The man nodded and said with a chuckle
"True, true, my bad, my bad. Don't take it to heart, buddy, hehehe."
He glanced around again, and seeing that no one was paying attention to them, he spoke up
"I don't have that many on me. How about you come with me to go pick some up?"
Wang An asked instinctively
"I go with you to pick them up? I'll just wait for you here; you just go get them and you're done. It's not like I'm going to run away."
The man looked a bit conflicted and said
"But what if I get them back and you've already left? Inspections are strict right now; none of us dare carry that many tickets and coupons on us. If we get caught, they'll all be confiscated."
Wang An sighed and asked
"Is it far from here?"
The man hurriedly replied
"Not far, not far, just about a li. It's mainly that I don't know what's going on lately, but the higher-ups are specifically targeting us ticket scalpers. They're arresting us every day, so we don't dare carry that many tickets and coupons out in the open."
Wang An still didn't think too much of it and said
"Fine, lead the way."
Soon, Wang An was led by the kid into a small alley. They arrived in front of a courtyard gate, and only then did the kid say
"Brother, wait for me here for a moment. I'm going to find my buddy to scrape some together."
Hearing this, Wang An immediately frowned.
The main issue was that before Wang An agreed to come, the kid had said he was coming back to *get* them, but now that they had arrived, the kid was saying he had to *scrape* them together on the spot.
Wasn't this just bullshit?
If his buddy didn't have enough either, wouldn't Wang An have to look for someone else again?
However, since he was already here, it really wasn't worth leaving now. If the kid could gather enough, it would save Wang An the trouble.
But despite thinking this, Wang An still said irritably
"Your capabilities are pretty pathetic, huh? Just over a hundred coupons and you still have to scrape them together? Oh, for fuck's sake."
After a pause, Wang An rolled his eyes at the kid and asked
"How long? Can you get enough?"
The kid hurriedly promised
"Five minutes—no, three minutes. It'll be done in three minutes."
Wang An nodded helplessly and said
"Sigh, fine. Hurry up. Move your ass, I'm busy, damn it."
And so, the kid entered the courtyard to find his buddy, leaving Wang An alone to wait outside the main gate.
What Wang An didn't know was that after the kid entered the courtyard, he slipped straight out through the back door.
Immediately after, the kid entered another courtyard located diagonally opposite the back door.
As he pushed open the door to a room, the sound of noisy shouting immediately drifted out. Along with the noise, a very thick haze of smoke squeezed through the gap in the door, like the heavy smoke from a cooking fire, carrying a pungent smell of tobacco.
Inside the room, amidst the thick smoke, a group of people were playing poker, *laopai*, *pai gow*, or mahjong.
Clearly, this was a gambling den hidden within a residential area.
The kid quickly walked up to a man with long hair and a slovenly appearance who looked to be under thirty, and whispered into the slovenly man's ear.
As the slovenly man listened to the kid's account, his eyes—bloodshot from long periods of staying up late—became even redder.
Once the kid finished speaking, the slovenly man stood up, smoothed back his greasy hair with his hand, and shouted boisterously
"Boys, grab your gear! Let's go hit a score!"
After the slovenly man shouted, the group responded and stood up one after another, totaling about fourteen or fifteen people.
Someone asked the slovenly man
"Big Brother, should we bring the shotguns?"
The slovenly man replied
"It's just one fucking guy. Why the hell would we need a shotgun? Hoe handles and knives are enough."
Ten seconds later, the group, each carrying their own weapons, marched out of the door aggressively.
As soon as they stepped out, the slovenly man instructed someone beside him
"Old Second, take a few people to block him from the west. We'll go to the east."
Just as Wang An was getting bored and pulled out a cigarette to light, he happened to turn his head and saw seven or eight people carrying hoe handles walking toward him from the east end of the alley.
Instinctively turning his head the other way, he saw another seven or eight people carrying hoe handles and other things walking toward him from the west.
Wang An knew he had been "stepped" (cǎipánzi). Motherfucker!
The main thing was that Wang An saw the ticket scalper who had led him here standing right there in the crowd.
"Stepping the plate" (cǎipánzi) was a slang term used by the Northeast green-wood bandits; in some places, it was called "inviting the hooligans."
So-called "stepping" involved a group of lowlifes where someone specifically watched pedestrians on the street to observe who was carrying money.
Then, they would find an opportunity or a way to trick the person to a certain location, where a group of people would emerge to rob and assault them.
If the target was a young, beautiful woman, "binding the red ticket" would occur—which, to put it bluntly, meant not only robbing her money but also raping her.
To be honest, given Wang An's caution, he shouldn't have made such a low-level mistake. Not only in this era, but even in later generations, "stepping" was something that happened frequently and could never be fully stopped.
Unfortunately, there is a saying: "The more skilled the person, the bolder the courage!"
Ever since Wang An's martial arts were fully developed, he had stopped liking to use his brain when doing things. Mainly because with his current skills, taking down seven or eight people empty-handed was no problem at all.
Therefore, Wang An had never imagined he would actually be "stepped," nor had he ever thought to take precautions in this regard.
Wang An looked left and right and discovered that these people weren't carrying guns, only hoe handles or planks. He instantly relaxed significantly.
He thought about pulling out his gun to solve it directly, but suddenly remembered he was in Ice City; if he used a gun, he would get into huge trouble himself.
Wang An took a deep drag of his cigarette and scanned the surroundings again.
In the alleys of a big city, the courtyard walls of every household were very high, and broken glass was embedded along the tops. If one tried to climb up, they would almost certainly be sliced by the glass.
Thus, Wang An crouched down and picked up a brick from the roadside. When he stood up, without a moment's hesitation, he hurled the brick straight at the people on the east side of the alley.
After quickly throwing two bricks, Wang An didn't have time to see the effect they caused; he picked up two half-bricks and threw them at the people on the west side.
Immediately after, with a brick in his left hand and a fist-sized stone in his right, Wang An swung his long legs and charged toward the people on the west—the group containing the ticket scalper.
The main reason was that while throwing bricks and stones was very effective for hitting people, Wang An only had a few in front of him. If he threw them all, he would be left without a weapon in his hands.