Unlike its daytime quiet, the North District blazed with lights after nightfall.
Those lights naturally came not from streetlamps, but from neon signs.
Among the rows of squat little houses, these colorful lights served not only as the main source of illumination, but also as "signposts" for the North District's locals.
Red and yellow marked gambling dens.
Red and blue marked smoke shops.
Red and pink marked brothels.
Plain red marked cleanup joints.
Each color carried a different meaning. Outsiders might find them baffling, but the people of the North District understood them at a glance.
Several police cars stopped at the entrance to the North District right on schedule. A few officers swept their eyes over the district with disgust and resignation, then fell silent.
It was not as though no one had tried to clean up the North District.
The results had simply been negligible.
Things might improve a little during a crackdown.
But that would last only two or three days before everything swiftly returned to normal. Ai City's municipal government had tried several times, and after losing a councilman, a police chief, two police captains, and no fewer than thirty officers, it had abandoned the place entirely. Instead, it switched to "supervision"-setting up "checkpoints" to isolate the area, with strict inspections for anyone entering or leaving. As for what happened inside? That was the responsibility of the North District's residents.
Under these conditions, the North District grew increasingly complicated as time passed. Its chaotic streets, squat houses, and gangs that survived and multiplied like cockroaches gradually turned it into a lawless land.
Many wanted criminals considered it paradise.
Of course, for most ordinary people, it remained hell.
But Dennis certainly was not among them.
Dennis was a typical, born-and-bred North District local. He did not know