Evening.
Lü'an City.
The night was hazy, pedestrians hurried along, and the streets were brightly lit, brimming with prosperity.
Dong Xuebin had not driven here. He had taken a long-distance bus. Looking at this unfamiliar city and its unfamiliar crowds, he walked along Lü'an City's longest commercial pedestrian street. He bought a map and travel guide from a newsstand, found a bench, and sat down. As he flipped through the map, he familiarized himself with the city, trying to commit every street and every notable building to memory. Only after that did he leave the pedestrian street. Once he had made up his mind, he hailed a taxi, opened the door, and got in.
"Driver, please take me to Haibin Bathhouse." Dong Xuebin sat in the back seat.
The driver looked back at him. "Kid, you sound like you're from out of town?"
"...Yeah. Why?"
"That kind of place has a shady background." The driver advised him, "If you want to have some fun, you'd be better off going to Great Sea Dragon Bathing Center. It isn't far from here."
Dong Xuebin asked curiously, "Driver, what's shady about it? Could you tell me?"
The driver was quite talkative. As he drove onto the main road, he explained that few bath centers were truly clean. Borderline services, prostitution, and soliciting were all involved to some extent. But by unclean, he was not referring to the services. Incidents often happened there—fights, cheating customers, extortion. Its reputation was not very good, and it supposedly had ties to criminal forces. Its only advantage was that visitors did not need to worry about being arrested by the police. Their boss had powerful connections.
Dong Xuebin had already expected something like this, so he did not pay it much mind.
His trip all the way to