Meanwhile,
Outside the airport.
Old Ninth stood dumbly amid the crowd.
His hands were empty.
His phone was gone, and he could not find the person False Eye had arranged to pick him up.
Even more frustratingly, there were only a few coins in his wallet.
Old Ninth and Little White Tiger were both the sort to go out without money, and this left him stumped.
The crucial problem was that the guy never memorized anyone else's phone number.
Now he could only stand alone in the rain, looking at the bustling Hong Kong Government like a country bumpkin.
Just as he was wondering where to go, a sleazy man approached and offered Old Ninth a cigarette.
"Little brother, first time here?"
The man had a pair of beady, ratlike eyes and looked extremely sleazy.
"Where are you headed? I'm from the mainland too. We're all compatriots here. I'll take you."
"An unlicensed cab?"
Old Ninth followed the man's pointing finger and saw a battered little car with no window glass.
It took no thought to tell that he ran an unlicensed cab.
These days, most unlicensed cab drivers had a sideline, like... Earthworm.
"I have a license, little brother. You're all alone here and don't know your way around. Lucky you ran into me."
"How much?" Old Ninth felt his wallet.
"We're all brothers. Don't talk money. Just give me whatever. Come on, come on." The man casually glanced at Old Ninth's wallet and enthusiastically pushed him into the car.
As he walked toward the driver's seat, he even raised his eyebrows smugly at the other drivers soliciting passengers nearby.
"That's it. Another mainland kid's about to get fleeced by Old Huang."
The other drivers cast sympathetic looks at Old Ninth.
He took it all in, the corners of