"Name?"
The customs officer stopped him. Everyone had to go through this step, but ships from Hawaii weren't their main concern. They were currently wary of poor Europeans, especially stowaways from Italy.
"My name is Slade Wilson, can we speed this up, please? I'm in a rush to get home."
Su Ming spoke as he handed over a five-dollar tip, showing a standard Upper East Side New York accent, which clearly indicated he was American.
Sure enough, the chubby customs officer smiled and nodded, discreetly accepting the tip. A quick glance was enough for the birth certificate, and there was no need to inspect his belongings.
"Welcome home, sir." He gestured for Su Ming to pass through and then waved his stick, shouting to the people behind, "Next, hurry up this way."
Moving through the bustling crowd, past the old docks filled with a sense of the times, to the cries of seagulls, Su Ming walked into the city with a smile.
Skyscrapers, luxury cars, old-fashioned trench coats, and felt hats; the surrounding streets all bore similar sights.
Police officers held batons, children hawked their newspapers, and not far from the docks was an Italian deli where the owner was using a cloth to shoo flies off the roast chickens.
Noise, bustle, this was New York in the 1920s. Watching people in old-fashioned attire walking on the streets, he felt like he had stepped into a black-and-white film.
He still had over 9,000 dollars with him, more than enough to live on for quite some time, but not nearly enough to start a weapons company to achieve his long-term plans.
A small workshop wouldn't be able to handle defense contracts.
This money was just the seed capital. Initially, Su Ming planned to amass wealth quickly through a series of strategies.
First on the list was brewing liquor.
Sitting in a taxi, Su Ming could hear the jazz music from the roadside, but there was no scent of alcohol in the air; life like this felt incomplete.
The Prohibition era was also the era of the rise of native American gangs.
The intention behind Prohibition wasn't entirely wrong, as it aimed to refocus people on proper life and work, rather than spending every day drunk.
However, alcohol was an addictive substance.
Many people couldn't do without it, and when the state prohibited its sale, making both buying and selling illegal, what was to be done?
As said in "Capital"—as long as there's a suitable profit, capital becomes daring. With 50% profit, it will leap at the opportunity; for 100% profit, it will trample any human law; with 300% profit, it would commit any crime, even risking the gallows.
Originally, the brewing and selling of alcohol were the domains of legal factories and merchants, but with one governmental decree, it all went underground, brewers hiding and scheming against the police.
But those already doing illegal business, the gangs, stronger in organization and secrecy, successfully stood out in the market by forming a one-stop underground industry for brewing, transport, and sales, operating on a family system and making vast amounts of money.
They were criminals to begin with, so if caught, dealing and brewing illegal alcohol would be the least of their charges; others like murder and arson would already be enough for the electric chair.
This was a truly lucrative industry; a few sacks of corn costing around a dollar could easily be distilled and fermented into a barrel of bootleg corn whiskey, selling for over 50 dollars.
Making fifty times the profit in about seven days, you didn't need to run around, just a basement, some pots, steamers, and barrels.
Weak flavor? Poor taste? Not a problem for buyers in this era. Before 1933, you never had to worry about market demand.
If horse urine tasted a little like beer, you could even sell horse urine...
Of course, the gangs often had poor brewing techniques, and in their rush to sell, fermentation time was insufficient, so the methanol content in bootleg liquor was usually excessive, causing many cases of blindness.
Su Ming now planned to enter this industry. He had enough capital, and distilling equipment in this era was readily available, with bankrupt factories offering them for sale.
He only needed to purchase ingredients, select a hidden location to start production, and control one bar.
Wouldn't a world-class super soldier be able to manage a bar and factory?
Bootlegging was now an underground business, and thus everything followed the rules of the underworld, where might was right.
Su Ming only sought wealth, not territory, so harmony with the gangs was enough.
Of course, if anyone sought trouble because he encroached on their liquor market, Su Ming wouldn't mind taking out a few more gangs, giving New Yorkers a peaceful life...
First, we need to pick a location as a plant site to store the equipment for brewing. And to facilitate transportation, being close to the Hudson River would be ideal. We could move the barrels onto a small boat at night and quietly deliver them to a bar without anyone noticing.
Of course, that's what a typical gang would do. Su Ming has a better idea, which is to use the complex underground space of New York City.
New York was established in 1664 and has undergone several expansions and additions to this day. Sewers often change due to changes in ground-level buildings.
For instance, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 64th Street was once a bustling residential area. After 1856, the government took back a large surrounding area, leveled it, and transformed it into what we know today as Central Park.
However, there was no funding to alter the underground systems, nor was it necessary to waste money, so they were abandoned and left idle.
New York's sewers include a drainage system that is not only very robust but also very spacious in many places, enough for ten trucks to drive side by side.
Su Ming once watched "Die Hard 3," where the villain used deserted underground tunnels to break into the Federal Building, directly hauling away 100 tons of gold with trucks.
Of course, that didn't happen in the Marvel Universe, but the tactics could be borrowed. Su Ming just needs to find a spot spacious and hidden enough.
So he first checked into a hotel, hid his equipment, and then took a taxi again to the New York State National Library, where he could find all the records of underground pipeline changes since the city's establishment.
Walking through bustling streets, smiling as he declined a flower-selling child, Su Ming entered the library's tall portico.
This was probably the lowest intelligence fee ever paid by Deathstroke, just spending 1 US Dollar to get a library access card, allowing him to freely check these pipeline records.
He pretended to be a student researching tunnel history, so the library staff had no doubts about him. They had seen many students researching dung beetles, and just the other day, someone was inquiring about cannibal recipes—perhaps some professor was launching a new research topic...
Besides, these materials were publicly displayed, and no one usually bothered to look at them.
Walking past rows of bookshelves, following the guide librarian in the ink-scented building, the bright lights and solemn environment made Su Ming subconsciously lighten his steps.
"Here it is, this cabinet has all the materials you need." The library staff gestured, pointing to a tall bookshelf beside him.
Here were not only historical records but also original blueprints, construction expenditures, participating personnel, and everything related that could be found here.
Su Ming nodded at him in thanks, pulling out a large scroll from the shelf.
"Cough..."
Su Ming asked for a small duster and cleaned the scroll a bit; it seemed untouched for decades, covered with thick dust like an archaeological relic.
He also inquired about the maps of ground-level buildings and the locations of water supply, electricity supply, sewage pipelines, and so on, all of which he needed to examine.
Especially the subway route map. New York City built a subway in 1904, some early experimental tunnels of which were also abandoned.
One by one, he pulled down map scrolls from the shelves, laying them layer by layer on the table. The museum staff with glasses in the distance only supervised him to ensure he didn't damage the books or materials, not minding what he was researching.
All the complex pipelines were kept in Su Ming's mind, which, like a supercomputer, immediately reorganized tens of thousands of lines and segments in his head.
He needed to select a location with electricity or gas supply, ample underground space, and inconspicuous buildings above.
"There really are many places like this. No wonder masked people pop up one after another in future New York; it's too easy to find a safe house here."
With just a quick glance, Su Ming discovered hundreds of suitable locations, a fact that inevitably made him sigh.
If the days of Americans digging air-raid shelters post-Cold War were over, these underground passages combined with abandoned air-raid shelters could easily establish an underground kingdom.
Putting these thoughts aside, Su Ming carefully put the maps back on their shelves, returning them to their original places and thanking the librarian.
Although the staff didn't understand why he only needed five minutes with the materials, it was just as well; they could finish work early.
Su Ming's goal was to conduct on-site inspections of these hundreds of underground locations within three days.
Time was tight, and the task was heavy. He had to start immediately.
After a month of idling on the ship, having a target and plan made him feel more at ease.
Leaving the library, he didn't take a car, but instead found a secluded alley, lifted the manhole cover on the ground, and jumped in.
In urban legends, there are crocodiles in New York's sewers bigger than whales, but for Su Ming, getting a good crocodile leather belt would be a nice collectible.