Empire of Shadows

Goldport City is also known as the City of Angels.

The world's third-largest port, and the busiest in the Northern Hemisphere in terms of daily throughput, people have many complimentary things to say about this city!

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It's as if it's the gospel God bestowed upon humanity, bathed in God's glory, where everything is perfect...

What a load of crap!

The Federation likes to call it the City of Angels, but in the eyes of some others, there isn't much difference between this place and hell.

For example, that's what Lance thinks right now.

The City of Angels is too dangerous.

Almost every day, there are several shootings in this city, sometimes even more than a dozen.

Sometimes, when gangs have shootouts, the number of people killed in the crossfire is so high that they need trucks to haul away the bodies.

While the local economy is developing rapidly, it has also brought a large number of criminals and criminal organizations, and city officials corrupted by capital and black money look down upon the entire city.

They only care about how much the numbers in their accounts can increase each month, and not whether those at the bottom of society will starve or encounter trouble.

People only ever need the economic miracle it constantly creates, and few care whether someone is struggling to survive behind those glamorous cityscapes.

They don't want to know, and they don't allow anyone to know.

After all, this is the City of Angels, the engine of the Federation's economy!

Lance stared blankly at the girls on the street, that moment when the warm breeze of the last century blew into people's hearts, as if the whole world was wearing a natural, old filter.

As if the whole world was dim yellow, with occasional spots appearing due to overexposure.

The obviously wrong sound from the record player poured out of the speaker, adding a touch of flavor to this retro world.

The summer sun heated up the city and also warmed the hearts of the girls.

Two young girls wearing sleeveless shirts and short skirts, with small bowler hats, passed by the bakery, their energetic and joyful smiles suddenly brightening up this old photograph of a city.

With a "smack," Lance, who had been slapped, turned his gaze away from the shop window, the bakery owner standing behind him, glaring fiercely.

"I hired you to work, not to stare at girls over the counter!"

He clapped his hands loudly, "Move, move, you damn lazy bastard who's about to grow maggots, don't let me see you slacking off again, I'm paying you to be here!"

Lance scratched his head, picked up a rag, and started wiping the shop window.

Business is so-so today. Bakeries like this one, not located in busy streets or city centers, are like the steamed bun shops outside residential areas in another world.

They mainly do business with the surrounding residents, with the main business hours being before 9:30 in the morning and when people get off work in the afternoon.

At other times, there are basically no people.

The bakery owner has the typical characteristics of a junior capitalist, oppressing himself while also exploiting his employees, and also trying to control them.

In addition to Lance, there is also an apprentice in the bakery, who not only doesn't get a penny of wages each month, but also has to pay the bakery owner ten dollars as tuition for learning the craft.

He has been here for more than half a year, and so far, all he knows is how to knead dough.

The bakery owner is very fat, about two hundred and thirty to two hundred and forty pounds, and has a very skilled bread-making technique.

The surrounding residents are his loyal customers, and the main product here, that whole-wheat bread, has a very strong feeling of satiety and is not easy to cause hunger.

Lance secretly saw that this bastard added some extra bran to it, so the bread would be drier, harder, and more solid, and more popular with the poor.

Because it can fill their stomachs better and is less likely to make them hungry.

The poor don't care what they put in their stomachs, they only care about how filling it is.

He doesn't like this boss because he is mean, stingy.

Lance's monthly salary is fifteen dollars. Currently, the average salary in the City of Angels is about sixty dollars. It is said that for this average, a subject called "Statistics" has been added to the university.

In fact, most workers only earn forty-five to fifty dollars a month.

Lance's salary is one-third of the actual salary. He doesn't really want to only get such a small salary and still do endless work.

But there's nothing he can do, he's an illegal immigrant.

He inexplicably arrived on a ship, and then the ship docked here.

According to the people on the ship, they all paid enough money to be smuggled into the Federation.

The rapid economic development of the Federation lacks a large amount of labor. Even today, when mechanization is being promoted everywhere, people and livestock can still be seen working together in many factories.

In fact, sometimes you can't really tell them apart so clearly, who is human and who is livestock.

The gap between humans and livestock is not as big as imagined.

The economy is developing rapidly, and there is always a huge shortage of labor. The President is promoting the "Regularization of Irregular Immigration Act."

To put it bluntly, it is to give illegal immigrants who have been smuggled in a legal citizen status, the kind that can also vote.

This move has received the support of many illegal immigrants without status, and has also made the use of illegal labor more common. Everyone seems to have realized something, but they just didn't say it.

It is precisely because he doesn't have a legal identity that he can only work here, earning much less than others.

This situation is very common in Goldport City. Everyone likes to use illegal workers. If you are obedient, these newly budding capitalists will reduce your salary by two dollars next month.

If you are not obedient enough, they will immediately call the police and say that you have harassed them.

This trick is very effective against illegal immigrants.

A fellow villager who came with Lance is now enjoying free lunches.

All afternoon, he was busy in the bakery.

The smell of baking bread triggered his hunger as time passed, but now was not the time.

Only after get off work will he have the opportunity to eat those unsold bread.

The bakery owner's low-priced bread cannot be kept overnight. After overnight, it is as hard as a brick. Although it can be eaten after baking, it is ultimately not as good as fresh bread, so it will become their food.

Starting from a little after six o'clock, the work in the bakery became busy. The fat boss stood in front of the counter responsible for collecting money, and his daughter was responsible for packing bread for the customers.

The apprentice worker inside could not rest for a moment, putting the already made bread dough into the oven and continuing to knead the dough.

And Lance is responsible for all kinds of odd jobs.

Although the boss's daughter is not very beautiful, she is very plump and flavorful.

A kind of… spoiled flavor. If the smell on her body wasn't too strong, Lance might grit his teeth and become a family with the bakery owner.

But just because the smell is too strong, he really can't stand it.

The busy work finally ended after half past eight. Lance dragged his tired body to clean the bakery. He was not allowed to enter the back kitchen casually, so the main workplace was in the front hall.

The fat boss sat at the dining table counting today's income, and the smile on his face could not be suppressed at all.

It's hard to imagine that a mean and stingy person could actually show such a soft and gentle smile. Perhaps this is the great power of money.

Lance cleaned the last place, put all the tools in order, and after confirming that there were no omissions, he walked to the fat boss's side.

The oppressive feeling when someone approached made the fat boss raise his head and look at Lance warily, "What are you doing?"

Lance squeezed out a smile, "It's been a month, boss, my salary…"

The fat boss, who was still a little wary, almost jumped up as if someone had stepped on his tail, "Salary?"

"What salary?"

"Didn't you have a fever from the rain a few days ago?"

"If you don't have a fever, what nonsense are you talking about?"

"What salary could you have?"

Looking at the fat boss who seemed to be jumping up and down after being poked in the butthole, Lance was also a little dazed, "We agreed before, fifteen dollars a month."

The fat boss stared at Lance with wide eyes, "Yes, that's right, but have you ever thought about it, you live here with me every day, and you eat my bread, have you ever calculated how much money you spent on me this month?"

He sat back down, turned a page of the notebook, "The cheapest hotel nearby needs twenty-five cents a day, you live in the store, I'll count you twenty cents."

"So thirty-one days a month…"

"It's February, boss."

"Shut up, listen to me!"

"Thirty-one days, twenty cents a day is…"

Lance looked at the fat boss who was directly frozen and reminded him in a low voice, "Six dollars and two cents, boss."

The fat boss nodded, "You're right, six dollars and five cents, and you eat a portion of my bread every morning and evening."

"You know, I sell each portion of bread for fifteen cents, which is…", he looked at Lance, waiting for Lance to give him a standard answer.

Lance did not disappoint him, "Nine dollars and three cents, boss."

The fat boss added another number to the notebook, "Yes, nine dollars and five cents, plus your accommodation fee, six dollars and five cents, you spend me… ten… eighteen dollars every month."

"But your salary is only fifteen, boy, so I ask you, what qualifications do you have to ask me for a salary?"

"You now owe me three yuan, which will be deducted from next month's salary, if you have one."

Lance was a little incredulous, after all, this kind of thing only happened in "storybooks" and "history." Even though a month had passed, he still didn't have any real "sense of participation."

For him, he was like a passerby in the long river of history, perhaps marveling at this world, but not having too much attachment to it.

Until this moment—

"Are you... sure you're not kidding?" he asked.