Chapter 39: Chapter 39
She shied away from him, covering her ear. "This belongs to me," she said resolutely, backing away.
Di Mo looked at her for a long moment, but surprisingly chose to ignore her and did not try to forcibly take the object from her. Instead, he turned to Daniel Craig. "Clean this place up. Don't spare a single life."
Lily watched the exchange and turned her head upwards, sighing helplessly. "So many enemies," she muttered.
Her utterance drew Di Mo's attention. He eyed the look of tragic pity on her face in distaste and felt affronted. "You want to take over this business?" He asked coldly. "What do you plan on doing exactly?"
She knew he was inquiring after what she had just said, but waved her hand, gesturing around them. "Do whatever you want. I have no interest in stepping foot in this business, though I wouldn't mind if you gave me some of the profit," she added. "But really, what's going on here anyway? What business of theirs did you plan on cutting off?" Getting rid of someone's source of livelihood in the underworld was unethical; it was no wonder that people wanted to kill Di Mo left and right.
"Drugs," the overlord replied. He turned his gaze towards the field of flowers.
Lily's eyes widened. "Drugs," she echoed, suddenly understanding. The vibrantly coloured flowers were a specialty of the region: poppies. For the first time since they met, she looked up at Di Mo with an ounce of admiration. "This is an extremely financially profitable business."
The slightly appreciative look in her eyes seemed to mollify him. He clasped an arm around her waist and pulled her along. "I'm a weapons dealer, not a drug lord," he said as they walked along. The reason he had come here today was to put an end to all drug dealings within his territories. True, drugs garnered a huge profit, but it was not as profitable as weapons, and therefore he was uninterested.
They stood at the entrance to the sea of flowers. Lily could see tendrils of thick, black smoke rising from the field as the acrid smell of fire burning spread through the air and reached her nose. Angry, relentless flames blazed through the field, tinting the sky an ominous red and turning the once colorful array of flowers into an ocean of fire. The flowers seemed to glow even more brightly amongst the flames. For a second, the myriad of colours mixed with the equally vibrant flames presented a striking picture as they clashed for dominance, before the fire won and the flowers were rendered into white hot ash.
"You've really done it this time," Lily observed, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "You just literally set fire to the livelihood of a bunch of people. No wonder everyone here hates you. I was wondering why they kept trying to kill you despite knowing you were now their overlord. Turns out it was because of this?" She laughed, beaming at Di Mo. This was exciting. "You've just made yourself an enemy of the entire Southeast Asian region."
Di Mo's dark blue eyes shined with the reflection of the flames. His lips quirked up in a rare arrogant smile. "I do what I want to do," he stated brassily, "and no one can prevent me from doing so."
She raised her eyebrows at his unabashed cockiness, though she couldn't help but agree… drugs were no good. "True," she said, smiling. "Your territory, your rules." As she spoke, she noticed more smoke rising in the distance from the opposite direction. "What, is setting things on fire suddenly trendy or something?"
"Today, all drug sources will disappear from every inch of this territory." Di Mo's voice was even and unaffected, emotionless as always.
Lily scratched her head, startled. What the overlord was doing was huge. She wasn't part of the organized crime world, but even she had heard of the fact that Southeast Asia's main source of profit came from their drug production and exportation. A business that Di Mo destroyed mercilessly within a day, accomplished by the fact that he had won two-thirds of the region from the Blue Clan through the car race. This was a huge blow to the drug trafficking industry. It was insane, excessive and utterly impressive.
"No wonder you're the overlord," Lily laughed.
Di Mo swept a glance at her before walking off to the car waiting for them at the gate where they had gotten off. She followed readily, for once in high spirits.
Her buoyant mood didn't last — she had just started walking when it occurred to her that now Di Mo had really done it. By making an enemy of every single drug lord in the region, she didn't need to be a genius to predict that their journey from now on would be riddled with a torrent of bullets and gunfire. They'd be running for their lives again and again; the thought of that made her face shutter once again.
And speak of the devil, naturally, she and Di Mo hadn't even reached the car when there came the sound of a sniper's gun and a torrent of bullets rained down on them. The Di Clan members were adequately prepared for such scenarios — they split immediately into two groups, one team surrounded Di Mo and Lily, the other heading off the gunfire and moving towards the direction of the bullets, surrounding their enemy.
It all happened in a second.
Di Mo had just reached the outer gate and taken one step out when he suddenly whipped around and turned back; right at that moment, Lily had been walking alongside him and instinctually dove towards the front. Their bodies crossed each other in the air as they flew in opposite directions and landed on the ground. He ended up behind her, and she in front of him.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone