“Hello, Boss? ” Jianmen already got Shawn on the phone: “Mr. Wu is here already.”
“Really? I thought he’d come later.” Shawn sounded confused over the phone.
“Shanyi ah, things are really bad right now.” the man with a buzz cut immediately said loudly in Mandarin: “Yewei got into some serious trouble and he cannot come right now. Please come back right away!”
“Hey hey hey!” the two men in the back yelled in English at the man with a buzz cut: “Speak English! What did we tell you?!”
“Okay! Okay!” the man with a buzz cut seemed really scared of the two men behind him.
Jianmen was not quite sure what was going on, so he turned on the speaker mode and placed the phone on the counter: “Hey Boss, you’re on speaker now. ”
“Yedong Wu, is that you? ” Shawn apparently knew the man with a buzz cut, and he asked in Mandarin: “Where’s your brother?”
“Wo bu shi gao su guo ni … I mean ... He got into some serious trouble! I am here to take the goods for him!” the man with a buzz cut switched from Mandarin to English while he complained: “Where are you? Come back now!”
“Just wait a few minutes! I am on my way back!” Shawn seemed to be worried as well, he said loudly through the phone and then hung up.
“Hey! How long would it take him?” one of the two men with matching jackets asked Jianmen: “We are not here to wait for your boss to come back. If he’s gonna take forever, I’m just gonna take the goods from you.”
“Please, just a little time he’s not that far away.” even though Jianmen had spent too much time in a world of cultivation and the going ons in this world were still quite strange to him, he was still able to recognize roughly what was going on in this grocery store - Shawn and this Mr. Wu were in some kind of shady or even illicit business, and the two men in matching jackets were either their superior or their competitors here to bust their business.
“I’ll give him five minutes.” the man said and then found a place to sit down with the other, while he sat, Jianmen saw something slightly bulging from his jacket.
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“Thank you!” Jianmnen quickly turned around and found two small shot glasses and a bottle of alcohol of unknown brand, they were hidden in the back by Shawn, and he still did not know that Jianmen knew about them: “Do you gentlemen care for a drink? It’ll be quite boring just waiting for Boss to come back.”
“Mydmar Whiskey?” one of the men in a jacket saw the logo on the bottle: “That’s not good enough. Unless you have some better stuff - then I’ll consider putting in a good word for you and your boss.”
“Ah … I’m sorry, I think this is the best we have.” Jianmen looked at the bottle - there was still so much knowledge he did not get a chance to read, but knowledge about wine and alcohol was never going to be a priority.
“Yeah, sure, that’s the best you’ve got.” the other man in a jacket scoffed.
Jianmen looked at Yedong Wu, and found that Yedong Wu was looking at him as well. He saw that Yedong Wu appeared both confused, worried and somewhat grateful that Jianmen was somehow able to stall the two men that practically armed-escorted him here.
“Hello, I would like to buy some loose cigarettes ...” a really young looking teenage boy with a scruffy look entered the store and asked Jianmen: “Give me 4 of them.”
“Um, aren’t you a bit too young to smoke?” Jianmen asked with a suspecting look.
“Haha, how flattering of you. But I recently had my 21st birthday. Here’s my ID.” the teenage boy fake laughed and presented a driver’s licence to Jianmen.
Jianmen picked up the driver license and examined it closely for a short while, then he threw it back at the teenage boy: “This is fake, get back here when you have a legit one.”
“What? What the fuck!?” the teenage boy picked up the driver license in anger, frustration and offence: “How could you say that? This is a legit license!”
“The number combination doesn’t match the year of your birth year or your age.” Jianmen said with a straight face: “And your name is Loumou Lei. That means either you underpaid your license dealer or your parents hate you, very very much.”
“What? I am Cantonese!” the teenage boy whined.
“Exactly. ” Jianmen shook his head: “At least learn Cantonese before using a fake ID with an insult as a name. Now, out, unless you want something more of your age, like chewing gums with anime stickers or something healthy like whole grain cereal with cute anime girl cards.”
One of the men with matching jackets snorted from laughter and looked at the teenage boy with a mocking look.
“Hey! I want to talk to Shawn! Where’s Shawn!?” the teenage boy was officially pissed, and he yelled and slammed the diver license on the counter.
“I’m here. I’m here.” just this minute, Shawn’s voice came from the outside of the store: “Yedong, are you okay?”
“Shawn! I’m here!” Yedong jumped and was about to get outside the door, but one of the men in matching jackets grabbed him by the back of his collar: “It’s people from the Zhangs!”
“The Zhangs? What the hell...” Shawn came into the store and was instantly perturbed by the presence of the two men with matching jackets: “What … What are you doing here? You can’t just randomly come here!”
“Wrong.” one of the men told Shawn: “You should know that, the Lok family is no longer in charge of this area. The Zhangs are in charge now, and we are … re-evaluating the business credentials of the local associates. That means we need to examine your inventories as well.”
“Yeah... my driver license is fake. I should go.” the teenage boy felt the tension and the basic indications of the conversation and started weaseling his way out.