"Find out everything about that gang, his role in it. I'm only giving you four hours."
Kamman ordered as soon as he got back, his coldness freezing everything he got close to. Liang looked at Rei with questioning eyes, but Rei subtly shook his head, warning him not to say anything.
"Sir, this is the report from the event. We..."
Kamman looked up at him, his eyes red, his breathing shallow, and his anger dangerously unstable. Before he could open his mouth, Rei rushed to save the poor man's life.
"I'll look into it. Leave. Now."
The man, sensing the danger he had almost landed himself in, gratefully bowed his head and rushed out, almost tripping over himself.
That day, Kamman was scheduled to meet the Black Vendors of the Crow Trade Guild in Daejeon. They earned their name, Black Vendors, due to their unique operational model. Unlike other distributors, they held the exclusive local license to distribute Bronze Orchid products across the world. Present in every major city and country, their presence was legendary yet impossible to pin down. Their market locations would fluidly shift multiple times a day, making any form of tracing by authorities utterly futile.
Adding to their elusiveness, their trading windows were incredibly brief. One might wonder how this was even possible, but their system was ingeniously simple: they called them "sessions." Each trading session was open for a mere five minutes. After that, the session would instantly close, the market would vanish without a trace, and reappear in a different part of the city.
To engage with the Crow Trade Guild, every potential client was required to acquire a Crow Card before a session began. This card legitimized transactions with the Bronze Orchid, with each card possessing a distinct value. Before any session, the card's value would be renewed by keying in a specific amount of money. Higher card values came with elevated privileges, including extended session times, VIP treatment, and other exclusive benefits.
This system, barely four years old, had already gained traction across the underworld, earning recognition as one of its most ingenious operational methods. Before its implementation, anyone could trade with the Bronze Orchid, leading to significant complications.
High-value and extremely dangerous drugs frequently found their way into the hands of schoolchildren through cartels solely focused on expanding their reach. This widespread, indiscriminate distribution led to constant clashes with authorities. Kamman's reforms, upon his ascension, aimed to rectify this, though he was initially met with substantial resistance.
"I can't believe this! You're crippling our trade market by doing that! Do you know how much our profits will plummet?!" Lady Sorn had shrieked, nearly on the verge of a seizure.
"While we're being shackled by rules and your pretense of order, other organizations are slowly surpassing us! Soon, Bronze Orchid will be reduced to nothing but a laughing stock! You are worse than your father, Chen Kamman!" Master Xie retorted, his voice laced with fury.
Kamman remained unperturbed, his gaze fixed on his phone. Their furious tirades fell on deaf ears. The Phoenix had spoken, and his word was final.
When news of these reforms reached other organizations and associates, they scoffed at the Bronze Orchid. Many believed Kamman was deliberately bringing the organization to its knees. Yet, young as he was, Kamman recognized that the rot had to be excised before any meaningful progress could be made.
The indiscriminate nature of their clientele was, regrettably, eroding the value of the Bronze Orchid's products. Quality had dropped drastically, as supplies, though marketed under the Bronze Orchid name, could originate from anywhere. Even the most petty criminals became their clients, nearly dragging the organization down to their level.
Blinded by their greed, the rest of the families couldn't see it, but Kamman had observed a generational decline in profits. Action was needed.
The Crow Cards were introduced with a triple objective: primarily, to ensure client loyalty; secondly, to meticulously track clients, their ventures, and their associations, enabling Kamman to monitor product usage and detect potential sabotage; and thirdly, revenue generation. The acquisition fees for Crow Cards alone generated significant income, even before any actual trade was carried out, creating a symbiotic relationship.
Clients realized that they had finally been allowed to hold the organization accountable for discrepancies, and in turn, the organization could hold its clients accountable. Many clients swiftly gravitated to Kamman's system, developing a profound sense of trust in a world that was as treacherous as theirs.
With the Bronze Orchid strictly restricting its supply to only its authorized channels, product quality soared, attracting high-profile clients, including nations. Those who had eagerly waited for him to fail were ultimately silenced. They shamefully bowed their heads and retreated into their shells. Arman Khaleed, the sole individual who had shared Kamman's vision from the beginning, was beyond satisfied, his admiration and loyalty deepening immeasurably.
However, there was always one or two who thought they were better than the system, and smarter than Kamman, which was rarely the case. This is why he was making the trip. Even after strictly warning against the distribution of Collaine, a type of drug invented by the Bronze Orchid, to vendors outside the black vendors, he still uncovered a trend that had been going on for months in Daejeon. Since he was in Korea, he decided to pay them a visit.
Rei prayed in advance for the people involved in the scandal, because Kamman was not in a good mood that day.
Kamman landed in Daejeon, accompanied by Rei, Liang, and a few of his other men. The vendors were waiting, shaking in their boots. Kamman didn't say many words. He went inside and asked Rei to bring the rule-breakers before them, and in minutes, four men were lined before them, on their knees, with terror evident in their eyes.
He stared down at them with his legs crossed, no single emotion showing on his face.
"I'm a simple man. If there's anything you want to tell me, go ahead and say it. However, anything other than what I want to hear will cost you your tongue,"
Kamman stated, his deep baritone commanding every corner of the office, as if he were saying the most normal thing.
"Sir! They threatened me! They said if I did not supply them the drugs, they would kill me and my entire family! Please forgive me!"
One man rushed to confess, rubbing his hands together frantically as if he were praying. In fact, he was truly praying for mercy.
Kamman shook his head, leaning forward to touch the man's cheek gently, who happened to have crawled all the way to his feet. He rubbed his thumb on it in a circular motion, then spoke in a low tone.
"Your biggest mistake isn't that you broke the rule; it's that you have your priorities misplaced. You should have been more scared of what I would do to you if I found out."
With that, he let go, and even without saying it, his men understood in an instant. One grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open amidst his resistance and screams of mercy, while the other lodged a sharp knife into his mouth, detaching his tongue from his body with one slice. A sharp scream echoed throughout the entire building, covering almost a mile.
A vendor at the end of the line pissed on himself out of fear, having witnessed that cruel act for the first time in his life. Blood didn't trickle but rather poured out of the man's mouth in gushes.
Another group of men dragged him out, his blood creating a trail behind him. As all this was happening, Kamman didn't even blink, his face void of any emotion. He turned to the one next in line.
"Now, I already know what you did with my drugs. So, tell me something different."
The man trembled so hard that one could hear his teeth knocking together. He stammered,
"S...s...Sir! I know their hideout! I could lead..."
"I already know that,"
Kamman interrupted flatly, giving that invisible signal once more. His men moved, yet again, to inflict terror. Another tongue was cut in a flash, and screams of agony graced the room.
The man next in line, seeing that his time had come, dropped to the ground like a potato sack, his fear causing him to pass out. Kamman would have cut an unconscious man's tongue if he really wanted to, but he didn't, so he sighed and ordered his men to lock the two up until he was ready to revisit the conversation.
"Young Master, should I send our men?" Rei asked.
"No. I'll go in person. I'd like to see the face of the man who dares to touch my stuff," Kamman declared as he got up from his seat. Naturally, his men followed.
The gang in question was quite big. It was among the top three most feared gangs in South Korea. Korean gangs had a peculiar relationship with each other. They hated each other to the core, and fought at any chance they got, but when a foreign entity touched one of their own, then all gangs came out of their safe zones and went out of their way to fight for their own.
Bronze Orchid was among the biggest underground organizations in the world, but it was a foreign entity nevertheless, which would not be an exception.
All this was supposed to make Kamman back down, but he was hoping they would stick to their so-called brotherhood and make an appearance, so that he could drag them all to hell in one day. By tomorrow, he would help the South Korean government clean up Daejeon of that rot completely.
However, when they arrived at Cheongyeon Gang's hideout, no commotion was made, and nobody came out to receive them. The area had three buildings, all coming together in a box shape, each going up about seven stories high.
Several cars were parked outside, and Kamman's team expected a couple of bodyguards to be lined up outside, guarding the place, but nobody was in the vicinity; only crickets and birds made sounds.
"Young Master, careful,"
Rei warned as Kamman got out of the car, having an eerie feeling about the silence. Kamman nodded, but continued forward. Just a couple of steps to the entrance, Kamman's high sensitivity warned him of a foul, heavy stench of blood. His steps grew hesitant.
His men ran before him to clear his path and burst open the wide double doors. They gave in easily. Right before them, a badly cut-up body of a guard lay sprawled on the floor. A few steps away, another lay in the same state. Another was hanging on the railing, blood drizzling down the frames. Blood turned the originally white marble floor crimson, as dead bodies lined all the way up the flight of stairs. They walked further in, carefully stepping over them as they went up.
"What the hell happened here?!"
Liang exclaimed, fighting his need to vomit, not loud enough but still audible.
Nobody could give him an answer, though, as they were just as clueless and shocked as he was.
"Spread out, check the entire building."
Kamman gave an order, and his men reacted immediately. Only Rei remained by his side. They stopped going further, looking around, and analyzing the situation.
"But Young Master, don't you find this scene a bit familiar? Their manner of death."
Kamman looked up, his lips pouting as he struggled to place familiarity with the scene. He couldn't find any.
"Back then when..." Rei started, then quickly stopped himself, remembering that the topic was still sensitive to Kamman even after all those years.
Kamman knew Rei well. The moment he stopped, he quickly connected the dots and figured out that Rei was referring to his father's and the other Lords' murder scene.
His heart stopped.
"Why do you think that?"
He intended to act as normally as possible, but the words came out as a raspy whisper. Rei understood his vulnerable side, so he wasn't surprised.
"The cuts are very precise, not done by a normal knife. Their dying positions too. It's like they did not put up any resistance, which is odd. It was the same back then."
Kamman hardly remembered the events of that day, even when he was at the center of it. His mind had learned to distort those images over the years until he couldn't tell which one was real and which wasn't. No wonder he couldn't notice it.
Being pulled back so suddenly into that room once again made him struggle for air, and he could feel his old demons calling from the depths of his soul.
"Let's check for more clues. It could be a coincidence."
He said, his denial kicking in. He, however, didn't dismiss what Rei said entirely, because Rei was rarely wrong about anything.
*****
Asia Song stood on the rooftop of a high building, a distance away from the Cheongyeon hideout. From there, he could see everything happening through binoculars, including the arrival of Kamman and his men. He clicked his tongue the moment he recognized his face.
"Why is he everywhere?" he muttered under his breath, watching them walk into the building.
The two katanas strapped on his back in a cross were still dripping with fresh, hot blood. He had a black cloth covering his face and a hoodie over his head, hardly recognizable.
One would have to be bearing such heavy grievances to make such a high kill count, and in such a brutal manner, in less than an hour, but it wasn't the case for him.
The only issue he had with them was that a couple of their men had spiked his sister's drink in a club a couple of days ago, and he wasn't sure who the culprits were, so he opted to take out the whole gang, just to be safe.
Asia Song was a genius, but in moments where he wasn't using his brain, he became an absolute psychopath instead, still wearing that angelic face.