By the pool table, Li Zhiyuan watched the cue ball dully roll into the pocket, but his peripheral vision remained locked on the woman’s figure.
This scene of two people walking so closely together was truly eerie.
For safety’s sake, it seemed wise now to call his two brothers over.
"Hey hey hey!" The snack bar owner came out unhappily: "The game isn’t done yet, either pay for more time or stop playing."
At this time, pool was charged by the game, not by time. If two strangers teamed up, the loser would cover the cost of the game.
That’s why the owner hated it when a pair of friends who were bad at pool played; they took too long over a single game.
"What are you yelling for? It’s just about adding more money."
"Yeah, as if we can’t afford it."
Both young men began to reach into their pockets, but it seemed they forgot how to pull their hands out once inside.
It was unclear whether they were genuinely out of money or deliberately waiting for the other to take their cash out first.
Li Zhiyuan also felt in his own pocket at this time.
Both young men’s eyes immediately turned towards him.
"Little brother, do you have money?"
"Then pay for another round. Your brothers were deliberately taking it slow to teach you, and now the owner isn’t happy."
"Exactly, it’s all for you."
"Oh, sorry, my mistake." Li Zhiyuan pulled out a banknote from his pocket. "I’ll cover the next game."
Smiles immediately appeared on both young men’s faces.
Li Zhiyuan then pointed towards the movie theater: "My brothers Panzi and Leizi are inside, could one of you call them out for me, so they can take me home."
"Little brother, why don’t you go in and call them yourself?"
Li Zhiyuan answered shyly: "They’re showing a movie about men and women, I’m embarrassed to go in."
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Li Zhiyuan took the money to the snack bar owner to extend the game time.
One of the young men went into the movie theater to help call for people.
After a while, he came out, and Li Zhiyuan made sure to check—no one was behind him, and he wasn’t tip-toeing.
However, Panzi and Leizi did not come out.
"Little brother, your two brothers said to go back by yourself, they want to watch the movie."
Another young man asked curiously: "What movie is showing now?"
"I don’t know, but it seems intense. The man was standing, holding the woman from behind, it was pretty volatile."
The young man gestured as he spoke.
"Damn, they can even shoot it like that. Shall we go check it out too?"
"I’m not going to watch, after this round I’ll go home, it’s too late, my mom will scold me."
However, Li Zhiyuan furrowed his brows. Although Panzi and Leizi were sometimes fond of playing, as brothers, they were quite responsible.
Not to mention they should be curious about why their brother, who should have gone home a long time ago, was still outside, but normally, knowing that he was calling for them, they would at least come out to explain the situation in person.
Yet the result was just to send a message through someone else, which was obviously not normal.
Still, although that young man went in to call them and came out safely, Li Zhiyuan still didn’t dare to enter that movie theater.
If only Brother Runsheng was here now, when facing the possessed Liu Xiazi and Mr. Shan at the Niu family’s memorial service, Runsheng slapped them sharply and decisively.
Then, two people walked out of the movie theater, arm in arm—it was two of those four delinquents.
There was nothing stuck to their backs, but they were unsteady on their feet, as if drunkenly swaying, and their eye sockets had sunken in, with dark circles around their eyes, as if they had stayed up for several days in a row.
Yet when Li Zhiyuan saw them inside earlier, although they were subdued after their "enlightenment", they seemed to be in good spirits; how could they have become so rundown after watching a movie for a while, as if their entire being had been hollowed out.
The weirdest thing was, Li Zhiyuan noticed the area around their crotch on their trousers was wet, the dark stain ran down towards the ankles and spilled onto their slippers.
Like they had an incontinence issue...
No, it didn’t seem to be urine, because it was somewhat white and thick.
And gradually, the fluid began to turn brownish-red.
They stumbled towards the distance, and behind them, they left red slipper prints.
Li Zhiyuan tugged at the sleeve of a young pool player beside him, pointing to the mark.
"What’s up? What am I looking at?" The young man was puzzled.
Li Zhiyuan turned his head again to look, only to discover that the red footprint on the ground had vanished. Even though it was summer, evaporation couldn’t be that fast, especially not with the color still on it.
Just then, two more people came out from inside, the man in the suit and another underling.
These two walked one after the other, with the underling leading and the suited man following behind.
Both seemed to be on the verge of falling at any moment.
The suited man muttered to himself, "So intense, so intense. So satisfying, oh so satisfying. That movie was so satisfying..."
Li Zhiyuan’s gaze dropped to find that the man’s trousers were completely red.
Furthermore, a red liquid was continuously dripping down the leg of his pants. It almost looked like he had just been soaking in a pool of red paint.
Li Zhiyuan hesitated for a moment but still approached the suited man to ask, "Brother, what happened inside?"
"What happened?" The suited man looked at Li Zhiyuan with bleary eyes. It seemed as if he were drunk, as it took him a long time to finally recognize that the boy in front of him was talking to him.
"Hehehe, let me tell you, there’s some good stuff playing inside. However, it’s not suitable for children, not suitable for children, hehehe."
Having said that, the suited man gestured for the underling ahead to wait: "Wait for me, wait for me. Let’s go together."
With a "plop," the suited man fell down but quickly got back up and continued walking. The red traces he left on the ground were as if a water-spraying truck had just passed by.
This time Li Zhiyuan didn’t shift his gaze. He reached out to pull the pool player to take another look, but just as he extended his hand, the mark vanished before his eyes at a visibly fast rate.
Although the four people who just came out seemed to be out of mortal danger, Li Zhiyuan could sense that they had lost something.
"The Detailed Understanding of Yin Yang Face Reading," Volume Six, describes this: [Faces are born from the heart, the heart is connected to the source; when the source is depleted, the heart becomes scattered; when the heart is scattered, the face declines.]
It means that the visage is not immutable and must take into account real-time effects of spirit and other factors.
The original face readings of those four men could only be considered as drawing a lower tier, which is one level worse than the ordinary tier - a life shrouded in confusion. But now, the faces of all four men were showing signs of a collapsing and deteriorating trend.
Although his own face reading had been quickly verified as correct by both Xue Liangliang and Zhao Hequan, Li Zhiyuan was neither superstitious about it nor did he believe that reading a person’s face and deducing their fate chart was enough to determine one’s life.
But it’s like getting a medical checkup when you’re sick; at the very least, it indicated that these four people had suffered a great loss to their bodies.
If Panzi and Leizi continued to stay inside, would they also end up with the same fate?
But what could he do now?
He had already noticed that after the Little Huang Ying incident, some changes had presumably occurred in him, allowing him to have a more acute perception of those dirty things.
But the problem was, he also found that after gaining this sense of perception, it seemed to make those dirty things more interested in him.
The woman earlier, or rather Brother Leopard, had inexplicably wanted to invite him into the video hall.
The pool player could go in and come back out, but Li Zhiyuan felt that if he went in, there was a high likelihood that something unexpected would happen.
Li Zhiyuan’s gaze fell on the phone by the convenience store owner’s hand.
Fortunately, Grandmaster had once again left him a guideline to follow.
He walked back into the convenience store, and the owner was pleased; he was curious, after all, the boy seemed to have quite a bit of pocket money, making him wonder whose child he was.
"What do you want to buy this time?"
"Boss, I need to make a phone call."
Li Zhiyuan picked up the receiver and pressed it to his ear, then his eyes revealed a thoughtful look as if he were recalling a phone number.
After watching for a while, the owner turned his head back to his accounts.
Taking advantage of the moment, Li Zhiyuan quickly dialed three numbers.
After two drawn-out rings, the call was connected.
Li Zhiyuan first narrated the location with a clear voice, even confirming midway with the store owner to get a detailed correction.
The owner thought the boy was calling his family to come pick him up from the store, nodding inwardly that the family indeed seemed well-off.
But what Li Zhiyuan said next made the store owner’s pen drop from his hands, his complexion turning rigid.
"I’m reporting the Mei Sister’s Video Hall next to this convenience store; not only are they illegally distributing obscene videos, but they are also organizing sex trade!"