Shadow Empire

Chapter 155 Robbery, Bad News, and Selling Stolen Goods

The doorbell rang, and the boss behind the counter said without even looking up, "If you plan to buy something, then welcome."

"If you're here to rob, I can only say you're late."

After saying these words, he looked up at the person who walked in from the door.

Five young men, wearing hoods, hiding themselves in their hoods.

"Shit!" he cursed, "If you were planning on robbing, like I said, you're late."

This might be the first time for the five young men to encounter such a thing. One of them stood at the door, and the other four entered the store.

The shop is not big, but not small either, about 30 square meters, with many small commodities displayed, but nothing expensive.

They were all very common everyday items, such as candy, stationery, pencils, some snacks, seasonings, a small amount of clothes, and daily necessities.

The two men walked up to the counter, and one of the young men took out a half-foot-long dagger from his pocket and motioned for him to take out the cash box. "I don't want to hurt you."

The boss cursed but still took out the cash box, with only a handful of coins left in it.

The young man's face showed obvious dissatisfaction, "Where's the money?"

The boss continued to explain patiently, "Someone came here fifty minutes ago. You are late, and you are the third group..."

This time it was the young man's turn to curse, "Fuck!" He took a look at the coins in the money box. Most of them were one or two cents. Those of five cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents and above, including banknotes, had all been taken away.

Isn't the purpose of Taman robbing a store, risking being caught, just to get some money?
As a result, the young man was not paid for his work but had to bear the risk, which made him very dissatisfied.

He placed the dagger on the counter and reached out to grab the coins in the money box. As he did so, he said, "Go get something valuable..."

The store owner was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and then he shouted, "Hey, you guys have already robbed me, and I didn't call the police, but now I say, enough is enough!"

Several young men suddenly looked at him, and he mustered up his courage and said, "I've been robbed seven times in three fucking days. That's enough, I say!"

"I don't care what gang you're from, I never called the police once, but now, enough is enough, stop taking my stuff, I can still sell it for some money."

There was anger hidden in his tone.

My change was stolen, and although I felt sad, the pain was limited.

The total amount of change that was stolen was only twenty or thirty yuan. Although it was indeed a lot, some of the goods in the store were no worse than the stolen ones in terms of cost or profit.

For example, some spices can be as cheap as 20 to 30 cents a pound, or as expensive as a few dollars or even more than 10 dollars a pound. Although there are many poor people in the Imperial District, it does not mean that no one consumes these.

They may only consume once a month or once every three months, but as long as there is consumption, it means there is a market and profit.

If they all take it away, the loss will be more than just a small amount of money.

There are also a small number of high-value daily necessities, which also cost tens of cents each, and they can put a lot of them in their pockets!
The young man who was putting coins into his pocket grabbed the dagger on the counter and gestured to him, "If you don't want to get hurt, you'd better keep your mouth shut."

The boss retreated and raised his hands, "I don't mean anything else. You guys take some food and drinks, then leave and try your luck somewhere else. I've had enough bad luck already."

The young man who was packing the coins looked at him deeply, ignored him, put the dagger back on the counter, and continued to pack the coins.

These coins were not easy to hold, not because his pockets were not big enough, but because when he grabbed the coins, some of them slipped out from his fingertips.

At the same time, some of them would stick to the bottom or side of the money box, making them inconvenient to grab, forcing him to use both hands in the end.

Although they are all one-cent and two-cent coins, there are also some five-cent coins. Such a small box contains at least three or four dollars.

Three or four dollars, is that not money?

At the same time, the two young men looked at the low-value goods on the shelves with some annoyance.

One of the young men picked up a bag of hanging snacks, tore it open, took out a snack, put it in his mouth and started chewing.

It's a bit hard, but after soaking this hard thing with saliva, you can scrape off some soft "meat" from it with your teeth, and the taste is okay.

Most importantly, he thought it tasted good, had a very special fragrance, and was very sweet.

He looked down and shared the food in his hand with his friend. Sharing is a positive spirit and he was happy to share. "It tastes good. Would you like some?"

His companion looked at him with a very strange look, then bent down and picked up the part of the packaging bag that he had torn off, "It says pet food..."

"Shit!" He quickly spat out what was in his mouth and threw the thing in his hand to the ground. The thumb-sized biscuits scattered everywhere with a splash.

He snatched the package from his companion's hand and took a look at it - sweet potato bone and meat paste teething sticks.

"Fuck!" he cursed loudly, looking at his other companions laughing unscrupulously. Even the young man who was counting coins couldn't help but turn back and laugh at him. He kicked the container!
This kind of small street shop does not have a large store area, but it needs to carry many categories of products. Only in this way can it attract enough business. This may be the earliest "one-stop shopping".

So the shelves are full of goods, and there is not much space between the shelves.

When one shelf tilted and fell, hitting another shelf, although the other shelf was not affected and fell, many products were damaged in the collision and fell to the ground.

Looking at the containers that were tilted on the ground, as well as the things that had fallen down and might have been broken, the boss's eyes became a little dark.

He can't stand these young people!

"That's enough...get what you need and get the hell out of my store!"

Another young man standing at the counter opened a bottle of soda and poured the soda in his hand toward the boss. "It seems that you haven't figured out the situation yet, Mr. Boss."

Several eyes turned to him, and the boss finally calmed down a little, "You just want to take some things away, there's no need to mess up my place, I've already cooperated."

Just when they were about to continue talking, a young man suddenly shouted, "Hey, look what I found!"

He stood at the other end of the shop, holding up a small sack in his hand. The others looked at him. It was a bag of spices.

"These are spices. My mother puts them in when she cooks meat. She told me that these are not cheap. They cost two or three dollars a pound!"

"There's at least a dozen pounds here, probably more!"

The boss's patience had reached its limit. He glanced at the dagger on the counter, and out of the corner of his eye he seemed to notice that the young man who had just thrown soda at him was looking at him.

He raised his head and looked towards the young man. Yes, the other party was looking at him and had seen his previous actions.

The two men's eyes exchanged briefly in the air, and then they looked at the dagger on the counter at the same time.

The young man made a clear movement to lower his center of gravity, and the boss got closer to the dagger.

He snatched the dagger and held it in his hands, "I don't want to hurt anyone, now from my shop..."

The young man who was drinking the drink pulled out a McGrath self-defense revolver from his pocket and shot the boss.

The gunshots caused pedestrians on the sidewalk to scream and run away after a brief moment of shock.

In the shop, the boss looked down at the wound on his waist and abdomen which began to bleed. He didn't even feel the slightest pain at this moment!
He instinctively covered his wound, took two steps back and leaned against the wall. His eyes seemed to suddenly become empty and he slid down the wall.

He began to breathe heavily, and it seemed that everything around him could no longer affect him!

The young man who was packing the money suddenly came to his senses. He grabbed his companion's hand holding the gun and roared in shock, "Are you crazy?"

"You're going to kill us!"

"We are only here to rob. If he dies, we will all be wanted."

The young people with guns also felt some regret and fear. Most young people are like this. They will make impulsive actions without thinking at some point, and then regret what they have done.

But he also had his own reasons, "He stole your dagger, and I was afraid he would hurt you."

The two looked at each other for a moment, the young man who took the money glanced at the boss, glared at him fiercely, and then jumped into the counter. Seeing the boss sitting there like he had lost his soul, he was at a loss and wanted to do something to save this damn situation, but he didn't know what to do. He could only stand there for a few seconds, picked up the dagger on the ground and jumped out again.

He glanced at the other young men who were standing there stupidly, and shouted, "Take the valuable spices you mentioned, and we'll leave right away!"

The people on the sidewalk didn't know what was going on, and some of them looked over here curiously.

The boss is an old immigrant who has been running this small shop here for more than 30 years and is considered a well-known figure on the entire street.

He is a nice guy, with the characteristics of an imperial immigrant. He rarely argues with others and often takes the initiative to give in when encountering trouble.

This gives him a good harmless image, and people like to associate with harmless people because they know they will not be stabbed suddenly by an honest person.

Now something had obviously happened in his store, and some of the people who were on good terms with him were a little worried.

Just when they were confused about what was going on and were trying to figure out what was happening, five young men suddenly rushed out of the store.

They were all holding burlap bags of different sizes in their hands. When one of them ran out, he used so much force that his leather shoes broke.

His foot slipped out of the hole in the explosive line, causing him to lose his balance and fall.

The bag in his hand fell to the ground, and a handful of spices spilled out. He was about to put the spices back, but his companion grabbed him and told him to hurry up.

It was during this process that his hood was lifted up, allowing some people to see his appearance.

Someone in the crowd recognized him. The Imperial District sounds big, but it is actually not that big.

According to official statistics which may not be correct, the entire imperial zone has a population of approximately 150,000 people, of which 130,000 are imperial people, and there are 20,000 federal people or immigrants from other places.

Having such a large population does not mean that there are so many families. In fact, if we assume that at least two people form a family, then there are only 75,000 families in the Imperial District at most.

But it is obviously impossible for there to be so many families here. Many families have more than two people, like Mr. Burton's family. He is divorced from his wife and there are still three people in the family.

Some families have three generations living together, which means five, six or even seven or eight people.

Therefore, there are more than 100,000 people in the Empire Region. If we take "families" as the unit, there are only more than 30,000 families.

In this not very spacious area, almost everyone knows each other.

The five young men left quickly. Someone curiously entered the store and saw the boss sitting against the wall with a large pool of blood on his face...

Seven or eight minutes later, the boss was sent to the ambulance. He was lucky enough to at least survive.

But his luck was not very good, and medical expenses became new bad news for him after he was shot.

Before pushing him into the emergency room, the doctor specifically asked him whether he had the ability to pay.

If so, they will do their best to rescue the patient, because every rescue method, every doctor and nurse involved will add some weight to the final bill.

Even if the nurses or doctors who go in just stand by and stare blankly, they will receive a "rescue subsidy", and this subsidy is obviously not given to them by the hospital.

But if he doesn't have the ability to pay, then it may end up being "regrettable".

After three hours of rescue, he survived, but two-thirds of his liver was removed and he owed the hospital more than three thousand yuan.

After deducting his insurance.

At around ten o'clock in the evening, a young man came to a door on the roadside with a cigarette in his mouth. He looked around and saw that no one was following him, so he opened the door and walked in.

It was a small house with only one room, two beds and four young people.

When they saw the young man, they felt relieved but also a little nervous.

The young man who fired the gun during the day asked nervously, "Did you save him?"

The young man who robbed the money nodded and said, "He's been rescued. He's not dead."

The other four breathed a sigh of relief.

This good news allowed them to have a good sleep tonight, and they slept until almost noon the next day.

After they woke up, they thought of cashing in these spices. After discussion, someone suggested that he knew an antique shop that would buy these spices.

In the federation, antique shops are roughly synonymous with "second-hand goods recycling shops" and "stolen goods sales points". Here they will not ask where your things come from, but will only give you an outrageously low price.

Their purpose is to sell it if you want, and of course their reasons are very sufficient - if you can produce the proof of your purchase of the item and sign a sales agreement with me, promising that you will bear all possible losses and all legal responsibilities.

Then, they can offer a slightly higher price.

But who the hell would keep those things and sign a document like this?
For some people who are eager to sell stolen goods, this seems to be one of the few places where they don't care whether the things in their hands are clean or not.

As the five young men entered the door, they heard the sound of weapons being loaded.

The boss wearing a flowery headscarf stood behind the counter. On the counter was a rifle that they didn't quite recognize. The boss's hand was holding the connection between the butt and the gun body.

He could raise it and shoot at any time and anywhere. Even so, he still looked at them with vigilance and caution on his face, and introduced the weapon in his hand to them in the tone of introducing a product.

"Stuart deer rifle, with built-in ammunition feeding mechanism. Someone who is skilled in this thing can fire three shots per second."

“And I happen to be someone who is familiar with it.”

"Here's a loaded deer rifle, but there's only five of you."

The young men finally understood what the boss meant, although they did not have any plans to rob the antique shop.

This is actually a very interesting thing, especially in the federation.

Many people would rob roadside shops or even pedestrians, and then take the stolen items to antique shops to cash in. So why don't they just rob antique shops from the beginning?

This may be another unsolved mystery!
They slowly raised their hands, and the young man standing in the front swallowed and said, "Sir, we are here to sell something."

The old man glanced at them, thinking about some rumors that spread in the Empire District last night and some things that happened this morning, and he raised his chin.

"Let your people leave, and you stay with the things you want to sell. This is the rule here. I don't receive a group of people at the same time."

The young man thought about it and agreed.

Then a dozen burlap bags were placed on the counter, and the strong smell of spices filled the entire room.

The boss with the flowered turban fanned away the floating spice dust with his hands and coughed while inspecting the things.

"How much are they worth?" the young man asked uneasily.

The boss with the flowered headscarf looked at these things and knew that they were the things that were stolen yesterday. He said calmly, "I need to check. I'm old and can't remember the prices of these goods. They are written in a notebook of mine."

"But I estimated that there are about twenty pounds here, so it's worth at least fifty dollars."

The young man smiled, "So what are you waiting for?"

The owner of the flowered headscarf smiled meaningfully, "Wait a moment, I'll go check out their prices..."

He went back with the gun in hand. He was not too afraid that the things in the store would be taken away by these guys. Those were all counterfeits and worthless.

Nothing valuable is in the front.

He came to the back, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

After the call was connected, he said to the other end of the phone, "The people who beat up the grocery store owner yesterday are selling the stolen goods in my store..."

(End of this chapter)