Chapter 1548: Underground
Ning was brought to a secret hideout on a side of the town that didn’t seem like it held any gangsters at all. It was a place filled with rich families and businesses.
However, in between the alleyways of this place, Ning was taken to a secret door that revealed a dark hallway that led down to a floor underneath the ground.
Ning walked inside and immediately noticed the rough work of a Carver who was most likely forced to make this place either in haste or for low payment.
A Military Carver would do a much better job than this.
Ning smelled a certain odor in the air inside, one that reminded him of places that had a lot of moisture trapped inside of them. He wondered how bad the ventilation in this place was, or if there was even any.
The stairway down to the lower floor only had two lights, both too dim to show anything more than a silhouette of the stairs. Thankfully, at the end of the stairs, there was a door with bright lights coming from the other side.
Ning arrived right before the door, but the door wasn’t opened for him. The long-haired man next to him spoke up.
“You will have to wait here for a bit,” the man said.
“No problem, brother Jay,” Ning said. “I’ve come all this way. A little more wait is no trouble.”
The man named Jay nodded and walked in. Ning barely managed to catch a glimpse of a large table with something some large bags on it. No doubt there was dust inside of it.
The door closed and Ning was left in the dark, made to wait.
Ning looked around, trying to gather more information. The darkness did nothing to hide the contents of the floor from his eyes. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything worth looking at in this place.
Ning had to wait for a bit longer.
Ning had finally managed to get the names of the two people he was here for. The first one was Jay who had brought him here, the man with the long hair. The bald one was named Cenn from what Ning managed to gather.
Jay didn’t outright say his name, but he mentioned a Cenn who would be interested in meeting him. It almost sounded like Cenn and Jay were the only two behind the operation, but Ning could never be sure.
When he had been briefed, he was told that the two were only part of the organization that had more members. There were surely other people in the same or higher hierarchy than Cenn and Jay.
The door opened after a while, letting out light for Ning to see inside.
“Come in, Cadet Ning,” Jay said, bringing Ning into the room.
Ning walked in, assaulted by the bright lights at once. He looked around, almost laughing out loud when he saw the sparse amount of people in the room and the significant lack of bags that he had seen just a moment before.
The man had cleaned up the place before bringing Ning inside. There was almost nothing here that could incriminate him enough to put him away for a long time.
Even if Ning did something now, the best he could do was put the man away for maybe a month at best. This was a smart man.
Ning sat on one of the chairs and placed his bag on the table before him. A few people walked up to Ning from the side, surrounding him. It was hard to say if they were trying to intimidate him or stop him from running away.
“So, what now? You agreed to partner with me, so let’s discuss the cuts,” Ning said.
“Soon, brother, son,” Jay said, opening the bag. “Let us check if your stuff is of a good grade or not. Negotiations will depend on that.”
Ning shrugged. “You are free to check,” he said.
The man nodded and gestured to one of the men to open the bag. The subordinate did as told and brought out a pack of Dust from the bag, setting it on the table.
Then, he brought out a small knife from his belt and cut a tiny hole in it, bringing a tiny amount of Dust out of the hole. He took the tip of the knife up to his nose and sniffed the whole thing at once.
Immediately, the man’s eyes widened and his face seemed to imply that he was feeling a thousand different impulses at once.
Ning looked at the man, mostly looking at his age. He knew these gangsters made teenagers sell Dust for them, so he wanted to check if any of them were those.
Ning looked around at all of them, but not a single one of them was a teenager. The youngest person in the ground was at least in their mid-20s or higher.
“This is the good shit, boss. Almost as good as the Dust we sell, if not the same,” he answered.
Jay was truly surprised to hear that. “That’s quite the compliment you got there, Cadet Ning. Danny here is the person that checks on the purity of the item we come by.”
Ning smiled. “So you do confess that other supplies of Dust come through here,” he said.
Everyone jerked up at once, many reaching for their knives. Jay was stunned for a second, but his face changed into a smile a moment later.
“You should be careful of the type of words you use, Cadet,” he said. “Words have different meaning and intent in different places.”
Ning smiled back. “I knew what I was doing,” he said. “If you think your thugs can scare me so easily, then you’ll find yourself quite mistaken. But, that is not what we came here for, so I’ll ignore it.”
He leaned forward. “Let’s talk about the splits between us now that I have proven to you that my Dust is quite great. How should the two of us proceed now?”
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