12: Chapter 12 Leverage: Cocaine Offered by the Devil

In Queens, an inconspicuous underground pawn shop on Main Street in Flushing.

The air was a mixture of the musty smell of old paper and the scent of cheap cigarettes.

Behind the iron bars, a fat Chinese man with a fleshy face was fiddling with a gold-plated lighter he had acquired from some junkie, not even lifting his eyelids.

"One hundred thousand US dollars, through an offshore account. I want to open an account to trade US stocks."

Chen Mo lowered the brim of his cap, his voice deliberately strained in his throat, making it sound hoarse and aged.

He threw the heavy black gym bag onto the counter, which landed with a dull thud.

The fat man's movements stopped. He lifted his eyes, his gaze sliding over Chen Mo like two greasy snakes.

"A fresh face, huh." The fat man grinned, revealing two gold-capped teeth.

"Brother, do you know the rules here? Regardless of whether the money is clean or dirty, for passing it through my hands, I take a seven percent cut."

"Three percent." Chen Mo interrupted him coldly.

"This money isn't stained with blood, and the serial numbers aren't sequential. Besides, I know you were targeted by the IRS last week, and you need cash flow to balance your books. I'm helping you."

The smile on the fat man's face froze.

He sat up abruptly, staring into Chen Mo's eyes, trying to see through the face beneath the baseball cap.

[Street Smarts (White)] was running frantically.

Chen Mo could read the bluffing in the fat man's micro-expressions; this guy was just a middleman who bullied the weak and feared the strong.

"Deal." The fat man finally exhaled a breath of stale air, reached out to pull the gym bag over, unzipped it, and took a glance. His eyes instantly turned greedy and awestruck. "The account will be ready in ten minutes. What leverage ratio do you want?"

"Five times."

The fat man's hand trembled; that was a five-hundred-thousand-dollar position.

"With the current market, five times is suicide. Once it drops by twenty percent, you'll be liquidated and won't even have your underwear left."

"That's my business." Chen Mo tapped on the glass counter. "Make it quick, I'm in a hurry."

Ten minutes later, Chen Mo walked out the back door with a slip of paper containing the account number and password, quickly vanishing into the crowded streets of Flushing.

When he returned to the 127th Precinct, it was already three in the afternoon.

As soon as he entered, Chen Mo felt that the atmosphere was wrong.

The receptionist officer at the front desk was keeping his head down, not daring to speak, and a low pressure like the calm before a storm permeated the hallway.

"Chen! Where the hell have you been?!"

The roar came from the end of the hallway, and Detective Murphy, like an enraged bull, slammed open his office door and charged out.

His eyes were dark, his stubble messy; clearly, he had been tortured by the DEA's internal investigation and that madman Marcus over the past few days.

Seeing Chen Mo, the fire in Murphy's eyes was almost ready to burst out.

That damned drug money couldn't be found, and Marcus was convinced it was a double-cross. Someone had even thrown a bloody pig's head through his window last night.

He wanted to bite everyone he saw now, especially this "lucky guy" who had appeared at the scene that night.

"Went to the hospital for a check-up, sir." Chen Mo expressionlessly held up the fake medical record in his hand.

"A check-up? I think you went to fence stolen goods!"

Murphy snatched the medical record and tore it to shreds, his spit almost spraying onto Chen Mo's face.

"Don't think that just because that old geezer George is protecting you, I can't deal with you. Now, immediately, get the hell to the morgue!"

Murphy pointed downstairs, a vicious smile on his face.

"A 'big one' just arrived, soaked in the Hudson River for a week and stuck in a drain due to bloating. The coroner's office is short-handed, and since you're drawing a paycheck, go scrub it clean for me! Don't think about going home until it's clean!"

The surrounding officers showed expressions of sympathy mixed with disgust.

Advanced decomposition.

A corpse soaked in water for a week is a coroner's nightmare.

Chen Mo did not retort, nor did he show the anger or fear that Murphy had expected.

He just calmly adjusted his collar and turned to walk toward the basement.

"As you wish, sir."

The moment he pushed open the morgue doors, even with a mask on, the stench that hit the top of his skull made Chen Mo's stomach churn.

On the autopsy table, a corpse lay sprawled, bloated like a giant balloon.

Dark green skin, bulging eyes, and putrid liquid constantly oozing from its mouth and nose.

George was in the corner wearing a gas mask, dry-heaving. Seeing Chen Mo enter, he waved his hand helplessly.

"Sorry, kid, that bastard Murphy specifically called... This is a job only you can do."

Chen Mo said nothing, put on his protective suit, and picked up the high-pressure water gun.

The water stream washed over the rotting flesh, kicking up waves of nauseating black foam.

He reached out to touch the corpse.

[Target has been dead for too long; spiritual essence has completely dissipated. Unable to extract.]

As expected.

Chen Mo scrubbed mechanically, but his eyes grew increasingly cold.

Disgusting? Yes, it was disgusting.

But what he was thinking about right now wasn't this corpse, but Murphy, who was upstairs enjoying the air conditioning, Marcus, who held his life and death in his hands, and this damned cannibalistic world.

Amid the roar of the water gun, Chen Mo gritted his teeth and carved a vow into his heart, word by word:

"When I get rich, I'm going to buy this police station, turn it into a public toilet, and make Murphy kneel at the entrance to collect coins."

If he didn't climb up, if he didn't grasp power, if he didn't become the one who set the rules, he would be dealing with rotting flesh like this for the rest of his life.

The cleanup work lasted for a full three hours.

When Chen Mo took off his protective suit and walked out of the police station, it was already dark.

He was covered in the smell of disinfectant, which was to cover up the stench of the corpse.

He found a roadside fast-food joint, ordered a cup of black coffee, and sat down in a corner.

The TV on the wall was playing the evening financial news.

Chen Mo took out his phone and logged into the offshore account.

Alpha Bio-Medicine (ABM).

The current stock price was 2.1 US dollars, and he had bought it all ten minutes before the market closed, with five times leverage.

The numbers on the account were red (in a loss state) because it had dipped a few cents right after he bought it.

Including leverage and transaction fees, his floating loss was already approaching three thousand US dollars.

Chen Mo's fingers rubbed against the rim of his coffee cup, his heart pounding violently in his chest, as if it were about to jump out.

That was one hundred thousand US dollars, the capital he had exchanged his life for.

If the intelligence was wrong, if the memory of that dead analyst had been off, by tomorrow morning, he would be a pauper burdened with massive debt.

"Why do young people nowadays like looking at these charts they can't understand?"

A truck driver at the next table took a big bite of his burger and muttered vaguely, "Buying lottery tickets is more practical."

Chen Mo ignored him; he stared intently at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Just then, the TV screen suddenly switched.

The previously drowsy news anchor suddenly sat up straight, her voice becoming high-pitched.

"Breaking news! The FDA just held a press conference. The Phase III clinical data for Alpha Bio-Medicine's new anti-cancer targeted drug 'Z-19' has shocked the medical community..."

Chen Mo's fingers froze.

He picked up his coffee and drank it all in one gulp.

The bitter liquid burned down his throat into his stomach, but it couldn't suppress the ecstasy that exploded instantly.

He had won the bet.