Chapter 4 I Won't Rob, I'll Borrow

"Hey!" Monkey was stunned. Having just arrived in Black Street after getting into trouble, he couldn't quite keep up with Hubert's way of thinking. He grabbed Hubert and hissed, "Are you out of your damn mind? Robbery is illegal!" "I know that. But as long as the guy I rob doesn't call the cops, it's fine." Hubert stopped and looked at Monkey with genuine confusion, as if this was the most logical thing in the world. "You're seriously telling me you're robbing your own damn weapon to commit a robbery?!" Monkey was on the verge of a breakdown, barely managing to keep his voice down. "A robber robbing... What's the problem?" Hubert's confusion deepened. He truly couldn't understand why Monkey was reacting so strongly. People outside of Black Street... So annoying. "If you rob him now and it alerts the bank, what if our whole operation gets exposed?!" Monkey let out a long sigh, looking to Blue Hair for help. "Well... But honestly, I don't see anything wrong with his logic." Blue Hair gave their conversation some serious thought before nodding in agreement with Hubert. Hubert's grin widened. "If you don't die too soon, you might actually survive a bit longer in Black Street." He suddenly dropped an oddly cryptic remark. Monkey opened his mouth to argue, but Hubert cut him off, sighing in exasperation. "Fine, fine. I won't rob. I'll borrow." By now, the well-dressed man was getting closer. Hubert stepped forward and blocked his path. "Excuse me, could you lend me a knife?" The man instinctively took a step back and sized up Hubert. "Why?" "To rob a bank. Need a tool." Hubert answered honestly. Monkey's face instantly darkened, filled with despair. He suddenly regretted not convincing the boss to kill this lunatic earlier, even if it meant taking a risk. Any normal person—whether they called the cops or not—would never lend him a knife! But just as Monkey was mentally cursing up a storm... "A bank robbery? This one? Sure!" The man glanced at the Redted Bank across the street, seeming rather intrigued. Without hesitation, he opened his briefcase, pulled out a dagger, and handed it to Hubert. "Good luck!" At that moment, Monkey's brain completely shut down. He no longer bothered to question the obvious—like why the hell that man had a dagger in his briefcase. "Everyone in Black Street is insane! They're all lunatics!" The thought flashed through his mind over and over again, etching itself into his soul. "Thanks." Hubert politely took the dagger and nodded in gratitude before turning to Blue Hair. "Boss, I've got my tool. Let's move!" "What a waste of time! Go!" Blue Hair flicked his cigarette to the ground and charged straight across the street. Hubert and the others followed closely behind. Monkey, still half in a daze, got swept up in the rush and blindly ran along with them. It wasn't until they stormed into the bank that his half-functioning brain finally processed a very serious problem. If even an average pedestrian in Black Street was this crazy... Then wouldn't someone bold enough to run a bank here be even worse? And the people who dared to deposit and withdraw money in a place like this... Wouldn't they be even more ruthless when it came to killing? "Robbing a bank isn't impossible, but it has to be done with caution and careful planning. I need to scout the place first—" Scarface's words echoed in his mind. But at what point had they gone from just thinking about robbing a bank... to randomly rushing in and actually doing it? Something felt off. And that man who had just lent them a dagger—why was he looking at them like they were already dead? At that moment, Monkey snapped back to reality. He whipped his head toward the boss, ready to voice his concerns, but— "Nobody moves! This is a robbery!" Blue Hair had already taken center stage in the bank, raising his homemade pistol and firing a shot into the air! "Everyone, hands on your heads! You! Get down!" Blue Hair barked at the bank customers who had been in the middle of their transactions. Then, turning his gun on the two security guards, he sneered. "Three seconds, if you're not on the ground by then—you're dead!" Seeing this, the underlings quickly brandished their daggers, short knives, and metal pipes, cursing and smashing anything within reach. At the very least, they had nailed the intimidation factor. Of course, two of them still stood out like sore thumbs. Monkey's face was laced with unease as he frantically scanned his surroundings, repeatedly sending desperate looks at his boss. Hubert, on the other hand, hadn't moved an inch since stepping into the bank. He just stood there. Like he was waiting for something. "The hell are you looking at me for? Start tying them up! You deaf? I told you to squat!" Seeing Monkey's incessant eye signals, Blue Hair cursed in frustration. Then he turned back to the two security guards, grinning menacingly. "You don't actually think I won't kill, do you?" "Is HQ running a drill?" One of the security guards completely ignored the threat, instead glancing at his colleague with a puzzled expression. The other let out a short laugh. "Since when has HQ ever run drills in Black Street?" "So... Are these guys actually trying to rob our Redted Bank?" The guard looked genuinely stunned. "Anyone who can afford to mess with us wouldn't even care about the money here." His colleague gave a slow, knowing nod. "So... we've run into some reckless amateurs." The two exchanged a glance, then—perfectly in sync—turned their heads toward Blue Hair. Their eyes were filled with pity. Security Guard A, "Crude and unimpressive tools." Security Guard B, "Not even standard-issue." Security Guard A, "They're obviously new here." Security Guard B, "They're really lucky." Security Guard A, "No—we're the lucky ones!" Security Guard B, "If I'm not mistaken, that gun he's holding was sold by Chapman at East Street's entrance." Security Guard A, "Yeah, the kind that can only fire once before it blows up in your face." The two guards seriously analyzed the robbers, having absolutely no intention of stopping them right away. Even the civilians in the bank only gave the robbers a passing glance before continuing with their business. The atmosphere inside the bank, to put it simply— Aside from the robbers being very excited, everyone else was calm. "Customer A056, please proceed to Window 2." As the electronic voice sounded, a man who had been sitting in the queue leisurely stood up and weaved through the crowd. With his sharp eyes, Monkey noticed something— the man had a gun holstered at his waist. And it was definitely not the kind of shoddy, homemade piece they had barely scraped together enough money to buy on East Street.