I and Gambling and Drugs Are Incompatible!

Canal Gang headquarters.

Dai Qinghe's side residence.

In the reception hall.

Dai Qinghe sat in the seat of honor, with A-Cheng standing beside him.

Jiang Wangzu stood below.

"A-Zu, you've now become one of the Canal Gang's core members."

"Next, you'll have to shoulder some of the burden for the gang."

"Now you can be considered one of my line. Because our line follows the gang leader's steps closely, we have plenty under us, spread across all kinds of the Canal Gang's businesses."

"Opium, smuggling, gambling houses, brothels, flower boats, or taking charge of a stretch of streets—even entering the Police Station and pursuing an official career is possible."

"You might as well open the skylight and speak plainly with me. What are you interested in?"

Dai Qinghe spoke with great pride.

Shen City was extremely special, a battleground where the three powers of the concessions, warlords, and financial magnates wrestled against one another.

At the same time, it was also the main battlefield where the Southern Revolutionary Army, the old northern warlords, and the royalists fought their magical duels.

But Shen City's geographic position was simply too important, and its economy too developed.

So no single force could swallow this place whole.

Any faction that dared try to control Shen City would inevitably suffer the joint assault of all sides.

That was why the current Shen City was in an extremely chaotic period of self-rule.

The major powers backed gangs to control Shen City, and the strength of the gangs far exceeded Jiang Wangzu's imagination.

Whether in politics or commerce, or even in the Police Station that represented Shen City's apparatus of violence, there were people from the major gangs.

One could even say that the Police Station had already been infiltrated by the gangs until it was like a sieve.

"My father smoked opium and gambled. My mother was angered to death by him, and my older sister and younger sister were sold by him for gambling money."

"Gambling and drugs are enemies I cannot live under the same sky with!"

"So, Sixth Master, I want to open a dance hall!"

Jiang Wangzu directly voiced his idea.

Dance halls were something new. Right now, aside from a few opened in the Upper District, no one in the Lower District had gotten involved yet.

Although this was a Republican-era fantasy plane, it was not completely different from the world he had come from.

Peering through a bamboo tube at a leopard, one could still glimpse a spot of the whole beast.

Through the development of Republican-era Shen City in his own world, it was enough to see that the future dance-hall industry in Shen City would definitely have great potential.

In the Republican era of his world, Shen City's greatest economic pillar had been the cotton textile industry, and the second greatest industrial pillar had been dance halls.

Dance halls had contributed enormous strength to the economic development of Shen City at that time.

At their peak, Shen City's dance halls had contributed over forty percent of Shen City's tax revenue.

"A dance hall?"

"Young people really do accept new things quickly."

"But I've heard the cost of building a dance hall isn't low."

"To be honest, I can't have the gang put up such a large sum of money just on a few words from you and open a dance hall for you to manage."

"And even if it really is opened, that thing is a gold-burning den, a beast that devours gold. With your experience, you won't be able to hold it."

Dai Qinghe glanced at Jiang Wangzu, some disappointment in his eyes.

Because Jiang Wangzu was reaching a little too high and too far.

"Sixth Master, I'm not wagging my tongue and talking nonsense."

"Please hear me out first."

"If an ordinary merchant with no connections wanted to open a dance hall, he'd have to invest at least two or three hundred thousand silver dollars."

"But for us Canal Gang people to open a dance hall, it wouldn't take nearly that much money at all."

"The Canal Gang has ready-made venues, channels for alcohol, and the patrol contributions, taxes, rent, and so on can all be discussed easily."

"As for personnel, for songstresses we can look for untouched courtesans or opera performers with good voices. A little training will do."

"For dancing girls, we can look for brothel workers with decent looks. In this, the Canal Gang also has an advantage bestowed by heaven."

"For security, there are enough brothers in the gang. Calculated this way, our actual cash investment probably won't even reach fifty thousand silver dollars."

Jiang Wangzu worked out an account for Dai Qinghe.

Dai Qinghe went from not too patient at first, to sitting upright and proper, and finally to directly widening his eyes.

He truly did not know how Jiang Wangzu's brain had grown!

"A... A-Zu!"

"You've truly given me a heaven-sized surprise!"

"It was I, Dai Lao-Liu, who had eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai."

"At first, I thought you were just a reckless brute with courage and no brains."

"I never expected you really had something in you."

"Who did you learn all this from?"

Dai Qinghe spoke with great delight.

Even A-Cheng beside him could not help widening his eyes.

No, brother?

Were you not a martial cultivator?

Why were you so good at doing business too?

"It's only simple resource integration."

"If I had enough time, I could even put together a Republican-era Heaven on Earth for you!"

Jiang Wangzu thought smugly in his heart.

"Sixth Master, you flatter me. I can write my suggestions down for you to see whether they're feasible."

"Sixth Master, I promise you that as long as it's run properly, the dance hall will definitely make big money!"

Jiang Wangzu said with absolute certainty.

"Good!"

"Write down your suggestions. If I think they're workable, I'll go discuss it with the gang leader and the adviser."

"If this succeeds, I'll do everything I can to secure you the position of person in charge of the dance hall."

"But whether you can sit firmly in that position will depend on your own ability."

"When the Canal Gang appoints people, it has always been the capable rise, the mediocre fall."

"If you can't make it, don't blame Sixth Master for not helping you!"

Dai Qinghe gave Jiang Wangzu the warning in advance.

"If my skills are inferior to others, then I will willingly step down and yield to the worthy!"

Jiang Wangzu said, each word chopping iron and severing nails.

"Hahaha."

"Good!"

Dai Qinghe stood up and patted Jiang Wangzu on the shoulder.

Jiang Wangzu did what he said he would do at once, immediately asking for a fountain pen and paper and beginning to write down his thoughts.

He also wrote down all the various costs of opening a dance hall in the Lower District, as well as the expected future profits.

While he wrote, Dai Qinghe and A-Cheng watched from beside him.

With Dai Qinghe, this know-it-all, around, he could ask in time if there was anything he did not understand.

In this way, his dance hall proposal became even more detailed and substantial.

Even Dai Qinghe was stunned.

When had he ever seen a proposal written by a top corporate drudge from a top university of a later age?

This was simply dimensional reduction warfare!

"Perfect!"

"This proposal is truly too perfect!"

"A-Zu, you really are both a scholar and a warrior!"

"I didn't expect you to have such excellent hard-pen calligraphy too. Your calligraphy seems to form a system of its own, enough to establish a school and found a sect!"

Dai Qinghe had already been shocked countless times by Jiang Wangzu today.

He even found it somewhat hard to believe that such a great talent had been under Cao Lao-San's confidant Chen Tai for so long without them discovering him.

Were they all pigs?

If Jiang Wangzu felt his talent was buried in the Canal Gang and turned around to join the Blue Society or the Hong Association, they would have nowhere to cry.

Especially since the Hong Association had financial magnates standing behind it.

They did not lack money.

Add to that Jiang Wangzu's money-making ideas.

It was simply terrifying beyond measure!

"It's just ordinary hard-pen calligraphy from later generations. Look at your ignorant face."

Jiang Wangzu secretly reveled in his heart.

This was what fucking transmigration was!

Awesome!