opening.

I couldn’t use Vanguard CQC. I couldn’t use the flawless, lethal strikes that would instantly identify me as a highly trained operative. I had to fight like a desperate street brawler.

As the leader stepped past me, I grabbed a massive, boiling pot of chili oil from Zhang’s counter and hurled the contents directly at the third thug, who was moving to flank us. The boiling oil hit him square in the chest. He screamed, clawing at his burning clothes, completely neutralized.

The leader spun around, his eyes wide with shock, and swung the cleaver at my head.

I didn’t dodge with the fluid grace of the King. I threw myself backward, tripping over a plastic stool and crashing hard onto the pavement. The cleaver sliced through the empty air where my neck had been a fraction of a second earlier.

The leader lunged, raising the cleaver for a downward strike.

I kicked out wildly, my heavy boot connecting with his kneecap. I didn’t use enough force to shatter the joint—that would be too precise—but I hit him hard enough to make his leg buckle. He stumbled, the cleaver striking the pavement inches from my face, sending a shower of sparks into the air.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the plastic stool I had tripped over. As the leader tried to stand, I smashed the stool over his back. The cheap plastic shattered, driving him back down to his knees.

Before he could recover, I grabbed his wrist, twisting it violently until he dropped the cleaver. I didn’t break his arm. I just wrenched it hard enough to neutralize the threat. I drove my knee into his ribs, sending him sprawling into the gutter.

I turned to look at Ethan. He was still grappling with the tank, taking a beating but holding his own. I grabbed the discarded cleaver from the pavement, holding it by the blade, and brought the heavy, blunt wooden handle down on the back of the tank’s head.

The thug went limp, collapsing onto the wet asphalt.

The street was dead silent, save for the groans of the thug covered in chili oil. The crowd of onlookers had backed away, watching us with wide, terrified eyes.

I stood there, chest heaving, my canvas jacket torn, playing the role of a man who had just barely survived a desperate fight. I dropped the cleaver, letting it clatter against the pavement.

Ethan pushed himself up from the ground, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the street. He looked at the three unconscious Black Lotus thugs, then looked at me, a wild, adrenaline-fueled grin on his face.

"Not bad for a couple of ghosts," Ethan panted.

I turned to Mr. Zhang. The butcher was staring at us in absolute shock. He had seen us as nothing more than errand boys for three weeks. Now, he was looking at us like we were monsters.

"The envelope, Zhang," I said, my voice rough, completely devoid of the panic I had faked moments earlier.

Zhang didn’t hesitate. He reached under the counter, his hands trembling, and pulled out a thick manila envelope. He handed it to me, bowing his head deeply.

"Thank you, Noah," Zhang whispered. "The Black Lotus... they will come back for this. They will not forget."

"Let them come," I said, slipping the envelope into my jacket. "This is Golden Koi territory."

I grabbed Ethan’s shoulder, steering him away from the stall and back into the crowded neon labyrinth of the Outer Harbour. We didn’t run. We walked with the slow, deliberate pace of men who had just claimed their ground.

"You okay?" I asked quietly, once we were a block away.

"Ribs are bruised," Ethan winced, pressing a hand to his side. "But I’ll live. You?"

"I’m fine," I said, my eyes scanning the shadows. "But the dynamic just changed. The Black Lotus knows Madam Bai has teeth on the street now. Word of this will reach the parlor before we do."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Ethan asked.

I touched the burner phone in my pocket, feeling the faint, mechanical hum vibrating at the base of my skull.

[Ding! Local Influence Increased: +150]

[Current Local Influence: 350 / 10,000 (F Rank)]

[Notice: Target(Milf) Madam Bai has taken a personal interest in your actions.]

"It’s a very good thing," I murmured, a cold smile touching my lips. "The Matriarch is watching. It’s time to get invited inside."