41: Chapter 41 A Warning from Kingpin

After Yan Zheng returned to the Antique Shop's Underground Room, the first thing he did was take off his hoodie.

He threw the hoodie into the trash can in the corner, sat on a folding chair, and placed his hands flat on his knees; his fingers were trembling slightly.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ⌓ ꐦ )

"I've been marked."

He looked down at the golden material acquisition notification on his system panel, where the words "Photon Gene Material" were glowing quietly.

"The good news is that I have obtained the rare-quality Photon Gene."

"The bad news is that The Hand's Shadow Eyes have locked onto my range of movement."

He stood up, took two steps, and then sat back down.

"Shadow Eyes are a tracking unit, not a combat unit; their duty is to 'find,' not to 'kill.'"

"And what happens after they find me?"

Yan Zheng took the gold-rimmed glasses out of his pocket and twirled them under the light.

"Nogami will send a combat unit to harvest me."

"An eight-person extermination squad, the kind that almost buried me in the pipes last time."

He put his glasses back on, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down.

"However, it's not entirely without benefits."

"The fact that Shadow Eyes are tracking me means that Nogami hasn't fully grasped my activity patterns yet."

"If he had already grasped them, he wouldn't need to track me; he would just come and kill me directly."

"This means I still have time."

Yan Zheng opened the system panel and looked at the golden Photon Gene icon in his material library.

"Not much time, but enough for me to do a few things."

May 15th, 9:00 AM.

Yan Zheng was behind the counter on the first floor, wiping a replica blue-and-white porcelain bowl, when his phone rang.

The screen displayed Liu Kun's number.

He picked it up, and before he could speak, a voice poured out from the other end.

"Boss Yan! Boss Yan, are you there?"

Liu Kun's voice was sharp and urgent, sounding like a duck with its neck being strangled.

"I'm here, Boss Liu. What's wrong?"

"Something happened, something happened, something happened!"

Yan Zheng held the phone two centimeters away from his ear.

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ ꒳ ˘ )

"Take your time, what happened?"

"Kingpin's people are here!"

"They came to the boxing ring?"

"They came last night. Four men in suits and ties, saying they were Mr. Fisk's business representatives, and they wanted to see me."

Liu Kun's voice was trembling, but not the kind of trembling that was acted; he was truly terrified.

"What did they say?"

"They want my three Mutant fighters! They named them specifically! The big guy who can use Hardened Skin, the skinny guy whose fingers can stretch, and the new woman who can spray acid!"

"They want people? To buy or to borrow?"

"Neither buy nor borrow!" Liu Kun's voice went up half an octave. "They said 'transfer.' They want me to 'transfer' the three people to a subsidiary of the Fisk Group, under the name of some 'Life Foundation'!"

Yan Zheng's fingers paused.

"Life Foundation?"

"Yes, yes, yes, that's the name. I've never heard of it before, but they mentioned Kingpin's name, so I didn't dare not to believe it!"

"Did they offer any terms?"

"They gave a number: fifty thousand each."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˙ ꈊ ˙ )

"Fifty thousand U.S. dollars to buy a living Mutant fighter. Boss Liu, do you think this price is reasonable?"

"Of course it's not reasonable! The ticket money those three people earn me every month is more than that amount! But the problem is that Kingpin is standing behind this!"

Liu Kun's speaking speed became faster and faster.

"If I don't sell, what will Kingpin's people do to me? Last month, that disobedient casino owner on 7th Avenue had his whole family thrown off the top floor; their bodies were flattened into pancakes on the sidewalk!"

"Boss Liu."

"Huh?"

"Take a deep breath."

There was silence on the other end of the line for three seconds, and heavy panting could be heard.

"Boss Yan, can you help me think of a way? Don't you know some... some capable people? Can you help me put in a word?"

Yan Zheng picked up the teacup on the counter, took a sip, and the corners of his mouth curved into a very slight arc.

"Boss Liu, I'm just someone who sells antiques. What kind of capable people could I possibly know?"

"But I can help you analyze it."

"Please, go ahead!"

"Kingpin wants living Mutants, not corpses. This shows that he doesn't want to silence them, but wants to 'use' them."

"Use them for what?"

"That is the key question."

Yan Zheng put down the teacup and tapped his fingers silently on the edge of the counter twice.

"The price of fifty thousand each is pushed so low that it shows the other party doesn't care whether you agree or not. If you agree, they give you some face money. If you don't agree, they'll take the people anyway, and you'll have to pay with your own life."

"Then what should I do?"

"Boss Liu, I'll ask you one thing."

"Go ahead and ask."

"Did Kingpin's people state the handover time?"

"They did. Five days from now, next Wednesday night, they want me to bring the three people to Warehouse 17 at the East District Docks."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ¬ ᴗ ¬ ˵ )

"Five days."

"East District Docks."

"Warehouse 17."

The three pieces of information quickly connected into a line in his mind.

"Boss Liu, I have a suggestion for you."

"Please, tell me!"

"Agree to them."

"What?"

"Agree to their terms and hand the people over."

There was silence on the other end of the line for two seconds.

"Boss Yan, you're not joking, are you? Those three people are my cash cows!"

"Boss Liu." Yan Zheng's voice was as soft as if he were coaxing a child to sleep. "In the business Kingpin wants to do, using living Mutants, a dirt-cheap price of fifty thousand each, a handover at the East District Docks."

"When you piece these conditions together, don't you think it sounds a bit familiar?"

"Fa... familiar?"

"Three months ago, that batch of HYDRA-marked biological containers intercepted by customs at the docks; it was on the news, you should have seen it."

The breathing on the other end of the line paused for a beat.

"You mean... Kingpin is helping HYDRA... collect Mutants?"

"I didn't say that." Yan Zheng chuckled. "I just think that if there really is a buyer of that level standing behind Kingpin, if you don't hand over the people, it won't just be you who dies."

"Then doesn't that mean I have to hand them over even more?"

"Hand them over." Yan Zheng's finger drew a circle on the desktop. "But before you hand them over, send me the detailed ability profiles of the three Mutants."

"What for?"

Yan Zheng leaned back in his chair, the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting the gray, hazy sky of Hell's Kitchen outside the window.

"Boss Liu, I have a bad habit: if I see something good and can't get my hands on it, I can't sleep at night."

"Kingpin buys three living Mutants from you, transports them to the docks, and then what?"

"Put them in containers and ship them away?"

"Before they are shipped away, there must be a packing process, right?"

The corners of Yan Zheng's mouth curved up, not in that gentle, polite arc, but in a deeper one, carrying the instinct of a predator.

Yan Zheng: ( ✦ ᴗ ✦ )

"When packing, there are many eyes and many people, and the dock warehouse is large; if one or two people accidentally die, that's quite normal."

"Boss Yan... what exactly do you want to do?"

"I want to do business."

Yan Zheng stood up, walked to the secret door in the back hall, and rested his hand on the door frame.

"Kingpin eats the meat, I drink the soup."

"He wants the living, I want the dead."

"Each gets what they need; a perfect division of labor."

There was silence on the other end of the line for quite a while.

"Boss Yan, I'm increasingly feeling that you don't look like someone who sells antiques."

"Boss Liu."

Yan Zheng pulled open the secret door, and the light from the stairs to the Underground Room shone through, illuminating half of his face.

"The antique business, by its nature, is dealing with the dead."

"The only difference is that some dead people are worth a bit more, and some are not worth as much."

He hung up the phone and walked down the stairs into the Underground Room, his footsteps echoing between the concrete walls.

"Five days from now, East District Docks."

"Kingpin's handover point, plus The Hand's tracking mark, plus the satellite overhead that might turn toward me at any moment."

Yan Zheng sat down on the folding chair, looking at the silent Stitched Brute and the single Reinforced Skeleton Soldier standing in the corner.

"Three parties are watching me at the same time."

"The chessboard is getting more and more crowded."

He picked up the cup of water on the table that had long since gone cold, downed it in one gulp, and slammed the empty cup onto the table.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ᗜ ˘ )

"But crowding also has its benefits."

"Places with many people are prone to chaos, and places with chaos are prone to death."

"Places with many dead people."

Yan Zheng revealed a gentle, elegant smile to the empty Underground Room.

"Are exactly my, Yan Zheng's, buffet."