Chapter 71.1: The Big Gambling Den
Liang Jihua felt as though he barely recognized the world anymore.
In the past, when they went undercover in plain clothes to strike up conversations with people, no matter how convincingly they disguised themselves as ordinary passersby, they would still arouse suspicion before they even got close. But Jiang Xia was something else. She had dressed herself up to look so thoroughly unsavory, yet the pickpocket had actually taken the initiative to approach her!
What was this supposed to be?
Birds of a feather flock together?
Well, now that he thought about it, it actually made sense.
It was much like committing a minor crime as a token of allegiance. Once someone knew the other person had a criminal record and was one of their own, they would naturally feel more at ease than they would with a complete stranger who approached them out of nowhere.
Having quickly come up with a reasonable explanation, Liang Jihua cautiously resumed observing the two people talking, paying particular attention to Jiang Xia’s behavior.
He was still a little worried.
Pretending to be someone else during a demonstration at the station was one thing; conducting an actual undercover investigation was quite another.
During the former, they could call a halt at any time, and the questions had already been prepared in advance. Deep down, they also knew that even if the performance went badly, it wouldn’t matter. Their minds were therefore completely at ease.
A real investigation, however, was different. There was only one chance. They had to stay in character the entire time. They couldn’t call a halt, and there was no script to follow. Everything depended on their ability to improvise. The slightest slip could expose them, ruining all their previous efforts and potentially putting them in danger.
Under such circumstances, an undercover officer’s psychological pressure would increase dramatically. Maintaining the act for an extended period would be extremely difficult.
And Jiang Xia had hardly ever conducted undercover investigations involving disguises before. That made Liang Jihua all the more worried.
Please, don’t let her slip up!
While Liang Jihua was still worrying, the vegetable vendor in front of him noticed that he was merely picking up vegetables and looking at them without asking the price. The vendor hurriedly called out:
“Hey, comrade! You’ve picked out so many. Are you buying them or not?”
Liang Jihua snapped back to his senses.
“Buying, of course I’m buying! How much are your loofahs per jin?”
“Fifty-seven cents per jin.”
“My goodness! Prices have gone up again? Why don’t you just rob people instead?”
“I’d rather not get robbed myself!” the vegetable vendor retorted irritably. “These are already the cheapest you’ll find. Take them or leave them!”
Liang Jihua: “…”
Were even vegetable vendors getting this bad-tempered these days?
He began bargaining in a perfectly ordinary tone. “I’ll take one jin. Fifty-five cents. If you won’t sell it at that price, I’ll just leave.”
“All right, all right! Fifty-five cents it is.”
The vendor picked out several large loofahs and put them into a cloth bag. He then hooked the bag onto a steelyard and adjusted the sliding weight. Once the two sides balanced, he subtly lowered the scale a little, letting the customer see where the weight’s cord was positioned.
“One jin and half a liang. I’ll charge you fifty-eight cents. Pay up.”
Liang Jihua didn’t have any coins on him. He pulled a thin stack of banknotes from his pocket, counted out six ten-cent notes, and handed them over.
The vendor took the money and lifted the fertilizer sack lining the bottom of his vegetable basket. After checking that nobody nearby was paying attention, he slipped the banknotes directly into a hidden compartment in the sack. Only then did he take two one-cent coins out of a box underneath and hand them over together with the vegetables.
“Here you go. Your change and your loofahs.”
Liang Jihua had noticed the man’s little trick of hiding the money, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pretended not to have seen it, took out the cloth bag he’d brought from home, and packed the loofahs inside.
He glanced at Jiang Xia again, careful not to stare for too long. Seeing that she was still chatting with the pickpocket, he turned his attention to the other vegetable stalls.
Just like the vendor in front of him, they all kept their money in containers out in the open.
This was a rule forcibly imposed by those criminal gangs. All the money earned from selling vegetables had to be left where they could see it and take it whenever they pleased. The vendors had no choice but to secretly hide some of their earnings if they wanted to bring a little more money home.
Those gangs really were ruthless. Just look at what they’d driven these poor people to!
Shaking his head, Liang Jihua finished stuffing all the loofahs into his cloth bag and stood up, preparing to leave.
Just then, a middle-aged woman carrying a vegetable basket walked over. She glanced at the loofahs and asked, “Will you sell them for forty cents a jin?”
The vendor waved his hands vigorously, firmly refusing.
“No, no! That’s way too cheap.”
“Forty-two cents a jin. If you won’t take it, I’ll leave.”
As she spoke, the woman turned around as if to walk away.
The vendor panicked.
“Forty-five—forty-three! Don’t go! I’ll sell them to you for forty-three!”
The middle-aged woman stopped, satisfied, turned around, and squatted down to pick out some loofahs.
Standing nearby with his cloth bag in hand, Liang Jihua watched the entire scene in a daze. He was completely dumbfounded.
You vegetable vendors sure have some complicated tricks up your sleeves!
Taking the lesson to heart, he immediately did what any ordinary person who’d been cheated would do: he started arguing with the vendor.
“What do you mean by this? Didn’t you say that was your lowest price? Why did you charge me fifty-five cents but sell them to her for forty-three? Give me my money back!”
“I’ve already sold them to you. The transaction is complete. No refunds.”
“No way! How can you rip people off like this? You’re giving me my money back!”
Using the argument as an excuse, Liang Jihua remained where he was, occasionally keeping an eye on Jiang Xia.
“Hey, miss.”
By the wall in the corner, the pickpocket continued questioning Jiang Xia.
“Where are you from?”
“Changfu Street, in Tongluo Alley. My name’s Ren Xuefang.”
This time, Jiang Xia wasn’t making up an identity on the spot.
Although they weren’t particularly optimistic about Jiang Xia’s chances of successfully infiltrating the gang, the criminal investigation detachment had still made thorough preparations. They were worried these people might investigate her background, so to avoid blowing their cover, they’d specifically found a real person to cooperate with them.
The girl had been discovered by Captain Feng’s team while they were investigating the criminal gang. Her age, height, and build were all similar to Jiang Xia’s. She also didn’t have a job. Normally, she earned a little money through hard work by going with her younger brother to the countryside to buy vegetables and resell them.
Unfortunately, while they were selling vegetables, someone had harassed her. When her younger brother stood up to defend her, he’d been beaten up as well. The whole family was furious and worried. So when the criminal police came knocking and asked to borrow her identity, she agreed immediately.
On top of that, the girl’s family circumstances were rather unfortunate. She had managed to collect the full set: a gambling-addicted father, a seriously ill mother, and two young brothers. Her motive for committing crimes practically wrote itself. Anyone hearing her story would find it entirely believable.
Ren Xuefang was currently staying somewhere else under police arrangements, while her gambling-addicted father was busy chatting with the police.
As long as nobody dragged Jiang Xia back to the girl’s home and asked the neighbors to identify her, there was absolutely no chance of her cover being blown.
“By the way, big brother, I haven’t asked your name yet. What should I call you?”
“Me? They call me Bighead.”
Bighead thoroughly enjoyed being flattered, especially when the person flattering him was a young, pretty woman. He took another satisfied puff of his cigarette. Watching the smoke slowly drift away, he not only had no suspicions about her identity but also began lecturing her from his lofty position as a seasoned veteran.
“See? This is what happens when nobody shows you the ropes. You can’t go around answering one question and immediately spilling your entire background like you just did. If someone gets arrested later, they’ll sell you out in a heartbeat to get their own sentence reduced!”
“Oh, so there are rules like that too?”
Looking at the pickpocket’s head, which was noticeably larger than an ordinary person’s, Jiang Xia didn’t even need to act. She immediately understood.
She clasped her hands together as though paying respects to a Buddha and said gratefully, “Thank you so much for telling me that, Brother Bighead! I’m really completely clueless right now. I don’t know anything about how things work.”
“That’s normal. Everyone starts out that way.”
Putting on the air of a senior, Bighead advised her, “From now on, give yourself a nickname. Don’t go around telling everyone your real name and where you live.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jiang Xia nodded earnestly before pressing further.
“Big brother, are there any other rules around here? I heard that people in our line of work have to pay their respects to the local boss and establish connections. Who should I go to?”
“Now that’s a good question. Of course you have to pay your respects to the local boss.”
Bighead pointed toward a middle-aged man sitting under a tree in the distance, enjoying the shade.
“See that guy in the white undershirt, sitting under the tree? That’s Brother Deng. He’s the one who runs things around here. Whatever you steal, you have to give him half.”
“Half?!”
Jiang Xia sounded genuinely shocked. Her voice shot up, but then she realized she’d spoken too loudly and quickly lowered it again.
“Isn’t that way too much? We work so hard to steal all that stuff, and he just takes half of it! Can’t we give him a little less?”
Hearing Jiang Xia ask that, Bighead suddenly felt that the cigarette in his hand wasn’t quite so enjoyable anymore.
After all, he’d originally become a pickpocket because he wanted to be a mover of wealth. He’d hoped to get rich in one fell swoop, cut out the middleman, and take the money straight into his own hands so he could lounge around at home without a care in the world.
Who could have imagined the reality would be so different? After putting in so much hard work and effort, he could only keep half the money!
The more Bighead thought about it, the more miserable he felt. He let out a sorrowful sigh and said helplessly,
“There’s nothing we can do about it. All the crowded places are already occupied by Big Willow and his men. They absolutely won’t allow anyone else to encroach on their territory. For small-time operators like us, having to pay tribute and still getting to keep the other half is already considered pretty good. In some places, they don’t allow anyone else to steal at all. If you dare operate there without permission, just watch! You might make a score in the morning, but by the afternoon, someone will have you pinned down. Either you’ll get a good beating, or they’ll send you straight to the police station, making sure you can never do this kind of work again.”
As Jiang Xia listened to him complain, she wasn’t surprised in the slightest.
With China’s enormous population, competition was fierce in every line of work. Even pickpockets formed gangs, banded together, fought over territory, and exploited those below them. The competitive pressure was no less intense than that exerted by the vegetable racketeering gangs.
“Is it really that difficult?”
She frowned sympathetically, then tried to steer the conversation toward the criminal gangs.
“Sounds like this line of work is even worse than going to the villages to buy vegetables and resell them. If those people hadn’t been so aggressive, leaving me absolutely no way to make a living, I wouldn’t have thought of getting into this business. Sigh… Those people really don’t leave ordinary folks like us any room to survive.”
“Tell me about it!”
Bighead nodded indignantly.
“They gang up together to exploit poor people like us, while they live like kings, eating and drinking their fill! You have no idea. Those people eat meat and drink alcohol at every meal, and they’re even bigger gamblers. They can lose several thousand yuan in a single day!”
Gang up together? Gambling?
Jiang Xia immediately picked up on those key details.
It looked like the pickpocket boss and the leader of the vegetable racketeering gang were closely associated. They even had a habit of gambling together.
Gambling required a crowd too. With too few people, it was generally impossible to play for such large sums. Besides, Bighead was only a low-level pickpocket. If the gambling stakes weren’t substantial, or the operation wasn’t large enough, he wouldn’t even have heard about it.
Jiang Xia had a feeling there was a major gambling den somewhere, a place big enough to accommodate these people as they indulged themselves.
If she could just find a way to get inside…
An idea struck her. Her eyes filled with longing as she exclaimed in admiration, “They’re really that rich?”
“Of course they are!” Bighead pointed at the more than a hundred vegetable stalls along the street. “The vegetable racketeering boss collects protection money from all of them. That’s six or seven hundred yuan in income every single day. You tell me, are they rich or not?”
After saying that, Bighead suddenly felt he’d made those people sound a little too impressive, so he hurriedly added:
“But don’t think having all that money is such a good thing. Those people are literally risking their lives for it. In my opinion, sooner or later, that bunch will either end up dead in the streets or get arrested by the cops. They’re nothing like skilled professionals like us. Sure, our work is a little tiring, but even if we get caught, we’ll be back out in just a few days.”
As he spoke, Bighead looked at Jiang Xia and sighed regretfully.
“It’s just that your skills are really too poor. You’d need to practice for several months before you could make a living at this… Do you still have any food left at home?”
Jiang Xia’s lips twitched. She forced a bitter smile.
“No. There’s only enough food at home to last another ten days.”
“Well…”
Looking at Jiang Xia, Bighead felt a little conflicted.
He quite liked this girl and genuinely wanted to help her. But a small favor was one thing; spending a large amount of money and effort was another. He certainly wasn’t willing to support a grown woman for several months without getting anything in return.
Still, she was a woman. Even without any particular skills, there were easier ways for her to make money. She could simply use her looks.
An appropriate place immediately came to mind. Bighead wanted to tell her outright, but then he thought that if she really went there, it would ruin her life. She might as well remain a pickpocket.
After hesitating for quite a while, Bighead finally tried to persuade her, while also sounding her out.
“Our line of work is illegal. It’s not exactly a respectable way to make a living. You’re not that young anymore, either. Why don’t you find a man and get married? Once you’re married, you’ll have a place to live and food to eat. You wouldn’t need to do this kind of work anymore.”
Jiang Xia blinked.
She immediately realized what the other party was getting at.
Because of biological differences, when a woman was driven into a desperate situation, there was one last, ruinous way she could turn to for money: selling her body. Bighead had obviously thought of this and was hesitating over whether to act as her pimp.
Having figured it out, Jiang Xia wasn’t angry.
When she’d come here, she’d already considered using the advantages of her gender. She just needed to find out first who exactly Bighead intended to introduce her to.
With that in mind, Jiang Xia lowered her eyelids, turned her face away, and spoke sadly.
“My dad’s a gambling addict. He’s lost everything our family owns. My mom is sick, and I still have two younger brothers to support. What decent family would be willing to marry someone like me?”
“Your life really is tough.”
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