Chapter 39
Chapter 39: Taking Over The Force
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Forbes, bring the bowls!”
Following Lin Ke’s shout, Forbes hastily began to rummage about in the building. After a while, he walked out of the building with a stack of porcelain bowls in his arms and placed them on the table.
Lin Ke brandished a sharp dagger from his gun sling and even ‘accidentally’ showed the tactical machine pistol hanging on it as a kind reminder to everyone present-“Please treasure your life and stay far away from seeking death.”
“Talk of pledging allegiance is cheap when there’s no proof. It’s only when you drink and swear an oath that you may show your sincerity.” Lin Ke then turned and instructed Forbes, “Go in and look around some more. See if there’s any wine in there.”
At this point, Old Second hurriedly interrupted and said, “There’s a bar counter behind the television in the lounge. There’s wine on all the shelves there!”
Without needing Lin Ke to prompt them, the perceptive Old Second had already dragged Old Third with him and walked over at this point. He took the initiative to pick up the dagger and made a nick on his finger, dripping a drop of blood into the bowl.
At the sight, the other thugs also imitated him and came forward, making a cut on themselves and dripping their blood into the bowls.
Before long, Forbes carried quite a few bottles of wine out.
“Since all of you wish to pledge allegiance to me and are willing to swear a blood oath, then I, as Boss, will personally pour all of you the wine.” Lin Ke then chose a bottle of wine. Starting with Old Second and Old Third, he began to pour them wine.
The wine and blood in the bowls fused into a bewitching red.
The aroma of wine mixed with the pungency of blood. Together with all the dead bodies that littered the entire floor, it made the atmosphere even more bizarre.
After pouring wine for everyone, Lin Ke opened another bottle and held it in his hand while he waited for them to swear an inviolable oath.
Old Second downed the wine in the bowl in one gulp. Then, with his finger pointed toward the heavens, he vowed, “From now on, I, Shaw, pledge allegiance to Boss…”
The words were on the tip of his tongue, yet he stopped at this point because he still didn’t know his new boss’s name.
Forbes hurriedly said, “Boss’s name is Lin Ke! Remember that, everyone!”
“From now on, I, Shaw, pledge allegiance to Boss Lin Ke and will be loyal and faithful! If I go against my word, I shall be punished by the heavens and die with my intestines punctured with holes and my gut rotting!”
Next came Old Third, who also downed it in one gulp. He choked and coughed a few times as he made the vow while stuttering.
The other thugs also swore their oaths one by one or in groups and drank the blood wine.
When everyone had finished their wine, a profound and meaningful smile graced Lin Ke’s lips. He then poured himself a glass of cup and raised it high into the air. “Now that we’ve drunk the blood wine, all of us are brothers from now on. As long as I, Lin Ke, can get a mouthful of food, I’ll never let the brothers go hungry!”
The glass of wine entered his stomach, and several messages then suddenly appeared in Lin Ke’s system.
[Jack Gang’s third-place leader, Mr. Cong, has become your subordinate. Loyalty Meter: 80]
[Jack Gang Thug A has become your subordinate. Loyalty Meter: 65]
[Jack Gang Thug B has become your subordinate. Loyalty Meter: 70]
…
Quite a number of system messages had popped up on the interface.
The messages this time were somewhat different from the ones he’d previously received when Forbes had acknowledged him as his master.
When Lin Ke took a close look at them, he discovered that system messages would only appear for those whose Loyalty Meter was higher than 60. They numbered only a dozen or so in total. In other words, the rest of the people-who didn’t prompt any system messages-had Loyalty Meters of lower than 60.
The corners of Lin Ke’s lips inconspicuously quirked upward a little. Well, that’s interesting.
What had surprised him even more was that Old Third, Mr. Cong, had actually assimilated himself into the situation so quickly and truly pledged allegiance to him.
On the contrary, it was Old Second-who had been busy attending to this and that with a smile on his face-that hadn’t appeared on the list.
Old Second-who was dressed in a gaudy, red suit-walked over to Lin Ke and rubbed his hands as he asked, “Boss, may I know how we shall deal with these corpses on the floor?”
Lin Ke’s gaze swept over them, and he replied, “We were each serving our own master previously. You can say that they had also stayed steadfast in their positions. In Jack’s case, I respect him as a man. Bury all of them with honor.”
He then went along with Old Second’s course of the conversation and added, “You can select a few brothers and get them to help with settling the matter.”
Old Second was still smiling as he said, “You’re standing too much on ceremony, Boss. Helping Boss with his worries and difficulties is something I should be doing.”
After that, he brought some men with him and fetched some body bags-practically every gang would prepare some of these things-from the gang premises. Then, he called the ‘cleaning company.’
“Hello, is this the cleaning company? We have 30 pieces of goods here that need to be settled. Come over as quickly as you can. The location is Sand City slums’ Fifth Avenue…” Old Second then picked a few people, and they carried the corpses outside.
“Here, take this. Use it to pay the cleaning company later,” said Lin Ke as he grabbed some money from the shirt lying on the stone table.
Old Second chuckled and scratched the back of his head as he said, “Boss, I’ll tell you something but don’t get mad.”
Lin Ke indicated for Shaw to go on.
“Actually, I still have a bank card that has some money inside on me. I didn’t take it out just now…” As he spoke, Shaw also became more and more timid. In the end, he hung his head and waited for Lin Ke’s punishment.
“In that case, you can pay for the cleaning fees as punishment.”
Overjoyed, Shaw quickly said, “Thank you, Boss!”
Shaw then directed the subordinates and got them to carry the corpses outside. When he walked out of the Jack Gang’s main entrance, the smile on his face suddenly froze, and his countenance turned cold and somber.
Similarly, after sending Shaw and the others out, Lin Ke’s facial expression also returned to one of cold indifference. That guy named Shaw sure has a lot of sly little thoughts, especially this move of self-confession in particular. Had it been someone else, they truly might’ve been deeply convinced by his act.
Lin Ke, however, wanted to see just what sort of show this group of people would put up.
As for the remaining men, Lin Ke got them to head to the underground chamber and shift the safes inside to the office.
Half an hour ago, Forbes had been wondering whether or not he would die. But half an hour later, he currently had his hands on his hips and directed the thugs in their tasks.
The thugs constantly addressed him as ‘Big Brother Forbes,’ almost causing Forbes’s nose to go all the way up into the air.
“The underground chamber stinks. Clean it after you shift the safes upstairs, especially the area under the cages with the wild animals. Clean up all the feces and urine.”
Forbes knew of Lin Ke’s supernatural ability that allowed him to control animals, so he felt an extra sense of kinship at the sight of the animals. That was why he had instructed the thugs to take care of them properly. After all, they would be part of the same family in the future.
But when his words reached the thugs’ ears, they were so frightened that they were shaking in their boots.
“Big Brother Forbes, we can clean this side up for sure. However, all the animals in the cages over there are ferocious beasts. We’re too scared to go over!”
Lions, tigers, radioactive mutated wolves-they were all ferocious beasts that ate one whole and all.
Barely any of them dared to go near, much less clean up the area!
In the past, they’d always used mechanical cranes to unload and directly shift the cages from the ships to the chamber. Hence, they hadn’t needed anyone to go near at all.
Now that they had to clean the area, they’d have to suspend the cages in the air again so that they could clean the floor…
The moment they imagined themselves having to go near the ferocious beasts, every single thug was nearly scared to death.
“Those are important sources of income for the Jack Gang! By giving these wild animals a comfortable environment, they’ll look radiant and be in good spirits. They’ll then be able to fetch a good price when we sell them too, right? How can these animals get a good rest if we don’t give two hoots about them and let them live together with their own feces and urine? If they’re all listless and spiritless, surely there won’t be any buyers willing to pay for them!”
Lin Ke sat at the bar counter in the lounge and poured himself a glass of champagne as he watched the busy thugs going back and forth.
Taking over the Jack Gang hadn’t been a whim. Ever since he’d come to Sand City, Lin Ke had had thoughts of building a force of his own.
Be it A-Level missions or when it was time for him to march into the universe in the future, having a force of his own would always provide more convenience.
It was just that the artist’s appearance and the wild animal smuggling supply chain in the Jack Gang’s control had greatly sped up Lin Ke’s plans.
The reason why he’d chosen the Jack Gang was mainly that its wild animal smuggling supply chain was inexplicably congenial with Lin Ke’s synthesis cheating device-such that he no longer needed to be troubled over getting his hands on animals.
Another reason was that both the Jack Gang’s size and facilities were great.
Lin Ke’s occupation of the Jack Gang wouldn’t cause great changes in Sand City’s political situation, thereby allowing him some room to develop and space to catch his breath.
Aside from that, Old Second, Shaw, was social networking-savvy, while Old Third-Mr. Cong-was skilled at developing plans and strategies. Both were able to assist Lin Ke in his initial developments.
While Lin Ke’s plans were certainly great, there were currently still too many unstable elements in his recent takeover of the Jack Gang. However, he wasn’t too bothered about that.
His highest priority right now was still to unlock the Universal-type as soon as possible and obtain the Scholar class.
Next to him, Sand Condor had buried its entire head into the glass and was immersed in the red wine, causing the wine in the glass to bubble continuously.
Lin Ke reached out and flicked his fingers against the glass, producing crisp, tinkling sounds. “Hey, a high-class condor never makes any sound when they drink wine.”
The moment he said that, the bubbles in the glass visibly lessened, even including the wine itself.
In just a dozen seconds or so, the full glass of wine had gone from full to empty-Sand Condor had downed it all.
Then, with glassy eyes, Sand Condor thought itself a chicken and started to walk about with its neck jutted out, bucking and cawing as it walked.
A corner of Lin Ke’s lips spasmed slightly as he watched Sand Condor’s comical behavior. “I forgot to say that a high-class condor also doesn’t drink it all in one gulp…”
The thugs also held great interest in their new leader’s sand condor.
They couldn’t be any clearer on how difficult it was to tame and train a sand condor. It was one of the hardest species of animals to tame in the desert.
Getting a sand condor’s acknowledgment was an extreme test of one’s patience and will. The process was commonly known as ‘tiring out an eagle.’
Lin Ke even had supremely strong combat power that allowed him to infiltrate the Jack Gang alone and kill Jack-the previous leader-and another 30 thugs. On top of that, he also had some strange, inexplicable powers.
All of these placed a mysterious veil over Lin Ke.
The thugs that had pledged allegiance to him were both afraid of and idolized him.
“Ahhh!!”
Just as Lin Ke was immersed in his thoughts, a screaming thug suddenly ran out of the underground chamber with a large damp patch on his trousers’ crotch area.
Right on the heels of it, several people rushed up from below, laughing as they watched him.
As it turned out, none of them had dared to clean the area. Hence, they had drawn lots in the end.
Just as the man was cleaning the area-shaking all the while as he did so-the lion in the metal cage above him had suddenly roared, frightening the thug so badly that he dashed out of the underground chamber. The thug had even wet himself.
“Alright, stop fooling around. Everyone is to help out and clean up the area as soon as possible! After that, you can come to the lounge and take your share of the money!”
“Our share of the money? What money?” The thugs exchanged looks of confusion.
“Your bonuses, of course!”
“Long live the Boss!” Right away, the dozen or so people’s spirits were all aroused.
This was the carrot and the stick concept. Since Forbes had acted as the stick, then he would be in charge of giving the carrot.
The Loyalty Meters of all the thugs currently present were 60 and above, hence making them targets of solidification and development.
…
Elsewhere, Old Second, Shaw, led a dozen people or so and waited at the roadside for the ‘cleaning company’ that specialized in helping gangs dispose of and clean up dead bodies post-gang fights.
A thug went nearer to Shaw and asked, “Second Brother, are we really pledging allegiance to him?”
“Why don’t we purchase some firearms, launch a counterattack on him, and avenge Boss?!”
“Second Brother, let’s look for Old Crane and invite him to step forward!”
“That’s right! Old Crane’s White Crane Hall does have a lot of influence in the water transport industry, and White Crane Hall is also a big gang in the slums. If we can invite Old Crane to make his move, that Lin Ke guy will be doomed for sure! By then, everyone will look to Second Brother, and you’ll become the Jack Gang’s new leader!”
“That’s right!”
Shaw turned around, and his gaze swept across everyone there. The dozen or so men that he’d selected to help with the transportation of dead bodies were all his loyal supporters.
“Get to work properly and shut your goddamn traps!” Shaw berated them irritably as he discarded the cigarette butt in his hand.
After a while, the cleaning company’s body collection van arrived. They loaded all the body bags into the van, and then they rode the van to the cemetery.
“Stop at the Ninth Avenue. I need to attend to something. All of you are to head to the cemetery to help out.”
An unusual brilliance glittered in Shaw’s eyes. Now that Boss is dead, and even that damn fatty Old Third cannot be relied on-he’s likely already really pledged allegiance-I can only depend on myself for everything that comes next!
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