"It's a good thing, after all; there's still $10,000 per month," Yuri said with a comforting smile.
Saul snorted, downing his wine in one gulp, still feeling aggrieved.
"Of course, you can remind me every time you receive $10,000!" Sean added, narrowing his eyes and smirking slightly.
"Let's not dwell on that. You're financially free now, what are your plans for the future?" Yuri lifted his glass and clinked it with theirs. "I wanted to bring you on board before; you must have done better than me. Well, now it's not necessary."
"That's not necessarily true," Sean interjected, straightening up. He set down his glass, placed an arm around both men's shoulders, and leaned in conspiratorially. "I'm planning to…!"
"Huh?" Saul was taken aback, thinking he must have misheard.
"Ah!" Yuri's eyes widened as he connected the dots. "The Rockefellers? That's ambitious! You might be biting off more than you can chew."
"You're insane!" Saul exclaimed, grabbing Sean's arm.
Sean lowered his voice and continued, "He Yuegang knows a lot of wealthy individuals, including many new millionaires who don't know how to protect themselves. If we play our cards right, we could easily make tens of millions."
"I've got the whole plan laid out," Sean said seriously. "The richest guy over there is named… and they'll head back to the U.S. right after it's done. They'll be completely vulnerable! I have strategies for everything: how to hijack a car from a mountain peak, how to use a bomb for communication, and how to ambush them. The threat of snipers will keep them from retaliating. You know how much Chinese families value their heirs."
It was clear that Sean had been contemplating this for a long time, and the plan appeared to have a high success rate.
"Tens of millions?" Saul gritted his teeth. "You mean Hong Kong dollars?"
"Dollars!" Sean corrected him.
Yuri shivered as if jolted by electricity. "Call Jonas and the others!"
"But how do we get the money into the U.S.?" Saul's brows furrowed in concern.
"You're a lawyer; you should figure out a way to clean it up," Sean replied.
"I… This is illegal!" Saul protested, struggling with the moral implications.
After a moment of contemplation, Saul gritted his teeth and finally acquiesced. "Fine! I'll do it!"
Suddenly, Sean slapped both of them on the back of their heads, leaving them stunned.
"What are you two thinking? You don't have a good plan here! This is blackmail! I'm not that kind of person!" Sean scolded.
"Shit, I thought you were serious!" Yuri cursed.
"Impossible!" Saul shot back, a determined look on his face. "This plan is airtight. As a lawyer, I don't see any loopholes. If I target their beloved son, there's virtually no chance of failure. Even if we don't get the money, the threat of a hidden sniper will ensure our safety."
"You must have been planning this for a while, and you even learned Chinese!" Saul scrutinized Sean, trying to read his expression for clues.
Sean chuckled mysteriously, prompting Yuri to look even more puzzled.
Sean knocked on the table, glancing between the two of them. "Do you know the fastest way to make money?"
"Drug trafficking!" they both said in unison.
Sean rolled his eyes. "Okay, let's get serious."
"Pan-poison," Yuri said, while Saul suggested, "Arms dealing."
"Is that what you call business?" Sean sneered. "Your gang must be in on this too."
As he spoke, Sean gestured toward the dance floor below, where people were lost in ecstasy. "How many times the profit can you make?"
"Uh… how many times? It's all from other companies, at most double," Yuri admitted, revealing his knowledge of drug trafficking, which he claimed was a minor issue in the U.S.
Sean shook his head, uninterested in discussing arms deals, which he believed could only be sold in bulk on the private market.
"Yuri, all the wine you have here is smuggled, isn't it?"
Yuri took a moment to process. "Uh… It should all be smuggled. Customs charges too high a tariff on alcohol. Everyone can't bear it; it all comes from others. A small gang like ours can't control smuggling channels."
"What's the monthly sales volume of this high-end wine in your bar, and what's the price?" Sean pressed on.
"I can't remember; I'll need to check the ledger."
"That's fine. Just don't be too meticulous when checking the accounts at night. I only need to know the prices of your wines and the approximate monthly sales figures," Sean instructed, standing up. "That's enough for today. Let's head back and rest."
He raised a finger, adding, "My head still hurts a bit. After all, someone did shoot me yesterday. See you tomorrow. I'll take the wine with me."
"Hey, where are you going to stay? Come crash with me!" Yuri called after him.
"No need; I'll find a hotel," Sean replied, raising the wine bottle high and shouting without looking back, "There's money to be made!"
"Dammit," Yuri muttered under his breath.
"A rich man like you, wouldn't it be lonely to sleep alone at night?" Just as Sean reached the stairs, a woman who had just delivered the wine pressed herself against him. She wrapped her arms around his, her hands sliding across his chest as her body twisted provocatively closer.
"You temptress, it seems the poor monk will let you off the hook today…" Sean smirked, allowing the flirtation to unfold.
He randomly found a hotel to stay the night and slept soundly. When he awoke the next morning, he realized that the wound on the back of his head no longer pained him. He shrugged off the idea of going to a hospital.
As he prepared to leave, he was surprised to find Saul still in his room, looking disheveled and groggy.
"Is that the Mexican girl from last night?" Sean asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No!" Saul snapped, narrowing his eyes in recollection.
Seeing Saul's condition, Sean decided against probing further. He figured it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.
Leaving Saul to recover, Sean set out to handle some errands on his own.
Later that evening, when Yuri and Saul met up with Sean again, they found him in a makeshift laboratory.
The rented space was filled with experimental equipment: balances, round-bottom flasks, distillation heads, thermometers, dropping funnels, Erlenmeyer flasks, glass stoppers, and separatory funnels.
"What are all these things?" Yuri asked, astonished as he pointed at the clutter.
"Preparing to make money!" Sean declared, donning a white lab coat and plain glasses, looking every bit the scientist. He held up a thermometer and a glass tube. "Do you know how to measure the alcohol content of wine?"
Both men shook their heads in bewilderment.
"It needs to be measured at a specific temperature using this alcohol meter," Sean explained, raising the glass tube.
"But what exactly are you planning to do?" Saul asked, still confused.
"Make wine!" Sean replied, grinning as he pointed at a bottle of French Golden Flower V.S.O.P. Camus brandy.
The trio stood in the lab, the air thick with anticipation and uncertainty as Sean's ambitious plans began to unfold.