Chapter 142 It Works (Part 3) (Patreon)

In DC World With Marvel Chat Group : Table of Content/Chapter List

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On a bustling night in New York, in the prosperous Manhattan district, lights were bright and neon colors flickered, forming a dazzling display. A long black luxury car cut through the curtains of colors and parked in front of a luxurious mansion.

The attendant opened the car door, and Schiller stepped out, following his guide into the elevator. The elevator ascended slowly, and when the doors opened again, the brilliant lights of the hallway poured in, causing Schiller to squint.

Turning a corner in the hallway, Schiller entered a room where he saw a burly figure standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the night view of Manhattan.

"You're here." The man turned around, his figure bulky like a sumo wrestler, his face full of flesh, and his voice booming with authority.

"Hello, Mr. Kingpin."

Kingpin stood in place, with his hands behind his back, sizing up Schiller and said, "The famous Arkham Sanatorium director, but Arkham is not actually your surname, right?"

"You're right, Mr. Kingpin. It seems you know me well." Schiller walked to the opposite side of Kingpin and looked at him, saying, "So, why did you invite me here tonight?"

Kingpin turned around and paced a few steps to the side, lowering his head as he said, "If you were just a director of a sanatorium, I wouldn't need to invite you here."

Before Schiller could speak, Kingpin continued, "There have been many strange occurrences recently, and among these occurrences, there seems to be an invisible thread that connects them."

"People always focus on Stark, or SHIELD, or even Spider-Man and Daredevil, but I'm different. I'm interested in this invisible thread. What do you think, Director of Arkham?"

"Speak plainly." Schiller said straightforwardly, "Since you've invited me here, it means you've already found this thread. Not many people can do that, and you deserve the ticket."

King Pin suddenly turned around and stared at Schiller with piercing eyes, "You want to sell me tickets? To the underground king of the East Coast? What makes you so confident to speak like that?"

"If you don't want it, there's no need for you to invite me over. I don't believe that the only person who knows my real name after investigating the underground king of the East Coast is you," Schiller replied.

"Well, it seems like I've found the right person," King Pin turned around and walked towards Schiller, then asked, "Did you create the eternal life factor?"

"Of course not, it exists in the blood of vampires."

"Don't tell me that nonsense. We all know that it's just a publicity stunt."

"Is it? Why do you think vampires can live forever?"

King Pin stared straight at Schiller, as if trying to read something from his face, but Schiller remained expressionless. Finally, King Pin asked, "Do you really have the technology for eternal life?"

Schiller smiled and said, "Do you still think I'm talking nonsense?"

"...I admit, it's too tempting. No one would refuse eternal life. For a moment when you asked me back, I really believed it."

"I'm not joking, nor am I testing you," Schiller told King Pin, "I can provide a batch of about 1,500 doses of Medicine, and I guarantee they have extremely significant effects."

King Pin sat behind the solid wood table in the room, while Schiller sat in front of him. Schiller said, "I'm not here to be a salesman, and we're not in a buyer-seller relationship. We can work together as sellers."

"What do you mean?"

"The Hand, Dragon Bone."

King Pin frowned and said, "You know more than I imagined."

"After all, I didn't just come to the appointment knowing only the name King Pin."

"As far as I know, the biggest effect of Dragon Bone is to extend one's life. The Handshake Society is searching for this material to provide it to their high-level members for longevity."

"For this reason, they even spare no effort in sending out hundreds of assassins to search for this material at all costs around the world."

"Extend one's life... Although I don't know what kind of effect Dragon Bone can achieve, at least in the initial stage, it certainly won't be better than the Medicine I have in my hands."

King Pin narrowed his eyes, sensing something strange in Schiller's tone. As the actual underground king of the entire East Coast, he was familiar with this kind of language.

He straightened his body, put his arms on the table, and said, "What benefits does working with you bring me?"

"Give up your hopeless plan of introducing drugs into the school campus. It won't change anything. It's the worst way to expand the market."

"It seems that you have a good relationship with those two annoying flies."

"As long as you can successfully sell these 1500 Medicines to the Hand Organisation, of course, we will take half of the profit. Then, soon, there will be some precious bat materials circulating in the underground market under your control."

"Sure enough, those media reports about only two bats remaining were just a gimmick created by you."

Once they started talking business, King Pin was almost arguing over every detail. He said, "In addition to that, you must provide me with a complete bat, just like the one you used to extract that Medicine."

"To be frank, even if I provide it to you, you won't have the technical ability to crack the secrets on it."

"That's not something you need to worry about."

"I have the authority to give you some research samples from Stark Laboratory, including blood, organs, and skin tissue."

"The complete bat is in the hands of the SHIELD director, you know he's a greedy vampire, you can't persuade him without offering enough conditions."

"I only want one complete bat, that's the minimum bottom line. Otherwise, there's nothing to talk about," King Pin said.

"Well, it seems we can only discuss this condition later, or you can call Nick."

Seeing Schiller's stubborn attitude, King Pin guessed that Nick might not have a lot of bat material on hand. Although Schiller had coordinated the cooperation between SHIELD, Stark, and Osborn Industries, there must have been a bargaining process between the two sides. Now it seems that the bargaining chip for the material has all fallen into Nick's hands. Schiller, as the middleman, probably has no decision-making power.

"Okay, I can do without the complete bat, but the research samples you provide me must be brand new and no less than two-thirds of the bats."

"Deal."

Then, King Pin asked Schiller, "What did you do to the 1,500 Medicines you sold to the Hand organization ?"

Schiller shook his head and said, "I'm not that stupid to poison or do anything else. I know you're worried that the Hand organization's violent retaliation will cause you heavy losses."

"But in the 1,500 Medicines I provided you, you can inspect them at will. I guarantee that there are no harmful substances in them."

"I can't quite understand what you're trying to do. Is this a trap set by the SHIELD director? Is he finally planning to deal with the Hand once and for all?"

"Why can't your focus move away from all the killing and fighting?" Schiller said with some helplessness. "Can't I really just want to do some legitimate business with the Hand?"

Kingpin snorted and said, "Nick Fury must be getting tired of these pests. If it weren't for their tough-to-kill ninjas, SHIELD agents would have come knocking long ago."

"That was in the past."

Finally, Schiller said to Kingpin, "If you want to continue expanding your underground empire, I have some good suggestions, but they come with an extra cost. And it will be after our current collaboration. If you're interested, come find me at Arkham Sanatorium."

After leaving, Schiller was picked up by a SHIELD car and arrived at Nick Fury's office. The two of them didn't say much, but walked together towards SHIELD's underground facility.

After going through several sealed elevators, they arrived at a huge underground factory.

On the conveyor belts there were rows of cryogenic chambers, and inside the chambers were large bats frozen in ice.

The snow storage area of the entire underground factory was thousands of square meters, filled with countless frozen bats.

Schiller took a report from an agent's hand, looked at it, and said, "Kingpin's vision is even more far-sighted than I imagined. He readily agreed to this collaboration."

"What conditions did he propose?"

"He needs samples from two-thirds of the bats."

Nick looked at the pile of frozen bat storage in the underground factory snow storage area, which was as high as a mountain, and almost burst out laughing.

He could imagine that King Pin and Schiller must have gone through several rounds of bargaining and negotiation to get this result.

Perhaps this underground king was still proud of himself, and with only two types of bat raw materials that were sought after by countless dignitaries, he had obtained two-thirds of them for himself.

Nick felt a little sorry for King Pin.

Schiller, on the other hand, was not surprised. He just looked at the report and said, "Not all of the goods circulating in the black market are genuine. We need to mix in some fake goods and then come up with a set of standards to distinguish between genuine and fake goods."

"Fake goods? You mean..."

"That's right. We divide the bats that we want to circulate into two types. Although they are essentially the same, one batch has anti-counterfeiting marks while the other does not."

"In the batch with anti-counterfeiting marks, we'll add some so-called exclusive logos or source labels, and then mix them all together and circulate them on the black market."

"You are really ruthless." Nick couldn't help but exclaim, "So all the ineffective eternal factors they bought are fake?"

"That's right. If you didn't come to our Sanatorium for treatment, you deserved to buy fake goods."

"Sanatorium is full, but what can I do? The Sanatorium is short of funds, and we urgently need donations. If you don't donate, I won't donate, and then you can only buy those genuine and fake eternal factors on the market."

"I think your choice to control the black market under King Pin's influence is not just that simple. I always feel like you want to pit him."

Nick hugged his arms and looked at the frozen storage on the conveyor belt, then said, "I don't believe you are so kind-hearted. You know he's a crocodile who can never be satisfied, but you still want to bring him in to share the cake."

"We are lacking some means to protect this newborn industry, not just in terms of legal means but also in some underground means. I just tied this crocodile next to the cake to persuade everyone who wants to steal the cake to back off," Schiller paused and continued, "I don't have a good impression of King Pin, not because he is the king of the criminal empire."

"It doesn't matter to me whether he is a gang leader or a criminal king."

"The reason I don't think he is a good partner is that he is too obsessed with violence and thinks that assassination can solve all problems. He and I are not on the same page."

"Indeed." Nick looked at Schiller and said, "You haven't assassinated anyone, but it seems like you've solved all the problems."

"But as I said," Schiller put down the report and looked at the underground factory, "garbage is a resource misplaced, and King Pin is the same."

"At least for now, he is useful."

"That's enough."

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Next Chapter >>Chapter 143 Vocational Education in Gotham