Standing on his crutches, Lee pitifully stared at the limousine getting away, leaving him alone on the side of the street.
Once the vehicle left his sight, still shaken by all that happened so fast, Lee tried to pull himself together. He had to do something, not let himself fall into depression again. What should he do first? First he had to make phones calls to secure his money. So, noticing a phone booth a little further, he walked with his crutches over there. Once in front of the phone, he remembered he needed some change.
-Oh, drat...
So he got out of the phone booth and walked to the nearest shop selling some small snack. Having bought the cheapest snack, he went back to the phone booth with his change and called his landlord. Then after calling his landlord, Lee called some friend in Japan. Those long distance calls will cost a lot of change... But they had to be done...
-Hello? said a feminine voice.
-I'm sorry, Seiko, but it's me, Chaolan. I cannot speak for very long but can you do me a favor? I called my landlord and told him a friend of mine would come to pick some things at my apartment and asked him to let that friend in. I would need you to take all my computer CDs and flashdrives out of there. And then mail those to Arizona.
-Arizona? Why?
-I'm actually unable to come back in Japan, for a while.
-You're not in Japan? You're in Arizona? How come? You were at the hospital just yesterday... I came to see you in the morning, you were still in a coma...
-Yes, but I woke up and my father threw me out of the country. I'm actually in China now.
-... He's in furious mode, right? I saw you at the Tournament... It was horrible... And why Arizona then?
-I'm fine now, don't worry. But yes, he's completely furious. I can't come back in Japan or he'll kill me. Literally. But I really need my CDs and flashdrives, they are part of my robotic researches and I cannot leave them but my father will certainly come at my apartment and take everything away soon. I have a friend in Arizona, so right now, I have no address of mine but at least my stuff would probably be safe. I need you to get it out of the country as soon as you can before my father confiscates everything or throws it in the trash.
-Is it dangerous for me to go take it? I mean, your father is really dangerous...
Lee felt the fear in his friend's voice. She was right to fear Heihachi Mishima, any person in their right mind would. But he knew that his father didn't know about those CDs and flashdrives, so he probably wouldn't look for them... Then probably wouldn't try to hurt his friend for taking worthless things... Well, worthless things meaning probably his giant T.V. and stereo system, his computer, the many works of art he had... Lots of things not really worthless but not as important as his robotic researches yet credible enough to believe that his friend came to take them... Once those flashdrives and CDs safely out of the country, Heihachi would never find out about their worth since he wouldn't even find out about their existence. But those CDs and flashdrives were worth millions... The Mishima Zaibatsu never expanded the robotics side of their production as much as Lee would have wished, Heihachi or Kazuya never seemed to have put enough importance on robotics, never produced other Jacks than Prototype, yet it could be profitable... And Lee also had other things on his flashdrives... Some of those also contained some evidences against the Mishima Zaibatsu, evidences obtained when Lee began to get information about Kazuya's corrupted business deals, about his many crimes, so they may have some worth as well...
-Ah... Well, he doesn't know I have those things, so pretend you went for something else if anybody ask... I don't think he would go after you for nothing... He's furious at me, he can be very cruel but he would not hurt you for taking things at my apartment. He's not that crazy. Take anything you wish from my apartment, I only need my CDs and flashdrives. The rest will go to waste if you don't take it. They are in a small violet box beside my computer. Easy to see. If you don't want to do it, it's okay. I'll try to call someone else.
-No, it's okay, I'll do it... I won't let you down, Chaolan.
Seiko had always been a good friend of Lee since high school, one of his most trustworthy ones, he had always kept contact with her even when he was in the United States. Except when he became Kazuya's secretary and hid from most of his friends in shame. But he did invite her at his last party when he decided to not hide anymore.
-Excellent, you're saving my life, Seiko.
-And I mail those things to...?
And Lee told her Michelle Chang's address. Paul had no real address and Marshall often moved, last time they talked, he was apparently living in New York, so Lee didn't really know their actual address. Beside, he honestly didn't really trust Marshall or Paul... They were friends but... he knew about some of their illegal cons... Marshall did try to gain money in some shady ways sometimes... Not the worst ones, he never went into real crime, only small things to make end's meet but still Lee didn't think they were completely reliable... They may sell his stuff to get money and tell him they never received it... Maybe not, maybe he was judging them too harshly but... he still didn't know where they were anyway. As he had learned from Wang, Michelle seemed to live at the same place she was living before, he still remembered the address and she somehow owed him, so... She would probably be reliable to keep his stuff until he would travel to the United States. He knew her less but trusted her more. And if Heihachi would want to give her trouble again, he probably wouldn't do it already. He was probably too busy taking care of the damage Kazuya did to the Zaibatsu and Lee would have time to go take his box and to warn Michelle to be careful.
Now that he had made the arrangements for his stuff, he had to take his money back... He had to call the bank and tell them he lost all his I.D. cards and needed to have access to his money... He quickly looked for his bank's branch in Shanghai and called them. He needed to get his hands on his account...
After he called, without much surprise, he learned that his normal account, where his last paycheck had been deposited, had been closed by his father who had power over it. The Mishima Zaibatsu had so much power, mostly in finances, they could do whatever they wished with their employees, mostly him since his father was somehow his caretaker even if Lee was now of age. Heihachi had all powers over his sons and knew how to reclaim control over their financial account very quickly.
-Humpf! The old fool has taken all my money... Well, he thinks he did... He wants me to rely on the few money he gave me and he's probably now giving me a bad reputation in the business world so that no one would hire me... As he told me he would do... But he can't destroy everything...
Having foreseen something like this could happen, Lee had opened a new account in a Swiss bank sometimes ago where he had made some investments in that new company, the G-Corporation and no one at the Mishima Zaibatsu knew anything about it. He talked about it to no one. That corporation will surely bring him much money and even if it was invested and not supposed or even permitted to be taken out already, maybe he could take some money from that account, not much since he mostly relied on what G-Corporation would give him in some months or years and if he took it all out now, he wouldn't get anything but he probably could still take some money or at least ask them a loan that he would repay with that money... So if his adoptive father tried to put him back in the streets, he failed...
Yet he still didn't have any I.D.s or anything, he had not foreseen that he would be abandoned in the street with nothing... His cards and wallet were probably still at the hospital, in the Mishima arena locker room or now in his father's possession. But he remembered the Swiss bank's phone number and after calling them, they agreed to send a representative to meet him to confirm his identity and discuss his current account and investments. They said they would send the responsible who knew him and who opened his account, they had met in person, so he would recognize him, even if Lee was slightly ashamed of his still half-tumefied face... Heihachi really didn't pull his punches... or kicks or whatever, Lee didn't remember what he received in the face and would rather forget that fight...
But worries about his appearance put apart, Lee also worried if they would recognize and authenticate him or not and if they would also accept for him to use that invested money or even get a loan... Lee also began to worry if he had left anything about his secret account at home where Heihachi would find out about it and somehow be able to close that account as well... The old man had so much power in the financial world... But Lee would only know all this in nine days, since it was in nine days that he had to meet the executive in some Downtown Shanghai hotel quite far from the impoverished area he was actually in. Lee thought that he wouldn't be able to call a taxi to get there since he had not much money on him and would have to walk all the way there. Which meant it would probably take some hours to get there, many hours in fact... mostly with his crutches. Despite Shanghai being his native city, he didn't know the place very much and didn't want to get lost anywhere in the city... As a child, he always remained in his poor neighbourhood, sometimes getting a little farther to steal from shops and pick dumpsters like here, where there was a little more wealth but he never went very far... He knew the general direction of the district that hotel was in but he will have to ask his way to get there... But since it would take many days before that Swiss bank executive could come, being done with his phone calls and having not enough money for any other long distance call anyway, Lee wondered what to do now.
Maybe he should go to the hospital... He was still wounded and had to recuperate... But he didn't know either where the hospital was and like for the bank, would the hospital ask him for I.D. papers? He didn't know how the health system worked in China but he would probably have to show some I.D. or money to get some cares and he had none of those...
Lee feared to try to ask for his I.D. papers, he probably would have to go to the Japanese embassy now that he was a Japanese citizen but like the hospital, he didn't know where it was and he feared that since he somehow entered the country illegally, they would send him back to Japan where Heihachi would kill him... If the bank executive could recognize him and agree to provide him some money, a good part of his problems would be over... He would just pay to get his I.D. cards back and bribe officials if he had to... Money could buy a lot... Lee believed in the power of money since Heihachi had taught him everything could be done with the power of the almighty money. He would not be as rich as he would have been with the Mishima Zaibatsu but he did save about six thousand dollars since he began investing (he would have saved much more if he had not always spent his money as soon as he got it. His father was probably right when he said he was a big spender... Yet money was made to be spent, not to be cheap beyond needs...). He was not supposed to touch that money but he now needed to.
As the night was about to fall, Lee still wondered what he would do and mostly where he would sleep. He didn't have money to rent a room... But to sleep in some backstreet would be disgusting and uncomfortable. And dangerous. But would someone attack him? He didn't look richer than anyone around... and he was quite muscular, so maybe they wouldn't want to attack him yet he looked weaker with his injuries... Maybe some stupid guys would try to provoke him to get some fight and feel strong... He wasn't in shape to fight off any thugs, he already looked like he had been beaten by them... He knew some safe places where he used to sleep as a kid but those involved climbing and being small, which he was not or could not do right now. Yet he told himself once more: People would attack him for what? Only if they were looking for someone to hurt because he really seemed to have nothing... Unless they recognized him as the son of the Mishima Zaibatsu CEO and, not knowing what happened, wanted to get some ransom or something... But they would be disappointed, Heihachi wouldn't give even a single Yen for him... But probably no one would think that this guy, sleeping in the backstreet, was some CEO's son... And even with his plaster cast, Lee thought he probably could make any agressive person go away... Just a plaster cast kick in the face or a good punch with his uninjured arm and they would leave... Lee thought that there were far less dangers threatening him in those streets than when he was a child.
So he probably had nothing to fear by sleeping outside, aside from the police, who could find him suspicious and put him in prison or worse, send him back to Japan, and shame. Shame... Yes, that was what Heihachi wanted him to feel... He wanted him to live miserably, to beg and to be humiliated... Yet he only had nine days to live like this... But it was still embarrassing... He still had no place to live for those nine days... Nevertheless, the best solution was probably to buy some food with the remaining few money and go hide into some discreet place for the time until the bank executive came... Very early in the morning, before the executive would come, Lee would start walking toward the hotel because if he went over there too soon, the rich people would complain about him hanging around and they would call the police... He wouldn't beg or annoy them but if someone finds him sleeping in some alley, he'll surely scare or disgust the rich and he didn't want to be in jail or chased away when the executive would come. He could also be recognized by some business acquaintance and he would die of shame if that was the case. Maybe he could met a friendly acquaintance and only be embarrassed but maybe helped but he also could met people who didn't like him and who would mock him over his fall... The two things he feared most, police and shame would most likely happen in that richer area... He had to remain anonymous as much as possible and not get noticed until then. So Lee did that: With his remaining money, he bought the cheapest food he could that would last him for the longest time and tried to find a quiet and discreet place to sleep.
Walking in the impoverished part of the district where he grew up, as he was going toward some discreet place he knew as a kid and that he thought could be a not too bad place for the nine days, Lee slightly felt sad to not recognize many things: Many houses and buildings had changed, the park where he was going with his grandmother to play with his kite was no more... Everything looked so unfamiliar... He knew no one and no one seemed to recognize him but this was somehow a good thing since he was really ashamed of his situation and would rather remain anonymous even here...
Destiny could change so fast: Not long ago, he was the crown prince of the Mishima Zaibatsu and now he was some (hopefully temporary) homeless guy...
Among other homeless people... Since he had left his native China, Lee had always been around more high-class areas and swanky neighbourhoods. He didn't really spend time in poor districts... He did see some beggars in San Francisco when he was working and studying there, even gave them money, but he somehow was more insensitive since he wasn't seeing them for very long and not going around those poorer areas for very long periods of time, sometimes eating at the restaurant around or dancing at some discotheque but he didn't really immerse himself in San Francisco's poverty... He mostly worked and lived in the business district or studied business at the University of San Francisco, leaving those areas only to visit friends and go out to party.
He wasn't insensitive because, like Heihachi who gave to his favorite causes, the animal protection causes (despite also giving to many others to give the Mishima Zaibatsu a good reputation), like Kazuya who had somehow chosen the bullied children cause (even if Bruce had to twist his arm first though...), Lee had a favorite cause and was mostly concerned by the anti-poverty causes. He was often giving money to organisations helping poor people. In fact, since he had experienced poverty when he was a child, he was more sensitive but also did not want to remember those times, he did not want anyone to know he had lived that life... So he was helping fight poverty but he was also avoiding poverty. Now he was forced to live it again... And now seeing some poor kids begging some man near him, made him feel really sad for them. If he still had money, he would give them some... But he had some food... Those small snacks he had bought to eat for the time until his banker would come... He might as well help those poor kids... So he told the four kids not far:
-Hey, hàizi! (children)
The children turned toward him, now looking at him. They were begging but didn't really think about asking that guy who seemed in pretty bad shape, like if he just had an encounter with a full speed truck... But Lee showed them his small bag of food and offered it to them. Sadly, he really had no change left to give them since he had haggled to get the more of the food he now had.
-Hsié-hsie, said the kids as they took the bag and began rummaging through it.
Noticing they seemed to share the food fairly among them and were not fighting over it like it happened a lot of times when he was young, Lee left. He knew he would need that food later but whatever. He would find a way... He only had to live for some days in the streets, unlike those poor kids...
Still going around the impoverished district, Lee suddenly stopped on the corner of a street: It was where his own apartment was before it burned down with the fire that killed his family. The place was not recognizable at all which was normal yet it pained him to remember the tragedy and the loss of his family... But it was so far away, he didn't even remember their faces... He only remembered that his paternal grandmother and aunt, who came from some more rural area had come here not long before the fire, once his father, who also came from that rural area before he met Lee's mother in Shanghai, got enough money to bring them here. And he mostly remembered his mother and grandmother who were staying home while his father and aunt were almost always gone, trying to look for work. So they all lived together in their two-rooms apartment and they all died in the fire...
He may have lost the memories of his parents' appearance but he did remember his life in poverty... And to still see all the other poor people now living in the area, like those poor little kids who were begging and some adults also begging people around them to survive was really saddening... and depressing... He now really was far from the millionaire life he was living not that long ago... He had lost all those billions, all that fortune and glory and was back to his slum as Heihachi had told him... And he didn't even honor Wang Jinrai's demand of restauring honor to the Mishima Zaibatsu... He had completely failed... Yet he may not have been able to live up to Wang's expectations but at least, he won't lower himself to his adoptive father's expectations either... He won't beg...
-Damn Heihachi... That's what he wants me to do... Go back to begging... That's why he left me no I.D. or papers... He must have a lot of fun right now, just imagining me begging... Old fool... But I won't...
Lee had sometimes begged when he was a child, sometimes it really was the only way someone could survive... Yet he also remembered when he begged to get a new toy when his parents were still alive and had no money to buy it. Some cheap knockoff of that Japanese robot, Mazinger. Lee had never seen the series but the robot looked so cool... Yet his mother slapped the toy so brutally from his hand when she learned he had begged passersby to get that toy... She forced him to bring back the toy, get a refund and give that refund to a real homeless person to learn that begging was no joke and to realize what real poverty was. And ironically, he learned it even more some times later... Experiencing it firsthand... Yet he also received the real quality toy Mazinger some years later when his adoptive father bought it for him after Lee had finally seen the series on T.V. (with Kuma by his side, they had seen the complete series together)... before Kazuya broke it...
Lee knew that there was no shame in begging if someone really didn't have any money yet he also knew that a beggar was immediately frowned upon... And that was what Lee didn't want to feel now... He didn't want people to frown upon him... He had already been frowned upon a lot when he was forced to beg once in the streets... He had not noticed when he begged to get his toy, but once he was forced to beg for his survival, he noticed the judgemental look full of scorn he was being subjected to. And realized the difference between how homeless people and other people were perceived... He didn't want anyone to frown upon him and scorn him... and mostly not that damn ex-adoptive father...
Now that the numbness from Kazuya's death and all those events began fading away, Lee began to feel anger. His adoptive father may have spared him, but he spared him out of contempt... He exiled him in a most humiliating way... Lee felt once more that his father considered Kazuya to be a dangerous threat while he considered him to be a second rate opponent, not deserving enough to be considered dangerous and worthy of some serious punishment, not that Lee wanted to die, he never and still didn't want to die but he didn't see his exile as some sort of 'affection' like Heihachi told him but as some sort of contempt...
Because he was Heihachi Mishima, he thought he could do anything to him? He had humiliated him all his life and treated him like a second rate son, now he was still thinking he had no importance, was not dangerous, not worthy of any interest and could be thrown away like this? But Heihachi Mishima will learn that you do not lack respect to Lee Chaolan... He could be dangerous as well, once he got back on his feet... He would make the old man pay...
Grumbling about some future revenge, Lee went to the backstreet he knew to try to sleep. Hidden behind some small shed, he would probably not be bothered and may be able to sleep...
Thank you Harry for your review! It's very appreciated! :D