Chapter 597 9.19 Nicholson Manor (4)

Among the more than 40 handymen who followed Old Hash into the Black Desert, Ma Feng was one of the few who followed him all the way from Constantinople. Google search reading

You know, before this journey was launched, Old Hash had not entered the Black Desert for five years.

During the five long years, the gang members who worked for him died and became disabled. Only Ma Feng, who was nicknamed the "local dog", still survived in the city.

Ma Feng's gang, the "Badger Party," is mostly composed of stowaways.

The daily work of gangsters mostly focuses on smuggling goods, lending and collecting debts, and extortion. It is conceivable that they did not live well under the Pope's nose.

In this case, the "Badger Party" is like a tough weed, surviving in this highly competitive city.

This shows that they have an advantage that ordinary people cannot achieve.

This advantage lies in the fact that the gang's "pillar industry" is the notorious human trafficking in the Western Continent.

All nobles and merchants know that this business is not bright, but it is undeniable that they do have needs in this area.

The "Badger Party" is notorious for having no bottom line in the field of human trafficking.

In Ma Feng's hands, as long as it is a living, breathing person, he can find a way to sell him.

Young girls can be sold to brothels to develop the ability to serve customers from an early age, older maids can be sold to nobles as servants, and young and strong men can be sold to the boss of the dueling arena and thrown into the colosseum to fight wild beasts.

Even a dying old man can be sold to the medical bachelors in the city who study taboo "anatomy".

"Everyone has their own use. The key is whether you can find a good intermediary."

This is a mantra that Ma Feng often talks about.

He never felt that he was engaged in a job that was detrimental to his morality. Instead, he considered it to be a noble cause.

The lives of poor people are worthless. Silent births and silent deaths abound.

In Ma Feng's hands, they can maximize the value of "life".

Isn't this a blessing?

**

The business of human trafficking is sometimes prosperous and sometimes miserable.

"Country dog" Ma Feng has never been a very lucky person.

When the nobles needed people, he often couldn't get the goods. He finally managed to recruit people, but missed the "peak sales season". When he opens his eyes every day, he immediately needs to think about how to feed the dozen brothers in the "Badger Party" and the "votes" stored in the cellar.

Not only that, he often had to face searches by Roman magistrates and pursuits by tribunes.

There were between a hundred and eighty gangs composed of unemployed vagrants in the city of Constantinople, and battles over territory often occurred. Ma Feng and a group of brothers navigated such a complicated situation. It was inevitable for him to successfully live to the age of 32 and go out to avoid the limelight from time to time.

This time, following Old Hash into the Black Desert, another gang from Ma Feng and Honeysuckle Street, the "Skin Picking Party", became red-eyed.

They also engage in the business of human trafficking, but the "skin-picking gang" is more shameless than the "badger gang" because they often engage in shady business. Other gangs find human traffickers and buy people. After paying a deposit, the "skin-picking gang" will send out thugs to rob them halfway.

If the merchant bids higher, he will sell to the merchant, and if the cargo owner bids higher, he will sell to the cargo owner.

The "skin-picking gang" dared to do this kind of thing because they had the support of congressmen. Most of the gang leaders in the city knew about this, and they could only swallow their anger when they were bullied.

However, Ma Feng, a "local dog" with a grassroots background, could not swallow this breath.

Ma Feng has been in the market for as long as he can remember. Ma Feng believes in "If someone hits me with a stick, I must fight back with a brick!"

If a lifeless bastard dares to threaten my life, his whole family will have to pay the price.

Ma Feng, who has never had a good life since he was a child, has never been afraid of others making trouble for him.

It was completely unlucky that the gangsters chose to bully him.

On a dark and stormy night, Ma Feng led a dozen masked thugs into the gang's shop and set it on fire.

Amid the burning flames and billowing smoke, they cut down everyone they saw.

A large-scale fight broke out between the two sides at Steel Gate, and more than fifty gang members and hundreds of innocent people died in the fire. After daybreak, the "Badger Party" faced a joint search by hundreds of Roman peace officers.

Everyone needs to get out of town and escape the limelight.

Unexpectedly, five years later, Old Hash was gathering people to prepare to enter the Black Desert, and Ma Feng took this opportunity to sneak out of the city.

On the night of the murder, all members of the Badger Gang wore cow-horse masks. The sheriff may have known who was responsible for this tragedy, but without seeing the face clearly, they could not accurately judge who the murderer was.

Ma Feng's initial idea was just to use Old Hash's words to make an "alibi".

Unexpectedly, after entering the Black Desert, this journey brought him head-on into a golden mountain.

After successfully returning to Constantinople, Ma Feng had more than two thousand dinar gold coins in his hands. In the eyes of ordinary Roman people, this was a huge sum of money!

In the past, when he was the richest, he only had dozens of silver coins in his pocket!

Ma Feng, who returned to Constantinople, was no longer the destitute look he had been. When the Roman sheriff asked about the time when Old Hash would leave the city, the cunning Arab merchant specially moved up the departure time by one month.

This just provided Ma Feng with an alibi.

There was no so-called "surveillance" in the Middle Ages. In a huge city with a population of hundreds of thousands, no one could pay close attention to the specific travel time of a merchant.

The sheriff could only give up in the face of this situation.

Ma Feng transformed himself from a "dog" Ma Feng to "Boss Ma Feng"

When Tang Qianye came to Honeysuckle Street, it was almost late at night. The flames of all the large and small forging workshops in "Vulcan Street", another street at the intersection, had gone out.

As torches were lit on the street, streetwalkers dressed in cool clothes began to appear on the street.

In Tang Qianye's eyes, Honeysuckle Street was the true face of this city.

There was a mortal atmosphere of fireworks here.

On the crowded streets, vendors burn charcoal and set up oil pans.

Different vendors cook food for different groups of people.

Here you can see Arabs using copper hooks to hang crispy sesame cakes from hot clay pots.

The calloused hands are not afraid of the heat at all. They reach out and pull the fragrant and browned roasted meat from another iron tongs, add some onions, tomatoes and cheese and roll them up. This is the ultimate enjoyment for Arab civilians.

Going down further, the slightly larger shops have ovens facing the street.

Skilled French chefs will specially choose the time when the workers get off work to open the oven, and the aroma of baking bread will rush out instantly and fill the entire street. A baguette that is more than 1 meter long is only 3 copper coins.

Even the food of the poor has the chef's superb skills hidden in it.

Several white-haired Indian old men are sitting in the open space in the bakery courtyard. They used simple tools to build a marching pot, in which they cooked a thick curry made of potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions and other vegetables.

Although most of the flavor comes from chicken and duck bones, it can also emit bursts of meat aroma after being boiled for a long time. Buy a warm baguette and a bowl of steaming curry.

Being in Constantinople, you can taste the food thousands of miles away.

This is the dream dinner of all Roman civilians.