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The ding-a-ling of the doorbell rang. The boss behind the counter said without looking up, “If you’re planning to buy something, then welcome.”
“If you’re here to rob, I can only say you’re too late.”
After saying these words, he finally looked up at the people who walked in through the door.
Five young men, wearing hoodies, hiding themselves within the hoods.
“Shit!” he cursed. “If you’re planning to rob, like I said, you’re too late.”
The five young men were probably experiencing this for the first time. One stood at the door, while the other four entered the shop.
The shop wasn’t big, but not small either, about thirty square meters, displaying many small commodities, but nothing valuable.
They were all common daily items: candies, stationery, pencils, some snacks, seasonings, and a small amount of clothes and daily necessities.
Two walked up to the counter. One of the young men pulled out a half-foot-long dagger from his pocket, signaling him to hand over the cash box. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The boss cursed, but still took out the cash box. Inside, there was only a handful of coins left.
A clear look of dissatisfaction appeared on the young man’s face. “Where’s the money?”
The boss continued to explain patiently, “Someone already came fifty minutes ago. You’re too late, and you’re the third batch…”
This time it was the young man’s turn to curse. “F***!” He glanced at the coins in the cash box. They were mostly one or two cents. Coins like five, ten, twenty-five cents and above, including paper money, had all been stolen.
Wasn’t the purpose of Taman risking getting caught to rob the store to try and get some money?
As a result, he hadn’t gotten any money, but he had taken the risk, which made the young man very dissatisfied.
He placed the dagger on the counter, reached in to grab the coins from the cash box, and as he grabbed, he said, “You guys go get some valuable stuff…”
The shop owner was stunned after hearing this, then shouted loudly, “Hey, you’ve already robbed me. I won’t call the police. Now I’m telling you, enough!”
The young men all suddenly looked at him. He mustered his courage. “I’ve been robbed seven times in three days, goddammit, that’s enough, I said!”
“I don’t care what gang you’re from. I didn’t call the police even once, but now, enough, don’t take my things. I can still sell those for some money.”
Anger was hidden in his tone.
The loose change was stolen, and while it pained him, the pain was limited.
All that loose change added up to only twenty or thirty dollars, which was indeed a lot, but some items in the store, both in terms of cost and profit, were no worse than what was stolen.
For example, some spices, cheap ones were twenty or thirty cents a pound, expensive ones a few dollars or even more than ten dollars a pound. Although the Imperial District had many poor people, it didn’t mean no one consumed this.
They might consume it once a month, or once every three months, but as long as there was consumption, it meant there was a market and profit.
If they took everything, the loss would be more than just a little money.
There were also a small number of high-value daily necessities, costing dozens of cents each, and they could pack a lot into their pockets!
The young man who was stuffing coins into his pocket grabbed the dagger from the counter and gestured it at him. “If you don’t want to get hurt, you’d better shut up.”
The boss stepped back and raised his hands. “I didn’t mean anything else. Take some food and drinks, then leave, go try your luck elsewhere. I’m unlucky enough as it is.”
The young man who was putting money into his pocket gave him a deep look, ignored him, put the dagger back on the counter, and continued to collect coins.
These coins were difficult to collect, not because his pocket wasn’t big enough, but because some coins would slip through his fingertips when grabbing them.
At the same time, some would stick tightly to the bottom or sides of the cash box, making them inconvenient to grab, which forced him to use both hands in the end.
Although they were all one and two-cent coins, there were also some five-cent ones. This small box contained at least three or four dollars.
Three or four dollars, is that not money?
Meanwhile, the two young men looking at the low-value goods on the shelves felt annoyed.
One of the young men casually grabbed a hanging packet of snacks, tore it open, took out a piece, and began to chew it.
It was a bit tough, but after saliva moistened the hard substance, he could scrape off some soft “meat” with his teeth. The texture was decent.
Most importantly, he found the taste good, with a very special fragrance, and it was sweet.
He lowered his head, glanced at it, and shared the food in his hand with his friend. Sharing was a positive spirit, and he was happy to share. “Tastes good, want some?”
His companion looked at him with a strange expression, then bent down and picked up the torn part of the packaging. “It says pet food…”
“Shit!” He quickly spat out what he hadn’t swallowed, and at the same time, threw the item in his hand forcefully onto the ground. The thumb-biscuit-like pieces scattered everywhere with a rustle.
He snatched the packaging from his companion’s hand and glanced at it—sweet potato bone and meat puree teething stick.
“F***!” he cursed loudly, looking at his companions laughing unrestrainedly, even the young man counting coins couldn’t help but turn around and mock him. He kicked the display shelf!
These small street shops, though small in area, needed to carry many different categories of goods to attract enough business. This might have been the earliest form of “one-stop shopping.”
So the shelves were full of goods, and there wasn’t much space left between the shelves.
When one shelf tilted and fell, hitting another shelf, although the other shelf wasn’t affected and didn’t fall, many goods were damaged and fell to the ground in the collision.
Looking at the tilted and fallen display cabinet, and the items that had fallen and were possibly broken, the boss’s eyes darkened.
He couldn’t stand these young people anymore!
“Enough… take what you need, and then get the hell out of my shop!”
Another young man standing by the counter, who had just opened a bottle of soda, splashed the soda towards the boss. “It seems you haven’t figured out the situation yet, Mr. Boss.”
Several gazes shifted to him. The boss finally calmed down a bit. “You just want to take some things. There’s no need to make a mess here. I’ve been very cooperative.”
Just as they were about to say something more, a young man suddenly exclaimed, “Hey!” “Look what I found!”
He stood at the other end of the shop, holding up a small burlap sack. The others looked at him; it was a bag of spices.
“These are spices. My mom puts these in when she cooks meat. She told me these aren’t cheap, two or three dollars a pound!”
“There are at least ten pounds here, maybe more!”
The boss’s patience had reached its limit. He glanced at the dagger on the counter, and the corner of his eye seemed to catch the young man who had splashed soda on him earlier watching him.
He looked up at the young man; yes, the other party was looking at him, and had seen his previous movement.
Their eyes met briefly in the air, then both looked simultaneously at the dagger on the counter.
The young man made a clear movement to lower his center of gravity, while the boss was closer to the dagger.
He snatched the dagger, holding it with both hands. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Now, get out of my shop…”
The young man drinking the soda directly pulled a McGregor Defense Revolver from his pocket and fired a shot at the boss.
The gunshot caused pedestrians on the sidewalk to scream and run away after a brief moment of shock.
Inside the shop, the boss looked down at the wound on his lower abdomen, which began to seep blood. At this moment, he didn’t even feel the slightest pain!
He instinctively clutched his wound, took two steps back, leaned against the wall, his eyes seemingly hollow, and slid down the wall.
He began to gasp for air, and everything around him seemed unable to affect him any longer!
The young man who was taking money suddenly snapped out of it. He grabbed his companion’s gun-holding hand, and he roared, his face also shocked, “Are you crazy?”
“You’re going to get us killed!”
“We just came to rob. If he dies, we’ll all be on the wanted list.”
The young man holding the gun also felt some regret and apprehension. Most young people are like this; at some point, they make impulsive decisions without thinking, and then regret what they’ve done.
But he also had his reasons. “He grabbed your dagger. I was afraid he’d hurt you.”
The two looked at each other for a moment. The young man who had been taking money glanced at the boss, then glared fiercely at his companion, and then jumped into the counter.
Seeing the boss sitting there blankly as if he had lost his soul, he was at a loss, wanting to do something to salvage this damned situation, but not knowing how. He could only stand for a few seconds before picking up the dagger from the floor and jumping back out.
He looked at the other young men who were just standing there stupidly and said loudly, “Take the valuable spices you mentioned, and let’s go immediately!”
The people on the sidewalk still didn’t know what had happened. Some looked over curiously.
The boss was an old immigrant, having been there for over thirty years. He ran this small shop and was somewhat well-known on the entire street.
He was a good person, with the typical characteristics of an Imperial immigrant: rarely argued with anyone, and often yielded when encountering trouble.
This gave him a good, harmless image. People liked to associate with harmless people because they knew they wouldn’t be suddenly stabbed by an honest person.
Now something had clearly happened in his shop, and some people who knew him well were worried.
Just as they were unsure what was happening and planning to find out, five young men suddenly rushed out of the shop.
They were all carrying burlap sacks of different sizes. One of them, as he ran out, put too much force into his step, and his leather shoe split open.
His foot slipped out of the torn seam, causing him to lose his balance and fall.
The bag in his hand dropped to the ground, scattering a large amount of spices. He was about to stuff them back when his companion grabbed him and told him to hurry up and leave.
It was during this process that his hood fell back, allowing some people to see his face.
Someone in the crowd recognized him. The Imperial District, though it sounded large, was actually not.
According to unofficial, not necessarily accurate, statistics, the Imperial District had about 150,000 residents, with Imperials making up 130,000 and another 20,000 being Federation citizens or immigrants from elsewhere.
Having so many people didn’t mean there were so many families. In fact, if calculated at least two people per family, the Imperial District would have at most 75,000 families.
But here, it was clearly impossible to have so many families. Many families had more than two members. For example, Mr. Bolton’s family; he divorced his wife, but still had three family members.
Some families even had three generations living together, making it five, six, or even seven or eight members.
So, out of the 100,000-plus people in the Imperial District, if grouped by “family,” there were only about 30,000 families.
In this not-so-spacious area, almost everyone knew each other.
The five young men quickly left. Someone curious entered the shop and saw the boss sitting against the wall, a large pool of blood already around him…
Seven or eight minutes later, the boss was put into an ambulance. He was quite lucky; at least his life was saved.
But his luck wasn’t very good after all. Medical expenses became the new bad news after being shot.
Before pushing him into the emergency room, the doctor specifically asked if he had the ability to pay.
If he did, they would do their best to save him, because every rescue method, every doctor and nurse involved, would add some weight to the final bill.
Even if the nurses or doctors who entered just stood there idly, they would receive a “rescue subsidy,” and this subsidy was clearly not given to them by the hospital.
But if he had no ability to pay, then the outcome might ultimately be “unfortunate.”
After three hours of rescue, he survived, but two-thirds of his liver was removed, and he also owed the hospital over three thousand dollars.
This was after his insurance was deducted.
Around ten in the evening, a young man with a cigarette in his mouth walked to the roadside door. He looked around, saw no one following him, then pulled the door open and went inside.
It was a small house, with only one room, two beds, and four young men.
When they saw the young man, they were relieved, but also a little nervous.
The young man who had fired the gun during the day asked nervously, “Was he saved?”
The young man who had taken the money nodded. “He was saved. He’s not dead.”
The other four all breathed a sigh of relief.
This good news allowed them all to get a good night’s sleep, sleeping until almost noon the next day.
When they woke up, they thought about converting the spices into cash. After discussion, someone suggested he knew an antique shop that would buy them.
In the Federation, an antique shop broadly meant a synonym for “second-hand goods recycling shop” and a “fencing point for stolen goods.” Here, they wouldn’t ask where your items came from, they would just offer you an outrageously low price.
Their motto was “sell it or don’t.” Of course, their reasons were also ample: if you could provide proof of purchase for the item and sign a sales agreement with them, promising to bear all possible losses and all legal liabilities.
Then, they might give a slightly higher price.
But who the hell would keep those things, and even sign such a document?
For some people desperate to get rid of stolen goods, this seemed to be one of the few places that didn’t care about the legality of their items.
As soon as the five young men entered the door, they heard the sound of a weapon being loaded.
The boss, wearing a patterned headscarf, stood behind the counter. On the counter lay a rifle they didn’t quite recognize. The boss’s hand gripped the connection between its stock and barrel.
He could raise it and fire at any moment. Even so, he still watched them with vigilance and caution, introducing the weapon in his hand as if he were presenting a product.
“Stuart deer rifle, internal feeding mechanism. Someone proficient with this thing can fire three shots a second.”
“And I happen to be proficient with it.”
“There’s a loaded deer rifle here, but you’re only five people.”
The young men finally understood what the boss meant, even though they certainly had no plans to rob an antique shop.
This was actually a very interesting phenomenon, especially in the Federation.
Many people would rob roadside shops or even pedestrians, and then take the stolen goods to antique shops to convert them into cash. So why didn’t they just rob the antique shops from the start?
This might be another unsolved mystery!
They slowly raised their hands. The young man standing at the very front swallowed. “Sir, we’re here to sell something.”
The old man looked at them, then, thinking of some rumors that had spread in the Imperial District yesterday evening, and some things that had happened this morning, he raised his chin.
“Have your people leave. You stay with what you want to sell. That’s the rule here. I don’t deal with a group of people at the same time.”
The young man considered it, then agreed.
Subsequently, a dozen burlap sacks were placed on the counter. The strong smell of spices instantly filled the entire room.
The headscarf-wearing boss fanned away the floating spice dust with his hand, coughing, as he inspected the goods.
“How much are they worth?” the young man asked uneasily.
The headscarf-wearing boss looked at the items, already knowing they were the things stolen yesterday. He said calmly, “I need to check. I’m old and can’t remember the prices of these goods. They’re written in my notebook.”
“But I estimate there are about twenty pounds here, worth at least fifty dollars.”
A smile appeared on the young man’s face. “Then what are we waiting for?”
The headscarf-wearing boss smiled meaningfully. “Wait for me a moment. I’ll go check their prices…”
He carried the gun and went to the back. He wasn’t too worried about his shop’s items being taken by these guys; they were all fakes, worthless.
The valuable items weren’t in the front.
He went to the back, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.
After the call was connected, he said into the phone, “The person who injured the grocery store owner yesterday is in my shop selling the stolen goods they robbed…”
(End of this chapter)