While Raymond and Ren Yan were talking, two waitresses began serving the food.
The two of them then started chatting while they ate.
Thanks to Ren Yan's explanation, Raymond now understood why he said the restaurant only "technically" belonged to him. It was because the restaurant actually belonged to the Washington branch of the Chee Kung Tong.
As the branch leader, Ren Yan did have control over the restaurant.
But strictly speaking, it wasn't his personal property. If he stepped down, the next branch leader would naturally take over the control of the restaurant.
"By the way, having you—a real leader of the Chee Kung Tong branch—help me with these small matters, isn't that kind of overkill?" Raymond asked half-jokingly.
"Please don't make fun of me. You know how it is for Chinese people living in North America," Ren Yan sighed. "It may sound impressive that we're the biggest Chinese gang here, but to be honest, if you lined up all the gangs in North America, we wouldn't even make the top ten."
"That bad? I don't believe it," Raymond replied, surprised.
Even though he had only been to North America a few times in his past life, as a private detective, he knew a lot more about the underworld than most people.
As far as he knew, the strongest gang in North America back then was the "North American Mafia"—five big families.
Originally, the North American Mafia was just a branch of the Italian Mafia, similar to how the North American Chee Kung Tong was just a branch of the Hongmen.
But as North America became more powerful, so did the local Mafia. They no longer wanted to follow orders from Italy and broke away.
Eventually, they became the North American Mafia led by five families.
The Chee Kung Tong wasn't as lucky. Even though it had many members, most of them were Chinese.
In a country where white people were the majority, they were always going to be outsiders and could never beat the Mafia.
But even so, the North American Hongmen should at least be on the same level as the Mafia.
Even if they couldn't beat them, they should still be one of the top three.
So how could Ren Yan say they weren't even in the top ten?
"Why would I lie to you about something ? There are plenty of gangs way stronger than us," Ren Yan said, counting on his fingers. "First off, there's the Kingpin's, no question…"
"Wait, the Kingpin?" Raymond suddenly cut him off.
Right. How could he forget about that…?
As soon as he heard the name "Kingpin," Raymond realized where he had gone wrong.
This was the Marvel world, after all. While many things were the same as in Raymond's previous life—like the existence of the North American Hongmen—there were just as many differences.
And when talking about the criminal underworld in the Marvel Universe, how could anyone ignore Kingpin, the so-called emperor of North America's underworld?
Starting out in New York's Hell's Kitchen, Kingpin's influence now covered all of North America and even reached the global criminal scene.
He had no superpowers at all, but somehow he could beat up groups of superheroes without breaking a sweat.
In the many Marvel universes, there were more than a few heroes who had been beaten by him—Daredevil, Spider-Man, Punisher, even Iron Man… No one really knew how this non-superpowered crime boss managed to go toe-to-toe with heroes who could break the laws of physics at any moment.
And it wasn't just heroes—he bullied villains too, and there were even more of those.
Raymond had simply fallen into old thinking habits and didn't remember Kingpin at first. Otherwise, he would've realized that there was no way the Mafia was the top gang in this world's version of North America.
"You've got problems with Kingpin's gang?" Ren Yan asked, noticing Raymond's expression change when the name came up.
"No, I've just heard of him before. I didn't think he was that powerful," Raymond said, waving it off.
"That's good, that's good," Ren Yan replied, clearly relieved. "Powerful is putting it lightly. After the Kingpin gang wiped out three of the five Mafia families, they secured their spot as the number one gang in North America."
"Their boss, Kingpin, is now widely known in the underworld as the crimelord. He's way more influential than the Mafia ever was."
"If it weren't for the fact that they don't seem too interested in expanding their territory, most of the gangs in North America would've been swallowed up by now. Probably not even one in ten would survive," Ren Yan sighed.
As Ren Yan went on about the power balance in the North American underworld, Raymond just nodded along quietly—because in his head, a few of his other selves were gossiping too.
"This guy can actually take over the whole underworld in North America?" Deadshot's personality sounded amazed.
After observing for a while, he'd realized this world was very similar to the one he came from.
This world's New York, for example, reminded him a lot of Gotham—almost like a mix of Gotham and Metropolis.
But in his world, no one had ever truly taken over the entire underworld.
He had one foot in the criminal world himself and had worked with plenty of major crime bosses in Gotham.
So he knew how impossible it was to dominate the entire underworld of a place like North America.
This guy called Kingpin… sounded like someone really impressive.
"Don't act so surprised. It's just one country's underworld… heh, I've taken over the entire underground world of the Human World in the Culinary World," Livebearer's personality cackled.
As the so-called boss of the underground Culinary World, he wasn't lying—he had taken control of the criminal food scene in the Human World of the Toriko universe.
"But I'll admit, this world seems way tougher than the Culinary World. Taking over a country's underworld here is still pretty amazing. I'd love to taste his memories… slurp," Livebearer added with a drooling sound.
Then he paused, and said, "By the way, host, have you ever thought about starting your own gang? With me around, I promise you'd beat that Kingpin guy and become the new crimelord…"
"You?" Deadshot's personality sneered.
He didn't believe for a second that this monster-faced guy could beat someone like Kingpin.
This time, Raymond agreed with Deadshot.
Livebearer might have some skills, but the underground world in the Culinary World didn't really have anyone worth fearing. Conquering that didn't mean much.
Compared to Kingpin, Livebearer simply didn't measure up.
Besides, Raymond had no interest in getting involved with the underworld at all. If it weren't for running into Ren Yan—someone from the North American Hongmen—he probably wouldn't have even remembered who Kingpin was.