"Slap!" I gently slapped my cheeks with both hands, saying to myself, "Don't worry about it Li Dong. You promised Sister Lan Yan you'd forget your troubles and live a happy life!"
Yes, I should try to think positively. I'd been gone for so long; it was understandable that Xue Tang had some relationships with other men, but I was certain she still held a place for me in her heart. So what I needed to do now was to salvage everything.
After regaining my composure, I left and hailed a taxi.
As soon as I got in, the taxi driver asked, "Young man, where to?"
I gave the taxi driver Uncle Luo's address directly. Upon receiving it, the driver seemed quite puzzled. I couldn't help but smile. Indeed, even long-time residents of Shen City wouldn't know this address. It wasn't that the place was particularly remote; on the contrary, it was a prime location near Pushui.
However, this was a secluded garden villa area in Shen City owned by the Luo Shen Group. Only members of the Luo family were qualified to live there. This place wasn't even shown on navigation maps, which naturally puzzled the taxi driver.
"Driver, just follow the directions I gave you."
The taxi driver scratched his head. He hadn't encountered anything like this since smartphones became widespread over twenty years ago. But then he quickly realized, the world changes so fast; even smartphones are almost obsolete. What else is impossible?
The car started moving, driving along the street. Looking out the window, I felt that while the scenery hadn't changed much compared to seven years ago, like Guangzhou, the number of neon lights and 3D billboards had increased dramatically, as had the number of entertainment venues. Many girls had dyed their hair blue, purple, red, and green.
Their clothing was considerably more revealing than seven years ago. There were even people kissing and caressing on benches, oblivious to onlookers. In a secluded corner, a couple was making love!
The skirts that had fallen below the knees, the tiptoes, the snow-white buttocks, and the barely visible penises…
A group of people stood around them, holding bottles of alcohol and cigarettes, watching. As these scenes flashed before my eyes, I frowned slightly.
This was daytime!
In my eyes, Shanghai had changed too much, and not in the direction I had imagined. A strange atmosphere seemed to hang over the city, making it hard to breathe.
Here, near a fork in the road, I remembered a shortcut that would shorten the distance considerably, so I said to the taxi driver, "Sir, take that road."
The driver glanced at the shortcut, but unexpectedly shook his head, saying to me, "Young man, I'd rather take a longer route than go that way. It's a gathering place for the MA gang now; even the police dare not go in."
I was stunned, finding it unbelievable. Did such a place exist in Shanghai? I was about to ask the driver for more details when I was suddenly interrupted by several unusually loud roars. I turned around and saw a convoy of seven or eight heavily modified motorcycles, painted in various colors, their exhaust pipes constantly spewing sparks, roaring past the taxi.
Each of these motorcycles carried a young girl on the back, wearing a miniskirt that revealed her two smooth, round buttocks. Their underwear, so thin it practically pierced their snowy valleys, was negligible. And because the riding position required their buttocks to be raised, the seven or eight exposed buttocks were almost blinding.
Several girls held lit bottles of liquor, the flames stretching into long, bright streaks, dazzling and dangerous, exuding an air of unbridled indulgence!
Suddenly, one girl seemed to notice the attention from the taxi next to her. She arched her back, her waist curving into a serpentine, lithe line, her buttocks lifting off the back of the seat in a breathtaking arc, her miniskirt, which barely covered half her buttocks, flipping up completely.
Two plump, perky buttocks, smooth and white as snow, like ripe peaches, were almost entirely visible to me. Her panties were thinner and less fabric than other girls', with two thin, rope-like straps extending from her hourglass waist, meeting at the cleft of her smooth buttocks and then spreading into a full, shallow valley.
However, they provided almost no concealment. I even caught a fleeting glimpse of a small, neat, slightly concave pink petal at the center of her buttocks. But what I found most unforgettable was a star-shaped tattoo etched on the side of her hip, near her waist, so strikingly visible against her snow-white, smooth skin.
After doing all this, the girl sat back down, making a face and sticking out her tongue next to her helmet with her snow-white hand. Although I couldn't see her face through the visor, I could perfectly imagine a young girl playfully sticking out her tongue.
"Whoosh..." The motorcycle sped past the taxi, roaring away and ignoring the red light at the intersection, turning directly into the left-hand alley.
I was speechless for a moment. The driver sighed and said, "Don't be fooled by their relatively peaceful behavior on the main street. That's because there are security cameras. If I followed them into that alley, those firecrackers might end up on my car."
"Several of my colleagues' cars have been burned there, so I dare not go that way."
The implication was that there were no security cameras on that street. But in this day and age, where in the city is there no security camera?
My heart sank. The answer was clear: they were very likely to destroy it…
"Isn't there any police to do anything about it?" My voice was low and somber. This was no longer the Shanghai I knew, a city with good public order. How had the security deteriorated to this point?
The driver said, "They do manage it, the police do manage it, but you can't catch all the MA gangs. Besides, I heard they include sons of tycoons and high-ranking officials, as well as prostitutes. Even if you arrest them, they might just release them immediately. We can only accept our bad luck."
MA Gang?
I heard that term again, and from the driver's tone, it seemed the problem was caused by the MA gang. But I didn't remember hearing this term seven years ago, so I curiously asked the driver.
The driver seemed surprised that I didn't even know about the MA gang, but he didn't beat around the bush and explained directly.
It turns out the MA gang started appearing four or five years ago. The name comes from two neurotoxins, "Muse" and "Ares," which are transmitted through neural link bracelets. Neurotoxins are actually a new type of drug that emerged six or seven years ago after neural link technology became popular.
Unlike traditional drugs, which are physical substances, neurotoxins are actually just a series of bioelectrical signals, typically stored in a rice-grain-sized bio-medium. Read by a connecting bracelet, also a bio-product, they produce a euphoric effect similar to traditional drugs.
Strangely, neurotoxins don't seem to cause significant harm to humans.
However, excessive use of neurotoxins can drastically alter a person's personality, usually related to the type of neurotoxin.
Initially, neurotoxins weren't very popular, even less so than traditional drugs, because the euphoria wasn't as intense, the dependence was lower, and many users even developed aversion to them.
But all this changed after the emergence of "Muse" and "Ares." Originating in the United States, they swept the world like a storm within just three or four years, rendering drug lords in the Golden Triangle and Mexico unemployed and virtually replacing all physical drugs.
Muse is used by women, while Ares is used by men. Like other psychotropic drugs, they have minimal, if any, harm to the body. From appearance alone, it's impossible to tell who is using MA and who isn't; no instrument can detect it…
Therefore, the entire city of Shen is teeming with psychotropic drug users. They might be office workers or government officials, but the majority are still young people. This is because almost without exception, those who use these two psychotropic drugs become extremely sexually active and have intense desires. In addition, they may also experience a strong desire for self-expression, creativity, or even destruction!