9 Heavenly Thunder Manual - Chapter 146

Chapter 146 – Traffic Jam

Lei Yu nodded with satisfaction. “Black Panther did a well thought out job. Oh, that’s right, where’s Black Panther? Where did he go?”

“Black Panther, he…”

“Young master!” Black Panther rushed over like an arrow. His speed was so quick that it caused a cleaning lady to fall on her ass with fright.

“Can you not mess around so much?” Lei Yu gave Black Panther a light punch in the chest as he jokingly lectured him.

“Young master, when did you return?”

“I’ve just arrived. You’ve managed to make this place look not too shabby. I see that there’s at least ten thousand seats in here… will there even be that many spectators? Having said that, have you realized that the entrance to this place is too small? Isn’t that a bit counterproductive?” Lei Yu asked as he scratched his head and looked around.

“Young master, did you know that Gray Bear and I ‘greeted’ some government officials? Per their agreement, no one will bother us and the police will only have one eye open and the other closed. The entrance you came through was only for employees and not the actual entrance. The real entrance for our guests will be on the roof. I’ve also built a huge parking lot on the roof, enough for thousands of cars so there won’t be any problems.” Black Panther replied with a smile.

“No way?! Haven’t you guys gone overboard with this?” Lei Yu was somewhat surprised.

Costs were one thing, but the most important factor was the income. Setting up a gambling ring had always been lucrative, so now there was even an admission surcharge on top of it. The soundproofing of this place was extremely good; even if more than ten thousand people were screaming at once, no one outside would hear a thing. With all this combined, as long as there were people dreaming of getting rich, they would come to this place.

“There are so many private rooms on the first floor, isn’t it too much? Didn’t we talk about not changing the first floor at all? Besides, in a short one month period, you guys were able to completely transform this place! Too impressive!” Lei Yu could not help but exclaim from surprise.

“Young master, the first floor was originally a dance floor for over ten thousand people, but the guests don’t need that much space. It’s good enough to give those youths a portion of the space to jump around already. Now the roles of the private rooms have to do with the televisions inside. It’s a direct live stream of the fights going on on the second floor. Occupants can even participate in betting, which would help us utilize the efficiency of the rooms. I’ve calculated that we’ve spent about $500 million U.S. dollars. If the business isn’t too bad, the capital expenditure will be returned in under half a year and our business will continue raking in money from then on!”

Lei Yu was completely shocked. The figures calculated would make anyone shocked. Able to earn $500 million U.S. dollars in half a year?! What kind business of would be able to do that? Needless to say, the gambling industry was too profitable.

Lei Yu wasn’t too clear on the whole scope of the business. Since he gave them full authority to take care of this, Lei Yu could just dust his hands off and walk away without asking further questions. He wasn’t worried that Black Panther would manipulate the financials since it wasn’t good to suspect the people you work closely with. The only thing he was worried about was the participating fighters.

“Were you able to find any fighters to participate?” Lei Yu asked.

Black Panther nodded and said: “During the early stages of our business, we can’t have fighters that exceed ordinary people fight because it’ll cause the audience to go insane. We will slowly add them to the lineup to attract more spectators. Within fifty kilometers of us, I’ve contacted several Wardens and expended many ‘benefits’ to them. They’ve agreed to give us death row inmates (not caring about their life or death) as regular fighters participating in the competition. As for the special fighter category, Hu Jiong was responsible for that so I’m not too clear on how that’s working out.”

Lei Yu smiled, “You’ve done a pretty good job! You’ve only just arrived in the U.S. for a short time and yet you’ve accomplished so much… not bad at all!”

Being praised by Lei Yu made Black Panther’s heart burst with delight. You could say he felt happier being praised than if he were to earn a few hundred million dollars.

Bringing Ai Er along, they opened up a private room in the nightclub. Lei Yu normally didn’t drink, but tonight he made an exception and had a couple of extra shots. There was quite a crowd tonight including: Black Panther, Gray Bear, Hu Jiong, and Hu Xin Er that had just flown over from Tenglong country. There was also Bianca and Ai Er’s two close friends Mona and Kelly.

“Wow! Ai Er, I didn’t expect your boyfriend to have so much money and open such a super-sized nightclub. With such a simple and cool name like ‘Ray’, I like it!” Mona seemed quite happy as she swayed her body to the rhythm of the music playing. Ai Er, Kelly, and Hu Xin Er, who had been silent the whole time, were all currently sitting together.

Lei Yu and a few others were sitting on the other side of the sofa, including Bianca. They were all discussing something of great importance.

“Bianca, what’s going on with Dr. Tony’s side? Have they made any movements?” Lei Yu asked.

Bianca shook her head. “Nothing’s going on right now. I really don’t know who interfered, but Dr. Tony and his people did not mention anything about you anymore. I believe that some hidden powerful organization said something, or else with Dr. Tony’s personality, he would certainly not let you off so easily.”

Lei Yu has been trying to figure out this matter for a long time now, but still couldn’t think of who would help him like this. Before going to Greece, he had a slight feeling that it could be Mr. Hawes from the Burlinder family, but gave up on that thought because he thought Mr. Hawes’s family should only be involved in regular businesses. After being together with the old woman and the things she knew, Lei Yu once again changed his thoughts and believed the Burlinder family may actually have the necessary influence!

Of course Lei Yu would not say this out loud and merely smiled and shook his head like he had no clue. “Ancient Moon, how are things going on your end?”

“With my original contacts and some of the bounty hunters, we have a total of eight people willing to join us and participate in the competitions. The thing is, there’s only two that are willing to cooperate with us full-time, while the other six will remain working for the Bounty Hunter’s Guild and will only join us at night. In regards to the two joining full-time, one is called Tony and the other is called Bruce. It will cost us $30,000 U.S. dollars for each competition they participate in while for the other six, it will cost us $10,000 U.S. dollars.” Replied Hu Jiong.

“Ok. You guys will be taking care of the whole operation. If it gets too tiring, just hire more people. I’m not too business savvy, but one thing I do know is that money makes the world go round. As long as we have money, anything is possible.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and showed they would be able to take care of everything for now.

————————–

On the night of a full moon, a shadow of a human was seen on a mound by the east river of New York City. His body gradually transformed…

“Ooowwww!”

A wolf’s miserable howl that could chill the depths of one’s heart, rang out throughout the heavens and the earth.

The next morning, everyone went about with their own busy schedule. Lei Yu looked over the list of participants for the matches that Black Panther had submitted to him. Their first match was scheduled for this evening, so the long-awaited crowds were notified through various means and channels.

With nothing else to do during the day, Lei Yu took Ai Er shopping in his car. On a street named J Road, the encountered a traffic jam. Since they weren’t doing anything important, Lei Yu naturally didn’t worry too much and waited patiently.

Opening the car windows, Lei Yu heard the crowd chatting with each other and found out that there had been a murder up front. Not caring too much, they only had to wait for police to finish dealing with it, but who knew when they would finally open up the street.

After about half an hour later, you could hear the sound of cars honking left and right, but the front was still blocked.

“Ai Er, wait for me while I go see what’s going on.” Lei Yu opened the car door and walked towards the crowd.

Squeezing through the crowd, Lei Yu was completely shocked when he arrived at the scene. In the middle of two intersecting roads, a black Toyota was stopped there. The windshield in front of the driver’s seat had a hole the diameter of an arm. In the driver’s position sat an Asian man, whose heart was completely gone. All you could see was a bloody hole that had dyed the surrounding ground in red.

Naturally, the mere scene of a murder was not possible to make Lei Yu shocked. The fact that the victim inside the car was Asian would only make him slightly surprised. The main reason was because Lei Yu recognized the person inside the car; this was the person he had been chasing from the Kou country all the way to New York City – Hasegawa!