pjbooks Chapter 212 Stubborn to the end, huh? I like it.
Chapter 212 Stubborn to the end, huh? I like it.
Chapter 212 Stubborn to the end, huh? I like it.
Seeing the leader's high spirits, Tang En looked flattered, while wondering to himself: Could it be that he's going to promote me to the leadership?
After all, the blue-haired squad has now transformed from a small, huddled group into a dominant force in Skid Row.
This street organization, with over a hundred members, could easily be described as a gang.
Managing a team of hundreds of people requires more than just the gang leader and deputy gang leader, especially since the gang leader is a hands-off manager, leaving all the burden on Jimmy's shoulders.
This requires promoting at least five or six junior leaders, each in charge of a specific area, and finding ways to expand business and increase revenue, because simply collecting cans is not enough to support so many people. Recently, they have been testing a small business that involves dressing up the young girls in the organization and selling small souvenirs to tourists.
As time went on, things went awry. No one knows who started it, but as souvenirs were being sold, cigarettes and hemp were being smuggled in.
They later confessed that the goods were obtained from Sandy, and Max authorized them to do so.
Ma Jieke was speechless about this, but considering the decent sales figures, he could only acquiesce.
Anyway, if you don't do this kind of borderline business, someone else will fill the market. Even the California government recognizes marijuana as legal, but not many consumers will go to a pharmacy with a state license to get ripped off.
Buying from street vendors is so much better! Not only are the prices cheaper, but you can also get the extra-powerful version – more ingredients for the same price.
"Boss, let me toast you first."
When the beer was served, Tang En downed a large glass without saying a word. After finishing, he forced a smile and said to Ma Jie, "Boss, I've been with the Blue Hair Squad for quite a while now, a full two and a half years. Jimmy can vouch for that. So I want to contribute more to the team. It seems like we're missing a leader for the Seventh Street area."
Upon hearing his request, Ma Jie laughed unkindly. If this were in China, anyone who would recommend you for a promotion would be an idiot for speaking like that.
But that's just how American players are, especially Black players. They like to speak and act directly. To put it nicely, you can call it having personality; to put it bluntly, you can call it being simple-minded. They don't give the other person any room for maneuver in their words.
However, he chose to be direct, and Ma Jie was even more direct: "You want to climb the ladder, huh? Then you should first learn the most basic manners. Why did you only toast me just now? Do you think those two don't deserve your respect?"
"No, no, absolutely not, you've misunderstood me, boss."
After being scolded by the gang leader, Tang En quickly poured himself two more glasses. Each of these draft beer glasses is 500 ml. He was fine when he drank the second glass, but he started to feel a bit weak when he drank the third glass.
After barely managing to finish the "penalty drink," Tang En wiped the white foam from his lips with the back of his hand and looked at Ma Jieke with a fawning expression: "Boss, is this okay?"
"No way." Ma Jieke sneered, "The penalty is three cups, that's the rule, so you still owe Jimmy and Bubu two cups each."
As he spoke, he gave the two men a knowing look, and they understood each other perfectly. They then poured Tang En a full glass of water and pushed it in front of him.
Looking at Tang En's expression now, there was no trace of a smile. He originally thought that Ma Jieke was joking or testing him, but who would have thought that he was serious. Including the three glasses just now, that was a total of seven glasses of beer. If there was no time limit, it would be easy to finish them, but judging from his posture, he was obviously deliberately making things difficult for him.
Looking at the four large mugs of draft beer in front of him, Tang En couldn't help but swallow hard, but hesitated to reach out and pick them up.
"What, you look down on me?" Ma Jie looked at him with a half-smile, but in Tang En's eyes, this smile was pure torture, even more painful than being beaten up.
Tang En, who had originally intended to refuse, swallowed his words back. He knew the gang leader's temper well; he had been the one in charge of the recent fierce battles on the streets of Los Angeles.
For subordinates, if a leader asks you to drink and you refuse, you are disrespecting the leader and making him lose face in public, which will definitely not end well for him.
So after weighing the pros and cons, Tang En still chose to give in, picked up the beer mug and chugged it down, his expression was incredibly painful, even if his own father had died.
Although the first two cups were a bit slow, I could still swallow them. But when I drank the third cup, my stomach started to react, and my stomach kept refluxing acid.
"Ugh..." He couldn't hold back and sprayed the whole thing onto the table. Gasping for breath, he begged Jack Ma for a reduced sentence: "Boss, I really can't drink anymore, can I go to the bathroom first?"
"No!" Ma Jieke's smile vanished, replaced by an icy expression. "Guards, force-feed him!"
Before he could finish speaking, Bubu grabbed the head of his mop, picked up a mug of beer, and chugged it down. The guy choked, his eyes rolled back, and his body thrashed about involuntarily.
This brutal scene terrified the two little black girls. One of them, named Nikki, grabbed MaJack's arm and pleaded in a self-assured manner, "Brother, don't do this, I'm scared."
"Who's your brother?" Ma Jie abruptly shoved her away, his face full of disgust. "Get lost, don't make me repeat myself!"
The young woman was quite sensible; she quickly grabbed her bag and fled towards the door without even glancing back.
"Alright, stop." Seeing that Tang En was half-drunk, Ma Jieke told Bubu to let him go and looked him straight in the eye: "Listen, I'll give you one chance. Tell me exactly what mistakes you made."
Oh no... Faced with such questioning, Tang En's heart skipped a beat. It was obvious that his treachery had been exposed.
But his first reaction wasn't to admit his mistake, but to cover up the truth: "No, boss, I didn't do anything. I work hard every day, everyone can see that. Is someone deliberately framing me?"
"Very good, you've got guts." Seeing his firm denial, Ma Jieke stopped dwelling on it: "Remember your innocent look now. If you want to admit your mistake later, I won't give you another chance. I hope you can be a man and stay steadfast until the very end."
After saying that, Jimmy said, "Tell everyone to gather at the camp after you finish your work."
More than an hour later, everyone returned to the camp one after another. There were more than a hundred tents pitched here, which looked quite spectacular.
Once the crowd gathers, discussions and speculations are inevitable.
"What's going on, everyone? Why are we all back at this hour? Is the boss going to give us all bonuses?"
"Dream on. Do you think you're a government employee? You're lucky if you can even fill your stomach, let alone get a bonus."
"Look, Max's RV, and Jimmy's here too. The three of them together, something big is bound to happen."
Seeing that most people had arrived, Ma Jieke stood on a tattered sofa, holding a megaphone: "Quiet, quiet, stop talking."
"Hey boss, this is such a big event, are you going to announce your wedding to Jimmy?"
A teasing voice came from the crowd, making everyone burst into laughter. It was Ellie, the violent white girl who had become friends with Ma Jie after a fight.
To be fair, this girl is quite capable. She's young but quick-witted, learns quickly, and is also quite skilled. Once, when she went with a team to open a treasure chest in a wealthy area, she managed to escape from a chase by three police officers.
Hearing this joke, Jimmy roared in anger, "Ellie, if you dare to talk nonsense again, I declare today your funeral!"
"Haha, you'll have to beat me first."
"Alright, alright, shut up." Ma Jieke was too lazy to argue with a young girl. It was more important to get down to business. After carefully considering his words, he said, "I know that compared to many of the veterans here, I am just a newcomer. I am grateful to everyone for the kindness and support of my brothers and sisters in placing me in this position."
"However," after making the polite remarks, Ma Jie suddenly changed the subject, his voice becoming serious, "In our team, it's not that you can do whatever you want just because you joined early. As everyone knows, we now own a scrap yard, specifically for acquiring internal resources. Since it's internal resources, we can't have any dealings with other buyers. I think you've all heard this rule a million times."
"But just today, right under my nose, someone took goods from our territory and went to another scrap yard to sell them. I'd like to ask, what kind of behavior is this?"
"Such a thing happened? Who did it!" Vice-leader Max frowned as she listened, since she had to rely on her share of the profits every month to pay for Pudding's tuition, and this directly infringed on her vital interests.
"Look." Ma Jie gestured to the side. Tang En, who had been carried all the way from the bar, looked ashen-faced. He never dreamed that his attempt to swindle some money to pick up a black girl would cause such a huge uproar. In his mind, even if things were exposed, it would only mean paying compensation, not murder or arson. Was it really worth making such a fuss?
Max stormed up to him, and Ton, terrified, stammered, "Boss, let me explain, it's not what you think..."
*Slap!* Before he could finish speaking, Max swung his sword and slapped him hard across the face, spitting out, "Pah! Explain? What's there to explain? You're a veteran of the camp, don't you feel ashamed for doing something so disloyal? What you did is no different from stealing!"
Tang En covered his burning cheek, stubbornly denying everything: "I didn't, I really didn't! You have to believe me! Someone is framing me, someone is trying to harm me! Even the police need evidence to solve a case, how come in my case, just someone says something and they can pin the crime on me?"
"So you mean you were framed by the boss?"
Sandy stood to the side, toying with a butterfly knife in his hand, looking incredibly intimidating.
"No, that's not what I meant!"
"So what do you mean?" Sandy's eyes changed, and she questioned, "Last time I saw you coming out of the Green Box recycling station, and I asked you what you were doing there. You said Jimmy asked you to run some errands, so I didn't think much of it. Now I suddenly remember, you were secretly selling scrap there, and you lied to me with such a simple excuse. You deserve to die!"
Accused on the spot by Sandy, Ton sighed helplessly, knowing that there was no point in continuing to argue. He knelt down with a thud and crawled to Ma Jack on his knees: "Boss, I did lie to you about this. I was wrong. I deserve to die. But the one who deserves to die even more is the owner of that green box recycling station. It was him. He approached me privately and said he was willing to pay 10% above the market price to buy the cans. He also asked me to help him recruit people, and he would reward me with $500 for each person I recruited."
Upon hearing this, Ma Jie frowned, but quickly calmed down and began to analyze the situation carefully.
Green Box Recycling Station, located on the edge of Fifth Street, covers an area of more than 2,000 square meters. In addition to traditional bottles, cans and scrap metal, it also recycles old appliances and miscellaneous items, and even used cars. It is the largest comprehensive recycling station in the poor neighborhood and the preferred place for homeless people and professional scavengers to sell their cans.
I had sold there several times before, and Jimmy had become quite familiar with the staff there, having sold at least 10+ jars in total.
However, all of that is in the past. Since the blue-haired team took over Baoli's waste recycling station, all the resource points in the poor street have now been seamlessly connected to this place, which is basically equivalent to a monopoly.
This is tantamount to losing a large piece of the pie. Although residents living near poor streets still choose the green box, business is completely different from before.
Judging from this logic, what Tang En said should be the truth, not a mad dog biting indiscriminately.
What's even more alarming is that he mentioned recruiting others, which means there's definitely more than one treacherous parasite like him.
Those he recruited likely did the same thing, but they weren't as foolish as him to sell half of it. It was probably a small percentage, like 10% to 20%, which is why Nancy didn't notice.
It's like a child stealing food from the table. You might not notice if they only take a bite or two, but if they eat half a plate of peanuts, and then you tell me that's all there was to it?
Ma Jieke scanned the crowd and found that quite a few people had something to hide, each one avoiding his gaze as if afraid of making eye contact.
Damn it, it seems I've underestimated human nature. As long as there's profit to be made, what the hell are morality and conscience? They're not even worth writing down to wipe your ass with.
Since that's the case, Chief Ma doesn't intend to be polite anymore. To deal with external threats, we must first secure internal stability. Let's start by taking down that ingrate Tang En.
"500 US dollars?" He sneered condescendingly. "For 500 US dollars, you'd poach my employees? Would you even be willing to kill your own father for another 500?"
"Listen up, everyone! A new camp rule is being added: anyone who betrays the team's interests will have their hand chopped off! This rule is effective immediately!"
Before the words were even finished, Tang En was terrified. He didn't believe that Chief Ma was joking; what he said was bound to come true.
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