A sleepless night.
But Chu Hang didn't feel sleepy at all. When the first ray of dawn pierced the darkness and gilded the sleeping city with a hazy golden edge, he was standing in a cheap motel room, looking at a brand new self in the mirror.
The hot bath not only washed away all the dirt on his body and the disgusting sewage smell, but also seemed to wash away the coldness and numbness that had lasted for nearly fifty years. The cheap razor bought from the corner convenience store shaved off the messy stubble on his face. Revealing a face with sharp edges and corners. This face is very strange. It not only retains the delicate outline of his previous life as a social animal, but also has been ruthlessly carved with a bit of vicissitudes and coldness that far exceeds his age in the gunfire of World War II and the slumber of glaciers.
The man in the mirror has black hair and black eyes, and his eyes are as calm as a bottomless ancient well. He is wearing the Black Noir jacket and jeans that were ripped off from the street gangsters. The size is slightly larger, but when worn on his perfect clothes rack figure that has been reshaped by Super-Soldier Serum, it looks a bit uninhibited and casual.
He is no longer the veteran sleeping in the glacier, nor the social beast who died suddenly in the office. He is Chu Hang, a ghost living in 1995, a pauper with treasures but no money.
He took out the crumpled roll of bills from his pocket, spread it out on the bed and counted it carefully. After deducting the cost of the motel room and last night's devoured meal, he still had one hundred and three dollars left.
One hundred and three dollars.
Chu Hang looked at this little money and smiled to himself. What can this little money do? Not to mention Silicon Valley to invest in Yahoo stocks, even buying a computer with Internet access is far from enough. In this era, he has no identity, no account, and no start-up capital. The business plans in his mind that have led the world for decades are like treasure maps printed on waste paper, worthless and just a joke.
He needs money, a lot of money.
How to get money the fastest?
Countless thoughts flashed through Chu Hang's mind. Robbery of a bank? The risk was too high, and the movement was too high. What he needed most now was to keep a low profile and blend into the world like a real ghost. To be a mercenary? He was familiar with the process, but he couldn't find a reliable way for a while, and he didn't want to be exposed to the vision of some organizations prematurely.
His eyes finally fell on his slender and powerful hands with clear joints. These hands, strengthened by Super-Soldier Serum, possessed strength, speed and neural response capabilities far beyond those of ordinary people. His brain was a humanoid supercomputer, with its computing speed and memory reaching a terrifying level.
Then, it seems that there is only one answer left.
Gambling.
For ordinary people, a casino is a bottomless pit that swallows up wealth and life. But for him at this moment, it is simply a cash machine with the door of the vault open, just waiting for him to withdraw it.
He carefully folded the precious newspaper again, put it snugly into the inner pocket of his jacket, then opened the door and walked out of the hotel.
During the day, he did not rush into action. He spent a few dollars to have lunch at a street fast food restaurant, and then wandered aimlessly on the street like a real tourist. As he walked, he Greed observed this familiar and unfamiliar world, absorbing all useful information. Greed stuffed it into his mind. The brands of cars running on the street, the prices in shop windows, the clothes of pedestrians... Everything was helping him quickly fill the fifty-year cognitive gap, turning him from a living fossil of an era into a modern person again.
Night falls again.
Chu Hang walked into a neighborhood bar on the edge of the city, where dragons and snakes mixed together. As soon as the door opened, dim lights, deafening heavy metal music, and the turbid smell of alcohol, cigarettes and hormones in the air hit your face. On the dance floor, people twisted their bodies wildly, releasing the depression accumulated during the day.
Chu Hang went straight to the bar and ordered a glass of the cheapest beer.
"Hey, man." He elbowed a fat white man next to him who was drinking alone, and asked in a low voice, "Want to make some extra money?"
The fat man glanced at him drunkenly and waved his hands angrily. "Go away, kid, I'm not in the mood."
Chu Hang was not angry either. He quietly pushed a twenty-dollar bill next to the fat man's wine glass. The green Franklin was particularly attractive in the dim light.
The fat man's eyes suddenly lit up. He quietly covered the banknotes with his fat palms and quickly stuffed them into his pockets as if by magic. Then he scanned the surroundings vigilantly and then leaned forward. "What do you want to know?"
"Is there any place around here where I can play cards?" Chu Hang asked, "The kind where you can play cards in a bigger way."
The fat man looked him up and down, with a hint of suspicion and contempt in his eyes. The expression seemed to say: You are as poor as you, but you still want to play big? But for the sake of money, he whispered an address, "On the street behind, there is a basement called 'Queen of Spades'. The boss is called Butcher, and he has a bad temper. Boy, I advise you not to go there and cause trouble."
"Thank you."
Chu Hang put down the almost untouched wine glass, turned and left the bar.
According to the address given by the fat man, he quickly found the so-called "Queen of Spades". The entrance was a closed dry cleaning shop, with only an inconspicuous side door ajar. Standing at the door were two strong men as tough as iron towers, watching everyone who approached with indifferent eyes, like two door gods.
Chu Hang walked over.
"Member?" One of the strong men stretched out an arm like a leaf fan to stop him, his voice as rough as sandpaper.
"Introduced by a friend." Chu Hang replied calmly, without any dodge in his eyes.
The strong man looked at him for a few seconds, and seemed not to see any threat from his slightly thin body, so he turned sideways and made way for him.
Pushing open the heavy iron door, a stronger smell of Heat Wave mixed with the smell of sweat and cigars rushed in. The basement was full of people and filled with smoke, which made people's eyes sore. The space here is not big, but it is well-equipped. There are people playing dice and roulette, but the most popular ones are the blackjack tables in the center.
Chu Hang's goal was clear. He walked straight to a card table with the smallest bet and converted all the eighty-three dollars he had left into chips.
He sat down and waited quietly, like a stone thrown into a lake without causing any ripples.
The card game has begun.
The croupier was an expressionless middle-aged man with long slender fingers, and his card-dealing movements were skillful and mechanical, as if he had repeated them tens of thousands of times.
Chu Hang was not in a hurry to place a bet. He just watched quietly, like a newbie who had just arrived, carefully observing the situation on the card table. But in fact, his brain was running at a terrifying speed.
Every card that was dealt was firmly remembered in his mind. The subtle and almost imperceptible specific rhythm of the friction of the cards when the dealer shuffled the cards, the fleeting micro-expressions on the faces of other gamblers when asking for cards or suspending cards, and even their heartbeats that instantly accelerated due to nervousness or excitement... All this information was captured by his Transcendence ordinary human senses, and then integrated, analyzed, and calculated in his brain.
For him, this is no longer a gamble.
This is a mathematical problem. A mathematical problem for which he already knows all the known conditions in advance.
After observing two games, he began to place bets.
His bet amount was very small, and he only placed one chip of the lowest denomination each time. But every time, he could choose to ask for a card or stop playing at the most critical moment. His cards could always be slightly better than the dealer's in the most cunning and incredible way.
It's either blackjack or twenty.
He won five consecutive games.
Although the money won was not much, this 100% winning rate had begun to attract the dealer's attention. The dealer's actions in dealing cards began to become a little unnatural, and his eyes were always glancing in his direction intentionally or unintentionally.
Chu Hang didn't care. He pushed out all the winning chips and increased the bet.
Next, it is a purely personal performance.
His chips were getting bigger and bigger like a snowball. The other gamblers at the table also changed from the initial indifference to shock and curiosity. A few guys who were red-eyed at the loss began to place bets with him and won a few small fortunes. They looked at him with eyes full of admiration, as if they were seeing the God of Wealth.
Half an hour later, the chips in front of Chu Hang had grown from a measly eighty-three dollars to a mountain worth more than five thousand dollars.
There were beads of sweat on the croupier's forehead. He gave a vague look for help to a manager in a suit who was standing not far away and was responsible for patrolling the venue.
The manager came over, patted the croupier's shoulder calmly, and took his place personally.
"Boy, you're lucky." The new manager had a professional smile on his face, but there was an undisguised coldness in his eyes. His shuffling movements were much faster and more fancy than the previous dealer, and he was obviously a veteran.
Chu Hang smiled, without saying anything, and directly pushed out half of the chips in front of him.
A new round begins.
The manager's movements were as fast as lightning, and even at the moment when the cards were dealt, there was a subtle tremor in his wrist. He wanted to use these small moves in the casino to cheat.
But under Chu Hang's dynamic vision, all his movements were like slow-motion playback in a movie, and every detail was extremely clear.
"I want a card." Chu Hang said calmly.
The manager dealt a card.
"Continue."
Another one.
"Stop."
The manager's expression changed. He took a deep breath and turned over his trump card, nineteen points. A pretty good number.
Chu Hang turns over his cards. One is an Ace, one is a 10. No more, no less, exactly blackjack.
There was a muffled exclamation in the audience, and everyone's eyes were focused on this mysterious oriental young man.
The manager's smile completely disappeared. He stared at Chu Hang, as if he wanted to see a flower on his face.
"You're out of luck!" He slammed the table and shouted sternly, trying to overwhelm the other party with his momentum.
Chu Hang leaned lazily on the chair, spread his hands, and said innocently, "I'm just lucky and good at math."
"Take him to the back to have a chat!" The manager winked at the two thugs standing by the wall.
The two strong men, who were over 1.9 meters tall, immediately came over and clamped Chu Hang on the left and right, shrouding him in a huge shadow.
"Sir, our boss would like to treat you to a cup of tea." One of the strong men said with a smile, and the hand on Chu Hang's shoulder was as strong as an iron pliers, enough to crush the collarbone of an ordinary person.
Chu Hang stood up obediently, with that calm smile still on his face. He glanced at the pile of chips on the table that already exceeded 10,000 US dollars, and said to the livid-faced manager, "Look at it for me, that's mine."
After saying that, he followed the two strong men into a small room behind the casino.
The room was very simple, with only a table and a few chairs. A fat, bald man wearing a floral shirt and a sinewy face was sitting behind the table, slowly wiping a silver revolver with a piece of flannel. He is the boss here, Butcher.
"Boy, you are very courageous to work for me." Butcher said without raising his head, his voice was dull and depressed, as if it was squeezed out of the chest.
Chu Hang pulled out a chair, sat down on his own, and crossed his legs. "I told you, I'm just good at math."
"Good at math?" Butcher sneered and put down the gun in his hand with a bang, "I don't care whether you are good at fucking math or not, just keep the money you won and cut off one of your hands. Today is over."
Chu Hang seemed to have heard some big joke and couldn't help laughing. The laughter seemed particularly clear in the small room.
"Why are you laughing?" Butcher's face darkened, and the air in the room seemed to freeze.
The two strong men standing behind Chu Hang also took a step forward at the same time, their joints making crackling sounds, and they surrounded him with malicious intent.
Chu Hang stopped smiling, and his eyes instantly became cold and biting. He stood up slowly, moved his neck, and made a few crisp bone sounds.
"I'm laughing at you, you made two mistakes." He looked at Butcher and said word by word.
"First of all, that money is mine. It won't be less."
"Second..."
Before he finished speaking, his whole body suddenly moved!
His movements were so fast that the naked eye could hardly catch them, leaving only an afterimage!
The strong man standing on his left felt his eyes blur, and a palm was printed on his chest like a ghost. The force seemed light, but it contained an unparalleled terrifying penetrating power. The strong man did not even feel pain, only felt numbness in his chest, and his heart seemed to be tightly grasped by an invisible big hand, and it stopped beating instantly. His huge body shook, and he fell straight back, his pupils were dilated, and he died on the spot.
At the same time, Chu Hang's body twisted at an incredible angle, and his right leg was like a steel whip, with a whistling sound of tearing the air, and it swept across the knee of another strong man accurately.
"Crack!"
There was another heartbreaking sound of bone cracking. The strong man didn't even have time to scream, so he hugged his reverse-bent leg and suddenly fell to his knees. The severe pain made him faint instantly.
The whole process takes place in a flash, taking less than a second.
The ferocious smile on Butcher's face froze. He looked at the scene in front of him in horror, which was like the arrival of a demon. His mind went blank, and he could hardly process the information he saw. He subconsciously wanted to grab the revolver on the table.
But one hand is faster than him.
Chu Hang's figure appeared in front of the table as if teleporting, holding down the gun and Butcher's fat hand.
"Ah!" Butcher let out a shrill scream, and he felt as if his hand bones were about to be crushed alive.
Chu Hang leaned down to his ear and said softly in an almost whispering voice without any emotion:
"Second, it's you who should have his hand cut off."
After the words fell, he took Butcher's hand and folded it sharply.
"Crack!"
The crisp sound of a broken wrist, accompanied by the heart-rending scream of Butcher, echoed in the small room, which was horrifying.
Chu Hang let go of his hand, letting Butcher hold his soft palm and roll on the ground wailing. He picked up the silver revolver, deftly removed the magazine, poured the bullets one by one on the table, and rolled with a clanking sound. Then, he threw the empty gun back to Butcher.
He took out a one-dollar bill from his pocket and placed it gently on the table.
"Here's a tip for you."
After saying that, he stopped looking at the mess in the room, turned around and walked out of the door.
In the casino hall outside, everyone was frightened into silence by the screams coming from the room, and the music had stopped at some point. When Chu Hang walked out again, everyone's eyes were focused on him, full of fear and awe.
He calmly walked back to the card table, where the pale-faced manager was tremblingly putting all his chips into a Black Noir cloth bag.
Chu Hang took the bag and weighed it, it was very heavy.
He didn't even look at anyone, and just walked out of the basement of "Queen of Spades" under everyone's horrified gaze, and returned to the free and cold air.
He was holding a bag full of cash in his hand and a newspaper that pointed to the future in his pocket.
The first pot of gold has been obtained.
Although the process was a bit rough, the results were very satisfying.