My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 199

Chapter 199: The Rival

[Jake’s POV]

The Rua de Cinco de Outubro was a sensory overload even on a quiet night. By ten p.m. on a Friday, it was a suffocating, chaotic river of humanity. The narrow street was lined with open-air food stalls, the air thick with the smell of roasting pork, boiling chili oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of cheap fireworks going off in the distance. Neon signs bled harsh red and green light onto the wet pavement, reflecting off the puddles of dirty water and spilled beer.

Ethan and I moved through the crowd with the practiced ease of men who had walked this route a hundred times. We were in our third week as runners for the Golden Koi. The routine had hardened us, stripping away the last vestiges of our tourist personas. Ethan’s gray hoodie was stained and frayed, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd with a nervous, twitchy energy that perfectly suited his role as the degenerate gambler. I wore a faded black canvas jacket, my posture slightly hunched, my expression locked into a mask of exhausted indifference.

We were ghosts. We were nobodies. And we were exactly where we needed to be.

"Last stop," Ethan muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead as we approached the end of the street. "Mr. Zhang’s duck stall. Then we take the cash back to the parlor and I can finally take off these damn shoes. My feet are killing me."

"Keep your head in the game, Liam," I murmured, using his cover name. "The street feels wrong tonight."

It wasn’t a System notification. It was pure, raw instinct. The *Emperor’s Presence* might have been suppressed, but the tactical awareness that had kept me alive against the world’s deadliest assassins was still razor-sharp. The crowd around Mr. Zhang’s stall was too thin. The usual chaotic chatter of haggling customers was missing. People were giving the stall a wide berth, their eyes averted, their heads down.

As we pushed through the last knot of tourists, I saw why.

Mr. Zhang, the heavy-set butcher who usually greeted us with a tired smile, was backed against the stainless steel counter of his stall. His apron was stained with fresh blood, but it wasn’t from the ducks hanging in the window. A thin cut ran across his cheek, welling with dark crimson.

Standing in front of him were three men. They weren’t Golden Koi muscle. They wore cheap leather jackets, and the leader—a lean, wiry man with a shaved head—had a black lotus flower tattooed on the side of his neck.

The Black Lotus. The faction Chen had been paying off.

"I told you," Zhang stammered, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "I pay Madam Bai. This is Golden Koi territory. I don’t have anything for you."

The leader smiled, a cruel, jagged expression. He reached out, grabbing a heavy meat cleaver from the cutting board. He didn’t raise it to strike; he simply dragged the flat of the blade across the stainless steel counter, the screeching metal cutting through the ambient noise of the street.

"Madam Bai is a relic," the leader hissed, his Cantonese fast and guttural. "The Golden Koi is bleeding out. The Black Lotus is taking over the Outer Harbour. You pay us now, old man, or we take it out of your hide."

Ethan tensed beside me, his hand dropping instinctively toward his pocket. I caught his wrist, my grip like a vice.

"No weapons," I breathed, my voice barely audible. "We’re low-level runners. We don’t carry guns. We brawl."

"Jake, there’s three of them, and that guy has a cleaver," Ethan whispered back, his eyes wide.

"Follow my lead. Be loud. Be stupid."

I let go of his wrist and stepped forward, letting my shoulders slump, projecting the image of a tired, overworked enforcer who just wanted to collect his envelope and go home.

"Hey," I called out, my voice rough and heavily accented. "What’s the holdup, Zhang? We’re on a schedule here."

The three Black Lotus thugs turned to look at us. The leader sneered, resting the cleaver on his shoulder. He looked us up and down, taking in Ethan’s frayed hoodie and my cheap canvas jacket.

"Gwailo," the leader spat, using the derogatory term for foreigners. "Madam Bai is sending white ghosts to collect her money now? The Golden Koi really is pathetic."

"We’re just here for the envelope," I said, keeping my hands visible, my posture non-threatening. I took another step forward, closing the distance. "Whatever dispute you have with Madam Bai, take it up with her. Let the old man pay his dues so we can leave."

"The old man pays us," one of the other thugs said, stepping toward me. He was built like a tank, his knuckles heavily scarred from years of street fighting. He shoved me hard in the chest. "Walk away, ghost. Before we send you back to Bai in a garbage bag."

I stumbled backward, playing up the impact of the shove. I let my eyes widen in feigned panic, my hands coming up defensively.

"Okay, okay," I stammered, looking at Ethan. "Liam, let’s just go. It’s not worth it."

"Screw that!" Ethan yelled, playing his part flawlessly. He lunged forward, swinging a wild, uncoordinated haymaker at the tank-like thug.

It was a terrible punch, telegraphed a mile away, but it served its purpose perfectly. It created chaos.

The tank easily dodged Ethan’s punch and countered with a brutal hook to Ethan’s ribs. Ethan grunted, doubling over, but he grabbed the thug’s jacket, dragging him down into a messy, grappling struggle on the wet pavement.

The leader with the cleaver cursed, stepping forward to help his man.

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