C39: Hire
Boom—
The explosion echoed like thunder.
In the face of atrocities erupting just meters away, Mrs. Connie instinctively turned her head, her fingers tightening around her husband's sleeve. She closed her eyes, unable to bear witnessing what she expected would be a blood-soaked scene straight from Gotham's darkest alleys.
But after a few seconds, Mrs. Connie dared to peek.
What she saw was far from what she had imagined.
Someone was injured—but not Li Ran.
Instead, it was the man who had struck first: a towering Black enforcer, a known associate of the Rivals crew, a Harlem gang affiliated with Tombstone's East Coast syndicate.
Inside the Chinese restaurant, Li Ran still sat casually, legs crossed, as if meditating in Kamar-Taj.
On the wall, the man with the aluminum bat, a Lieutenant of the 125th Street crew—slid down slowly, unconscious.
"You messed with the wrong person, kid!"
Another gang member barked. The remaining thugs, all affiliated with Willis Stryker's faction, the Blood Syndicate shared a glance, hesitating. The leader growled and raised his bat, branded with snake scales, toward Li Ran.
Crack.
With a smooth twist of his leg, Li Ran's foot arced like the wind of Kunlun, splintering the incoming bat mid-air. He flowed into a second motion—Jeet Kune Do meets Bajiquan and launched the gang leader flying through the front window, glass shattering across the pavement like confetti on Yancy Street.
One of the thugs pulled a Glock from his waistband, a model favored by Hammer Industries' street dealers and aimed directly at Li Ran.
But before the man could pull the trigger—
Li Ran stomped hard. A golden glimmer shimmered faintly at his ankle, the faint spiritual resonance of Vajra strength echoing from Shaolin scripture. The wooden floor of the restaurant cracked underfoot, spiderwebbing outward.
In a blur, he was in front of the gunman.
A spinning kick struck the pistol, shattering it into springs, screws, and broken polymer. Before the pieces hit the ground, Li Ran's follow-up strike sent the thug tumbling over a table.
As silence settled again, only one gang member remained, frozen in place.
He looked at his fallen crew, then at Li Ran, and made a split-second decision.
"Yo, I got nothin' to do with this, man! I'm not even with them for real. Just came to see what was up, bro!"
Hands raised, he backed out of the restaurant, mumbling apologies as he disappeared down the block, like a low-level goon slipping away from a Luke Cage beatdown.
"…Who are you? Where did you come from?"
Mrs. Connie's voice cracked the quiet as she stepped forward, her eyes wide with shock and awe.
Li Ran turned to face her.
"My name is A Xing," he said calmly. "I come from Penglai… the legendary island beyond the reach of mortals."
[Famousness from Connie +5]
[Famousness from Geith +5]
Indeed, only those steeped in Chinese heritage like the Connies could understand the mythic weight of "Penglai," a realm often whispered about in the same breath as Asgard or Themyscira.
…
Behind the counter, Ji Si, the restaurant's owner, seemed to have just realized something. He rushed to the register, pulled out a thick stack of cash, and handed it to Li Ran.
"Take it."
"…What?"
Li Ran looked down at the money, puzzled.
"I know these people. They're not going to stop. Rattlesnake's crew will send more. Tombstone won't ignore this. You need to leave Harlem. Take the money and go."
Ji Si's worry was etched into every line of his face. He wasn't just scared for Li Ran, he feared what would happen to his restaurant, his wife, his life. Like many small business owners in Harlem, he knew the unspoken rule: stay out of gang matters, especially when names like Cornell Stokes or Mariah Dillard were in play.
It wasn't selfishness, it was survival.
"I understand."
Li Ran didn't judge him. If anything, he respected the honesty. He imagined someone like Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, or even Joe Chill's victims, making the same call.
But he wasn't ordinary.
He wasn't someone who would run just because criminals flexed their muscles.
He gently pushed the money back.
"I'll leave. But I won't take your money. If I did, what makes me any different from the people who just tried to extort you?"
With that, Li Ran stripped off his borrowed server's uniform and placed it neatly on a side table. He nodded toward Mr. and Mrs. Connie, then turned and began walking toward the restaurant's exit.
His job here was done.
After all, he hadn't come to Harlem for work.
"Wait!"
Mrs. Connie's voice rang out again.
She stared at the folded uniform, then at Li Ran's departing silhouette. Something in her shifted, some blend of fear, courage, and gratitude.
With hesitation giving way to resolve, she tapped her husband's arm and stepped forward.
"You don't need to leave, A Xing," she said.
Li Ran paused.
"We want to hire you not as a server, but as security. For the restaurant. For us."
…
Harlem Paradise.
On the second floor of the legendary nightclub, Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes leaned back in his plush chair, eyes narrowed.
"In the barbershop?"
He wasn't amused.
Shamick, a jittery street runner in his late teens, nodded furiously.
"I swear it. The yellow dude in the red undershirt. I saw him getting a cut at Pop's Place this morning."
Pop's Barbershop, a neutral zone. Respected even by Harlem's worst. It had survived the wars between Diamondback, Bushmaster, and even Luke Cage himself. No one bled on Pop's floor.
Cornell sighed. Back when his father, Henry Stokes, ran numbers in the neighborhood, the shop had been a safe haven. A Switzerland of sorts.
"You're sure?" Cornell muttered.
"No doubt," Shamick replied. "I even fought my pops over it."
Cornell leaned back, brooding.
But the moment was shattered as the door slammed open.
"Hey Willis! You ever hear of knocking?" Cornell snapped.
Willis Stryker, known as "Rattlesnake" in certain darker circles, walked in unfazed. His presence reeked of Cobra venom and ambition.
"He hit us again," Willis said flatly. "Same guy. Red undershirt. Hit our boys while they were collecting from the Chinese joint on 130th."
Cornell's mood shifted.
Respect for his father was one thing.
But repeated interference? That was crossing a line.
"…Where this time?"
Willis smirked.
"Connie's Chinese Kitchen."
That name did it. Cornell's frown softened into a cold smile. Not Pop's Barbershop. Not neutral ground.
Perfect.
"Good," he said, walking over to Willis. "Then I don't need to wait anymore. I want that guy alive or dead before sunrise."
He paused, eyes dark as Blackgate's solitary wing.
"And I want him to understand exactly what Harlem is."
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