Chapter 6: The Cleaner
Tang Song led Kane and Lane through a small door behind the bar counter.
The guards here weren't the large Black men from the entrance, but rather sturdy German White men with pale blue eyes, golden hair, and resolute faces.
After a narrow passage of about ten meters, there was a small room containing several sofas scattered about and two pool tables. Over a dozen large White men were intently playing pool. Seeing Tang Song enter, they immediately stood at attention and saluted him.
Tang Song nodded. He touched a corner of the small room, and a hidden door flashed open. After walking a few more steps, he entered a spacious secret chamber. Its luxurious decor felt somewhat like the royal palaces of the Middle East.
A burly man, whose height was comparable to Kane's, wearing a skull shirt and possessing a terrifyingly muscular physique, was sitting on a sofa in a corner, fiddling with a handgun. Seeing Tang Song enter, he merely gave a cold nod before immediately focusing all his attention back on the weapon in his hands.
Tang Song wasn't surprised by Frank's reaction as he watched him intently cleaning his gun.
Walking over to a sofa, Tang Song sat down. Lane took out a box of cigars from a nearby cabinet, selected one, trimmed it with a cigar cutter, and slowly toasted it with a match.
Tang Song leaned back on the sofa, smoking the fine Cohiba cigar that Lane had prepared.
Kane opened a crystal decanter of whiskey on the table and poured a glass.
"Boss, the cleaning work has been stable recently. The accounts from the Continental Hotel for the first half of the year have been settled. Kingpin's money has also arrived. We've urged The Hand and Black Belt for their accounts, and they should arrive within three days. Our total income from cleaning fees in the first half of the year was twenty-three million US dollars."
Lane held an account book and reported the profit situation to Tang Song.
"Adding the bar and several other businesses, we currently have forty-seven million US dollars in our accounts!"
"What about the police department?" Tang Song inquired, exhaling smoke. "Have they all been taken care of?"
"Everything's normal with the FBI. Their share for this month has been given to them," Lane replied, closing the account book.
Forty-seven million US dollars was still a bit low. Forty-seven million US dollars in half a year was an unimaginable sum for ordinary people, but for truly wealthy individuals, it wasn't even enough for a fraction of a private jet's cost.
Tang Song placed his cigar in the ashtray, picked up the glass on the table, and swirled the liquid.
The light from the crystal chandelier shone on the glass, and the bubbles in the liquor shimmered with dazzling rainbow colors.
Cleaning fees were the profits generated by a small business Tang Song operated.
In New York, many people died every year, both normally and abnormally.
Some died from illness, some from accidents, some from murder, some from gang wars, and some died from dark forces that could never be publicly revealed.
Deaths from illness and accidents were naturally straightforward, but for those who died from murder and gang wars, their corpses needed to be properly handled for the city government, the police department, and the gangs.
Thus, a profession was born – the cleaner!
Two years ago, multiple groups were operating as cleaners in New York: Golden Gate from South Korea, the Continental Hotel's disposal department, The Hand from Japan, and several gangs were more or less involved.
Two years later, the only cleaner left in all of New York was Tang from the East!
Professional and clean were the evaluations given to Tang Song and his group by industry insiders.
Any business they took on never had lingering issues, which was good news for both the FBI and the large and small gangs in New York.
The number of homicide cases in the New York Police Department had dropped to a ten-year low in the past two years (because no corpses were found).
Gang wars could be fought boldly and freely; the only cost they had to pay was some negligible post-incident expenses.
Of course, a former German special forces unit of over twenty men was the decisive factor that allowed Tang Song and his group to establish a foothold in New York.
Even Kingpin didn't want to provoke Tang Song's group, mainly because the return wasn't proportional to the effort.
With less than fifty million in annual profit, Kingpin, the Kingpin of Crime, wasn't interested. Under these circumstances, the cleaner business in New York's underground scene was tacitly recognized as belonging to Tang Song's group.
"Kane, contact our Mr. Bishop and see if there are any fresh tasks. Let Frank take those guys out for some activity, otherwise the famous Punisher will rust!"
The Punisher, Frank Castle, was wiping his MI6 assault rifle. Hearing Tang Song's words, he merely nodded towards Tang Song.
"Yes, Boss."
After giving instructions, Tang Song walked towards the elevator in the corner of the room.
...…
Below the elevator was a massive cavern... Only above, scattered silver lights, like stars. An isolated bluestone platform stood in the dim environment, surrounded by pitch-black. The bluestone platform, a sacrificial altar, was everywhere painted with a large number of bizarre talismans using cinnabar.
Around the sacrificial altar, rows of black-lacquered, gold-lettered vertical longevity coffins were displayed.
Borrowing the scattered silver light, one could vaguely see bizarre corpses arranged within the half-open vertical coffins.
*Clap!* The sound of a switch flipping echoed, and several large lights illuminated the area. The massive cavern instantly became as bright as day.
Coffins, talismans, corpses, still there! But the eerie atmosphere from before was completely gone.
Stepping out of the elevator, Tang Song came to the table in front of the sacrificial altar, took off his black jade thumb ring, and put on a pair of sterile gloves.
The bluestone sacrificial altar was ten zhang (approximately 33 meters) wide and long, shaped like a giant Bagua.
At the edge of each of the eight directions – Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, Kun – stood four longevity golden coffins.
A total of thirty-six coffins. Each coffin body was painted with talismans using crimson liquid.
From the upper layer of rock in the cavern, silver light shone down from the silver crystals, illuminating these thirty-six coffins. The crimson talismans emitted a strange blood-red light, and a blood-like substance faintly flowed into the coffins.
...…
*Wuwuwuwu* The two-meter-tall gray-furred werewolf's originally bloodthirsty beast eyes were now filled only with fear.
He looked at the Asian youth holding coffin nails before him, trying to make a sound to beg for mercy, but his vocal cords were completely out of control.
Tang Song stood calmly in front of a vertical coffin, precisely driving coffin nails one by one into the werewolf's body with his hand.
The coffin nails from the East varied in age and material, but the youngest one buried in the earth was at least two hundred years old.
These coffin nails, buried in the earth for hundreds of years, had absorbed earth evil qi and corpse evil qi.
Although they couldn't be considered magic tools, they were excellent corpse nurturing items.
As the coffin nails were driven into the werewolf's body, no blood flowed out. Instead, the werewolf's body gradually stiffened, and a surge of corpse evil qi spread throughout the werewolf's body with each coffin nail.
Corpse refining, one of the seventy-two methods recorded in the Heshan scripture.
An ordinary corpse, if buried in a yin point and left undisturbed for twenty years, will not decay and will absorb the yin point's evil qi, potentially transforming into a zombie.
Heshan Dao has methods for corpse nurturing and corpse refining. By feeding zombies with human blood and refining them using artifact refining methods, one can obtain a body-protecting armored corpse.
Body-protecting armored corpses are divided into four grades based on their ferocity: Gold, Silver, Copper, and Iron. Among them, the golden armored corpse is the most powerful, capable of even rivaling some cultivators at the low-grade Core Formation stage.
(End of Chapter)