Being carried onto an ambulance at the start? But this is America!

The afternoon was not spent doing anything trivial; the most important thing was begging and hunting in the slums.

This is what makes a homeless person's identity more fitting, and the more fitting it is, the brighter the words on that identity will shine.

This is something Li Ping figured out during this period of time. He cannot give up the auspicious and inauspicious cards and must distinguish between primary and secondary importance.

If I can't be the boss, I won't be a homeless person!

However, I didn't skimp on food. If the food from the wild wasn't good, I bought my own. Street-side steaks were inexpensive and turned out great.

He kept talking and working, holding that old phone, his fingertips silently swiping across the rapidly refreshing messages in the WordPress group.

"Bridge Hole Cooperation Association Core Group"

"Seventh Street Patrol Team"

"Recycling Point Affairs"

Several groups were bustling like a vegetable market.

He silently peered at the screen, his eyes filtering through each message.

This was the most direct way for him to understand how this fledgling collaboration would work.

How to deal with homeless people who collect cans, how to negotiate prices with recycling station owners, and how to handle the peeping torrents from other neighborhoods.

He had never been exposed to these things before and was a complete novice.

All he can do for now is bring these people together and point them in a general direction.

In the group chat, Devin posted a blurry photo: two guys with unidentified tattoos on their arms loitering on a street corner, captioned "From the north, took a few glances, and left."

Li Fan added, "Devin and I stood there for a while, and then they said we had taken the wrong turn."

The two lucrative locations of White Raven and Holy Shield have indeed attracted a lot of strange and monstrous things.

But with Devon and Li Fan, the two gatekeepers, patrolling with their underlings, they declared that the land belonged to someone else and deterred those who wanted to seize it.

Old Mike tagged everyone in another group: "Found two more old buddies, trustworthy, check them out at the recycling point tomorrow."

Below are brief greetings from the two newly joined veterans.

The efficiency is not low.

Fletcher's messages are the most numerous, interspersed with a lot of street slang and audio.

"We've reached an agreement with the convenience store: eighty dollars a week, same as next month."

"The restaurant owner was a bit long-winded, but she still gave it to me...tsk, the char siu was just so-so."

"I gave Fiery Rose a token amount of one hundred, and I'll keep that amount every week from now on."

He led a few newly recruited henchmen, visiting every shop in his territory in a seemingly professional manner, partly to inform them of their activities and partly to collect money.

Li Ping watched, his finger hovering above the screen several times, but he held back.

He didn't speak or offer any guidance.

Giving orders without understanding is a major taboo.

This feeling of being able to roughly grasp the dynamics of all parties even through a screen is somewhat unfamiliar, yet carries a strange sense of control.

Now I understand why bosses in my past lives liked to pontificate and express their opinions in group chats.

In the evening, the orange-red sunset, like spilled paint, splashed onto the broken brick wall in the backyard of the corner store.

Light squeezed in through the gaps between the piles of cardboard boxes, cutting long and short stripes of light on the cement floor.

The air was filled with dust, damp cardboard, and the smell of a cheap cigarette that Fletcher had just stubbed out.

Li Ping sat on an overturned plastic bucket, with a small table in front of him and a notebook on it. He held a ballpoint pen in his hand, twirling it unconsciously.

The five core members surrounded him: Fletcher, Devin, Mike Sr., Franklin, and Li Fan.

The men all wore the excitement of a long day's work, their eyes sparkling, glancing every now and then at the papers in Li Ping's hand, like gamblers waiting for the dealer to reveal the winning hand.

"I'll go first."

Old Mike cleared his throat, pulled a roll of banknotes tied with a rubber band from the inside pocket of his old military jacket, and slammed it onto the empty space on the table.

The banknotes were crumpled and contained a mix of denominations.

"At the two recycling points, the total amount collected today is 280."

He tapped the roll of money with his rough fingers. "Those scavengers heard that the manager had changed, so they didn't dare to say a word."

The two owners at the recycling center were shrewd; they offered a reasonable price.

The money at the recycling point is like a leaky faucet—small, but it comes every day.

The rules on the street are simple: whoever occupies the space calls the shots.

"It's my turn."

Li Fan pulled a handful of banknotes and coins from the bulging pockets of his work pants and piled them up with a clatter.

"The trash from the back alley is sold for 313."

He scratched his head. "Oh right, I also found a pair of Apple earphones. They didn't look broken. I put them on Franklin's counter. I guess I can sell some of them."

Franklin quickly responded, turned around and pulled an old biscuit tin from under the counter, opened it, and found a few neatly stacked banknotes inside.

"Today is Sunday, so we sold a lot of goods, totaling 1,150 yuan."

He carefully pulled out the top three crisp hundred-dollar bills and placed them separately in front of Li Ping. "Also, the bread machine you consigned is sold, boss. Three hundred."

Mike glanced at the piles of money, which seemed to be the least of his, and clicked his tongue: "I just took over today. I was new to things this morning. I should be able to get 350 by tomorrow."

Also, we've arranged with the recycling center that from now on, if they see any appliances that look repairable, we'll pick them first and buy them at scrap value, so Old Tom can tinker with them.

Li Ping nodded without saying a word, and quickly jotted down a few numbers on the paper with his pen.

Finally, my gaze turned to Fletcher.

Fletcher grinned, his smile carrying a touch of the slickness typical of dealing with people on the street.

He pulled a slightly bulging envelope from the inside pocket of his brightly colored shirt, reached in with two fingers, and pulled out a small stack of bills, mostly twenty dollars, mixed with quite a few ten and five dollars.

"This week's street cleaning management fee, boss."

He placed the money on the cardboard box and pushed it closer. "Thirteen small shops and five medium-sized shops, totaling one thousand five hundred."

He shrugged. "This is the level of the bars on these two streets. The only decent one is the Fiery Rose Bar... They give us a hundred a week and even give us the garbage bags in the back alley. We're already being generous."

Li Ping's pen never stops.

A store makes a weekly bill of over 80 yuan, which is about 10 yuan a day. In this area, that's not expensive, and it's even considered cheap.

He took the three hundred yuan from the bread machine and put it in his pocket.

Private accounts are private accounts.

Then, he began to mentally calculate the numbers on the paper.

The recycling point plus the back alley brings in nearly 600 yuan in gross income per day.

Once things stabilized, the monthly revenue started to approach 20,000.

But this is labor-intensive: the recycling point needs four strong laborers to keep an eye on it, and the back alley also needs four people to clean it.

With eight people, even if each person is only paid 1,500 yuan per month, the expenditure would still be 12,000 yuan.

The amount that ended up in the association's public accounts was approximately eight thousand.

Franklin's shop has impressive sales figures, but with only a 20% profit margin, he only earns a little over two hundred dollars during peak weekend hours.

Normally, a net profit of four thousand a month is considered a blessing, and we still have to rely on selling secondhand goods to keep things afloat.

Finally, there's the management fee, which is consistently around six thousand per month.

The outline on the paper gradually became clear.

Based on a monthly salary of 1,500 yuan per person, these relatively fixed incomes are just enough to support a team of 15 or 16 people.

Why calculate based on 1,500? That's roughly the same monthly income for both illegal work and low-level jobs.

To hold onto the existing territory, eight people are the basic requirement, with the remaining eight people rotating.

"If it were us, well, we could also pick some leaves."

Fletcher couldn't help but lick his lips, his eyes shining. "That would mean a huge increase in income..."

"I won't touch it."

Without even looking up, Li Ping said firmly, "Getting involved with that stuff is dangerous, dirty, and has no future."

He put down his pen, looked at Fletcher, and asked, "Three hundred a week, what kind of status do you get on the street?"

"That's incredible!"

Fletcher blurted out, "Back in the Shield's day, this was about the number of mid-level fighters we had. Regular henchmen would fight tooth and nail for a hundred dollars a week!"

He thought that Li Ping was going to give everyone this salary, which was good, promising, and a good start.

"OK,"

Li Ping continued, "Then the people we hire today will have a base salary of 250 per week."

The courtyard fell silent for a moment; it wasn't them, but rather the many underlings they had taken in.

"Two hundred and fifty a week?!"

Fletcher nearly jumped up, his voice trembling, "Boss, two hundred a week? They'd be laughing in their sleep! One hundred dollars is enough to get them to work obediently!"

"Fletcher,"

Li Ping looked at him, his eyes calm but serious, "You have to give to receive. We are a cooperative association, not a gang that just wants to make a quick buck and leave."

If you want your subordinates to work genuinely and not just loaf around and fight, you have to offer them good compensation. The base salary is 250 yuan a week, and there are extra bonuses at the end of the month if they do a good job.

The goal is to ensure that everyone receives at least 1,500 yuan per month.

This figure is already equivalent to Camilla's main job income.

Devon nodded emphatically, a look of agreement on his honest face.

Old Mike snorted but didn't say anything, though his gaze towards Li Ping held a different quality.

Franklin breathed a sigh of relief; a boss who followed the rules and was willing to share the profits was better than anything else.