It's Useful (Part 2)

New York is always brightly lit at night. In the most bustling Manhattan neighborhoods, the lights stay on all night. Amidst the traffic and the dazzling colors of the neon lights, a long black luxury car drives through the curtain of countless colors and stops in front of a luxurious mansion.

The waiter opened the car door, Schiller got out. He followed the guide into the elevator, which slowly rose until the doors opened again, and the brilliant lights of the corridor poured in. As he stepped out of the elevator, Schiller squinted.

Turning a corner in the corridor, Schiller entered a room where he saw a very imposing figure standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

"Dean, you've arrived." The man turned around. He was obese, like a sumo wrestler, with a face full of fat. He spoke in a loud and imposing voice.

"Hello, Mr. Kingpin."

Kingpin stood there, hands behind his back, looked Schiller up and down, and said, "The famous director of Arkham Asylum, you're not actually named Arkham, are you?"

"That's right, Mr. Kingpin. It seems you know me quite well." Schiller walked up to Kingpin, looked at him, and said, "So, what brings you here tonight?"

Kingpin turned around, took a few steps to the side, and said with his head down, "If you were really just a sanatorium director, I wouldn't have invited you here."

Before Schiller could speak, Kingpin continued, "Many strange things have happened recently, and it seems as if there is an invisible rope connecting them all."

"People always focus on Stark, or S.H.I.E.L.D.., or even Spider-Man and Daredevil, but I'm different. I'm really interested in this invisible rope, don't you think, Warden Arkham?"

"Just say what you have to say," Schiller said bluntly. "Since you've already invited me here, it means you must have found the rope. Not many people can do that, and this is the ticket you deserve."

Kingpin suddenly turned around, staring intently at Schiller, and said, "Give me tickets? To the King of Gotham's Underworld of the East Coast? What gives you the audacity to speak so arrogantly?"

"If you don't want it, there's no need to invite me here. I don't believe that the King of Gotham's Underworld on the East Coast only knows my real name after all that investigation."

"Alright, looks like I didn't pick the wrong person." Kingpin and walked over, then said, "You created the Immortality Factor?"

"Of course not, it exists in vampire blood."

"Don't give me that nonsense. We all know it's just hype."

"Really? Why do you think vampires can live forever?"

Kingpin stared intently at Schiller, seemingly trying to read something from his face, but Schiller remained expressionless. Finally, Kingpin asked, "Do you really possess the technology for immortality?"

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

"... I admit, it's too tempting. No one would not want to live forever. When you asked me that question just now, for a moment, I really believed it."

"I'm not joking, nor am I testing you," Schiller told Kingpin. "I can provide a batch of about 1,500 vials of the drug, and I'm sure they will have an extremely noticeable effect."

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

"What's the meaning?"

"The Hand, Dragon Bone."

Kingpin and said, "You know more than I thought."

"After all, I didn't come to this appointment just because I knew the name Kingpin."

"As far as I know, the greatest benefit of dragon bone is longevity. The Hand seeks out this kind of thing to extend the lifespan of their high-ranking members."

"To this end, they even went so far as to send out hundreds or thousands of Assassin to search for this material all over the world at any cost."

"Prolonging life... Although I don't know what kind of effect the dragon bone can achieve, at least in the early stages, it certainly won't be better than the potion I have."

Kingpin narrowed his eyes, sensing something strange in Schiller's words. As the de facto King of Gotham's Underworld on the East Coast, he was all too familiar with that tone.

He straightened up, placed his arms on the table, and then said, "What benefits will I gain from cooperating with you?"

"Give up your dead-end drug-into-schools plan. It won't change anything. It's the worst way to expand your market."

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

"As long as you can successfully sell these 1,500 vials of the potion to the Hand, and of course we'll take half the profit, then soon, some precious bat ingredients will be circulating in the underground market you control."

"Sure enough, the bat ingredients that the media were promoting, with only two left, were just a gimmick you used for hype."

Once business negotiations began, Kingpin extremely insistent on every penny, saying, "Besides that, you must provide me personally with a whole bat, the same kind of bat you use to extract that medicine."

"Excuse me for being frank, but even if I provided it to you, you wouldn't have any technical ability to crack its secrets."

"You don't need to worry about that."

"At most, I can only give you some research samples from Stark Laboratories, including blood and organs, as well as epidermal tissue."

"The complete Batman is with Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., you know, he's a Greed vampire. You can't sway him unless you offer him something good enough."

"I only want a whole bat, that's my absolute bottom line, otherwise there's nothing to talk about," Kingpin said.

"It seems we can only discuss this condition later, or you can give Nick a call."

Seeing Schiller's unwavering stance, Kingpin guessed that Nick might not have much bat material left. Moreover, although Schiller had facilitated the cooperation between S.H.I.E.L.D.. 'Stark and the Osborn Group, there must have been a process of exchanging Chip between the two sides. Now it seemed that the raw material Chip had all fallen into Nick's hands, Schiller, as the Intermediary, probably had no say in the matter.

"Okay, I don't need the whole bats, but the research samples you provide must be brand new and consist of no less than two-thirds of the bats."

"Make a deal."

Then Kingpin asked Schiller, "What did you do with those 1,500 vials of medicine you planned to sell to the Hand?"

Schiller shook his head and said, "I wouldn't be so stupid as to poison it or do anything else. I know you're worried that the Hand's fierce retaliation will cause you heavy losses."

"But you can randomly sample any of the 1500 vials of medicine I provide. I guarantee there are no harmful substances in them."

"I'm starting to get confused about what you're trying to do. Is this a scheme orchestrated by the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D..? Is he finally going to target the Hand?"

"Why can't you take your eyes off these fighting and killings?" Schiller said with some helplessness. "Can't I just really want to do business with the Shouhehui?"

Kingpin snorted and said, "Nick Fury must be getting annoyed with these fleas. If it weren't for their Ninja being so hard to kill, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent would have already come knocking on his door."

"That was in the past; garbage was just a resource in the wrong place."

Finally, Schiller said to Kingpin, "If you want to continue expanding your underground empire, I have some good suggestions, but that will be at an extra cost and will be after our collaboration. If you are interested, come find me at Arkham Asylum."

After leaving, Schiller was picked up by an S.H.I.E.L.D.. car and taken to Nick Fury's office. The two didn't say anything, but walked together toward the S.H.I.E.L.D.. basement.

After being transported through several enclosed elevators, the two arrived at a huge underground factory.

The conveyor belts there were all made up of cryogenic chambers, and inside those chambers were large, frozen bats.

The storage area of the entire underground factory covers thousands of square meters and is filled with countless frozen bats.

Schiller took a report from an agent, glanced at it, and said, "Kingpin has a longer-term vision than I thought; he readily agreed to the collaboration."

What conditions did he propose?

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

Nick almost burst out laughing when he saw the mountain of frozen bat-shaped storage silos in the underground factory's storage area.

He could imagine that Kingpin and Schiller must have gone through several rounds of negotiations and bargaining before finally reaching this result.

Perhaps this King of Gotham's Underworld was still smug, having obtained two-thirds of the two bats that were only available as raw materials, attracting the attention of countless powerful and wealthy people.

Nick even felt a little sorry for Kingpin.

Schiller was not surprised. He simply looked at the report and said, "The black market can't be all genuine goods. We need to mix in some fakes and then develop a set of standards to distinguish the genuine products."

"Fake goods? You mean..."

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

"Among those with anti-counterfeiting marks, we add some so-called exclusive marks or origin markings, then mix them together and circulate them on the black market."

"You're really ruthless," Nick exclaimed. "So the ineffective Immortality Factor they bought were all fake?"

"That's right, it's your own fault for not coming to our sanatorium for treatment. You deserve to buy counterfeit goods."

"The sanatorium has no beds, but what can I do? The sanatorium is short of funds and we desperately need donations. If you don't donate and I don't donate, then you'll have no choice but to buy those fake Immortality Factor on the market."

"I think your choice of the black market under Kingpin's control is more than just that, isn't it? I have a feeling you're trying to trick him."

Nick crossed his arms, looked at the cryogenic chamber on the conveyor belt, and said, "I don't believe you'd be so kind as to know that the other party is an insatiable crocodile and still drag him in to share the cake."

"We currently lack some means to protect this nascent industry, not only overt legal means, but also some covert means. I'm just tying this crocodile next to this cake so that it can deter all other people who want to take the cake."

Schiller paused for a moment, then continued, "I don't have any good feelings towards Kingpin, not because he's the king of the criminal empire."

"Whether he is a gang leader or a criminal kingpin is not important to me."

"I don't think he's a good partner because he's too superstitious about force and thinks that assassination can solve everything. We're not on the same wavelength."

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

"But like I said," Schiller put down the report, looked at the underground factory, and said, "Garbage is a resource in the wrong place, Kingpin."

"At least for now, he's useful."

"That's enough."

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I've been getting nucleic acid tests every day lately, and there's been a long queue, so updates might be a bit late.