“You’re crazy!” John Foster finally caught his breath, his face flushed red, grabbing a round stool and preparing to charge at Edward Baker in a frenzy.

Standing before the burly, bull-like Walter Baker, Edward Baker did seem a bit frail in comparison, but at six feet tall with a well-proportioned muscular build, and having trained in boxing for several years at a gym, he could easily shake off Emily Carter, and before John Foster fully recovered, step forward and kick him in the gut, knocking him completely to the ground, leaving him powerless to resist.

But Edward Baker didn’t do that. He wanted to see how Lucy Clark and Walter Baker would react.

Four months in the detention center had taught him not only the most important rule of survival—endure at all costs—but also many other things.

Edward Baker knew very well that if he fell out with John Foster now, John Foster would most likely use Lucy Clark and Walter Baker’s jobs as leverage to threaten them into isolating him, leaving him completely alone in Degulamo.

Before John Foster returned, Edward Baker had already weighed his options between enduring and fighting back, and had thought through many things in advance.

If he didn’t want to be completely isolated in Degulamo, didn’t want to be unable to take a single step, he at least needed to make sure Lucy Clark and Walter Baker stood by his side from start to finish.

That way, even if he was kicked out of the West Africa branch by David Sullivan and John Foster, with the help of Walter Baker and Lucy Clark, he could still manage to stay and find his footing in Degulamo.

Lucy Clark and Walter Baker were both startled by the scene before them, but when they saw John Foster pick up the round stool and try to swing it at Edward Baker, they reacted quickly.

The burly Walter Baker stepped right in front of the ferocious-looking John Foster, reaching out to snatch the stool; Lucy Clark went even further, grabbing John Foster from behind, then squatting down and pulling him to sit in her broad, Atlantic-like embrace, making it impossible for him to break free.

Their actions did not disappoint Edward Baker in the slightest.

All the care he’d shown them over the past year had not been in vain.

While John Foster was held by Lucy Clark and the stool was taken away by Walter Baker, Edward Baker finally broke free from Emily Carter’s grip, stepped forward, and delivered another kick to John Foster’s gut just as he was struggling free from Lucy Clark, letting him once again taste the wrath of Hello Kitty.

“What the hell are you trying to do? Are you insane?”

After taking two heavy kicks, John Foster groaned in pain, his face twisted and vicious as he cursed, but he couldn’t get up again.

Edward Baker drew the gun tucked into the back of his waistband and pressed it to John Foster’s temple:

“You think just because I’m young and haven’t been beaten down by society, I can’t see through your plan to leave me behind in Yibogu Village, is that it?”

“Edward Baker, are you crazy?!”

Seeing Edward Baker actually pull out a gun, Emily Carter turned pale with fright, not daring to approach him now, and screamed at him in alarm.

Lucy Clark and Walter Baker were also shocked, standing there, wanting to urge Edward Baker to calm down and not escalate things, but afraid that anything they said might provoke him further.

“I’m not crazy, I’m perfectly clear-headed. Sister Yuqing, you should be asking what kind of scheme this bastard John Foster is plotting, or else you’ll end up helping him count the money after he sells you out.” Edward Baker sneered, imitating the villains he’d seen on TV.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can ask Walter Baker, you really were in bad shape at the time. I was afraid something might happen on the way, and didn’t dare bring a corpse back to Degulamo, so I had to leave you temporarily in Yibogu Village, with Walter Baker staying behind— I don’t see anything wrong with how I handled it. You can also ask Emily Carter to judge if I did anything wrong. Kanem is chaotic, but there are still police and laws. If you impulsively shoot me, I doubt you’ll get far! Lucy Clark and Walter Baker may have benefited from your little favors, but they absolutely won’t help you commit murder.”

John Foster, having taken two kicks to the gut from Edward Baker, curled up on the ground like a prawn, sweat beading on his forehead from the pain, his face pale as he responded to Edward Baker’s questioning with a cold gun pressed to his temple.

“If you have something to say, say it properly. Put the gun away! Oh my god, how do you even have a gun?” Emily Carter wanted to step forward and grab Edward Baker, but didn’t dare, only standing at the stairway, her voice trembling as she pleaded.

How did a business rivalry novel turn into a gunfight?

“The secret of the Yibogu Village gold mine—you figured it out, so you think just because I didn’t finish high school and dropped out to work, I’m an idiot? No, you know perfectly well I’m not blind, and that I also discovered the secret of the Yibogu Village gold mine. You wanted me to die there, so you’d be the only one who knew the secret, and no one would compete with you for this fortune, right?”

Edward Baker gritted his teeth, staring into John Foster’s eyes, speaking each word with deliberate emphasis.

“You’re such a stingy person, yet two days ago you returned to Yibogu Village with lavish gifts, claiming you were there to handle my funeral arrangements, but in reality you just wanted to curry favor with the old chief Felician and then get the gold mine mining rights from him, didn’t you? But you never expected that I’m just too tough to die, and actually survived—aren’t you just bitterly disappointed?”