At night in the City of Innocence, the brightest is always the men's section, and the sky reflected by the crystal lamps that shine all night is hazy. Today, however, is an exception, and the brightest area today is not the men's area, but the gaming area.

The gaming district is a very special area, where all the neighborhoods are controlled by the same organization, and it is the only commercial district in the City of Innocence that is completely unified. Gambling is one of the most fundamental manifestations of human greed, and casinos are one of the most profitable of all businesses. So ten years ago, the gaming district was one of the bloodiest neighborhoods in the City of Innocence, where five large organizations fought each other, where people died every day and every alley was stained red with blood. Every time you control a large casino, it is equivalent to nearly 100,000 gold coins a year for the organization. Gold coins are the most touching thing, every year a large number of petty criminals and ambitious young people pour into the city of innocence, what is their purpose for? There are only three kinds of purposes, some are to get a chance to get close to the hand of the shadow in order to be favored by the hand of the shadow and be included in the meeting, some are to join an organization to climb to a high position and enjoy the scenery of power, but more, the fundamental purpose is to fancy any kind of industry in the city of innocence can get a very high income, so I want to make a lot of money. With these people who can do whatever it takes for the gold coins, those organizations naturally refuse to stop at the areas they control, and starting a war against the areas of other organizations is the inevitable result.

However, everything changed ten years ago. Ten years ago, a small organization called Solitaire appeared in the gaming area, and there are many such organizations, often composed of some reckless and impulsive young outsiders, and possibly some ambitious professionals, who forcibly take control of a small casino, and want to grow on it like some dark novels. However, these small groups often survive for less than 10 days, the shortest survive for only 6 hours, and the longest survive for only 23 days before being wiped out.

But the Solitaire organization is different, although they only have more than 30 people. But everyone was a strong man who was proficient in assassination and fighting, and a group of people got together and not only withstood the repeated killing offensives of one of the five medium-sized organizations, but also quickly entered the counteroffensive stage. used various methods to attack in all directions, and soon in turn ate all the territory of the medium-sized organization, and stood in front of the stage instead of it. The cards that stood firm did not stop expanding, and it took less than fifteen days to digest the fruits of their victory, and fifteen days passed. Solitaire immediately provoked a war against another medium-sized organization in the vicinity.

The situation has become very strange, and it is common sense that the four surviving medium-sized organizations should have joined forces to kill this kind of highly aggressive new organization, but two of them have remained neutral throughout, while the remaining two organizations have joined forces to resist for a while, but they both perished after three months. After its demise, the two neutral organizations surrendered as soon as possible, allowing the gaming area to enter the era of unification for the first time.

It was then that it became known that the leader of the cards was named Joseph. Originally a middle-level manager of the Shadow Hand, he was an old thief who retired because of his old age, and he was one of the few people in the Shadow Hand who survived to retirement. After retiring from the Hand of Shadows, he regained his life and established Solitaire with dozens of his originally strong men. As for the question of why he can let dozens of people retire with him after retirement, no one is stupid enough to investigate it deeply, and there is naturally a mystery behind it.

After Joseph unified the gambling area, he quickly became attached to the suspicious forces, so everyone understood what was going on. And the behavior of being suspicious can be regarded as stepping on the bottom line of other captains, and the degree is very good. Therefore, he did not provoke the other captains to attack him.

Ten years have passed, and although Joseph is getting older, he is still alive and well, which is also beyond everyone's expectations. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the gaming district emerging from the shadow of war. A large ball was prepared inside the Solitaire organization to celebrate this memorable day.

The venue of the dance party was chosen to be the Crown Casino, which is directly operated by Solitaire, and the casino was temporarily closed for three days before and after, which was also considered a considerable cost.

The Crown Casino is the only five-storey building in the City of Innocence, with two underground floors and five floors above ground, making the casino very spacious to use. The second basement floor is the leisure area, where large restaurants, massage parlors, bars and various leisure facilities are concentrated. It is used by casino guests to regulate their body and mind after gambling. From the basement to the third floor above ground is the public area of the casino, where the gambling facilities and variety include all the local ways of the entire Yarra world, all races and countries, as long as you wish, you can find any game you are good at. Twenty-two hours a day, guests can be seen on all three floors, and these rich, decidedly unusually dressed people can enjoy themselves in this high-rise building under the guidance of well-dressed and well-trained staff. In contrast, although the third floor above ground is also a gambling area, there are no customers. This level is called the Premium Zone, and only a handful of the top wealthy and powerful are eligible to enter here. In this floor, the decoration is not extravagant but absolutely exquisite, and the colors of every box, corridor, floor and even paint are carefully designed by authoritative designers to bring guests the most comfortable visual enjoyment. The dealer here is the most beautiful, the waiter here is the most caring, the tables and chairs here are the most comfortable, and some people even exaggerate that even a potted plant or a flower on this floor must be pruned more appropriately than other floors. No matter who you are, as long as you are qualified to enter this floor, you will never be willing to leave. The fifth floor of the building is an entire floor of guest rooms, which are not part of the business of robbing the hotel area, and the rooms here are only used by guests who linger in the casino for many days on end. This floor is the highest position in the city of innocence after the clock tower in the square, and the view from the window is very unique.

Tonight is the night of the ball, and after a day of careful preparation, everything is ready for the celebration of peace as the theme of the celebration. Although the theme of the ball is particularly ironic and ridiculous in the City of Innocence, there is still a certain interest in the rare celebration in this City of Innocence.

Before tonight, invitations to the prom had been sent all over the City of Innocence. All the large and medium-sized forces in almost all the neighborhoods have been invited to the ball, and at the same time, there are also the rich and powerful people who have been in the City of Innocence these days. The leaders of the various forces are not very worried about security, after all, the card organization will no longer expand outward after controlling the gaming area, and the organizations in other neighborhoods are afraid that the forces behind the cards will no longer infiltrate the area, so there is a state of peace inside and outside for a whole ten years, and there will be no conflicts of interest, plus there will be so many celebrities from all over the world present, if the paper plate messes around, in case of harm to these guests, it will seriously affect the future business prospects of the innocent city, and it will definitely be hit by the full force of the shadow hand。 Moreover, as the de facto control of the City of Innocence, several captain-level high-ranking officials vouched for this celebration of Solitaire in the name of the Shadow Hand, so the safety of the leaders of all parties can basically be guaranteed. What they really worry about is on the way to and from the Crown Casino, which is the most dangerous place to be hit by hostile forces, and must be on the highest level of vigilance.

Tonight's crown casino is brilliantly lit, an hour consumes nearly 100 gold coins of high-brightness crystal lamp, just like no money lit, a bright pillar of light from the front of the crystal lamp into the air, deliberately with colored spar transformed crystal lamp beam of light has a variety of brilliant colors, for the dark night sky to add a beautiful dress.

The ball was held on the first and second floors of the casino, the first floor was for those who did not have an invitation to visit, and several spacious halls were vacated for banquets, and the central rotunda was the best ballroom. Visitors of different genders without invitations can enjoy lavish feasts, after which they can step into the rotunda and dance together, but it is unknown what will happen after the dance.

The real ball is on the second floor of the casino, and only those with invitations are allowed to bring a small entourage and enter through another passage under the guidance of a waiter. The second floor was originally made up of four halls of thousands of square meters, and tonight the mobile partition between the two halls was opened in advance to make the space enough to accommodate all the participants.

Although it is a grand ball, the scale of the ball is actually not large. The total number of invitations sent to all parties did not exceed 300, after all, not everyone was eligible to accept this invitation. It is estimated that there will be only about 200 people at most, and it will take a lot of courage to participate in such an event in the City of Innocence.

The ball was scheduled to start at 9 p.m., but before 8 p.m., a large number of horse-drawn carriages poured into the gaming area and stopped around the perimeter of the casino under the guidance of Crown Casino employees. However, these people are basically guests without invitations, and they have no intention of going up to the second floor knowing that they are not qualified enough, and they just want to enjoy the warm atmosphere that is rare in this city of innocence on the first floor, after all, this kind of special event in the city of innocence may not be once in decades, and it is the best conversation point when bragging with close friends in the future.

It wasn't until half-past eight that some carriages slowly stopped in the parking area reserved for invitation holders. The images of these carriages varied, some were luxuriously decorated, others were extremely simple, and each carriage often represented an organization that controlled the lives and deaths of tens of thousands of people in the city of innocence, or a wealthy family with infinite scenery in the outside world.

Gradually, more and more carriages were parked here, and the well-trained attendants felt a growing sense of heaviness in the air. (To be continued.) )