My name is Wang Che. When I was eighteen, my father took a bullet.
He left me a crime syndicate riddled with holes, more than two thousand ruthless underworld brothers, and several adopted siblings who were all total badasses.
On my first day taking over the syndicate, my sworn enemy came knocking with a knife, and the police kept me under close watch. To avoid repeating the past, I was bound to the Law-Abiding Redemption System.
I called an emergency meeting of the branch leaders that very night and declared, heartbroken, “Times have changed! Fighting and killing gets us nowhere. We have to obey the law and go legitimate. Understand?”
The two thousand underlings exchanged glances, and it clicked.
“The boss means that as long as we use legal business methods to crush our rivals, it’s not a crime!”
Six months later.
My second brother, a martial arts fanatic: “Bro, I set up a legitimate security company like you said. I’ve just legally monopolized North African mercenaries and Middle Eastern shipping routes. We’re ringing the Nasdaq bell next month!”
My sharp-tongued third sister: “Bro, I registered a proper venture capital firm and just legally acquired Wall Street’s three biggest investment banks. Here are the equity papers worth a hundred billion.”
A branch leader, pushing a ton of gold: “Boss, that peaceful demolition method you mentioned is amazing! We used heavy-duty road rollers to legally flatten our enemy’s headquarters and monopolize the province’s real estate!”
Years later, when multinational conglomerates mistook me for some all-powerful dark emperor and prepared to join forces to destroy me…
Sitting on the top floor of a building worth two hundred billion, I looked at the Forbes rich list, where every name belonged to a former branch leader, and quietly adjusted my gold-rimmed glasses.
“Heaven is my witness, all I wanted at the start was to open a legitimate bathhouse. How did I end up buying half the world?”
