155: Chapter 152 Robbery: What if the person runs too fast?

"By the way, kid, is your living situation over there alright?" The Elder changed the subject, bringing up Li Changsheng's accommodations.

"It's fine. The guys at the repair shop are all quite welcoming."

Li Changsheng nodded, his mind inexplicably drifting to that Syrian-style chariot of a car.

"Hmm, but don't get too close to them. A martial artist must know how to exercise self-restraint. Do you have enough money on you right now?"

Zhang Youdao looked at Li Changsheng and noticed that the kid's financial situation didn't seem particularly great.

Back in Shenzhen, although Li Changsheng had mentioned working as a programmer for a while, practicing martial arts cost a lot of money. The saying 'Literature is for the poor, martial arts for the rich' wasn't just a joke.

"It's indeed not quite enough, but don't worry, Elder. I'll just find a job in my spare time. I won't starve to death."

Li Changsheng scratched his head. He had previously thought several tens of thousands of USD was a huge sum, but reality told him that such an amount was actually insufficient here.

Of course, if he maintained an extremely low quality of life, it would be fine, but that would mean eating high-oil, high-carb food every day. Eating too much of that stuff had too many downsides for the body.

Furthermore, he wasn't used to eating it.

"Well, just come to me if you run out of money. Since you're here to visit, as the host, I won't let you go hungry. Of course, if you're willing, you could also come here to be an instructor." The Elder smiled, not mentioning anything about helping Li Changsheng find a job.

After all, he knew that mentioning it would be pointless.

Li Changsheng shook his head. Martial arts halls abroad were very specific; a Taiji hall taught Taiji, and he only had a superficial understanding of it. He couldn't be an instructor.

Moreover, it was obvious that Elder Zhang was trying to hand-feed him a living, and he couldn't keep taking advantage of the man's kindness.

During their casual chat, the Elder shared some interesting things about the US, such as how finding a job was actually quite difficult, especially for someone like Li Changsheng who was there on a tourist basis.

However, Li Changsheng picked up on a subtle hint from the Elder's words that the repair shop seemed to offer document processing services.

Now, Li Changsheng was even more certain about the identities of that group at the repair shop.

Getting a fake ID here would indeed add a lot of convenience. Many things could be done, and the duration of stay would be entirely up to one's own will.

And it wouldn't affect his identity back home.

They talked for about an hour. Seeing that the Elder was showing signs of fatigue, Li Changsheng took his leave.

Stepping out of the martial arts hall, he had lunch, which cost another thirty dollars. This time it was a simple beef stew with a hometown flavor, though it wasn't particularly delicious.

Li Changsheng felt the sting in his wallet; they barely used half a pound of beef and dared to charge thirty dollars.

Soon, Li Changsheng began a leisurely stroll. Once he felt his food had digested enough, he started to jog.

This time he left Chinatown. Since he had finally made it to the US, he decided to take a good look at other areas.

To Li Changsheng, it was jogging, but to an ordinary person, it looked like he was sprinting.

Whoosh!

A young foreign man walking with his head down felt a gust of strong wind blow past him, followed by the sight of a dark shadow rapidly flashing by his side.

When he looked up, he could only see a faint silhouette quickly disappearing from his field of vision.

"What was that just now?"

The young man looked bewildered.

Li Changsheng sped along. What he saw while running was much more detailed than what he had seen from the car before.

When he was in the car, he hadn't noticed it, but now, walking through the streets, he discovered trash everywhere. The most common items were perhaps needles and tissues.

He could also see some 'zombies'—well, they really did look like zombies—muddled and dazed, either standing or lying on the street, their steps staggering as if they didn't even know how to walk.

Li Changsheng shook his head. Even if there were a hundred of such people, he could take them all down.

In fact, even an ordinary person could probably take down a few.

Along the way, he also saw many shops, and even a legal gun store. Business inside seemed quite good; through the glass window, he could see several customers picking out weapons.

Out of curiosity, Li Changsheng paused for a moment and then walked toward the gun shop.

He had only seen them in movies before. It was said that gun shops in the States didn't just sell hunting rifles; they also sold assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, and even sniper rifles. There were even grenades and full sets of tactical equipment.

Entering the shop, Li Changsheng actually wanted to touch these cold objects that could easily take a human life. After all, whether in his past or present life, he had never touched a real gun in reality.

After a brief look around, sure enough, almost every kind of firearm one could want was visible, though some military-grade ones were absent.

Here, firearms were divided into military and civilian use. Well, it was quite absurd; back home, as long as it was a real gun—even a high-quality imitation—it was considered contraband.

Yet here, they actually had classifications.

Li Changsheng didn't know much about firearms, but seeing a gun that looked very similar to a Desert Eagle with a price tag of only a thousand dollars, he felt a bit tempted.

It wasn't that he actually wanted to use it to kill people; he just wanted to buy one and find time to go to a shooting range to experience the feeling of firing a real gun.

Another part of it was for the sake of collection.

However, after a brief conversation with the clerk, Li Changsheng realized he wasn't eligible at all.

Because gun shops also required US identification. If you didn't have local identification, you couldn't buy a gun.

This place was considered relatively lenient; in some states with strict firearm management, you needed not only identification but also a carry permit issued by the local government.

Shaking his head, Li Changsheng walked out of the shop.

"Forget it. It's not like I could bring this thing back home anyway."

He felt a slight pang of regret, but it didn't matter. Whether he had a gun or not was the same.

Checking the time, he realized it had unknowingly become five in the afternoon.

"I hope I don't run into trouble on the way back."

Li Changsheng murmured to himself. He was already nearly twenty kilometers away from Chinatown; getting back now would take at least nearly an hour.

Adjusting his breathing, Li Changsheng decided to wait until he got back to have dinner.

However, reality told him that public safety in the US really wasn't that great.

After running for nearly five minutes, several Black men suddenly rushed out from a corner. As if it were a pre-planned ambush, they pulled out daggers to intimidate him.

But for a moment, the brothers were stunned.

"Bro..."

Before the word 'ther' could even be uttered, their intended target had already swerved around them and sped past, leaving only a gust of wind that made their faces sting.

"Mad Dog, did... did he run away?"

One of the lackeys asked blankly. When they turned to look, the person was already out of sight.

"Shit! Is this damn yellow monkey on something? He's running so fast!"

The Black boss named Mad Dog was speechless. Normally, shouldn't he have just stayed put and let them rob him?

Chasing was out of the question. One look and they could tell that speed was likely Olympic level, especially that sudden burst of speed—it was like a Harley-Davidson speeding off.

"There probably won't be a next time, right?"

Looking back at the muggers he had long since left behind, Li Changsheng thought to himself.

As it turned out, before he could think further, a few more guys appeared ahead. Wearing hoodies with the hoods up, they looked left and right, their gazes quickly locking onto Li Changsheng.

Then they saw a gust of wind fly past their eyes. Their mouths hung open, but this time they didn't even have the chance to say a single word before the person vanished.

Having shaken off two groups of muggers, Li Changsheng now had a profound understanding of the local public safety.

He had heard people say they were robbed eight or nine times in one night and thought it might be an isolated case. Now it seemed that fellow was actually lucky; if one stayed out for a long time, being robbed over a dozen times was entirely possible.

Gradually, he had been running for over twenty minutes. During that time, Li Changsheng encountered a total of five groups of thugs trying to rob him, but he shook them all off without even giving them a chance to speak.

But this time, he stopped.

"Hey, brother! Try running again and see what happens!"

Behind Li Changsheng, a white youth was laughing arrogantly. His emotions seemed very unstable, appearing irritable and mercurial, and he kept yawning—it was obvious he was high on something.

Presumably, his addiction had kicked in, and he didn't have enough money, so he wanted to make a quick score.

Li Changsheng had wanted to leave, but the other party had just fired a shot into the ground. This man had actually hidden a gun and was now aiming it right at Li Changsheng.

"Haha, this guy is Asian and he still dared to run. Boys, let's teach him a lesson first!"

Standing beside the white youth were several Black youths acting like hoodlums, all of them approaching Li Changsheng with thuggish airs.

It was clear the white youth only wanted money, while those Black youths not only wanted money but also wanted to give Li Changsheng a brutal beating.

And this was a very real situation. In the US, Chinese people were the most likely to become targets of robbery. For example, shops opened by Chinese people were frequently robbed.

The ones who most liked doing this kind of thing were the Blacks, the Mexicans, and the Vietnamese.

These three groups had also discovered that Chinese people really didn't like to cause trouble and were easy to bully. Therefore, the probability of a Chinese person being robbed by them at night was nearly ninety percent.

As for the other ten percent, those were shootings—murder for the sake of money.

Of course, in most of these robberies, as long as you obediently handed over your valuables, they wouldn't make things difficult for you.

At this moment, Li Changsheng sighed, raised both hands, and said loudly, "Don't hurt me, I have money!"

"Boys, this kid only knows how to be scared now! Haha!"

Hearing Li Changsheng's words, the group burst into loud laughter.

They just didn't notice that the face of this Asian man with his back to them was now filled with nothing but helplessness and resignation.