"Yes, or no? Yes, or no? Yes, or no!"
"N-no..."
"I'll teach you to say no! I'll teach you to say no! I'll teach you to say no!"
"Oh my God, my God, sweet Lord!"
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Listening to the commotion inside, Charlie curled his lip and dug a finger in his ear.
The old geezer looked like he couldn't get it up, yet he sure liked to put on airs.
He shot a look over his shoulder.
Two young men, both six-foot-three and built like brick walls, immediately understood.
Charlie stepped back and raised his camcorder, pointing it at the lock.
"Bang!"
The young man in front, Tom, lifted a leg and kicked the flimsy wooden door right off its hinges.
The three of them filed inside.
The scene in the room was pretty much what Charlie had expected.
It was a cheap motel, and the air reeked of alcohol mixed with lousy perfume.
A middle-aged man was playing cards with a young woman.
She wore just the right expression of terror, with tears on her cheeks.
"Y-you... Who are you?!"
Startled by the sudden intrusion, the middle-aged man jolted and scrambled to get out of bed. But he was so fat and flustered that his movements were comically clumsy.
Tom rushed over in a single stride, grabbed the man by the hair with his huge hand, and dragged him bodily off the bed.
"You bastard! You laid a hand on my wife!"
Tom's eyes were bloodshot, the veins on his forehead bulging. His acting was explosive.
He pulled the young woman behind him, and she immediately let out a pitiful sob.
"Your wife? This is a misunderstanding! It's definitely a misunderstanding!"
The middle-aged man scrambled backward, fumbling with his pants and waving his hands.
"I just had a few drinks and a chat with this young lady."
"She said she was skilled at massage. I saw how young she was and how hard she had to work for a living, so I decided to patronize her business, that's all."
"Patronize her business right into bed, huh?" Tom narrowed his eyes and acted as if he was about to hit him.
"It was an accident, I swear!"
"My key fell between the mattress and the bed. She was just helping me look for it."
"Isn't that right, miss? Say something!"
The middle-aged man looked at the young woman behind Tom.
Her eyes glistened with tears as she shook her head. "I don't know anything. He dragged me here."
The middle-aged man was dumbfounded. He was a member of Britain's middle class, and he'd never seen anything like this.
Charlie kept the camcorder raised. It was time to give the British gentry a little "honey trap" shock.
That's right, Charlie was a transmigrator. He'd had no parents in his previous life, and in this life he'd grown up in an orphanage. A textbook case, basically.
Grandma White, who ran the Orphanage, had named him Charlie White. He'd originally wanted to give himself a Chinese name, too.
But after hearing the awful way the people around him pronounced Chinese, he decided against it. Who knew what they were saying?
Of course, as a transmigrator, he had a system. Unfortunately, the damn thing had only made a peep when he first arrived, and hadn't responded since.
Tom stopped listening to the middle-aged man and started hammering his stomach with his fists.
Each punch landed with a dull thud, hard but cleverly aimed away from anything vital.
The middle-aged man curled up on the floor like a shrimp, groaning in pain.
"D-don't hit me... We can talk this out..."
"Talk your ass!"
Tom kicked him in his fat face, leaving a clear shoeprint.
"You're not walking out of here today unless you cough up two thousand pounds!"
The middle-aged man groaned on the floor for a while. Then, suddenly, he stopped screaming.
He lifted his head and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. A glint of shrewdness and mockery flashed in his swollen eyes.
"Hah."
He sneered.
"I get it now. You're all in on this together, aren't you?"
"Not bad acting, but you picked the wrong guy."
He swayed to his feet, leaning against the wall, and somehow managed to regain some of his composure.
"You want money? You won't get a penny."
"Try touching me again. I'll call the police right now, and we'll see if they arrest me or you lot for blackmail!"
Tom and the other young man exchanged a glance. Their expressions darkened.
They hadn't expected this fat-looking guy to figure it out.
Just as the standoff reached an impasse, Charlie, who'd been standing silently to the side, strolled forward.
He toyed with the camcorder in his hand, its lens pointed at the middle-aged man.
"Sir, there's no need to get so worked up."
Charlie's voice was clear and pleasant, and his face was so outrageously handsome that anyone would've taken an immediate liking to him.
But what he said made the middle-aged man's heart sink.
"This thing has high-definition night vision, and the sound quality is excellent, too."
The middle-aged man's expression turned ashen.
"You wouldn't want your wife to see this footage, would you?" Charlie asked with a bright smile.
"Oh, right. I think I heard you say you were a department manager at some company?"
"If your boss and all your subordinates got to admire you in action..."
Charlie didn't finish the sentence. He simply gave the camcorder a little shake.
A threat didn't need to be spoken aloud to be deadly.
Beads of sweat appeared on the middle-aged man's forehead. He stared hard at Charlie.
This kid looked barely into his teens, but he was the most ruthless one here!
Beneath that angelic face was a devil's heart.
"I'll pay."
The man practically ground the words out through his teeth.
"I'll pay."
Half an hour later.
In a damp, gloomy alley in London.
The middle-aged man drove off in his Ford, cursing under his breath.
Charlie and the other three hurried into the secluded alley, in case anyone came looking for them. They wouldn't be going back to that motel for at least a few months.
"Charlie, you're something else. You fooled him with that piece of junk."
Tom excitedly patted Charlie on the shoulder.
They scammed and conned people wherever they could. Where would they get the money for a camcorder?
It was just a piece of junk Charlie had picked out of the rubbish.
Tom excitedly pulled a thick wad of banknotes from inside his jacket and slapped it against his palm.
"We're loaded! We're loaded! That fatso really had money!"
That was a full two thousand pounds. The pound had lost much of its purchasing power as Britain declined, but even in the nineties, two thousand was still enough to feed a family of four for half a year.
The other young man and the girl crowded around, their eyes shining.
"Tom, we have your fists to thank for that."
"Lisa's acting was what made it work!"
"Our Dragon Gang's first job was a complete success!"
Tom laughed triumphantly and pulled out a few notes to split between the two of them.
In the alley, Charlie was the only one left out.
He leaned against the cold brick wall, hands in his pockets, watching them divide the money without a word.
"What about my share?"
Charlie spoke calmly.
The whole thing had been his idea, and they'd agreed from the start to split the blackmail money evenly.
But judging by their faces now, they had no intention of keeping their promise.
The laughter in the alley abruptly stopped.
Tom turned to look at Charlie with surprise, as if he were watching a little brother who didn't know any better.
"What share?"
He stuffed the money into his jacket and patted it, as if it were only natural.
"What does a kid need that much money for? I'll treat you to McDonald's sometime."
The other young man chimed in.
"Exactly, Charlie. You're still a kid. We'll hold onto the money for you!"
They all thought Charlie was just a kid who'd come up with the idea.
It was a good plan, sure, but they were the ones who'd done the real work.
They'd beaten the man, acted out the scene, and taken the risks.
Give a kid a big pile of money?
What a joke.
Charlie didn't smile. The corners of his mouth didn't even twitch.
His dark eyes had lost their usual lazy playfulness. All that remained was a coldness so deep it seemed bottomless.
"I'll say it one more time."
Charlie's voice wasn't loud, but every one of them heard him clearly.
"My share of the money."
"Give it to me."
A new story begins~
The zombies stole your brains and stashed them with me.
Leave a comment to get your brains back.
Just leave one. Don't make me get down on my knees and beg you. /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~
Before you continue