The guests, dancers, and even the servers in the first-floor hall all turned to look at the blood-soaked scene unfolding on the street: the White Moon Hall was being slaughtered.
The White Moon Hall was one of Ran Shaohua's direct branches in the Green Bamboo Gang. The gang had a few other small halls, but they were far weaker than the White Moon Hall and the Black Sheath.
At that moment, the White Moon Hall members scattered in terror, fleeing into the deep, shadowy alleys on either side of the street.
Only two breaths had passed between Chen Tianren parking his car and opening fire. Such ruthless methods made Sun Jingyao, standing at the entrance of the Red Night Nightclub to "watch the battle," shudder with fear.
His long gown and mandarin jacket were soaked through with cold sweat.
It was for one reason alone: at least four heavy machine guns in the cars lined up across the street were aimed at him.
The dark, cavernous muzzles filled him with dread.
The Sun Family men stationed in the shadows quietly melted back into the darkness of night.
As a member of a powerful family, Sun Jingyao had handled firearms plenty of times. He knew all too well how devastating a Maxim was. Even if he had seventy or eighty men hidden nearby, out on this flat, open street, they would be nothing but a heap of flesh beneath the heavy machine guns.
What made his hands and feet go numb was that Chen Tianren hadn't bothered with any negotiation at all. He had gone straight to ruthless violence, vicious beyond words.
Chen Tianren pulled a cigarette from his pocket, silently lit it, took a drag, and looked at Sun Jingyao.
"Now, nephew, what was the point of this? The Chen and Sun families have been on good terms for years. I doubt your brother Sun would be pleased to hear you kicked us while we were down..."
Luo Wendi stepped forward beneath the dim neon lights. At last, Sun Jingyao got a clear look at the scarred profile of the heroic-looking man.
"Sun Jingyao, don't push your luck!
"Ran Shaohua is using you as a gun, and you think you've gotten yourself a bargain?
"How did that Black Bone Scaled Snake end up by the Li River?
"You really thought you could swallow us without the Jiang Family finding out? The mantis stalks the cicada, but the oriole is still behind it. With what little your Sun Family can manage, you'd be better off staying Jiang Lin's lackey!"
Inside the Moon Veil Nightclub, three men came tumbling down from the upper floors. One of them, a bearded man, was so terrified that his pupils had gone unfocused. He screamed wildly.
"On the fifth floor! There's a ghost on the fifth floor!! A female ghost over two meters tall is fighting... fighting a young man!"
The other two were hardly in better shape. Their legs trembled, and they scrambled down in such a panic that they had practically "rolled" down the stairs.
The fat man among them had flesh quivering all over his face. He stammered, "Someone upstairs is fighting a monster... fighting a monster..."
The Great Xin Republic wasn't an age when people dismissed supernatural matters with "Confucius did not speak of the strange." Terrible lessons in blood had played out before the eyes of ordinary people, time and again.
Though many people had neither firearms to arm themselves with nor extraordinary powers to wield, that didn't mean they knew little about such things...
The Great New News often reported on eerie places where Demon Ghosts had appeared, warning ordinary people to stay away.
Hearing the three men shouting, Su Yunong immediately rolled back her sleeves and hurried over to pour each of them a glass of water.
"Have a drink and catch your breath. What exactly happened up there?"
The bearded man and the fat man saw that the people beside Hu Junzhi weren't pointing gun barrels at them and finally relaxed. They began to explain everything in detail.
But Hu Junzhi had no attention to spare for them. His mind was entirely occupied with whether Young Master was in danger. If something had really happened upstairs, the heavy machine guns outside would probably be aimed at him in an instant.
Hu Junzhi called over two of Chen Jing's trusted men and ran upstairs.
"Junzhi? What are you doing up here? Get back downstairs!"
Chen Jing came running toward him from the stairwell, his face covered in dust and looking rather disheveled. Zhang Huai followed behind him, his clothes torn to shreds as if some sharp claws had raked them.
Hu Junzhi cried out in delight, "Young Master, you're all right!"
"Get lost. What could possibly happen to me?"
The sharp-witted guests in the hall immediately pricked up their ears, trying to glean some inside information from the exchange between master and servant.
Chen Jing walked over to the liquor cabinet and opened a bottle of red wine for himself. He'd barely taken a sip when he exclaimed, "Brother Luo is terrifyingly strong. I was asking for it today. If Brother Luo's Pure Yang Qi and Blood hadn't countered that Strange Entity, Zhang Huai and I would've been worn down to death..."
Hu Junzhi's expression changed at once. He looked at Zhang Huai, who gave a grave nod.
Chen Jing took two long swallows of wine and finally caught his breath. "That Strange Entity was too fast. It could cling to the walls and vanish without a trace.
"Brother Luo smashed the entire fifth floor into rubble before he managed to drag her out..."
Thinking of Luo Bin's savage punches and his immense, surging strength, Chen Jing and Zhang Huai couldn't help shuddering.
"With strength like that, he's probably at the peak of the Golden Skin Pass, closing in on the Jade Bone Pass... But he only became Elder Jiang's disciple yesterday." Zhang Huai stated it in the flattest tone possible, though the words themselves were absurd.
A martial prodigy born for the art!
He had no idea that because Luo Bin was "exceptionally compatible" with the Primordial Stance, Chen Tianren and Jiang Ling already regarded him as a treasure in their hands... They were practically ready to treat him as their third son.
Zhang Huai only thought that if someone like that could stay with the Chen Family, then even if Master Chen Shuo passed away, what would it matter? The Chen Family could still rise to prominence all the same...
Chen Jing had already investigated Luo Bin's background. It was spotless. He was originally from Luanshan County, Shanyang Province, under the Southern Democratic Alliance.
Because warlords were fighting and famine had broken out, Luo Bin had fled north to escape disaster. When he joined the Pei Family's household guard registry two years ago, he had provided detailed information. Both his parents were dead, but he had two uncles...
He had been separated from them while fleeing. Now he had only Wen Li, his adoptive godmother.
For a moment, Chen Jing and the others fell silent, their breathing slightly hurried.
The atmosphere in the hall had reached a fever pitch. The guests were caught between a rock and a hard place: outside, powerful families were locked in a bloody clash; upstairs, a Martial Master was fighting a Strange Entity...
The bearded man and the fat man who had come down from upstairs had already explained everything, from start to finish, to the crowd gathering around them.
The scene sprang vividly to life in everyone's minds: cement flying, dust billowing, fists and arms tearing through the air as the combatants fought...
What a noble act.
To keep the guests safe and avoid alerting the Strange Entity too soon, they had sealed off the flow of people and even assigned special staff to maintain order and protect everyone.
Hong Ling, dressed in a red qipao, and Su Yunong had both been leading ladies at Qunyu Garden in the western part of the city. The appearance fees at the Moon Veil Nightclub were simply too high to resist.
That was why the two had come together.
They hadn't expected something like this to happen on their very first visit. Then they remembered the rumors from a few days ago, saying that the "Moon Veil" was creepy and the Chen Family was creepy, too. Now that the rumors matched what they were seeing, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She waved her small fist. "So that's what happened! The Chen Family was protecting our safety, and that young man upstairs is our savior...
"We mustn't misunderstand them!"
The guests who had overheard Chen Jing and the others began murmuring among themselves, and the hall grew noisy once more.
Hu Junzhi was worried. After all, he had never seen Luo Bin fight with all his strength. "Young Master, well... can Brother Luo handle it?"
Chen Jing shot him an exasperated look. "If we hadn't seen that he had it under control, would we have run downstairs first?"
"..."
The first floor was in complete disarray when a steady rhythm of footsteps suddenly came from the stairway, each step striking at the hearts of everyone there.
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