Chapter 17: Missing Talent

Thirteen Sister gave Chen Mo a sideways glance: "From what you say, it seems you're not satisfied with our current Dragon Head, right?"

"I wouldn't say I'm dissatisfied," Chen Mo explained, "it's just that Jiang Tiansheng is more about preserving the status quo than pushing forward, not a true leader."

"And he's extremely suspicious; working under him would be exhausting."

Jiang Tiansheng is overly skilled at the art of weighing, and simply cannot

tolerate his subordinates becoming great.

No matter who it is, once their strength reaches a certain level and could threaten his Dragon Head position, he will find ways to weaken them.

As soon as one has the ability to threaten the Dragon Head seat, whether they have the intention is irrelevant.

Once suspicion arises, the charge is already established.

"You're not wrong about that; I feel the same way."

"I didn't expect you to assess the Dragon Head so accurately; no wonder you're my junior, you're truly clever."

Thirteen Sister also strongly agrees with Chen Mo's view of Jiang Tiansheng.

She has held the position of boss on Bolan Street for several years, and has interacted with Jiang Tiansheng far more than Chen Mo, so her understanding of him is naturally deeper.

Chen Mo rolled his eyes at Thirteen Sister, thinking it's narcissistic to praise others while also praising himself.

Having finished the discussion, Chen Mo also prepared to leave.

As he reached the doorway, Chen Mo remembered he hadn't mentioned the car he bought for Thirteen Sister.

He turned and said, "Sister, I've prepared a gift for you; it'll be delivered tomorrow—make sure to receive it!"

Thirteen Sister was just about to ask Chen Mo what the gift was, but found that Chen Mo had already left.

"Damn, you don't even say what the gift is—so mysterious!"

When Chen Mo returned to the Golden Sands Nightclub, the office had already been tidied up.

Except for the loss of a lounge, it wasn't much different from before.

Now the nightclub has already started receiving customers.

Chen Mo didn't see Ruby; he probably went to handle Wei Jixiang's matters.

He told Huang Bingyao about the videotape factory, and presumably Wei Jixiang has already been arrested.

As for whether he can get out of the police station, that's hard to say.

Now both Pi Yanmei and Prince Hong Tai are dead, and the legal representative of that videotape factory is Wei Jixiang.

Even if the goons involved in drug trafficking are caught, they'll likely shift the blame onto Wei Jixiang to lessen their own culpability.

This pot will probably be Wei Jixiang's to bear; at best he'll have to serve a dozen years in Chi Zhu.

Of course, Chen Mo doesn't care about Wei Jixiang's fate.

The former Wei Jixiang might have been a talent, but now he's useless.

A useless Wei Jixiang is not worth any of Chen Mo's effort.

Chen Mo called Gao Jin.

"Ah Jin, how are the venues tonight? Any other Triad Societies causing trouble?"

"No, just a few Daoists secretly dealing drugs; they've already been expelled."

"That's fine. Tell the people below to follow the same rules as on Bolan Street."

If anyone is found handling drugs in our factory, even if they're a customer, we break their arm and throw them out.

"Got it!"

Gao Jin had no objections; back in Chinatown Nightclub it was done the same way.

Great Prosperity's long‑standing rule is never to touch drugs.

However, Chen Mo's rule is stricter: not only are other Triad Society members forbidden to sell drugs or pills in the venue, but customers can't bring and consume their own either.

"By the way, the Mahjong halls on the territory, assign them to the subordinate named Da Dou."

He's decent and quite clever; see if you can train him a bit. Don't do everything yourself—it's exhausting.

Also, find me another person.

There's a guy named Jimi who works with Lian Sheng; his full name seems to be Li Jiayuan or Li Jiayuan, check on him and see what he's up to.

"Got it."

Gao Jin didn't know why Chen Mo wanted Jimi, but he'll obey any order from Chen Mo.

Chen Mo had gotten used to assigning tasks to Gao Jin; there's no alternative—only Gao Jin's work is reliable.

But it can't continue like this in the future.

As the territory expands, not everything can be shouldered by Gao Jin.

Chen Mo also dislikes doing everything himself, so he must recruit more people to share Gao Jin's workload.

Now Da Tou runs the bar, Da Dou runs the Mahjong hall, and Gao Jin still has to manage two nightclubs and the protection fees for the whole street—still quite tiring.

Going forward, Chen Mo will definitely run legitimate businesses, and the workload will keep increasing.

The talents Chen Mo met in Chi Zhu still need some time to emerge.

During this period, he can only try to recruit other talents.

For example, to do business, he definitely needs to find Jimi.

Currently, the entire Nüren Jie has several hundred shops of all sizes, most of which cater to women, selling various clothes and bags.

However, most customers here just browse without buying.

Mainly because the goods in these brand stores are too expensive.

Now most Gangdao residents' salaries aren't high; a white‑collar worker earns only about two to three thousand.

Many people might not even afford a single branded women's garment on a monthly salary.

In this situation, the market for counterfeit clothing is huge.

Currently the hottest and most profitable businesses on Gangdao were finance, real estate, international trade, and jewelry and luxury goods.

Those who could establish themselves in these industries were without exception powerful tycoons with deep backgrounds.

In the eyes of those people, even the Dragon Head of a top Triad Society was completely beneath notice.

For Chen Mo to want to venture into these industries now was simply the fantasy of a fool.

Those big shots would never cooperate with anyone who had a triad background.

At most, during demolitions and relocations, they would hire a group of triad members as muscle, and even that would be done through intermediaries — they would never get their own hands dirty.

In the eyes of those people, a Triad Society was no different from a chamber pot.

Use it when needed, and after using it, still complain that it stinks.

Chen Mo's strength was not yet sufficient; what he could do were the industries that big merchants disdained and that big triads also disdained.

The easiest to get into was the counterfeit goods business.

Although the counterfeit goods business had high profits, the upfront investment was not low either.

Gangdao's triads neither liked investing real money nor liked spending effort on management.

They preferred zero-cost businesses, or the vices, gambling, drugs, and loan sharking they were familiar with; those with channels would also dabble in smuggling.

Like Han Bin, relying on the Kwai Tsing docks, his smuggling business was very large.

A business like counterfeit clothing was beneath the notice of big merchants, and right now it was basically small merchants running it.

Snatching business from these people was, for someone in a triad like Chen Mo, simply all too easy.

The main question now was, who would be in charge of this matter.

In all of Gangdao's triads, when it came to talent suited for doing business, apart from little Jimi, Chen Mo genuinely could not think of any other candidates for the moment.

Fortunately, this matter was not urgent for now; talent could be found slowly.

If all else failed, he could also cultivate people himself.

In any case, Chen Mo would absolutely never purchase enterprise management-related skills from the system to do it himself.

Absolutely not, even if beaten to death!