113: Chapter 113 Continental Hotel and John Wick the Night Demon

After James and Jodie left the interrogation room, they took a flight directly to Manhattan, New York. A hotel with a quaint design was located in the Lower East Side; this was The Continental Hotel in New York.

The revolving door of The Continental Hotel slowly turned, carrying the mellow aroma of aged whiskey, isolating the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, New York, outside.

As James pushed open the heavy oak doors, Jodie instinctively gripped the service weapon in her trench coat pocket—the air here was filled with an unsettling aura, like the dead silence before a storm.

The crystal lamps at the front desk refracted tiny specks of light. Charon, wearing a well-pressed tailcoat, tapped his fingertips lightly on the brass counter. When he saw the special gold coin James handed over, his eyes, which always carried a gentle smile, narrowed slightly.

The special patterns engraved on the gold coin shimmered with a cold light under the lamps—this was the "gold coin" circulated within the High Table, and only those who walked in the dark world knew its purpose.

"I need to find the Boogeyman, John Wick. Please help me contact him," James said.

Upon hearing that the visitor wanted to find John Wick, the receptionist Charon looked up with a surprised expression, sized the two up, then accepted the gold coin and dialed the phone.

The call was hung up quickly. Charon pushed up his glasses and said.

"Mr. John Wick is currently handling some 'personal business'."

Charon's tone was flat.

"But he said that if Mr. James were to visit, he would be willing to spare ten minutes."

James nodded and left the gold coin on the counter: "I'll wait for him at the bar."

As they walked through the corridor carpeted in dark red, Jodie's footsteps slowed down more and more.

In the oil paintings on both sides of the corridor, knights held blood-dripping longswords, staring fiercely at everyone who passed by. What startled her even more were the guests sitting in the lounge area—

A woman in a cheongsam held a folding fan between her fingertips, the ribs of which were clearly poison-tipped steel needles; two men in suits appeared to be chatting, but the hilts of blades protruding from their boot shafts glinted with a cold light.

"These people..." Jodie's voice was extremely low, "Are they really assassins?"

James did not turn his head, only gave a hum: "Assassins under the High Table all rest here."

He pushed open the carved wooden door of the bar, and a scent mixed with cigars and absinthe rushed towards them.

The lighting in the bar was dimmer than the corridor. A pine wood fire burned in the fireplace on the wall, and amidst the crackling sounds, several men in black trench coats were drinking around the bar counter.

Their gazes were as sharp as vultures. When they swept over James and Jodie, they carried an undisguised scrutiny, yet no one stood up—

The rules here were stricter than the law; the iron rule of "no fighting within the hotel" was engraved in the bones of every assassin.

James chose a booth by the window. Outside the window were the brilliant lights of Manhattan, but inside was another world.

He raised his hand to summon the waiter, and when he placed an identical gold coin on the tray, the waiter's eyes immediately turned respectful.

"Two Bourbons, on the rocks."

Not until the cold glass touched her fingertips did Jodie manage to suppress the shock in her heart: "Uncle James, why do we need to find assassins? And this kind of... this kind of organization that even the FBI is wary of?"

James swirled the amber liquid in his glass, the sound of ice cubes clinking unusually clear in the noisy environment: "Because only they can help Shuichi under the noses of the High Table and the Zaibatsu."

"It's just that I didn't expect Akai Shuichi to actually have connections with the famous John Wick."

He looked at Jodie's puzzled face and continued: "Do you think the message Akai Shuichi asked us to deliver could just be handled by any random assassin? This Mr. John Wick whom Akai Shuichi asked us to find is very famous."

Only then did Jodie understand why Akai Shuichi had to take such a big risk.

Having James deliver a message to an assassin seemed crazy, but it was the only safe way for now.

"Then who is John Wick?" she asked. The name sounded inexplicably familiar.

James's eyes darkened: "The former 'Boogeyman', the top assassin of the High Table. It is said that to avenge his wife, he single-handedly wiped out the entire New York underworld, and even the elders of the High Table have to give him some face."

He paused, his tone carrying a trace of imperceptible wariness, "Asking him to do something comes at a high price, but he never fails."

As soon as the words fell, a slight commotion came from the bar entrance.

The originally noisy crowd instantly quieted down, and even the crackling of the fireplace seemed to be magnified several times over.

A man in a black suit walked in. His figure was upright, there was a faint scar on his face, and his eyes were as cold as a Siberian wind.

When passing by the bar, the few assassins who were originally sitting rose one after another to give way, not even daring to breathe loudly—it was indeed John Wick.

He walked straight to James's booth, without any extra pleasantries, and sat down directly: "Speak, what is it."

His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.

James pushed a note across. On it was only the information Akai Shuichi had asked James to convey, and it indicated that Akai Shuichi would be transferred to the "Black Prison" tomorrow.

John Wick scanned the note, his fingertips tapping lightly on the tabletop, as if calculating something.

A moment later, he looked up at James: "The High Table has been getting very close to the Morgan Zaibatsu recently, and they are also looking for the 'shrunken woman'. Are you sure you want to wade into this muddy water?"

"I'm not involved in this matter; I'm just doing Akai Shuichi a favor. It was he who asked me to come find you." James's tone was very calm.

John Wick was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled. There was no warmth in that smile: "Fine, it seems Akai Shuichi hasn't wasted his time all these years; at least there are still people willing to take the risk to help him deliver messages."

"Alright, you've delivered the message, the rest of the matter has nothing to do with you."

John Wick stood up, crumpled the note into a ball, and stuffed it into his pocket, "I will take action on this matter." He turned and left, without the slightest hesitation.

Watching him disappear at the bar entrance, Jodie finally breathed a sigh of relief, her back already drenched in cold sweat: "This person... is even more terrifying than those assassins just now."

"He is not terrifying, he is lethal." James drank the wine in his glass dry, "This guy is reputed to never miss."

The noise in the bar gradually returned, and the assassins continued to drink and chat, as if everything that had just happened never occurred.

Jodie looked at the radiant night view of Manhattan outside the window and suddenly felt that in this prosperous city, too much unknown darkness was hidden.

The High Table, the Zaibatsu, assassins, the FBI...

"We should go." James stood up and tidied his suit, "Staying here too long makes it easy to be noticed by people who shouldn't notice us."

Jodie followed him out of the bar, and when passing by the front desk, Charon gave them a slight nod, as if seeing off ordinary guests.

The revolving door turned again, locking the darkness and mellow aroma of The Continental Hotel inside, while the world outside remained bustling with traffic.

Sitting in the car, Jodie couldn't help but ask: "Uncle James, you said... what did John Wick mean when he said he would take action? Does he mean he's going to break into the prison? And will he help Shuichi?"

James started the car, and in the rearview mirror, the lights of The Continental Hotel grew more and more distant: "He will. Because, like us, he is fighting against the rules of this world."

The neon lights outside the car window flickered on his face. Jodie suddenly understood what James meant earlier when he said "the FBI has dealt with The Continental Hotel"—in those corners where sunlight cannot reach, the boundary between justice and evil has long been blurred, and only the desire to survive is the eternal driving force.