"See you, Andrew. Don't forget the party tonight. I'll come pick you up later."
"Bye, Matt."
At the entrance to the neighborhood, Matt stopped the car, and Andrew headed home with his camera.
As he passed by some neighborhood thugs, Andrew boldly took the chance to film them while they weren't paying attention to him, saying, "These are the dangerous elements around here."
Naturally, the thugs pulled their guns and chased him, threatening him.
Timid Andrew didn't dare linger and hurried home with his camera.
As he ran off, Xu Xiao's Chevrolet followed steadily behind him. Xu Xiao only looked away after watching him enter a small building.
That was very similar to the scene in the story. This should be the guy.
Xu Xiao had followed Andrew all the way to his neighborhood and was now fairly certain that the boy who had gone inside was his target.
His heart surged with excitement, and his hands unconsciously tightened on the steering wheel.
Finally, he had found the key character. Putting that together with the party invitation at the school gate, Xu Xiao immediately realized he was at the very beginning of the story.
Today happened to be Wednesday.
Tonight, after going to the party, this guy would find the thing that changed his life in some corner.
Of course, now that Xu Xiao was here, that thing was no longer destined for them.
Bang, bang!
Just as Xu Xiao was immersed in his sweet dreams, someone banged loudly on the window of his Chevrolet.
"Hey, man."
"Who let a stranger like you into my neighborhood? Come on, let me see what kind of bitch you are and where you came from."
A white Mexican man of Latin American descent pounded hard on Xu Xiao's car window, while his two companions watched like tigers stalking their prey.
Street thugs in America all had their own turf. Whenever an outsider or an unfamiliar vehicle entered their neighborhood, it stirred up their hostility.
The Chevrolet Xu Xiao was driving was not a vehicle commonly seen in the neighborhood, so the thugs immediately came over to question him and show how tough they were.
When the white Mexican man leading them saw that the person in the car was Asian, he grew even more excited and brazen, pounding on the window.
"Oh! Look where this yellow-skinned monkey came from!"
"Get out of the car, damn yellow-skin. Who gave you permission to come onto my turf?"
His two companions also started laughing and jeering.
These white thugs liked nothing more than bullying other people of color. In this frontier town, there had always been very few yellow-skinned people.
A trace of killing intent flashed through Xu Xiao's eyes, but when he saw that they were all carrying guns and that they were still in the middle of a neighborhood street, he held back.
Xu Xiao lowered the window a third of the way and held out a hundred-dollar bill in one hand.
"Hi, boys. Don't get so worked up. I mean no harm."
"For Franklin's sake, can we have a chat?"
A crisp green Franklin was an excellent pass. The eyes of all three thugs lit up at the sight of the US bill.
A fat sheep!
The white Mexican leader grabbed the Franklin and tried to pull it away, only to find that the yellow-skinned man in the car was holding it tightly.
For the sake of the lovely Franklin, he had no choice but to soften his tone:
"Hey, yellow-skinned guy, do you know how annoying you are?"
"But for Franklin's sake, I can hear what you want to talk about."
The other two white men also gathered around at the right moment, looking as though they wanted to back him up.
But Xu Xiao showed no fear at all. Instead, he spoke with a grin:
"Relax, boys. I just want to ask you about someone."
"Who?" Hearing that he only wanted to ask about someone, the white Mexican man looked taken aback for a moment, then asked,
"Fat Jeff, druggie Laster, or..."
"No, no, no, none of them." Xu Xiao interrupted him and pointed toward Andrew's house with his other hand.
"Do you know who that boy just now was? If you answer me, this Franklin is yours."
The white men were taken aback. Had that kid Andrew gotten into trouble? Why else would someone pay to ask about him?
But with Franklin tempting them, Andrew wasn't a gang member, just a punching bag they often bullied.
The white men quickly sold him out:
"I know. That kid's name is Andrew. His father's a drunk, and he's got a sick mom at home."
"That kid's like a pathetic little mouse, a real coward. Want us to teach him a lesson for you?"
As he spoke, the white man tugged hard on the bill in Xu Xiao's hand, indicating that he had given him an answer.
"All right, thanks, boys. This Franklin is yours."
Xu Xiao nodded and released the US bill.
But the ease with which he handed it over stirred the three young men's greed.
After getting the money, the white Mexican man did not stop and walk away. Instead, he pressed hard on the window, leaned halfway into the car, and put his hand on the steering wheel.
"Buddy, I saw it just now. You've got quite a bit of money."
The white man looked at Xu Xiao's lean face and secretly rejoiced.
A scrawny little Asian chick like this had shown up in their neighborhood. Wasn't he practically delivering money for them to spend?
When Xu Xiao had taken out the bill just now, the man had seen several more crisp green Franklins in his wallet.
An unfamiliar Asian was just the kind of soft persimmon best suited for picking on.
"What? You want to borrow a little money from me? Rob me in broad daylight on this street?"
Xu Xiao remained perfectly calm, without a trace of panic.
Even though he had already seen the two white men outside the window pull out knives, he kept smiling.
"Why not? This is our neighborhood. There aren't any surveillance cameras nearby, and there aren't any cops either."
"If you know what's good for you..."
Bang!
Before the white man could finish speaking, a bullet had already gone through his head.
Two crisp gunshots followed. Two bullet holes appeared in the window, and the white men outside the car fell as well.
"You should've said so earlier. No surveillance cameras nearby, and no cops."
Xu Xiao lowered the revolver in his right hand, then swiftly opened the car door and looted everything on the three men, including the payment for answering his question that the white man had taken.
His haul was $621, two Glock pistols, a Smithson pistol, and three daggers.
There wasn't much to squeeze out of street thugs, but Xu Xiao, who had long grown accustomed to looting corpses in the apocalypse, didn't pass it up.
He had never been a good person. If he hadn't been afraid of getting into trouble right at the start, the pair of junkies he had first encountered would have died too.
Now that he had figured out who the protagonist was and where he was in the timeline, he no longer intended to hold himself back.
A few punks dared to provoke him?
They must have been tired of living. Xu Xiao had managed to scrape by for seven years in the apocalypse, and even if he hadn't killed people like flies, he had a ruthless streak of his own.
It was fine if they left him alone, but once they provoked him, it would absolutely end with one side dead.