New Gods of North America

The next day, after Wayne delivered the lottery statistics announcement to Richmond,

he found himself in a rather awkward situation.

Initially, he had deliberately spread the word that he would individually challenge those working for Cohen Pharmaceuticals within Virginia to duels,

aiming to create an atmosphere of extreme pressure, suggesting he would completely ruin their business, both to provoke them into taking action and to weaken their base as much as possible.

However, when Wayne arrived at Cohen Pharmaceuticals' office in Richmond by carriage today and took a look,

he found that it was already closed down...

When Wayne dueled Mr. Baker yesterday, so many citizens were watching that the news had probably already spread throughout Richmond.

Among the nearly ten people present at the office today, one middle-aged man seemed to be one of the spectators at the scene yesterday. Upon seeing Wayne, he immediately explained that he was just the rental agent for the property and was only conducting a post-tenancy check-out, not an employee of Cohen Pharmaceuticals.

Wayne chatted with him for a while and learned that Mr. Baker had already contacted the agency yesterday, saying he wanted to terminate the lease early.

Thinking about the "ghoul" from last night, he didn't expect the real estate agent to make a deposit.

As for the remaining people, they were all clerical staff who used to work here.

After learning about the outcome of yesterday's duel, they came over today and found that many of Mr. Baker's personal belongings had been taken away from his office, and the safe had been emptied. Now they were all complaining that they had to find new jobs.

Hmm...

For these guys who didn't intend to "share the fate" with Cohen Pharmaceuticals, Wayne didn't need to challenge them.

Salaries these days were paid weekly, and Cohen Pharmaceuticals had temporarily closed since Wayne and his group started selling lottery tickets. The employees hadn't been owed any wages and didn't harbor any hatred towards Cohen Pharmaceuticals.

So, Wayne saw that the clerical staff all looked angry but didn't dare to speak out, feeling that the atmosphere was a bit off.

He silently left and went to the newspaper office, buying tomorrow's announcement stating that he was looking for the next challenger and that citizens with relevant clues could contact the detective agency.

Who knew that Cohen Pharmaceuticals' local operations were so vulnerable...

Wayne still had to keep up appearances to see if there were any stragglers, and also to prevent those who bought lottery tickets betting on how many games Wayne could win from "freaking out."

However, since Wayne had gained face yesterday, he took the opportunity to visit Mr. Russell's manor to conduct a follow-up visit with the detective agency's only long-term client,

planning to relay the situation that Ryan had sent back earlier, letting the client know that the detective agency had been diligently fulfilling the contract and that the security fees were well spent.

Mr. Russell's butler quickly invited Wayne into the study, and on the way, he also congratulated Wayne on his first duel victory.

It was said that several young ladies were excited for a long time after returning yesterday, and now even many maids in the manor hoped to be present to watch the next duel.

Wayne was happy to hear this, but after meeting Mr. Russell, he directly encountered a soul-searching question:

"Today is Monday, shouldn't you be in class at the academy, Wayne?"

Oh yeah, it seems like it's been a while since I went to class.

And today is Professor Maisel's class. If he knows about the "duel victory" and finds out that he hasn't taken Emma to class, he might come to the detective agency for a home visit...

Wayne told Mr. Russell that these were the last few days of his "rest" and quickly turned the topic back to the security of the steam train line,

focusing on reporting the recent achievements of the office, frantically implying the important role of the detective agency in maintaining the stability of the railway surrounding area.

Mr. Russell didn't seem to care much about these trivial matters, with a hint of "I'll leave things to you, so I won't interfere anymore."

Instead, he exchanged pleasantries with Wayne about recent daily life and also talked about Wayne throwing a white glove at Malcolm Baker outside the cathedral.

Wayne could only follow his lead and answer them one by one, saying that he was originally going to the cathedral yesterday to find Tom Hagen for business, but he just happened to run into Mr. Baker.

He didn't meet the Bishop himself yesterday. The last time they met was about a month ago.

As for some personnel changes in the church, Wayne had heard David Mills mention them, so he picked out some things that he felt shouldn't be secrets to the local wealthy people, and the rest could only be smiled and said that he didn't know.

Mr. Russell seemed to just be asking casually,

Fortunately, he seemed to be in a good mood in the end, praising the recent work performance of the detective agency's office and encouraging Wayne to "keep up the good work, young man."

...

Back at the detective agency,

Doug and Liam had already extracted a lot of black material about Cohen Pharmaceuticals and Mr. Baker in the local area from the captive who was "almost sold."

Wayne looked through it roughly. This interrogation record was already quite detailed. Many stories had names and surnames, and even the causes, processes, and results.

He asked Doug to follow up on the local exorcism department's situation in a timely manner recently. If the church "officially concludes" that Mr. Baker, who had been turned into a "ghoul", has been eliminated, the detective agency will publish these things in the newspaper at that time.

If these things still cannot be published, then arrange for agents to run to the bar to promote them.

After that, there was nothing to do for the time being,

Near dinner time, Wayne even had time to taste several sauces that Chef Parker had tried to make, and chose the version he liked relatively better,

Wayne already had experience at this time, and he also guessed in advance the types of sauces that were more popular with most agents.

Tch, isn't it just preferring sweet and sour flavors and black pepper,

and then never getting tired of adding as much cheese as possible.

Cheese, accurately speaking, "curd cheese", this thing is not cheap now.

Fortunately, the chef has learned to use cheap cheese scraps, plus other things to make regenerated cheese, and slowly tried out the best cost-effective version that the agents have rated well,

With the detective agency's current income level, it can barely be considered to have achieved cheese freedom, at least every meal can have a burger.

What surprised Wayne more in this process was Chef Parker's "taste."

Parker actually doesn't need to eat at all. If he eats something, he needs to secretly open his stomach to clean up the crumbs or "paste."

So he can taste the taste, but he doesn't know what "delicious" means.

His standard is, for example, remembering what most people like to taste, or what the versions made by the chefs taste like,

and then he will season according to the flavors that have received good reviews, so that the taste of the dishes is as close as possible to the "benchmark" direction.

No wonder Wayne sometimes feels that the taste of the chef's products is familiar,

Once Wayne selects the taste, Parker will make the things that Wayne "originally" created almost every time. That's how it is.