Empire of Shadows

You want my money.

I want your life.

Sounds fair, right?

After the woman left, Elvin walked in from outside. "Resolved?"

Remember the original website domain name 𝕥 𝕨 𝕜 𝕒 𝕟 . 𝕔 𝕠 𝕞

Lance nodded. Elvin was the one who found her. "Are there many people like this among the immigrants?"

Elvin nodded. "Quite a few, at least several dozen."

Out of 200,000 legal immigrants, and a large number of illegal immigrants, there will always be people whose bodies have problems and can't hold on for too long.

Although medical science is advancing by leaps and bounds every day, and new wonder drugs are being born every day, this world seems to be cursed by a mysterious curse.

When people solve one terminal illness, a new terminal illness appears. No matter how hard people try, it seems that something is constantly reducing the number of humans who survive.

It's like there's a special mechanism, screening, blocking, not letting people live better.

God says this is suffering, but it's more like a curse!

"Make a list of these people, check their situations, and prioritize them. We'll go to them when we need to."

These people are actually very pitiful. They finally smuggled or exhausted their family property to come to the Federation, and obtained or did not obtain legal survival. In short, they survived.

But before they had enjoyed many good days, they contracted a terminal illness, and their lives entered a countdown.

If they came alone, the situation might be slightly better. After all, they came alone and left alone, without any burden.

But for those who have already started families here, there will be a lot of reluctance.

When they leave, what will happen to their families? What will happen to their children?

Maybe five thousand dollars won't allow them to live a life of ease and comfort, but at least it will allow them not to worry so much about the living conditions of their wives and children after they leave.

Five thousand dollars, calculated at thirty dollars per month, even with inflation, this money is enough for these widows and children to grow up without financial pressure.

After Elvin sat down, he brought up another matter. "Borton said that many outsiders have come to the Empire District in the past two days. These outsiders are concentrated near the nightclub."

"It's possible that people from that side have transferred manpower from other places, at least one or two hundred!"

He mentioned Borton, and Lance asked about Borton's situation. After all, he killed Robb, and Borton, as his biological father, would definitely have some emotions and dissatisfaction. He needed to know these situations.

Elvin's expression was a little strange. "Maurice arranged for someone to keep an eye on Borton. When you weren't around, Borton went to the hospital. He went to ask the doctor…"

Lance became a little curious. "Asked what?"

"He asked the doctor if he could still have children…"

As he spoke, Elvin couldn't help but laugh. "The doctor told him that he was very strong and could still have children."

Lance was also laughing. This was actually a good thing. "He is a very typical villain. When he feels that he can't hurt you by biting, but will instead have his legs broken by you, he will obediently crawl at your feet."

"But we can't relax because of this, because once he thinks he can bite you to death, he will pounce on you when you are not paying attention."

Elvin frowned. "Then why not just kill him?"

Lance sighed softly. "It's not that easy to do. He has done a lot of work for us, and he didn't stop us from punishing Robb. If we kill him now, what will others think?"

"In fact, some people even think that we should forgive Robb, so we need to emphasize discipline now, and killing him for no reason will cause some trouble."

"But don't worry, he's very smart. He probably thought of this too, so… soon he will get married again."

Elvin was indeed very smart, and his mind was also flexible, but he had never been exposed to this summary situation. He didn't know what Lance was talking about, so he could only look at him blankly.

Lance explained to him, "He knows that we don't trust him that much anymore. He's even afraid that if he loses his job now and doesn't appear in front of people often, we will quietly kill him."

"So the best way is to give us another handle to grab."

"Marry a new wife, and then have a few children, right under our noses. He has new concerns and things that can threaten him, so we can rest assured about him."

Hearing this, Elvin finally realized. He felt it was a bit unbelievable. "He can think of so much?"

Lance nodded. "People can unleash endless potential when facing danger, potential that even we ourselves can't imagine."

He paused. "Let Borton arrange for people to continue to keep an eye on those outsiders. How is the situation with the Dangerous Goods Administration?"

"They are still investigating."

Elvin took out a cigarette, walked to Lance's side, handed him one, and struck a match to light it for him.

"They are not only investigating here, but the entire Golden Port City is being investigated. The Red Dog Gang also had a bar shut down by them."

Lance became a little interested. "Tell me about it."

After the Brotherhood was finished, the Red Dog Gang couldn't care less about Lance driving them out of the Empire District. They began to develop rapidly, but the Red Dog Gang's own strength was not very strong. In addition to some former Brotherhood members after the Brotherhood was finished, or some street families who were suppressed and couldn't rise to the top, they began to develop rapidly.

The entire port area was a mess.

The wars and struggles between gangs, in the final analysis, require a lot of funds. These gangs began to frantically make money.

For the current Golden Port City, nothing is faster than selling smuggled alcohol.

Bill of the Red Dog Gang didn't know which nerve was wrong, but he actually wanted to unify the port area, so recently they were recruiting gang members on a large scale while frantically opening bars.

Because it was too blatant, whether someone reported them or the people from the Dangerous Goods Administration arranged an informant to find the location, a bar was shut down.

"There were about five thousand dollars worth of alcohol, and several thousand dollars that hadn't been taken away."

"Their profits are much higher than ours. For the same alcohol, their profit is almost twice ours."

Lance nodded. "There will be opportunities to raise prices later. Didn't Bill say anything?"

"What else can he say?"

Elvin asked, "Besides throwing a tantrum in the office, I can't imagine what else that sissy can do."

Under Lance's influence, everyone looked down on the Red Dog Gang.

"Have those bars on our side reopened yet?"

Lance asked another question. Brinton and the others haven't opened for business since they got the bars.

Many people are guessing what they are going to do, but Lance thinks they might be gathering alcohol, or… trying to find a way to get some free alcohol.

Elvin didn't know about this.

Lance chatted with him for a while, asking him to notify Borton to keep a close eye on those outsiders and to send back any news in a timely manner.

Borton was very attentive, earnestly completing all the work Lance had assigned, as if Robb was not his son at all.

While Lance was paying close attention to Brinton and his group, Brinton was also paying attention to Lance and their situation.

The mayor's secretary has contacted him twice, asking him to take care of Lance and his group as soon as possible.

He could feel the strong emotions when the secretary conveyed these orders, and he also knew that this kind of thing couldn't be delayed.

But the manpower hasn't arrived yet, and the weapons and everything else have to be transported over. He can't just go and fight with Lance and those people empty-handed, right?

Golden Port City is very strange. Including those arms dealers, they are actually unwilling to sell weapons to outsiders. This is something Brinton didn't expect.

It's not that he hasn't gone to other cities to do some work. After they went to the local area and found arms dealers, as long as they gave money, the other party would sell anything.

But here, when they proposed to buy weapons in large quantities, the arms dealers directly refused the transaction, on the grounds that they didn't want to interfere in their competition with the locals.

In the end, Brinton could only transfer a batch of weapons from other places, which also gave him a very general, but definitely in-depth, understanding of the local situation—extremely xenophobic!

Now, with the arrival of personnel and the weapons arriving in the next few days, he can begin to consider how to deal with Lance.

"Lance and his people usually live in the New Bay Area. They bought several townhouses in a row and then remodeled them…"

Someone put a photo taken from a distance on the table. In the photo, several houses were surrounded by a high wall. It wouldn't be easy to break in silently.

It would be difficult to destroy this high wall in itself. Once discovered by the people in the house, even if they opened a gap, it would be difficult to break in.

Brinton rejected this plan with just one glance. He had heard the mayor say before that the New Bay Area was a focus of later development. If there was a firefight in the New Bay Area, it was likely to disrupt the mayor's plan.

And as his subordinates said, the high wall made the attack difficult.

You must know that they are all gang members, not professional soldiers. As the attacking side, which is obviously at a disadvantage, wanting to take down this house means they have to pay an even greater price!

Brinton didn't want to lose a large number of men right from the start. The people here are very united and very xenophobic, making it difficult for him to recruit men here.

Even if these people weren't xenophobic, and he could recruit some men, whether he dared to use these people, and whether he could use them with confidence, became a problem he needed to worry about.

"Figure out a way to lure them out." Undoubtedly, Brington had heard about the shootout involving the Lance family being cornered by Camilla's gang in the alley.

He had also heard about this clearly unequal battle and its unbelievable outcome. This was a resilient family, and taking them down on the offensive would come at a high price.

"So, I have an idea. We can't fight them where they have the advantage. We have to lure them out."

"We'll set up an ambush first, then wait for them to come, and then attack them, like we've created a trap, waiting for them to come."

"That way, the advantage will be on our side."

The others chimed in, and eventually, the small man beside Brington gave this idea his full endorsement, "A very good idea. I think we can try it."

"But we have a few new problems now: how to lure them out, how to judge which route they'll take, and how many people will come."

The guy who served as Brington's advisor, or rather, his strategist, said, "The Lance family's main income currently comes from two sources. One is their office."

"That's not easy for us to deal with, because the workers leave work when they leave work, and when the workers aren't leaving work, there are too many people there, and it's during the day."

"As for the other part, it's their bars."

"If we can find one of their bars, they'll definitely want to come and see what happened."

"The Dangerous Goods Administration has already shut down two of their bars. Their income should have decreased quite a bit, so they'll pay more attention to the remaining bars."

This was clearly an intelligent statement. Brington trusted his strategist very much, and what he said made sense. He continued to play his role of not using his brain much, "Then how do we find these bars?"

The strategist smiled, a confident smile, as if he already saw the ending, "We don't know, but drunks do!"

Drunks, regardless of the era or the socio-cultural background, have surprising similarities.

People who aren't familiar with them might not be able to distinguish who is a drunk and who isn't so easily, but those who are familiar with drunks can do it very easily.

Brington's orders were issued, and soon the Vipers began to take action.

In the morning, outside a bakery on the roadside, with the weather already warming up, many bakeries had put tables and chairs outside.

This made some elderly people very happy. They liked sitting in the open air, eating bread, drinking coffee, and chatting with others.

For many elderly people who had lost their ability to work, this was the only way they wouldn't annoy their children, if they lived with their children.

As for those elderly people who lived alone or didn't live with their children, they could relieve their loneliness in this way.

Three or five elderly people at a table, two or three tables, ten elderly people sitting together, they could chat about everything related to their lives or the country.

From whether the President was an alien to why people's wages hadn't increased, there was nothing they couldn't talk about.

These people were even more political than those politicians, and they would argue endlessly over their different positions. This became a part of the slow-paced life in the big city.

Of course, not all areas were like this. In places like the Port District, the Bay Area, the city center, and the Starlight District, the pace of life was very fast. In addition to the dazed old people sitting at the intersections, there were also some homeless people wandering the streets.

Sometimes middle-aged people would join them. Those who were frustrated with life or work also needed an environment to release some negative emotions, and this was a good choice.

"…The President is talking about the issue of illegal immigrants. The increasing number of illegal immigrants recently has forced him to pay attention to the promises he made during the election."

"These politicians are always like this. They're like those frivolous young people who are willing to say anything and promise anything when they want to sleep with you."

"But once they've pulled up their pants, every word you say will only annoy them!"

An old man pinched his bread and said something profound, and the others all laughed.

Another old man joked, "First, you have to make the young people like your ass!"

The first old man was immediately unhappy. He raised his voice a little, "I'm making an analogy, damn it, are you senile?"

The two old men started arguing, which was common here. The others just watched them with smiles.

After they had argued almost to the end, they continued to talk about the subsequent topics.

In fact, it wasn't just the President who was talking about the issue of illegal immigrants recently, some local officials were also discussing it.

"Do you guys know that William who's been particularly active here recently?" someone asked.

Someone else replied, "I know. A Federal Party kid. He must be wanting to run for councilor in the Imperial District, so he often comes here and promises a lot of things."

The old man curled his lip, "As for whether he can deliver in the future, I don't have any hope at all."

"The politicians here are even more shameless than the nobles of the Empire!"

"At least the nobles know that not fulfilling their promises will make people laugh at them for not having the cultivation of nobles, but the politicians here will be proud of it, because they have successfully deceived the people again!"

These people laughed again. This was their life.

When each table started chatting about their own things, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his early thirties bought a loaf of bread and sat in an empty seat.

A dry piece of bread, twenty-five cents, a quarter of a pound, the hard, yellowed surface was the favorite of some people.

He imitated the old men, tearing off a small piece and putting it in his mouth, chewing it.

The old men were a little embarrassed. Everyone was familiar with each other, and a stranger had suddenly appeared.

But these were the bakery's tables and chairs. If someone bought bread at the bakery, they had the right to sit here.

As he ate, the middle-aged man suddenly sighed, which made the old men frown.

They didn't like people sighing early in the morning. The older they got, the more they disliked it.

"If you have something you can't figure out, you might as well talk to us. We're not gossipy people. No one else will know except us."

The middle-aged man hesitated, which aroused the old men's interest. Exploring other people's privacy was always a desire in human bones.

"We've all experienced a lot. Our experience and wisdom might be able to help you find an exit from the maze of life, child!"

The middle-aged man began to tell why he sighed. He talked about his family, his work, and also stated his identity as an immigrant.

"…Everything happened so fast, so badly, that it destroyed my life before I could react!"

"I now… just want to get drunk, but the damn prohibition prevents me from buying alcohol!"

The middle-aged man waved his fist. He looked at the old men, "Do you know where I can get some alcohol?"