Even without pulling off the blindfold, just from the intoxicating smell of alcohol alone, I could already tell this was a bar.

That said, unlike Lose Moonlit’s elegant, British-style atmosphere, this place leaned more toward a nightclub aesthetic. Neon tubes with dreamy, seductive colors lined the walls, the multicolored lights reflected off a mirrored disco ball, scattering across the entire bar.

Sharo swept her gaze across the seating area and clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Quite a few people are already here, huh?”

Even though Sharo was technically a leader herself, her arrival didn’t draw much attention. She probably didn’t show her face often, and people from the other gangs simply didn’t recognize her.

Thinking about it, that made sense. If she were the flashy type, she never could have worked at a maid café, nor kept her activities hidden from Lin Ziye.

“Just sit wherever you‘d like. I’ll go report to the boss.”

Long Tao rubbed his hands together and left. His departure actually made me feel a lot more at ease. I had no goodwill toward that man at all—he had the personality of a bootlicker, shifty eyes, and a lecherous air. His mere presence was unpleasant.

“There’s still half an hour. Let’s sit for now.”

I took out my phone to check the time, only to realize there was absolutely no signal. I couldn’t help frowning.

“Signal’s jammed. Even making us take a detour just to get in, really treating us like thieves are they.”

Sharo didn’t seem bothered at all. She found an empty seat and sat down, casually taking a cocktail from the bartender’s tray.

“Pretty normal, isn’t it? If Rashomon didn’t have this level of caution, they wouldn’t have survived this long.”

I sat across from her, looking at the eerie green cocktail glowing in her hand.

“More importantly… can you even drink? You’re only sixteen, right?”

She shot me a look and huffed. “...We’re already in a bar, and that’s what you’re worried about?”

Shan-jie sat down beside me. She picked up the glasses hanging from her collar and put them back on, then lightly adjusted the hidden earpiece in her ear.

She beckoned to Sharo and me, leaning in and lowering her voice.

“The command unit can’t monitor what’s happening here through the glasses, but audio communication through the earpiece is still fine. The earpiece probably uses a different frequency than mobile networks—whatever jamming equipment they’ve got in the bar doesn’t interfere with it.”

The glasses rely on cellular data if I’m not mistaken.

Sharo asked, “Does the command unit know where we are?”

Shan-jie shook her head. “No. The interference started halfway through, and they lost the video feed. But since the earpiece still works, it means that squad leader Long Tao didn’t actually take us very far, even though he dragged us around for so long.”

I thought over Long Tao’s behavior.

“There were probably signal jammers set up along the route, too. The detours were likely meant to avoid police surveillance and to guide us through areas covered by the jammers.”

I recalled what I’d seen earlier and added, “I actually sneaked a look just now. This bar is on the riverside sightseeing walkway. I couldn’t see exactly which stretch, but the entrance is a downward-turning metal staircase. Let the intelligence team look for it.”

“You even peeked?” Sharo said, surprised, then quickly understanding. “And you didn’t get caught—that’s impressive. That Long Tao was moving painfully slow, clearly checking behind him every few steps.”

Sharo suddenly slapped her palm.

“No wonder one stretch felt warm—it was because we were out in the sun!”

“The riverside, huh? That’ll be easy to find. I thought it’d be hidden somewhere obscure like Lose Moonlit,” Shan-jie said thoughtfully, nodding. “The command unit will pass this on to the intelligence team. For now, we wait.”

With Tangerine’s cat friends acting as scouts, the intelligence team’s movements were practically ghostlike. No matter how paranoid a thug might be, no one stays on guard against a stray cat.

We sipped our juice (Sharo had her cocktail) while waiting for the meeting to begin. With no phone signal and no Wi-Fi in the bar, the time dragged on painfully—made worse by the stares from all around us.

Rakshasa was, after all, a major gang entrenched in its territory, and the fact that its leader was female was hardly a secret anymore. Even if Sharo kept a low profile, as the only all-female group here, it wasn’t hard for the seasoned veterans in the room to guess who we were.

Even though Shan-jie and I weren’t technically part of Rakshasa.

After about ten minutes or so, Long Tao reappeared in the main hall looking thoroughly disheveled. There was a bright red handprint still stamped across his face, and behind him stood a man in a suit I’d never seen before.

The man’s face was gaunt, but he was extremely tall—he felt even taller than Zhao Zhao, who was already around 193 cm. Roughly estimating, he had to be close to two meters.

At that height, he stood out conspicuously inside the bar, drawing everyone’s attention. Some people even shamelessly went up to greet him.

I didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean others didn’t. The moment Sharo and Shan-jie saw him, neither of them looked pleased. With a bit of deduction, his identity was easy to guess.

Even so, I whispered, “Who’s this guy?”

“Lu Huangze.”

Sharo’s voice was calm, but the disgust seeping through it was unmistakable. She frowned as if suppressing nausea, clearly not bothering to hide her feelings.

As expected—the nominal leader of the large gang Rashomon.

And really, since he was both the convenor and host of this meeting, it wasn’t strange for him to show up in person.

While I was thinking, Long Tao—head hanging low—had already led Lu Huangze over to us.

Looking up at him from where I sat, his height was genuinely oppressive. His brown-black sideburns curled outward, and a fake, ingratiating smile hung on his face, like a jester wearing a smiling mask.

“I’ve come to apologize,” Lu Huangze said calmly. “It seems my subordinate showed a lack of proper respect—to you, to ladies, and to the leader of a major organization.”

As he said this, he glanced at Long Tao. “I’ll leave him to you to deal with.”

“I—I’m sorry!”

Long Tao suddenly dropped into a dramatic kneeling apology, but because his face ended up too close to Sharo’s legs, he was promptly sent flying by a kick. He collapsed to the side, trembling and not daring to get back up.

Given Lu Huangze’s words, Long Tao had essentially been thrown to us as a punching bag, and Sharo’s kick was clearly given with his tacit approval.

And Sharo was wearing hard leather combat boots. One kick was enough to leave Long Tao’s face visibly swollen—it looked excruciating.

Lu Huangze himself then turned to me and performed a gentleman’s bow.

“You must be Miss Sharo. I’ve heard a bit about Rakshasa. I never imagined you’d be even more beautiful than the rumors suggest.”

…Huh?

I froze for a moment and even double-checked that he was, in fact, speaking to me.

He’d clearly made a mistake—confusing me for Sharo. Even Long Tao hadn’t made such a basic error. Yet Lu Huangze seemed completely unaware of the awkwardness and continued in a serious tone.

“I hope this incident won’t have any negative impact on our cooperation—”

It already has!

I glanced at Sharo. Her expression had darkened even further. I hurriedly cut Lu Huangze off.

“Ah—cough, cough. Sir, you’ve got the wrong person. The one on your left is our Rakshasa’s boss…”

“…Ah?”

He froze as well.

Sharo crossed her arms and bounced her leg, her face flushed red—whether from anger or alcohol, I couldn’t tell.

“Er… then I’ve truly been discourteous.”

Lu Huangze gave Sharo an awkward but still polite smile, holding it for about three seconds.

Then he turned back to me. “And you, Miss, are…?”

“Ah? Chang Lingmeng.”

Damn it—I blurted out my name without thinking… though, whatever.

Sharo said irritably, “She’s my deputy. And shouldn’t you be looking at me when you talk?”

“Oh, my sincerest apologies, Miss Sharo. Let’s save our discussion for the meeting itself…”

Lu Huangze brushed Sharo aside, then turned back to me and bowed once more.

“Miss Lingmeng, once the meeting concludes, would you honor me by joining me for dinner?”

……

Goosebumps broke out all over me.