Can monopoly do whatever it wants?

Boom!

As a golden bullet was fired from the muzzle, it took only an instant to hit Carlos between the eyebrows.

Immediately after.

Carlos leaned back.

With a thud.

Carlos, who grew up in The Assistance, who insisted he killed for faith, whose faith then collapsed, and who defected from The Assistance, finally met his end.

As he departed.

Carlos closed his eyes, a faint, peaceful smile on his face, his right hand tightly clutching a photograph.

The photograph showed a woman holding a baby, smiling sweetly at the camera.

Lake walked over to Carlos, bent down to pick up the photo, then flicked his gun out with his right hand, killing another ridiculously young assassin before stuffing the photo into his pocket.

A man without integrity cannot stand.

Since Lake had promised Carlos he would ensure Wesley lived a normal life forever, he would keep his word and not trouble Wesley.

Arresting Wesley earlier as a suspect was merely a precaution.

Now?

Carlos had kept his promise, and naturally, Lake would keep his as well. It was a promise between men, and Lake was not the type to say one thing to your face and another behind your back.

As for people like that.

Lake scoffed and held them in contempt!

Turning.

Lake looked at the few young assassins entering the factory entrance. He couldn't be bothered to kill them anymore. With a blank expression, he looked down at them from above and said, "Do you need me to escort you out, or will you leave on your own?"

The few assassins exchanged glances.

Soon.

The assassins turned and left. Carlos was dead, and the bounty was over. Why stay and wait to die?

Lake chuckled and took a phone from Carlos's embrace.

He dialed.

When he was the assassin known as the Black King, he didn't have the habit of carrying a mobile phone. Although disposable phones were cheap, he couldn't keep replacing one after each use, which was a bit extravagant for Lake.

"New York Third Laundry, hello, how may I help you?"

"My clothes are ready."

"Please provide the number."

"Black King!"

"One moment!"

The young lady on the other end of the line was silent for a moment, seemingly checking the information. After a while, her voice came through again: "Location."

"Hell's Gate Bridge Wastewater Treatment Plant."

"Received."

Lake hung up the phone, tossed it at his feet, and crushed it with his shoe. He glanced at the deceased Carlos, who had passed with his eyes closed, shook his head, and turned to walk outside.

This was fine.

The Continental Hotel's cleanup crew would handle the aftermath here later. It wasn't that Lake didn't want to give Carlos a proper burial; even if he did, the circumstances wouldn't allow it.

The Continental Hotel would definitely verify his identity before issuing the bounty payment.

As for the other bodies besides Carlos?

They would likely be thrown into an incinerator and burned to ashes. Tens of thousands of people went missing in New York on average every year, and no one would pay attention to these missing persons.

Except...

Their families.

But this was the path they chose themselves, and they couldn't blame anyone else. Being a killer paid quickly, it was true, but sometimes, death came just as quickly, and most of the time, they died without anyone even knowing.

Starlight Tower.

When Lake returned home, the housekeeping staff had already arrived. After greeting the cleaner who came once a week, Lake headed to the study upstairs.

In the study.

Lake sat in his chair, untied the sling on his right arm, and rubbed his temples. As the computer booted up, he took out the photograph from his embrace and put it into the shredder next to him.

Whirr—

The shredder automatically started as soon as the photo was inserted. In less than three seconds, the photo was shredded into fine strips of confetti.

The computer booted up.

Lake took out The Continental Hotel's USB drive from the nearby drawer and inserted it into the computer.

The webpage automatically popped up. As the USB drive program loaded, a login field requiring a username and password appeared on the simple webpage.

To prevent the USB drive from having any tracking functions, Lake was using the satellite network launched by Stark Commercial Satellite Company at his home, which boasted 100% security.

Lake had a lot of trust in Stark's products.

Uh...

Before Jarvis's sacrifice, at this point in time, it went without saying that Jarvis maintained the security of Stark's satellites. To locate Lake's address via the network, one would have to get past Jarvis first.

For this reason, Lake paid Stark Commercial Satellite Company over $20,000 annually for satellite network usage fees.

It hurt his wallet.

But Lake felt it was a necessary expense and couldn't be cut.

He logged into the website.

While using his VPN to access networks in China to watch free American TV shows, Lake refreshed his backend at The Continental Hotel, waiting for the $1.5 million to arrive.

This time.

I'm going for a ten-pull!

Around noon, when Lake thought he might have to wait until the afternoon for the funds to arrive, he was about to close the Doctor Strange player and go find a restaurant for a casual meal when...

Ding.

A private message arrived.

Lake's eyes lit up, and he clicked on it.

"You have completed the bounty mission, with a bounty amount of $1.5 million, of which $1 million will be issued in US dollars and 500,000 in gold coins. The gold coins have been automatically deposited into your Continental Hotel account, and $1 million US dollars have been transferred to the designated overseas bank account. The Continental Hotel cleaning fee is 20%. Fast and reliable, we look forward to your experience."

"..."

Lake blinked.

What did that mean?

How did $1.5 million shrink to $1 million?

What the hell.

What use do I have for gold coins? I want US dollars. If that's not possible, even Zimbabwean dollars would do. This damn cheat system only accepts world currencies and doesn't accept gold coin top-ups at all.

Monopoly means you can do whatever you want?

If you push me too far, I'll blow up your headquarters!

Lake frowned, picked up a blank piece of paper and a pen from beside him.

This year's property taxes were already prepared and didn't need to be paid again.

But at the end of this month, his three credit cards were due, totaling around $100,000.

Then there were the $20,000 for the satellite network.

These two combined were $120,000.

And...

Lake figured there was little hope of making big money from assassination missions. There were more and more new assassins in the assassin world, and he was doing crowdsourcing, making it difficult to get any quality orders.

There was no hope of cutting expenses. Lake had already maintained his fixed expenses at a low living standard of about $1,000 per month. Any lower, and Lake felt the Internal Affairs Division wouldn't suspect him of taking illegal money, but would start suspecting him of using some kind of non-prescription narcotic.

So cutting expenses wouldn't work; he could only increase income.

Lake pondered whether to set aside some money and use his professional advantages to learn about stock trading. Lake calculated that this amount would need to be around $200,000.

So.

Lake calculated.

He found that.

The amount that could be directly recharged into the cheat system without money laundering was