You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 210 The Regular Operation of Lamb Stalls (5k)

Leon pushed open the heavy door of the Ford Explorer, stepping out of the car in his gray waterproof jacket and tactical boots stained with mud from the chemical plant.

As soon as he got off the bus, his gaze swept past the dilapidated metal of the dining car and immediately fell upon the Middle Eastern orphan huddled in a corner, frantically stuffing vomit mixed with stomach acid into his mouth.

Beside them stood Ray, a 1.9-meter-tall Black veteran, and Alex. The two men were frozen in place like two wooden stakes, completely at a loss.

Upon hearing the screech of brakes, Ray immediately turned around and saw Leon. A look of relief flashed across his tense Black face as he quickly walked towards Leon.

"Boss————"

Lei lowered his voice and reported to the leader at a rapid pace: "This child hasn't eaten for too long and just suffered some kind of shock."

"We dare not forcibly take the bowl from his hand now. If we do, I'm worried he'll bite off his own tongue."

Alex stood by the back door of the food cart, frantically rubbing his hands on his greasy apron. "Damn it, if this kid keeps eating like this, he'll have a massive stomach hemorrhage, and even a miracle won't save him!"

Lyon's brows were furrowed tightly above his mask.

He was in a hurry; in the back seat of the Ford Explorer lay a Pfizer researcher whose leg had been pierced by a coyote and who could die at any moment from blood loss and infection.

Then, Lyon glanced again at the child who was crying and stuffing food into his mouth, and a strong feeling of nausea rose in his stomach, deepening his disgust for the country.

But unlike Ray, he wasn't at a loss because of shared suffering, nor did he panic like Alex when faced with the suffering of the living.

Leon didn't stop, he walked right past Ray and strode towards the corner that reeked of stench.

"Boss, you can't—"

Ray instinctively tried to reach out and stop him, but he couldn't keep up with Leon's speed at all.

Before the child's bloodshot eyes could even catch his movement, Leon had already silently circled around to his side and behind.

The scenes in movies where a single chop to the back of the neck can instantly knock someone out peacefully are pure nonsense.

In practical applications, attempting to instantly render someone unconscious by striking their neck with a blunt object will most likely result in a broken cervical vertebra leading to high-level paraplegia, or it may simply be ineffective.

The truly effective and precisely controllable physical method of power cut-off is to cut off the blood supply to the brain.

Leon knelt down on one knee, instantly locking the child's flailing shoulder with his left hand, while his right arm passed through the child's jaw from behind, the radius of his forearm and the biceps of his upper arm firmly locking the carotid sinuses on both sides of his neck.

This is a standard rear naked choke position, but Leon deliberately held back his strength.

Just three seconds.

The orphan who had just been frantically stuffing rotten meat into his mouth suddenly rolled his eyes upward, revealing large areas of white in his eyes.

As blood flow to his brain was instantly cut off, his tense body immediately went limp and collapsed, and the plastic bowl he had been desperately protecting slipped out of his arms.

Leon released his right arm and grabbed the back of the child's hoodie before the child plunged headfirst into the sour, vomit. If he hadn't caught him, the child probably would have drowned in the bowl.

He picked up the emaciated orphan with one hand, turned around and placed him on a relatively clean, dry brick ground two meters away, letting him lie down and resume breathing.

Alex stood there, his mouth slightly open.

Imam Hassan had just run out of the mosque's side door with a towel soaked in warm water when he witnessed Lyon's fluid and efficient movements, which resembled those of a professional assassin. He nearly dropped the towel.

"Holy crap—"

Alex swallowed hard and stammered as he pointed at the motionless child on the ground.

"You—did you strangle this child to death?"

Leon stood up, expressionless, and flicked the few drops of acid off his black tactical gloves.

"It's just a temporary cerebral ischemia-induced syncope caused by carotid sinus compression. He'll wake up on his own after a while, gasping for breath."

Through his medical mask, Leon glanced at Alex and Ray with a look of utter helplessness, as if they were looking at idiots.

"Since you know that if you let him keep eating like that, his esophagus and stomach will eventually tear, are you three grown men just going to stand by and watch him stuff himself to death, and then chant sutras for his funeral?"

Alex opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word.

Hassan held the warm towel, silently watching the child on the ground whose chest had begun to rise and fall evenly. He had to admit that this brutal method was indeed the only way at the time.

Then, Leon looked at the child on the ground and sighed through his black medical mask.

This messed-up world.

He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Alex and Hassan.

"Now that we've already saved this person, let's go all the way and save them completely."

Lyon gestured with his chin toward the child on the ground.

"Once he wakes up, we'll keep him at the stall as a dishwasher and odd job."

"Let him eat three meals a day, at least so he doesn't have to go out on the street to fight for food with drug addicts and stray dogs."

Hassan Imam followed Lyon's gaze and looked at the child on the ground.

The religious leader, who was in his fifties, remained silent for a few seconds, then nodded slightly as if relieved.

"There is a storage room in the backyard of the mosque that is usually used to store miscellaneous items. It is relatively dry and sheltered from the wind."

Hassan's voice was calm. "I can have someone clean it up and make a makeshift bed for the child."

"As for food—God will not be stingy with a morsel of food for a working child."

"Okay, let this kid work for me—"

Alex quickly raised his hand in agreement. He felt heartbroken just looking at the child and would be happy to have a place to settle down.

Using this as a starting point, Lyon steered the conversation toward the future operation of the stall.

He needed to provide Ray with a long-term, reasonable cover base, while also addressing the issue that Alex, as an international student, couldn't spend his days on the street making mutton soup.

"Your little bit of extra money from collecting corpses isn't enough to cover the cost of giving out free meals every day."

Leon looked at Alex. "See if we can change the rules."

"Apart from the scheduled free charitable relief activities every Wednesday and Sunday, the trailer food truck is displayed with a proper sign the rest of the time."

Lyon was making arrangements methodically, "to run it as a normally profitable, affordable halal lamb shop."

"We sell to low-level construction workers in the western district and passing truck drivers."

Lyon paused for a moment, then pointed to Ray and the child on the ground: "You're a student, you can't stay here watching the stall every day. Hire Ray and this child to keep an eye on things here. We'll see if we need to add some other people later."

"As for the money earned, we will try our best to cover the cost of food and their wages for charity work. Being able to be self-sufficient is a great success."

Alex was taken aback when he heard that the business model was to be changed to a semi-business model.

He originally just wanted to give away the dirty money he earned out of sheer enthusiasm to put his mind at ease, but after a moment's thought, he immediately realized that this was indeed the long-term solution to keep the business running.

Hassan Imam was still clutching the unused warm towel in his hand, and he hesitated for a moment.

But Hassan's perception of the actions of the burly white man who claimed to be an atheist was more in line with his own imagination: a lost soul who was utterly disillusioned with the hypocritical white society and was practicing goodwill in his own cold way.

There seems to be no need to oppose such a person. Letting go a bit might help him convert to Islam in the future.

"I agree."

Hassan nodded solemnly, his gaze towards Lyon now filled with more respect.

"This gradual approach helps people in the community more effectively than a one-time donation, and it is more in line with the true teachings of Zakat."

"If this food truck is left empty except on Wednesdays and weekends, it is indeed a waste of God's gift."

After quickly finalizing the long-term plan for the stall, Lyon didn't waste a single second.

He abruptly turned to look at Alex, stretched out his right hand, which was gloved with black tactical gloves, grabbed the strap of Alex's greasy apron that was printed with "America's Best Dad," and dragged the fat man directly toward the Ford Explorer.

"Hey! Where are you going? Tell me!"

Alex was pulled and stumbled, clutching his apron with a bewildered expression.

"Didn't you say you were looking for someone nearby? Where is that person?"

"Found it."

Leon kept walking, his grip tightening with astonishing force, and whispered to Alex, "Now hurry up and come with me."

Alex was even more confused. "Go there for?"

"Go save them."

Leon yanked open the passenger door of the Ford Explorer, roughly shoved Alex inside, and uttered a sentence before closing the door.

"If you dawdle for another two minutes, my previous job wouldn't have been about finding someone, but about going directly to get the goods for you."

When Alex heard about the delivery, his mind went blank for a moment, and he immediately shut his mouth and frantically tried to pull on his seatbelt.

Leon closed the car door and turned to look at Ray, who had been waiting beside him.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out four crumpled hundred-dollar bills, and slapped them directly into Ray's hand.

"I said before that wages would be paid daily."

Lyon spoke very quickly, "This is your workload for the next few days. I might not be able to look after things here for the next few days. You should first clean up the mess here and settle the child down."

Lyon turned around and opened the driver's side door. As he leaned half his body into the car, he paused as if he had remembered something.

"As for your room and board here, just pay these few hundred yuan upfront, write it down, and come to me for reimbursement later."

After saying that, Leon got into the car and slammed the door shut.

The Ford Explorer's engine roared, its tires scraping through the gravel-strewn ground, leaving a puff of blue smoke, before it drove away from 10th Street.

Lei stood there, clutching the four hundred dollars tightly in his hand.

He glanced down at the banknotes, then looked up at the car that had disappeared around the street corner, and finally fixed his gaze on the Middle Eastern orphan on the ground, whose breathing had completely calmed down and who even seemed to be waking up.

Ray's wary and suspicious heart, hardened by PTSD and his life on the streets, was surprisingly calm at this moment.

He still doesn't know who this boss who calls himself "RayFong" is, why he covers his face so tightly, or what he's whispering to that fat man in such a secret way, or what he's going to do next.

But Ray didn't care.

He watched as the man rescued a stressed-out child and, with just a few words, helped the child and himself earn a living.

Ray carefully folded the four hundred dollars and tucked it into the innermost pocket of his work jacket.

Then, he took a deep breath, straightened his back, and strode towards the orphan who was still lying on the ground, intending to settle the child down as instructed by the boss.

After the Ford Explorer left the mosque on 10th Street, it didn't speed away as Alex had expected.

Lyon drove just two blocks out of the sight of the homeless crowd, then skillfully turned the steering wheel and steered the car into a secluded alley filled with discarded cardboard boxes and industrial waste, before slamming on the brakes.

The car stalled.

"Go check the back seat."

Lyon took off his slightly dusty black baseball cap and tossed it onto the dial.

"This is a Pfizer researcher, most likely working on gene editing. He's a new recruit I've poached. Let's see how well you can treat the injury on his leg."

Alex was still reeling from being forcibly dragged into the car when he heard this, and he paused in unbuckling his seatbelt.

a bit.

"A Pfizer researcher? Injured leg?"

Alex muttered to himself as he turned halfway around in the passenger seat, peering into the back seat.

When he saw the withered old man's bloodied and mangled calves, the doubt on his face instantly turned into deep speechlessness.

That was no simple injury. The wild animal's teeth not only tore through the muscle fibers, but also severed some blood vessels in the process. The soft tissue at the edge of the wound had turned a grayish-white color due to ischemia, mixed with dirt and grime of unknown composition.

"Holy crap—"

Alex stared at the wound for about ten seconds, then slowly retreated to the passenger seat.

He reached up and scratched his messy hair, looking at Leon with an expression as if he were looking at a lunatic.

"Dude, what are you thinking? You think I can handle this?"

"Do you have some misunderstanding about my profession?"

"I'm a body collector, and I also work part-time as a forensic assistant."

"When I deal with this kind of human structure, I use a chainsaw and a fire axe. My main job is to cut them into easy-to-pack pieces, rather than sewing them up like embroidery."

Leon leaned back in the driver's seat, his brow furrowed slightly. "Aren't you a biology student? You don't know anything about this?"

"I studied biology, not some god-like figure with a magic paintbrush!"

Alex sighed.

"Do you want me to just rip that old man's rotten leg off at the root? One cut and he might be going to meet God."

Lyon tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel and remained silent for a few seconds.

He knew Alex was telling the truth.

"Really can't handle it?" Leon turned his head, trying to make a last-ditch effort. "The old man's identity is too sensitive; it's not good to send him to a regular hospital."

"I can't handle this; it's way beyond my capabilities."

Alex shook his head, firmly rejecting this crossover attempt.

"This is a deep animal bite, full of necrotic tissue and bacteria. I don't even know where to insert the cleaning knife; if I force it, he will definitely die of sepsis."

Seeing Leon's troubled expression, Alex stroked his chin. "Then let's go find a quack doctor."

"Surely there are surgeons in Seattle who specialize in removing bullets from gangsters without asking for identification or social security cards, right?"

"You're a policeman, you should know a few skilled people."

"I do know a few."

Lyon stopped tapping, still looking somewhat troubled.

"In the basement of the meatpacking plant on Seventh Avenue in the West Side, there's a guy nicknamed 'Scalpel.' His skills are truly remarkable; his suturing technique surpasses that of many attending physicians in major hospitals."

"Then that settles it?"

Alex spread his hands. "Drive over there, throw the money down, and tell him to hurry up and sew it up."

"It's not easy to handle either."

"That guy is too deeply involved with the local gangs."

"Although he doesn't ask where people come from, he also doesn't have the habit of keeping secrets. In addition, there are more informants from various gangs there than in the police dispatch center."

"If I walk in with a badly injured old white man, half an hour later, half the gang leaders in Seattle will know that I have a valuable hostage."

"I don't want to cause another shootout to save him. It's not that I'm afraid of gunfights, but I'm afraid I won't be able to explain why I saved him."

A brief silence fell over the carriage.

The old man's breathing became increasingly weak, a sign of impending shock due to excessive blood loss.

Just as Lyon was contemplating whether to take the risk of kidnapping a qualified surgeon from another neighborhood to perform the operation, a scene suddenly flashed through his mind.

That was a place he and Alex had visited some time ago in search of Arthur Pendleton.

"I remember you mentioned it to me before."

Leon suddenly turned to look at Alex, "That Pastor Thomas from St. Jude Church, who specializes in sheltering seriously ill homeless people—"

"Wasn't his main job a full-time surgeon? Or was he some kind of doctor who switched careers later in life?"

Alex paused for a moment, then quickly searched his memory.

"Yes—I did it."

Alex nodded.

He paused, then suddenly realized: "You're planning to take this old man to him?"

"It's better than going to a gangster's basement or having to chop an old man to death with a fire axe."

Lyon made the decision immediately, restarting the car and stepping on the gas.

"Although the old pastor was poor, he sold corpses and collaborated with pharmaceutical companies in order to provide antibiotics to the homeless."

"It seems that he only cares about his church and the homeless, and has nothing to do with the drug gangs on the street."

The Ford Explorer's engine roared again, and it shot out of the hidden alley, speeding towards the dilapidated St. Jude Church on the outskirts of Seattle.

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