The Empire's Counterstrike (2)
The puppet show my organization and I put on the world stage was never composed of separate acts that could be divided from one another.
It was far more accurate to see them as organically intertwined, with each performance constantly influencing the next.
In that light, Kowloon Walled City — the Dragon’s Head Gang leader, Hong Xiuquan, was already dead — had to serve my plans as a tool of necessity.
Up until now, I had controlled it indirectly through Wong Chun-ming.
More than half the ordinary residents were always manageable, and the control we exercised was limited to a light form of coercion against those who refused to listen.
The method was simple.
“If you don’t behave, you get no heroine.”
The underworld factions moving within Kowloon Walled City were varied: the triads from mainland China, communist political thugs, anarchists, runaway street kids who simply refused to heed their parents’ words, and so on.
In a crucible of races rather than a melting pot of lower lives, the one thing that had bound them together was the heroine Wong Chun-ming had created.
Even as they lamented their wretched existences, the sight of a faint needle mark on a rival’s arm would spark a strange sense of kinship.
Of course, that kinship meant little more than “that bastard is just as pathetic as I am” and “still, I’m better off than that fool.”
In the short term, Wong Chun-ming’s heroine had proven a sufficient tool to maintain some order in the Walled City.
Long term, however, it changed nothing. Tens of thousands of residents would one day become nothing but addicts, and that was never something I could condone.
I had sworn to one day cleanse this city of sin with fire and sulfur.
To erase the legacy Hong Xiuquan left behind and to fold the city of Hong Kong itself into my organization’s sphere of influence.
The best way was to simply sweep Kowloon Walled City away physically.
Just as the British government had demolished the Walled City on the eve of the handover, I could move the government to do the same.
Fortunately, there was also a convenient justification.
An unprecedented terror that had occurred right in the heart of Hong Kong.
The mere fact that North Korean communists had orchestrated it without a soul noticing — because they had hidden within the shadows of the Walled City to plan — would be more than enough.
Once that foundation was laid, knocking down the Walled City would be truly easy.
How could the British government have done nothing while that den of vice remained?
When national power simply decides, there is almost nothing it cannot achieve. The only question was whether the calculation would be worth it — and nothing more.
Fortunately, I possessed far more than enough daring to carry out policies without being weighed down by calculations or self-interest.
Of course, releasing thousands of heroin addicts directly into Hong Kong society was something to be approached with extreme caution.
I had not been blind to that. Before anything else, syndicate members had disguised themselves as private relief organizations and infiltrated Hong Kong one by one.
The first task the British volunteers — in other words, my subordinates — had undertaken was to find ways to ease the withdrawal symptoms of the large numbers of addicts.
Theoretically grand, in practice it was little more than pitching tents and taking blood samples for testing.
More importantly, it involved assessing whether those humans would be fit for reintegration based on their blood-drug concentrations.
Only those who received a positive evaluation could be admitted to the rehabilitation facilities directly run by the British government and Hong Kong authorities.
“If the evaluation fell below expectations… there would be no mercy.”
Those who had become so severely addicted that they could not survive a single moment without heroin were, almost certainly, quietly shipped off to the labor camps where they would eventually be buried forever in the shadows of history.
The motto of the labor camps was “Labor will set you free.”
Since the amount of narcotics circulating in their veins was exactly proportional to their accumulated sins, a certain amount of labor was the only way to fully cleanse them.
The people watching television in the warm living rooms of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would never know the truth, but those labor camps were operated by my subordinates as well.
The inmates who entered those camps were, for the most part, the lowest of the low.
Most were the kind of fools who had spent their lives covered in massive tattoos, bickering with each other that their own “gang” was the best.
Before they were sent in, when they had been held together in a single room for a short time, I had heard that they had even fought among themselves.
Afterward, according to those who were strictly isolated in solitary confinement, it had been nothing but labor from the moment they stepped onto the path to freedom.
What did that mean—
“Ah, ah ah—!”
“Look? It must be a live feed.”
“What is that…?”
“Simple. You’re going to gift me the right to rebuild Kowloon Walled City, right? So all the garbage inside it has to be removed first, don’t they?”
I showed a video of a Chinese man screaming to Ham Cheon-ho on a separate screen.
A body fully restrained by some kind of mechanical device, with metal electrodes wrapped around it occasionally delivering dull electric shocks.
I did not know whether the Chinese man with the rather striking tattoo was a local Hong Konger or a mainland Chinese driven out by internal power struggles and forced to flee to Hong Kong.
I could have found out, but I had no need to. The screamed Chinese curses were written in either simplified or traditional characters; it made no difference.
I smirked at the dumbfounded Ham Cheon-ho.
“He’s a triad organization member who was idly hanging around inside Kowloon Walled City. As you can see, he’s now fallen into a state far worse than being captured by one of my subordinates and killed.”
Labor did not necessarily mean physical labor. It was more accurate to say that the most valuable thing a human could offer was not the body but the soul.
Therefore, the labor needed to free the lower-class inmates of the Walled City was, quite simply, a life spent as a living battery that drained souls whole.
I myself had been the first to conceive and implement such a plan in reality.
If I could harvest souls directly, that would be perfect, but I was not so desperate that I needed to chew through the souls of a few hundred pathetic lower-class idiots.
The next best option was therefore to feed them to my subordinates.
I myself had proposed the idea, and the Soul Harvest Department of the Syndicate had been running day and night in Hong Kong, feasting on the fresh souls of humans.
Once the souls were all consumed, only hollow shells remained.
Even if they had been healthy corpses and their organs could have been sold for profit, the high concentration of drugs in their bodies made organ sales impossible.
Because of that, they were of no use as bodies themselves, but at least they served as “experience points” that replenished my subordinates’ magic power.
And just then, through Pavel, I had also heard a complaint that overseas assignments were far more grueling than expected, so this form of differentiation in welfare was necessary.
Most of the subordinates sent abroad had reported positive evaluations.
Even the Hong Kong Governor’s Office, which did not need to drag everyone out of the Walled City, was satisfied.
Even ordinary residents who had escaped the Kowloon Walled City thugs and moved into housing guaranteed by the British Empire and Hong Kong authorities were content.
Most importantly, the subordinates themselves were satisfied simply because they had been sent abroad and had experienced a slight rise in magic power.
“And… you must be satisfied too, Ham Cheon-ho? Thanks to all those bad humans leaving, you’ll be able to swing the demolition pick much sooner, won’t you?”
“As I said… yes, I suppose so.”
Ham Cheon-ho answered with a shudder, bowing his head to me. I was not that terrifying a person.
“Well, I’ll leave the detailed story to the subordinates in Hong Kong. The thugs who might cause disputes on the ground have already been handled roughly, so don’t worry. Just mobilize your construction company under your banner.”
Despite the shock, Ham Cheon-ho finally collected himself and answered.
“...I leave it all to you.”
Demolishing a Kowloon Walled City-sized block and building anew would cost no small fortune.
Anyone who thought even briefly about it would realize that simply granting me such an opportunity was worth enormous profits.
I let out a hearty laugh, grinning broadly.
“Ahaha, now that’s a decent answer. You still haven’t grasped just how far my influence can reach?”
“...”
Of course not. It was only natural.
It was not easy to even imagine reaching the level where national power could be manipulated with mere impulsive decisions.
Once the reconstruction of Kowloon Walled City was entrusted to Ham Cheon-ho and Cheonma Sangsa, the points that would fall into my hands would be bound by far stronger strings.
Reducing the need to manipulate multiple locations with multiple strings was, in itself, a considerable benefit to me.
That settled, Hong Kong would be taken care of.
“Now then, shall we meet in person and talk? You’ll also need to show your healthy face when you return from your current leave.”
“If it’s the content we were just discussing...”
“Yes. It means I’m going to Korea again personally to do something, just like last time.”
I lifted the corners of my mouth with a meaningful expression. Had the occupation of Kunsan been in 1885?
It was high time, after more than a century had passed, for the Empire to begin its counterstrike.