“I don’t know what you’re doing in your industry, but I’m telling you: it doesn’t matter what you do in the day, not even if you harvest garbage and sh*t,” said Sheriff Willis.
Pointing to his brain, he continued, “As long as you take a few mouthfuls of Galaxy X, you’ll be the world’s greatest treasure collectors. Megan Fox, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart, all would kneel down for you. You’ll find Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jim Walton are the guys you’re talking to.”
Listening to his introduction, Li Du suddenly had an idea and said, “So strong? Will it be possible to do business with the Tussenberg family ?”
Sheriff Willis froze and asked, “The Tussenberg? Who?”
Bell looked surprised. “Are you talking about the Tussenberg family in Boston?”
Li Du nodded. “Do you know?”
Steve’s identity had never been clear to him. He’d searched the Internet for information about the Tussenberg family and found some families associated with the surname, but they had little power.
Clearly, what he found was not right, and with what he knew about Steve and Elson, the Tussenberg family comprised a terrifying behemoth.
It was strange that the United States did not impose strict censorship on the Internet, where people could voice their opinions.
“I happen to know they’re an old Boston family that has been around since the revolutionary war,” Bell said. “But now that they have very few children, and they are generally engaged in shipping in Boston.”
Li Du recalled that the information he found seemed to contain such references, but he had ignored them.
Even the most formidable man was only a mate of the ship—if their power were all added together they would not even equal one-tenth of Elson.
So Bell’s words did not help him, and Steve’s doubts remained in his mind.
It didn’t take long for the police to seal off the road. This time they raided the factory that was looking for Galaxy X and left immediately after the harvest.
Galaxy X was a synthetic product, and the police and hospital hadn’t yet worked out its pathogenic ingredients, so they needed to go to the manufacturing workshop to find out.
The police withdrew and the convoy moved on.
They went into the slums, and then stopped in front of what looked like a bankrupt factory.
On the grounds stood a large sign which read: “Do you dare to seize opportunity, follow your dreams, take risks, be in love, believe in yourself, ask questions, let go, make mistakes, start over, tell the truth, be responsible, find happiness, live in the moment?
The sign itself was blurry, not because of the wind or the rain—someone had rubbed on it a mess that, judging by its color and smell, was excrement.
In addition, there was damage to the sign. Brother Wolf took one glance to determine what it was and said, “Bullet holes.”
They stopped and, suddenly, out ran many people. There were mostly children and a small number of adults—the adults were mostly in wheelchairs or had crutches. They were disabled.
When they saw Bell, they gave a shout and someone said, “Hey, Chris, you’re here, you’re here, thank god!”
“We thought you’d never come again. The police blocked off the road early this morning. Even a fly couldn’t fly in, ” laughed a black man on crutches.
Bell went up to shake hands with him, and said, “The fly didn’t fly in. Here I am with my treasure collectors. Hi, Byron. What’s up?”
“It’s the same, except for the occasional pain in my legs.” Byron shrugged.
Bell gave him some shopping vouchers and took a box out of the car, and said, “This is what one of my guys found in the warehouse. I’m hoping it will help you.”
Byron opened the case, which contained a pair of gleaming, silver-colored prostheses, which he tapped with his hand to make a ringing sound.
“Cool, you found my legs,” Byron laughed.
He unzipped his pants to reveal two broken limbs inside.
As the men and children gathered around them, Bell beckoned the treasure collectors through the gates, a whole new world before them.
This was an abandoned factory building with a wide workshop, small buildings, as well as basketball courts, badminton courts, and other sports fields.
The grass outside the factory was organized in an orderly way, with clothes and bedding hung in the open area, which was mostly old and could be cleaned very well, completely different from the chaotic slums outside.
A news car drove in. Someone was holding a camera and looking around, and a female reporter smiled, first interviewing Bell, then other treasure collectors and slum dwellers.
Bell, who knew this well, answered quickly and came over to greet Li Du’s gang and his first guests.
Hans said, “You got a reporter? California TV? That’s amazing.”
“I said I’m not going to let people do charity in vain,” Bell laughed.
Li Du was hanging around outside, when a young man said to him, “Dude, don’t leave the castle, don’t go to the empty alley. We don’t want to collect your body.”
Some homeless people, armed with knives and weapons, lived on the streets not far from the factory floor. Their eyes were raw, like a pack of wolves.
The slums were the most heavily policed areas in the United States, and the streets were full of idle people. Li Du had not yet come into contact with this kind of environment, but he could feel it from the clothes and even the eyes of the people here: This was hell.
Salem Harbor streets and buildings were messy, old, dirty, littered with cigarette butts, and the walls were covered in black graffiti with references to genitalia.
As Li Du looked around, he could see there were no clean buildings, no clean and energetic people.
That’s the wealth gap in the United States. He watched Jane’s report. Last year, the richest one percent of Americans earned 22 percent of the income of the country.
Since 2009, 95 percent of all income gains in the United States had gone to the top one percent. The latest census figures showed that the median American income had not changed in almost 25 years!
He was thinking about the reports and saw several more cars coming in, led by a large Mercedes GLS SUV, followed by a series of business cars that looked domineering.
