novelAbuy Chapter 59 Charity or Transaction?
Chapter 59 Charity or Transaction?
In a basement ten miles outside the city.
The brand-new Brownbeth musket lay across the center of the table, like an insurmountable chasm separating the remaining dozen or so core members of the Sons of Liberty in Boston.
The air was thick with the sour, putrid smell of blood, sweat, and mold, more suffocating than ever before.
"I object!"
A young man named Josiah, his face still streaked with tears, pointed at the gun. The printer who had died in the warehouse was his brother. His fingers trembled with emotion.
"What's this? This is a bone that orientalist threw at us! He used our brothers' blood to gain merit in the governor's mansion, and now he wants to bribe us with a few broken guns? Samuel, have you forgotten how Ben died? His head was split open with an axe!"
"We are fighting for freedom! Freedom cannot be measured in money, much less bow down to a merchant who treats us like commodities! That is an insult! An insult to us, to our fallen brothers, and to the cause of freedom!"
Silas sat on a wooden crate in the corner. The doctor at the clinic had just treated his wounds. His entire left arm was slinged across his chest with a dirty bandage, and any movement caused excruciating pain.
He raised his eyes, looked at the excited Josiah, then at the gun on the table, and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Insult? What were we carrying when we stormed the warehouse? Bird-hunting rifles and a few rusty axes. What did Jenny's men carry? Sailor's knives and iron hooks. We lost three brothers just to barely hold out until the British arrived."
With a laborious gesture, he pointed to his injured arm with his intact right hand, then to the Brownbeth musket. "If we had fifty of these, the ones who would have died would have been Jenny's men, not Ben. I can still lift a hammer with this arm too."
"Shouting slogans won't kill you, Joshua. But guns can."
"That's cowardly talk, Silas! You're scared out of your wits!" Joshua's face flushed red. "We're groveling before an opportunist! He's no different from aristocrats like Andrew Gage!"
"I'm not a coward!" Silas stood up abruptly, aggravating his wound and causing him to grimace in pain, but he still straightened his back.
"I just want our men to be armed just as hard as the enemy's next time they charge! I don't want to see my brothers use their chests to block someone else's knife again!"
The argument escalated, and the remaining few people split into two factions.
One side viewed this as a great disgrace, a betrayal of the organization's purity and the great cause of freedom.
The other side believes that survival and acquiring weapons to fight are more important than any empty dignity.
Samuel Adams, the young leader who once ignited the flames of ideals and passion in countless people, remained silent at this moment.
He sat at the table, his hands tucked into his hair, motionless.
Li Wei's words echoed repeatedly in his mind, words like cold chisels, chipping away at the fortress he had built with his ideals.
"Their sacrifice was due to your lack of preparedness."
Everything has a price; only the balance remains.
"High-quality customers".
Every word, every sentence, strips away the sacred cause they cherish, revealing the bloody, quantifiable reality beneath.
The arguing gradually subsided, and everyone looked at Samuel, awaiting his decision.
He slowly raised his head, and the flame that once burned on his young face seemed to have been extinguished, replaced by a kind of silent ashes. But deep within those ashes, something was quietly changing.
"Silas is right."
He finally spoke, his voice hoarse but exceptionally clear.
"We need weapons."
He stood up, picked up the smoothbore gun on the table, and felt the solid texture of the walnut stock and the coldness of the metal parts.
This weight is the weight of reality.
"But Joshua is also right. We cannot accept charity."
He put the gun back on the table with a dull thud.
"This isn't a favor, it's a deal. I'll go see him again and discuss a business deal with him."
……
The study at Oak Bay Estate.
Li Wei remained seated behind the enormous desk, with Fiona standing beside him like a shadow, gently massaging him with the Eastern "Nine Palaces Head Massage Method" that he had taught her.
When Samuel walked into the room alone, he forced himself to look directly at Levi's face.
He had rehearsed the plan countless times in his mind before he came. He wanted to regain the initiative and make the other party understand that the "Son of Liberty" was not a pushover to be manipulated.
"Mr. Li!" Samuel tried to make his voice sound steady and firm. "I'm here to discuss a deal with you. We don't want your charity."
Upon hearing this, Levi waved his hand to stop Fiona's massage, seemingly quite interested in Samuel's statement.
"Great. I like trading."
His calm reaction left Samuel speechless, all the words he had prepared stuck in his throat. The other man effortlessly dissolved the atmosphere of equality Samuel had been trying to create.
"Tell me, what do you want to use in this trade?" Li Wei asked.
"Our friendship and our future," Samuel said, steeling himself to offer the most compelling offer he could think of.
Li Wei seemed to find it somewhat amusing, but he didn't laugh out loud.
"Friendship cannot be quantified, and the future is too uncertain. In my ledger, these are all immeasurable assets, essentially no different from 'bad debts'."
He leaned forward slightly. "Since it's a transaction, there needs to be a clear price. I have fifty-five 'Brown Bess' here, and I can 'sell' fifty to you, along with enough ammunition."
"What do you want?" Samuel's voice was a little hoarse.
Li Wei held up three fingers.
"First, I need a map showing the distribution of all the 'Sons of Liberty' safe houses throughout the Boston area, as well as all the contact codes and personnel lists." Samuel's pupils suddenly contracted, filled with disbelief.
This request is tantamount to exposing their entire blood vessels and nervous system to the other party.
Li Wei ignored his reaction and continued speaking.
"Secondly, I need all the original intelligence records you've collected over the past year regarding British troop movements, supply routes, and officer rotations. Not the ones you've compiled, but all the original records, even a scribbled note from a tavern."
"Third," Li Wei lowered his third finger, "from today onwards, my company has the first priority right to know and the exclusive right to purchase any valuable information that your side obtains through the intelligence network. The price will be determined by me and negotiated between both parties."
Samuel nearly lost his balance, staggered back a step, and steadied himself on the table.
This is hardly a transaction.
This is a merger.
He transformed "Sons of Liberty" from an independent revolutionary organization into a supplier at the very bottom of his Levy intelligence network, a consumable that could be sacrificed at any time.
"You..." Samuel's voice trembled, "You're going to kill us!"
"I'm putting a price tag on your lives," Levi said calmly. "You can choose to refuse. Then take your shotguns and axes and confront the Governor's Mansion. After this warehouse incident, they will soon be ramping up security throughout the city and cracking down on any suspicious individuals."
He pointed outside the door, "Or take these fifty smoothbore muskets and arm your most elite soldiers, so that they will have a chance to survive in the next battle."
Choose.