Chapter 39. Employment

Bang --

Confronted with brutality close at hand...

Mrs Connie subconsciously turned away, grabbed her husband's sleeve and tightened her fingers. She closed her eyes and couldn't bear to see the bloody scene coming.

However, after a few seconds, Mrs Connie opened her eyes. The scene before her was quite different from what she thought.

Someone was injured, but the injured person wasn't Ryan, as she expected.

Instead, it was the black man, the one who made the first move.

In the Chinese restaurant, Ryan was still standing there, with one of his legs up in the air.

On the wall, the black man with the baseball bat was slowly sliding down from the wall.

"Boy, you're messing with the wrong person!"

Seeing their friend over by the wall, the one that Ryan kicked away, the remaining men looked at each other. Their leader raised his baseball bat and viciously swung at Ryan.

Crack --

Ryan flicked his leg and directly kicked the oncoming bat, followed by a change of stance and kicked the man out of the Chinese restaurant. To the side, witnessing Ryan easily solve his friends with a couple of moves, another black man hastily pulled out his gun and pointed it at him.

However, before he pulled the trigger...

Ryan's foot slammed down. Mighty Steel Leg's powerful force left a shallow crack on the floor of the Chinese restaurant. In the next instant, the guy dashed in front of the man who raised the gun and side-kicked the gun in his hand, smashing it into pieces. Ryan kept his foot moving and kicked the black man out into the streets.

After getting rid of the thugs, Ryan slowly set his foot down. He turned to look at the only thug left in the restaurant.

The surviving man looked down at his fallen friends, looked up at Ryan, and decisively admitted defeat. Frantically waving his hands around, he walked back out the door while saying, "I have nothing to do with it, I only came cuz they asked me to. I don't even like these guys, man..."

"Who on earth are you? Where did it come from?"

When Mrs Connie came back to her senses, she looked around the restaurant and asked Ryan.

"My name is Ah Xing, from Peng Lai Island."

[Reputation points from Connie Lin+5]

[Reputation points from Jin Lin+5]

Sure enough, Chinese people understood the significance of Peng Lai better.

　　...

Shocked for a moment, Jin Lin, the male owner of the Chinese restaurant, seemed to think of something and quickly opened the restaurant's cash register to take out a thick wad of bills from it and hand it to Ryan.

"Here you are."

"What?"

Ryan bowed his head and looked at the money given to him. He couldn't help but feel stunned.

"I know these people, they won't give up so easily and will definitely come back for you. Take this money, and leave Harlem as soon as possible."

Jin Lin did this not only because he was concerned for Ryan but also because he was actually worried that more people would come after his Chinese restaurant because of this. In the end, the couple were just ordinary people who opened a restaurant to make a living and didn't want to get involved in the fight between Ryan and the thugs.

Such an approach might be somewhat selfish, but it was something that couldn't be helped.

"I see." The attitude of the restaurant's owner, Jin Lin, was actually very clear, and Ryan wasn't angry about it. Because, to put it another way, if he were an ordinary person facing such a situation, it's actually quite possible that he would have chosen the same kind of approach, more or less, and backed away from trouble.

Fortunately, he wasn't an ordinary person like Jin Lin, who was defenceless and could only accept it.

Nodding, Ryan pushed away the bills in front of him, "I'll go, but I won't take this money. If I take this money, then what's the difference between the previous gang of thugs and me?"

Taking off his uniform and putting it on the table, Ryan nodded to the two people inside the Chinese restaurant. He then turned around and walked towards the door of the Chinese restaurant.

Not working in a Chinese restaurant actually had very little impact on him. After all, Ryan didn't come to Harlem to work.

"Wait!"

Mrs Connie glanced down at Ryan's folded uniform and then at his departing back.

After a few seconds of hesitation with a struggle on her face, she quickly called out to Ryan, who was already at the entrance of the store.

"You don't need to leave, Ah Xing." Reaching out and patting her husband's arm, Mrs Connie looked at Ryan's surprised expression. "We are going to hire you to protect the safety of our restaurant."

　　...

Harlem's Paradise.

The second floor, in the office.

"In the barbershop?"

Cornell slightly frowned at the name Shameek gave, feeling a slight twinge of uncertainty.

He used to work under Henry when he was young and was taken care of by him, so he had a lot of respect for his former boss. Even though the guy was no longer ruthless after he got out of prison, he still maintained his respect. He respected his request, allowing the barbershop exist as a neutral zone in Harlem.

"Are you sure he's in the barbershop? "

"No doubt about it." Shameek hastily nodded. He would never lie to Cottonmouth, "The Asian guy in the red sweatshirt. I saw him in the shop, getting a haircut. I went to the barbershop this morning, and I even had a little argument with Pop about it."

"..."

Hearing that, Cornell sat in his chair and remained silent for a while.

Then he slowly said, "Since things involve Pop ..."

However, before Cornell could finish speaking, the door of the room was pushed open.

"Willis, haven't you ever learned even a little something called manners? Can't you see I'm talking to someone right now?"

Cornell frowned at 'Diamondback' -- Willis Stryker, who barged in with a displeased look on his face.

"That guy showed up again!" Ignoring the accusations, Willis glanced at Martin in the office and Shameek on his knees. He then addressed Cornell, who was sitting in his chair, "The man in the red sweatshirt. He attacked a group of our men, who were collecting donations."

"It's him again!"

Cornell still had respect for Pop, but that didn't mean he could accept people undermining him over and over again.

"Where was it this time?" Cornell asked while suppressing his anger.

"At the Chinese couple's restaurant."

Hearing that the incident wasn't at the barbershop, Cornell's eyebrows furrowed. He stood up and approached Diamondback, "I want to see that guy by tomorrow, dead or alive. Make him understand Harlem's rules. "