14: Chapter 14 Information about the Abandoned Service Station, Jiang Yanxue, the Heiress of the Underworld

"Pack up, time to work."

Chen Chen stood up and tossed the empty can into the trash bin.

He strode into the driver's cab and sat in the leather seat.

He inserted the key and turned it.

The engine, upgraded with a C-grade turbocharger kit, erupted in a terrifying roar far exceeding yesterday's.

The exhaust pipe spewed scorching fumes, and the entire heavy RV trembled violently in place like a waking steel beast.

Chen Chen shifted into forward gear and slammed the accelerator to the floor.

With its five-and-a-half-ton weight and violent power output, the RV lunged forward.

"Bang!"

The low-level Aberrant that was still gnawing on the metal plating on the front of the vehicle was hit head-on by the inverted V-shaped heavy collision bumper.

The massive kinetic energy instantly tore its body apart, and flesh and broken bones were swept under the all-terrain tires, crushed into a patch of dark red sludge.

Violent, direct, efficient.

The wheels kicked up a sky full of yellow sand as the RV drove back onto the grey-white highway.

The destination was clear: the abandoned service area Shen Wanbing had detected last night.

Fifty kilometers, with the help of the turbocharger, was less than a half-hour drive.

On the horizon ahead, the outlines of a dilapidated complex gradually emerged.

A rusted gas station canopy, a tilted billboard, and a two-story convenience store.

Chen Chen didn't rush in directly.

He hit the brakes five hundred meters from the edge of the service area.

With a turn of the steering wheel, he hid the massive RV behind a tall sand dune.

Engine off.

"Shen Wanbing." Chen Chen tilted his head and looked at the passenger seat.

Shen Wanbing closed her eyes immediately.

Her God-tier Information Prompt talent operated at full power, and hidden golden light flickered deep within her eyes.

A massive stream of data regarding the service area ahead flooded her brain.

One minute later, she opened her eyes, sweat on her forehead.

"The situation is complicated."

Shen Wanbing spoke rapidly and clearly, "In the open space in front of the service area, there are fifteen low-level Aberrants wandering around. Beside the abandoned fuel pump at the gas station, there is an elite-level monster over two meters tall. It is guarding a Bronze-grade supply box."

Fifteen mobs, one elite monster, one Bronze box.

Chen Chen tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel.

This bone was a bit hard to chew, but eating it would definitely yield good loot.

"Also." Shen Wanbing's tone shifted, becoming grave, "In the storage room on the second floor of the supermarket, there are living people hiding. Five adult males, armed with homemade weapons, steel pipes, and a crossbow."

People.

In this survival game, the danger from one's own kind is often greater than that from monsters.

Chen Chen sneered.

Fifteen monsters wandering below, five men hiding on the second floor refusing to leave.

These people's calculations were too loud.

"They aren't trapped."

Chen Chen pulled out the armor-piercing military dagger from his leg holster and scraped the sharp edge with his thumb, "They are waiting for a scapegoat. Waiting for some reckless hothead to drive in and draw the aggro of the elite monster and the horde, so they can slide down from the second floor and steal that Bronze box."

Using the lives of their own kind to fill the monsters' stomachs in exchange for resources.

A very practical wasteland tactic.

Shen Wanxing in the back seat broke out in a cold sweat listening to this.

If Chen Chen had driven the car in directly just now, they would have already become bait for those five people.

"Then what should we do? Go around?" Shen Wanxing asked in a low voice.

Chen Chen pushed open the heavy armored door, his leather boots stepping onto the rough sand.

He pulled down his tactical goggles with a backhand motion.

"I want the Bronze box, and I want the supplies on those five people."

He turned back and glanced at the two women in the car.

"Lock the doors. Don't open them for anyone without my command."

As he finished speaking, the car door slammed shut.

Chen Chen gripped the Black Iron-grade armor-piercing military dagger, his figure flickered, and he merged directly into the shadows on the outskirts of the abandoned service area.

"Absolute Stealth, activate."

The moment Chen Chen silently recited the command, a stream of cold air surged from the soles of his feet to his scalp.

[Ding! "Absolute Stealth" has been activated, lasting for five minutes. During this period, active attacks not exceeding five times will not break the stealth effect.]

He looked down at his hands—from his fingertips to his wrists, faint water-ripple patterns appeared on the surface of his skin, and light refracted around his body, as if he had been swallowed by the air.

Five-minute countdown, five attack opportunities.

Enough.

He stepped on the sand and gravel, walking toward the service area.

The sound of his footsteps was completely swallowed by some Power of Rules, and even the wind walked around him.

The first-floor gas station canopy had half-collapsed, and the rusted iron frame rested crookedly on the concrete pillars.

Fifteen low-level Aberrants were scattered in the open space and at the entrance of the supermarket.

Some were squatting on the ground tearing at a dried corpse that had been there for who knows how long, while others were pacing aimlessly.

The elite-level monster was guarding beside the abandoned fuel pump.

Standing just over two meters tall, its back was humped with calcified bone spurs, and its forearms were as thick as Chen Chen's thighs.

It was half-squatting on the Bronze supply box, its turbid eyes slowly scanning the surroundings.

Chen Chen walked past a spot three steps in front of it.

The elite monster snorted, two streams of white gas spraying from its nostrils; it tilted its head, then lazily laid back down on the box.

It hadn't noticed anything.

Chen Chen skirted around the shelves piled with trash on the first floor of the supermarket and climbed to the second floor, stepping on broken glass scattered all over the floor.

The crunching fragments under his feet didn't make a sound—in the stealth state, all the noise he created was blocked by the Power of Rules.

At the end of the stairs was a dim corridor; turning right at the end, the anti-theft iron door of the storage room was ajar.

The smell of cigarettes and coarse human voices leaked out through the door crack.

Chen Chen leaned against the wall, looking inside through the gap.

Five burly men.

All of them were tough characters with bulging muscles, tattoos of coiled dragons and skulls on their arms.

The bald man at the very back was the biggest; he was squatting by the window, holding a homemade crossbow in one hand and prying at the gap in the blinds with the other, aiming outside.

Steel pipes, bricks, and iron chains were scattered all over the floor.

"Damn it, waited all morning, not even a ghost in sight."

A flat-headed thug next to the bald man slammed his steel pipe onto the floor, irritably rubbing the thick gold chain around his neck.

"What's the rush." The bald man didn't turn his head, his voice as coarse as sandpaper scraping iron, "The sun has just come out, those losers are still on their way. Just wait, someone reckless will definitely drive in here. Once the monsters bite them half to death, we'll go down, claim the kills, and take the box while we're at it. Killing two birds with one stone."

"Brother Long is right."

Another short, fat thug laughed, pulled out a crumpled cigarette, and lit it, "Us brothers of the Black Dragon Society rely on our brains. Let the idiots do the manual labor."

The bald man suddenly lowered the crossbow, pulled out his virtual panel, and opened the regional chat channel.

He stared at a certain message for a few seconds and grinned.

That smile in the dark storage room was indescribably lewd.

"Brothers, guess who else is in District 069?"

The few underlings huddled over.

"The Eldest Miss of our Black Dragon Society—Jiang Yanxue."

The bald man enlarged the message in the channel and projected it into the air for everyone to see.

It was an extremely brief call-to-order: [Registered members of the Black Dragon Society, gather at coordinates (347, 892) immediately. —Jiang Yanxue]

"Fuck, it really is her."

The flat-headed thug whistled, "I heard that last year she single-handedly wiped out an underground casino in the South District, hung the casino owner on a ceiling fan for three hours, and forced out a twenty-million account book. That woman is even more ruthless than a man when she gets vicious."

"So what?" The short, fat one flicked ash on the floor, "Before, she had the entire Black Dragon Society backing her, so of course she was arrogant. But now? We don't even know which corner her old man was teleported to, and everyone in the gang has been scattered. Just her, a woman alone, what kind of waves can she make?"

The bald man touched his shiny scalp, his tongue swirling in his mouth.

"Have you guys ever seen Jiang Yanxue in person?"

The few underlings shook their heads.

The Black Dragon Society had strict hierarchies; as low-level thugs like them, they had no qualification to see the Eldest Miss.

"I've seen her once."

The bald man narrowed his eyes, his expression of recollection filled with undisguised greed, "At last year's annual meeting, she wore a red cheongsam. I've been in the nightlife scene for so many years, seen at least eight hundred women, if not a thousand, and not one could compare to her. That waist, those legs—tsk tsk."

He stretched out his thick fingers and gestured in the air.

"Once we get that Bronze box downstairs and get some handy weapons, we'll go to her coordinates."

"Brother Long, you want to take the brothers to defect to the Eldest Miss?"

"Defect my ass." The bald man stood up, shouldering the crossbow, "The rules have changed. Whoever has the bigger fist makes the rules. How many people can she have under her now? Five? Ten? We have crossbows, we have weapons. When the time comes, we'll subdue her, and the brothers can take turns—"

"Brother Long is wise!"

The few men laughed together.

Chen Chen stood outside the door, hearing the conversation word for word.

Jiang Yanxue.

He had heard this name more than once on grey channels.

The only daughter of Jiang Bei, the leader of the Black Dragon Society, an underground force in Jiangcheng.

She took over the gang's intelligence network at nineteen, and at twenty-one, she personally planned the "South District Purge" that shook the entire Jiangcheng underground world, annexing four medium-sized gangs in the South District in just three days.

Her methods were so ruthless that even old veterans had to give a thumbs up.

She was no vase.

She was an iron rose with thorns; touch her and you'd draw blood.

But in the current situation—the Black Dragon Society had been scattered by the system, the leader's whereabouts were unknown, and the Eldest Miss was alone, issuing a call-to-order in the channel.

Isolated and helpless.

Chen Chen went over the rules of the Hongyan System in his mind.

High beauty rating, special status, built-in faction background... entries bound to such characters were at least of purple quality.

Worth saving.

But this matter wasn't urgent.

Eat the meat in front of him first.