Castle of Black Iron

The underground tunnel was dim and low, forcing Zhang Tie to lower his head. Thankfully, the tunnel was broad enough. Several ten thousand years illuminating lamps like those in the hidden cell were hanging above the tunnel which brightened the entire place.

Although reluctant to admit it, Zhang Tie felt like a rat crawling through an underground tunnel.

The two sides and the ceiling of the underground tunnel were made of stone. In order to eliminate the echoes being produced when people walked inside, a layer of soft carpet was paved on it. Walking on it, Zhang Tie thought about the scenes of Donder walking down this tunnel numerous times—was that guy using this tunnel to gather information? According to Donder, the organization behind his back had already given him a big face by kicking him here to the small Blackhot City. He might have not needed to do anything at all here.

Zhang Tie’s question was solved when he reached the middle part of the tunnel. He felt something soft against his foot. Out of curiosity, he bent over to pick up it and brought it in front of his eyes.

It was a black corsage with lace which contained a layer of soft sponge inside. It was larger than that of Alice and Beverly. It was still emitting a rich fragrance, and looked pretty new, as if it was just left here.

F*ck!

Zhang Tie instantly threw it onto the ground. He thought he finally understood what the disguise skill and this underground tunnel were truly used for. No wonder Donder had always disappeared after closing up his grocery store.

At this moment, Zhang Tie could easily imagine what that guy would usually do in the evening. Although being as lazy as a dead dog lying in a chair, he turned into a timber wolf in the evening! This guy really had a special hobby. However, after thinking carefully about it, even Zhang Tie had to admit that this deed was exceptionally interesting. He had heard that some ancient emperors also liked to do this: after disguising themselves, they would always escape outside to accost women and play games of mummy and small golden fish in various patterns.

After a short while, Zhang Tie had already walked to the end of this tunnel. Close to a hidden observation window at the end of the tunnel, he saw the scene inside the chartered room of this underground bar.

It was not large, covering less than 20 square meters. The entire chartered room was much dimmer than the underground tunnel where Zhang Tie was standing in. There were a set of dark red sofa, a bed, a table, and two water-pipe like stainless steel pipes standing in the chartered room, whose function was uncertain. Besides them, there were some odd decorations. Although this wasn’t a high-class place, it had a very ambiguous atmosphere.

Seeing nobody in the chartered room, Zhang Tie walked out of the tunnel after pressing a hidden switch. He then looked back and saw the entrance of the hidden tunnel behind a decorative pillar on the wall of the chartered room.

Zhang Tie then put the pillar to its original place.

The key of the room was put on the table, the place having been locked inside. Taking up the key, Zhang Tie took a deep breath, then opened the door of the chartered room and walked out.

The underground bar was very dim around the clock. The sparse lights in the bar caused many shadowy areas. Some places even seemed to have been especially arranged to be in the darkness.

Previously, Zhang Tie had heard of the ’brilliance’ of this kind of underground bars in Blackhot City from Hista’s mouth. However, it was his first time visiting a place like that today.

The underground bars of Blackhot City ran around the clock. They were the favorite places of workers, firm clerks, small bosses of grocery stores like Donder, soldiers of the City Guard who had put off their military uniforms and got the salary, and lewd guys like Hista.

They could drink, dance, and even rent a room. Like their lighting policy, these kind of bars took ’ambiguous’ as their operating philosophy! They were neither as direct as those roadside prostitutes nor as hypocritical as those women in the rich clubs and mansions. Everything here proceeded under the dim lamp lights and shadowy ambiguity.

Women here varied from small girls at 15-16 years old, lonely young married women at 20-30 years, and sexy middle-aged women at 40-50 years. Some roadside prostitutes even came here to solicit trades. Nominally, the women here would only accompany you for paid dance or drink, however, often enough, after dancing or drinking, if the atmosphere was harmonious enough and you didn’t feel reluctant to spend 2-3 extra silver coins, you would end up sleeping with them. Sometimes, if you met any thirsty young married women, you wouldn’t even need to spend money except for paying for the room.

While if you didn’t want to sleep with women overnight, you could solve your psychological problem on the dancing floor, at the dark corners of sofas, or on the cassette. This was what Hista, that lewd guy, had concluded.

The underground bars of Blackhot City were a treasure land where lonely men and women came for pleasures and part-time jobs.

The moment Zhang Tie came out of the chartered room, before he had even figured out the directions, he had already heard some weird voices and sounds, which were coming from inside the chartered room beside his one. That was a rhythmic sound like of clapping hands alongside a woman’s groans.

In the early morning, there were men and women walking out of the chartered rooms, intending to leave the bar, while new ones were coming in to replace them.

This underground bar was very large, consisting of two floors. Each floor covered at least as large an area as ten-thousand square meters. There were at least one hundred chartered rooms in total, all of which were arranged in a clockwise manner.

There were people accessing here all day long. On that huge dancing floor and in each dark corner surrounding the dancing floor, there were men and women entangling with and embracing each other.

Several bandsmen were playing lewd music. The sounds from the Saxophone were like caterwauls.

Donder was really a bad ass!

This place was really ambiguous, lecherous, and lacked taste.

He had no idea what deals were made between Donder and the boss of this bar, but since Donder had told him that there was no problem with it and the chartered room was very safe, Zhang Tie didn’t consider it anymore.

Coming out of the chartered rooms area, Zhang Tie walked through the dancing floor and hurriedly got rid of several women, dressed in exposing clothes, that wished to tangle with him on the side of the dancefloor. He then followed several pairs of men and women upward, towards the entrance of this underground bar. The light at the entrance brought him a sense of seeing the light of the day after staying in the darkness for a long time.

The entrance of the bar was located in the intersection between Avenue Monet and Avenue Starlight. Looking from outside, it was like an underground shopping mall, though in truth the inside was totally different. Several tough, tattooed men were standing at the entrance to check the tickets.

In the early morning, there were already men and women who wanted to enter the bar and were buying tickets at the entrance; 20 copper coins per person. At the same time, those coming out of the entrance would kiss each other and depart at the entrance. Seeing this, Zhang Tie became more understanding about the game rules among adults.

As he had many things to deal with today, Zhang Tie didn’t waste any time. The moment he walked out of the entrance, he saw a trolleybus driving past. Zhang Tie then trotted forward, caught up with it, and jumped on it...

Ten minutes later, he got off in a stop near the railway station of Blackhot City. He then walked directly to the most boisterous warehouse and material distribution area in Blackhot City.

This was a true boisterous business area. No matter who was ruling Blackhot City, the various trucks didn’t decrease in this area at all. Both sides of the avenues were filled with all sorts of brand logos and service windows of firms and business groups.

Just after wandering on the avenue for a bit, Zhang Tie had already seen a sign ’warehouse for rent’. He then walked inside. The place belonged to an agency that was responsible for warehouse rent near the railway station. There was only one 40-odd year thin man in glasses inside.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

After taking notice of Zhang Tie, who looked like a young man come here to handle affairs for some business group, that middle-aged man walked over enthusiastically.

"I want a warehouse!" Zhang Tie instantly exclaimed.

"You’re in the right place. I swear to you nobody would be more familiar than me with the warehouses across the Blackhot City! Once you need, I will find it for you!" the middle-aged man in glasses said enthusiastically. "Can you tell me the size and renting period?"

"I need a standard warehouse of about 400 square meters, short rent, only two weeks!" Zhang Tie explained it simply.

"Do you have any special demands for the floor?"

"First floor would be better, that would be convenient for moving goods!"

"Do you need the warehouse to present you with the insurance policies for goods?‘

"No need!"

"Well, please take a sit and wait for a moment!"

The middle-aged man walked behind a desk and took up a notebook. After checking it for 30 seconds, he put it down and smiled at Zhang Tie. "We have one here. If you only rent it for two weeks, the rent is 4 gold coins and 40 silver coins. You know, the rent is comparatively expensive for short rent. Plus the agency fee, you need to pay 4 gold coins and 64 silver coins. If you agree, I can take you to have a look at the warehouse right now!’

"Fine!"

Zhang Tie’s arrival brought this man a business deal in the early morning. So he was somewhat happy as he took out of a key from the drawer and brought Zhang Tie to a storage logistics area which was not far from here.

The standard warehouses were tightly built, based on the patterns of containers. This kind of warehouse only had a gate for truck access and a small door for people. Besides that, there weren’t any windows to allow the light getting inside. Additionally, the warehouse—as usual—was built with high-intensity steel tiles, which were extremely hard to break from outside.

The man showed Zhang a standard warehouse, sized more than 400 square meters with 10 m in height and more than 40 m in length.

Holding the key, the man opened the gate of this warehouse and showed Zhang Tie in. Zhang Tie entered and walked around. Finding it was very clean inside, meeting his requirements very well, he right away rented it out.

After returning to the man’s office, Zhang Tie gave him five gold coins. The man then gave Zhang Tie back 26 silver coins and a 10-silver coins’ receipt for the key and the lock of the warehouse. Two weeks later, when Zhang Tie came back to return the key, that man would give him the 10 silver coins back.

After walking out of the office, Zhang Tie had two warehouse keys with him.

Coming to a nearby traffic stop, he got on another trolleybus. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at a place on Avenue Bright where the well-known Golden Roc Bank was located in.

Previously, when Zhang Tie came to the Avenue Bright, he always felt self-abased. However, this time, touching the 5000 gold coins’ note in his pocket, he became braver than ever before...