Chapter 62: The Jiangnan Water Country

After hanging up the phone, Yang Jie saw Zhan Ting looking at him with utter contempt.

"Got the itch again and can't hold back? Aren't you satisfied with having two women already?"

Yang Jie raised an eyebrow, feeling not the least bit ashamed.

"Well, I added another one recently. Now there are three!"

Zhan Ting's gaze grew even more disdainful. "Which woman is so blind?"

"I'll introduce her to you in a minute!"

Yang Jie immediately called Cui Huizhu over, and they introduced each other. As the two women shook hands, they were already subtly feeling each other's hands.

It wasn't a matter of orientation; for people in their profession, much of their expertise lay in their hands. A touch around the calluses gave them a rough idea of each other's background.

When the two women looked up, a glimmer of mutual understanding flashed in their eyes.

Leaving Zhan Ting behind, Yang Jie immediately walked to the intersection, hailed a ride-hailing car, and set off for Shanghai.

To be honest, it didn't matter whether he stayed here or not anymore.

Everything that needed to be stockpiled had been stored away, and he had already purchased a considerable amount of machinery, equipment, and similar supplies in nearby warehouses.

The main reason Yang Jie lost interest in hoarding was that his storage space had been frozen. Buying things used to be as simple as a wave of his hand.

Now, it was an absolute hassle. Things couldn't be stored properly, and certain foods especially required a large number of refrigerators to keep fresh.

Currently, he only had two tasks: urging the JinDun Security Decoration Company to speed up their progress and supervising the training of the newbies.

Opening the app, he directly booked a private car to Shanghai, which only cost him seven or eight hundred yuan.

When Yang Jie arrived in Shanghai, it was still early, just a little past three o'clock. He tipped the driver a few hundred yuan and headed straight to Qibao Old Street.

The driver exclaimed in surprise, having made a week's wages in a single day, and almost floored the gas pedal all the way.

As soon as he arrived, he saw people dressed in modern clothes alongside others in traditional costumes. The palpable classical charm gave Yang Jie a very novel feeling—after all, he had completely missed out on the decade of national cultural confidence.

The shops right at the entrance sold snacks from the 1990s, harvesting a crop of nostalgic suckers. Yang Jie admitted he was more than willing to be harvested, as many of the toys here were ones he had played with in elementary school.

Both sides of the street were lined with shops selling qipaos, Hanfu, handmade silver bracelets, and various souvenirs and trinkets.

Walking further ahead led to the Puhuitang Bridge. Standing on the bridge and taking in the scenery—blue skies, white clouds, weeping willows, and lotus flowers—this was the true essence of a Jiangnan water town.

Yang Jie took a portable recorder out of his pocket and silently captured the beautiful scenery. In less than half a month, all these former beauties would become history.

After crossing the bridge was South Street. As soon as he reached this point, Yang Jie's nose began to twitch continuously.

The road on both sides was packed entirely with food stalls: Zhen cakes, Haitang cakes, ubiquitous roasted pig trotters, and sizzling iron-plate tofu.

Thumb-sized pan-fried buns and crispy pork belly.

When Yang Jie looked further down the street, he was completely dumbfounded. Dumplings, more dumplings, and still more dumplings.

It seemed that coming here and not eating dumplings meant you hadn't really visited at all.

Yang Jie began eating his way through the shops one by one, casually buying a bottle of yellow wine to sip along the way.

Compared to other people who loved clear spirits, Yang Jie preferred yellow wine, especially Tapai; people from his hometown exclusively recognized this brand.

Finally, he reached the dumpling stalls.

Glancing at the sign, Yang Jie beamed. Sure enough, they served the local specialty dumplings here, available in sesame and fresh meat fillings.

Yang Jie immediately ordered two bowls—one sesame, one fresh meat. One bowl was sweet without being cloying, and the other was savory and delicious, creating a perfect culinary loop.

Next came scallion oil pancakes, fried tenderloin, and other snacks. He heard it was a viral internet-famous spot, but the moment Yang Jie took a bite, he curled his lip in disappointment. It didn't taste that great at all—inferior even to the small stalls outside his junior high school!

Yang Jie ate continuously from a little past three until four-thirty.

He had even polished off three bottles of wine.

However, this amount of food was at best a light snack for Yang Jie. After resting a bit, he could easily eat dinner again—absolute perfection!

Yang Jie's uninhibited behavior gradually drew the attention of people along the entire street.

At first, nobody paid much mind, but some shop owners started realizing something was amiss. A black bear-like giant was wreaking absolute havoc down the street while chugging alcohol, and the most crucial part was—who the hell eats continuously for an entire hour?

Just how massive was his appetite? Coupled with his exaggerated physique, it was hard not to notice him, and some people even began secretly filming Yang Jie.

Having grown accustomed to running wild abroad, Yang Jie practically never felt embarrassed by his own actions.

Just at that moment...

A series of startled screams erupted ahead.

"Stop right there, don't run!"

"People ahead, get out of the way! Quick, move aside, he has a weapon!"

Yang Jie raised his head and saw a young man with a middle-part hairstyle and a plaid shirt, holding a bag in one hand and a dagger in the other, fleeing frantically with a ferocious expression.

Tourists along the way initially had the intention of stopping him, but upon seeing the lethal weapon in his hand, they backed away. There was no helping it; people possessed an instinctive aversion to weapons.

Right behind him were three or four police officers chasing him desperately.

Yang Jie twitching the corner of his mouth. People still robbed places these days? They must have lost their minds. Before returning to the country, Yang Jie had thoroughly familiarized himself with domestic information.

Sky Eye and surveillance alone were enough to make anyone suffer; you couldn't get away even if you robbed a place. The guy was probably driven crazy by poverty. People like this had no future—caught within minutes domestically, and shot dead on the spot abroad!

Those who couldn't read the situation and couldn't recognize their own worth were good-for-nothing losers anywhere!

"Move aside! Move aside!!!!"

As the robber rushed toward Yang Jie, a look of distinct shock could be seen on his face. He probably hadn't expected to encounter a man built like an iron tower.

Using his remaining sliver of reason to compare the dagger with Yang Jie's massive frame, the robber decisively ran around Yang Jie.

Because he realized that the dagger's damage output and the black bear's health bar were simply not proportional.

As he sprinted past Yang Jie, he felt as though he had passed through the gates of hell and was racing toward a new life, a knowing smile involuntarily surfacing in his eyes.

Yang Jie, however, frowned. This bastard smiled way too ugly; the crucial part was that his smile carried a hint of provocation, a trace of smugness, and a touch of mockery.

Damn it, could Yang Jie possibly tolerate this?!

Before anyone could even react, Yang Jie's iron-pillar-like long leg lashed out horizontally at an incredible speed. The robber's smiling face instantly lost all expression control, turning blank before twisting into sheer terror and horror.

His entire body seemed to warp around his waist, bending into a horizontal U-shape.

With a loud "Bang!"

Amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, the robber was kicked seven or eight meters away like a cannonball, slamming heavily into the wall.

The sheer force even shook the store sign right off the wall above.

Towering and imposing, Yang Jie walked toward the side, caught the falling dagger with one hand, and stepped up to the robber in a stride or two, thrusting directly toward the robber's chin. In his habits,

the chin, the carotid artery, and the back of the heart were Yang Jie's favorite places to strike—unprotected by bone, it offered a silky-smooth experience!

"Yang Jie, don't do it!!!!"

A voice rang out from afar. Yang Jie paused, slightly altering the trajectory of his hand.

With a wet "Splat!"