After a few gunshots, everything returned to calm.
Masked robbers hurriedly drove off with the carriage loaded with goods, leaving only chaos behind.
The serene moonlight poured down.
A hand covered in fresh blood suddenly raised, shielding a face, as if to disdain the moonlight for being too dazzling.
"There’s only one moon; looks world aligns more with my common sense..."
Zhong Shenxiu sat up, looking at his chest.
His grey jacket was soaked with blood, but beneath the bloodied clothing, the gruesome wounds were healing rapidly, expelling the deformed bullets one by one.
"Just entered the scene and nearly got a one-way ticket out, and it cost me a fortune in Heavenly Show Points to heal, seriously..."
Moments later, he struggled to his feet, looking at the bodies on the ground.
Most of them had blonde hair, were sturdily built, and very hairy... also killed by gunfire.
Furthermore, there were a few double-barreled shotguns scattered on the ground, the specific model Zhong Shenxiu couldn’t name, but the walnut wood grips were smoothly contoured, giving them an artistic feel.
"A... Western World?"
Zhong Shenxiu picked up a double-barreled shotgun, his palm caressing the cold barrel, muttering to himself.
"I always feel that the worlds traversed through the ’Door of Ten Thousand Doors’ are abnormal, prone to certain influences... My first world had a Heavenly Demon invasion, the second world had an Evil God, this world, what kind of ghostly things are there?"
He sighed, knowing that his chances of finding other Cultivation Techniques in this world had become exceedingly slim.
Even in the memories of this young man named ’Li Wei Mojito,’ there were no supernatural beings.
The only things that gave a sense of strength and power were a vigorous physique, revolvers, and ironclad warships...
"Hmm... The productive forces are between the first and second industrial revolutions... Although there are products such as steam cars, they only appear in big cities and are easily capable of damaging the roads, hence carriages remain the preferred mode of transportation..."
Looking at the tracks on the ground where the carriage passed, Zhong Shenxiu pressed his temples, accepting the original owner’s memories amidst the howling cold wind of the night.
The Mesoamerican Federation, Balmo Port...
Sirians, bartenders...
Jones, Carmela, Jennifer...
Tasks, transporting bootleg liquor, bandits...
A deluge of memories came rushing in, and even with his previous experiences, Zhong Shenxiu couldn’t help but press at his temples, his head nearly exploding.
"The obsession, or rather the desire, is to become very wealthy!"
"I’m... This is putting me in a tight spot! If you’d just given me an exact number, that would be fine, but ’very wealthy’ is such an immeasurable concept, how am I supposed to achieve that?"
"Probably just have to keep making money, seeing when the obsession dissipates, that’ll mean I’ve earned enough... or perhaps, I’ll never earn enough?"
Zhong Shenxiu’s expression turned somewhat unsightly.
He was very clear about the reasons for Li Wei Mojito’s death here.
This year was the Mesoamerican Federation, 667.
Last year, the congress had just passed a law that Li Wei Mojito found incredibly stupid—Prohibition! It declared that the manufacture, sale, or even transportation of alcoholic beverages was illegal and punishable by fines or imprisonment!
By the way, Li Wei Mojito was twenty years old this year, and his original profession was a bartender.
With no more alcohol, what could a bartender do?
And the federal government, not content with issuing a prohibition, had specially dispatched prohibition agents to each state to supervise the enforcement of the law, causing Li Wei Mojito to become very unluckily unemployed.
This young man had already silently cursed the stupid legislators and their families countless times to no avail.
Li Wei Mojito’s parents had passed away early, yet he still had a younger brother and two younger sisters to support. Once he lost his source of income, the family became very strained.
For the sake of survival, he had no choice but to accept a job from an underground speakeasy owner to transport a batch of ’private goods,’ which was smuggled liquor.
This inferior alcohol, the product of small rural workshops, was fermented from potatoes or corn, and even mixed with methanol!
In the eyes of mixologist Li Wei Mojito, it was simply garbage.
But even so, inside the speakeasies, it could still sell for a high price of twelve US dollars a bottle!
Compared to the previous price of a dozen cents a bottle, it was an increase of dozens of times—almost a hundredfold!
And, it could easily land people in the hospital, or even in the grave.
Even so, the flow of customers to underground bars seeking intoxication was endless because humanity crazily pursued things that could provide momentary pleasure, hopelessly so.
Otherwise, the original colonists wouldn’t have gone out of their way to get the indigenous people addicted to alcohol, then easily traded the spirits for everything they wanted.
Furthermore, the religions of this world also had deep ties with alcohol, even preferring to use spirits in celebrations, claiming that drinking would bring people closer to the divine! They affectionately referred to it as ’Spiritual Medicine,’ ’merry maker,’ ’wild water’!
Of course, some ambitious individuals furiously denounced it as ’demon’s liquid,’ ’misfortune’s spring’!
Why the Federation would adopt such a firm stance in passing and implementing the prohibition law is still a very puzzling question.
In any case, after the Prohibition, an array of social issues emerged from the myriad of underground bars that sprouted up.
And the convoys transporting bootleg liquor became the target of many thugs, who called it ’liquid gold’ and frequently formed groups to commit crimes.
To protect the hard-to-come-by smuggled alcohol, bar owners had to hire people extensively to safeguard their transport lifelines.
Li Wei Mojito joined the convoy against this backdrop.
And on his first mission, he very unluckily encountered bandits.
Truth be told, the private liquor business in Byron City, after the initial chaotic phase, was already under the control of a few of the biggest gangs, which should have meant safer times were ahead.
But just because the battles between gangs had stopped did not mean that those small groups of ten or so bandits would easily give up.
Li Wei encountered a few unreasonable hotheads who dared to shoot to kill, taking a bullet straight to the chest and dying on the spot.
Then, it was Zhong Shenxiu’s turn to step in.
"Now... I need to get away from the scene first, otherwise being caught by a follow-up federal agent is no joke..."
Zhong Shenxiu straightened his clothes, ready to leave the murder scene as quickly as possible.
Although it was in the wilderness, the sound of gunfire earlier meant there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be discovered.
At that moment, a large hand suddenly grabbed his shoe.
It was a burly white man lying in a pool of blood, vaguely pleading for help, "Save... save me..."
Zhong Shenxiu turned the man over and recognized him—it was one of the gunmen from the convoy, young, with a fierce-looking scar on his face but was actually quite decent.
After checking the wounds, he found they had not hit any vitals; the man was fortunate.
"You’re lucky. Let’s go."
He helped Scarface up, and the two of them walked slowly into Baihua Forest.