Empire of Shadows

Question:

What does a security guard need at the dock?

Stable emotions?

A gentle and courteous attitude?

The determination to help people solve problems in a timely manner?

Or a fist that can solve problems?

The answer is actually only one, and that is—whoever is the trouble, they solve them!

Most of the workers on the docks are from the bottom of society. They have not received any higher education, nor are they likely to read books to cultivate their sentiments during their rest.

Most of the time, they will only swear. When they can't out-argue others, they will bump them with their chest, then push and shove, and even eventually cause physical conflicts.

You can't teach these people to solve problems politely, gently, and peacefully.

It's like they can't get a perfect score on a third-grade math test!

This is too difficult for them!

So don't expect the security guards on the docks to speak to others in soft voices. The security guards gave Johnny a warning the first time they entered the office.

Johnny has a little reputation on the docks, a typical small gang bully. Many people have been bullied by him.

But as long as he doesn't affect the company's interests, the security guards turn a blind eye, but that doesn't include him showing up here now and getting violent with the people sitting in the office.

"Don't make it difficult for me, Johnny, you know me."

"Put him down, then get out and sweep your floor, otherwise I'll use your face to sweep the entire dock floor clean!"

Johnny glanced at the security guard. He threw the manager he was holding in his hand away. The latter fell back into the chair with a thud.

The manager subconsciously straightened his somewhat messy tie, and his voice became sharp, "Give him a lesson!"

The security guard felt that his authority had been challenged. He twisted his neck. Before he could say anything to set off what he was about to do, Johnny punched him in the stomach.

In an instant, the severe pain accompanied by intense nausea almost made the security guard vomit!

He bent over, stuck out his butt, and felt his stomach or something else spasm, making him unable to stand up at all.

Johnny grabbed a thick book placed on the corner of the table, lifted it up from below, and slammed it heavily on the security guard's chin, directly knocking him backward!

"Motherfucker!"

"Come suck my big dick!"

Since he wanted to make a big deal out of it, Johnny went all out!

After he somewhat unethically knocked down the security guard, he returned to the office manager who was screaming like a woman. Ignoring what the other party said, he swung his fist and smashed it on the other party's face!

Until, he felt many people hammering him from behind, and someone was strangling his neck.

Suffocation and pain forced him to abandon the manager, but it looked like the manager had been beaten unconscious...

The entire office was in chaos, with a group of security guards surrounding and beating Johnny.

In this era, daring to attack the manager is an unforgivable crime!

More than ten minutes later, Johnny was thrown out, which also attracted the attention of some people.

Many workers saw Johnny being thrown out with a bruised nose and swollen face, looking extremely miserable.

Some gloated, but others felt that the management office was going too far.

So many people beating one person, and a dock worker at that, which aroused the emotions of some workers.

Someone contacted Vaughn, and Vaughn immediately arranged for someone to send Johnny to the hospital, and then made a phone call to Lance.

"Johnny has already been sent to the hospital by me. He looks like he has suffered very serious injuries."

Chairman Scott had already left in advance. He tried to spend a little money to get his connections moving first.

Vaughn truthfully told him about this matter—Lance planned to use the conflict between the dock workers, the management company, and the capitalists to start a major strike!

This sentence scared Scott so much that he almost couldn't sit still on his chair!

A major dock workers' strike would mean that everyone would eventually have to compromise with the dock workers, because they could not accept or afford a long-term shutdown of the Jinguang Dock!

It sounds like another good thing, the working class once again proves that as long as everyone unites, they can defeat the capitalists. This is a great victory for the working class!

But in reality, after the storm of this incident passes, someone will definitely be punished for it.

He is not sure about others, but the chairman of the dock workers' union will definitely be the first!

Why was such an important public opinion situation not discovered and reported in the first place? Why was it not stopped in time before the strike began? Why was the strike method belonging to the union spontaneously formed by a group of workers?

The union had long regarded "strikes" as their private means to force capitalists and politicians to compromise.

The more important things are, the less easily they can be used. Currently, the federal industry unions are doing their best to mediate the contradictions between laborers and capitalists in order to avoid escalating the situation.

It seems that they are doing it for the good of the working class, but in reality, they are doing it so that "strikes" do not become commonplace.

The chairman who did not organize everything will obviously be punished!

He personally took out his wallet and accelerated the speed of relationship transfer. Although he is still nominally the chairman of the Jinguang City Dock Union, in reality his relationship has already been transferred, and Vaughn is the first person in charge here.

Lance was very satisfied after hearing this, "Continue to pay attention to these things, I will let my people cooperate a bit, it still needs some time now."

A strike is not a simple matter. If no one takes the lead, it will definitely not work. Vaughn has not had a chance to go further in the past few years, or even seven or eight years, so cooperating with Lance is the best way he can see right now.

"I will pay close attention to it."

Lance was very satisfied with Vaughn's attitude. Regardless of whether he can do this well, at least his attitude is very comfortable.

"After this matter is over, I guarantee that you will become the envy of everyone. Of course, whether or not to let them know is entirely up to you!"

The matter of Johnny being beaten was subsequently spread on the dock, with all kinds of rumors.

Although most people don't like Johnny very much, in this matter, Johnny represents the interests of the working class, their fellow workers.

And the dock management office is the means used by capitalists to enslave workers. They are naturally opposed to each other.

The news spread quickly. In less than two hours, there were already many mutated rumors—

"Johnny wants to get justice back. You know, he could have had thirty-eight yuan, but now he only has twenty-seven or eight yuan, almost half of his salary is gone at once."

"If it were me, I definitely wouldn't agree, so he went to find the manager, but the manager didn't say anything and let the security guards beat him up and throw him out!"

"They have never respected us. In their eyes, we are no different from a wrench or a screwdriver!"

"A wrench still has things it can't do or doesn't want to do, but we have to listen to them in everything!"

As the rumors began to spread, the matter about Johnny began to ferment. The whole thing became an emotional garbage can. People were not only exchanging "what happened to Johnny," but also began to exchange "what happened to themselves."

They would talk about some unfair treatment they received from the management company, the most common being deduction of wages for being late, leaving early, or not being present during inspections.

The originally strictly enforced rules and regulations at this time, when people are full of resentment, become the capitalists' difficulty for the working masses.

The emotions on the dock were stirred up by themselves little by little.

You can't think too deeply about being angry.

Because the more you think about it, the angrier you will get. Now the people on the dock obviously have this tendency. The unfair treatment they encountered in the past but had almost forgotten is now being brought out by them, making them even more angry!

When the entire dock becomes a powder keg, it is time for the union to appear.

But now, we still need to wait a little longer.

The changes on the dock also made the city look more chaotic. At this time, the mayor decided to give a public speech on Thursday afternoon to discuss some of the problems the city has recently encountered.

Some people think this is a good thing, that City Hall has finally noticed that the city is sliding towards a dangerous edge.

But others feel that it is meaningless for the mayor to only notice these things now, and for some locals, the source of the chaos is the mayor.

If he wants to end the chaos, the best way is to give up resistance and abide by the rules of the city, but obviously it is unlikely.

He is constantly challenging the old order and trying to create his own order. This irreconcilable contradiction is the real source of the city's chaos!

From the fact that the police are already in a state of semi-strike, it can be seen that the mayor is facing a very bad situation.

Under the influence of information asymmetry, the people at the bottom feel that he has no chance to turn over, but those who can really understand the current movements of the city's top leaders know that the real situation is the opposite.

Everyone is waiting, waiting for Wednesday to arrive.

Before Wednesday arrives, the renovation of Red High Heels has officially begun. According to the design, they will first demolish a large number of existing decorations, and then rearrange the layout of the house.

This will be a film company in the future, so it doesn't need so many small cubicles, nor does it need such a large dance floor.

So before truly renovating according to the design drawings, they must tear down everything that was there before.

A young man who hasn't been here from the Empire for very long is bare-chested, swinging a twenty-pound sledgehammer to knock down those things.

This is a very hard job, but Lance's side is very humane. Everyone can earn one yuan a day, and they can also enjoy free lunch and dinner.

The food isn't very tasty. It's all bread with added crude fiber, which is very filling.

The first time he ate this kind of bread, he was almost choked to the point of questioning his life. Almost every bite was so difficult to swallow.

Even if he swallowed it with water, it would stick tightly to his esophagus, slowly descending.

Later, he watched others eat it bit by bit and mastered the correct way to eat it. He suspected that this bread contained some wood chips or something.

In addition to unlimited bread, everyone can also eat a roast chicken every day, a whole one.

This is also the reason why many people are willing to work here. For them, eating meat, even chicken, is a very extravagant thing!

Being able to eat their fill makes them work extra hard. When he raised the sledgehammer again to strike the wall, he suddenly felt the force on the hammerhead completely dissipate!

And the wall was also smashed with a gap by him.

He forcefully pulled the hammerhead out. In these few days, he had encountered this situation many times.

Sometimes, in order to create some aesthetic appeal in the design, a large number of gypsum boards were used in the previous decoration. It is possible that this is a piece of gypsum board or something like that.

When he pulled the hammerhead out of the breach, he also knocked open the entire brick surface, and some things inside fell out.

Several kraft paper bags. His heart suddenly began to pound.

He had heard many rumors about the Federation, such as opening a wall to find a secret room filled with gold coins and cash.

Or that an inconspicuous painting is an antique that can be sold for an astonishing price!

Is it his turn this time?

He quickly picked up a few kraft paper bags and opened one of them. To his disappointment, they were all filled with notebooks.

He picked up one at random and opened the first page.

"April 17th, ... Mr. called, he specifically asked for ... to accompany him, and he offered a price of one thousand yuan."

"We sent the person over in the morning and picked them up as early as four o'clock in the afternoon. He's simply a madman!"

"The girl has been tortured by him to the point of incontinence, making the whole car full of shit. It's really a ghost!"

"... (He guessed it was a doctor) said that she would not be able to work normally in the future. She was a beautiful customer with some stable clients. Abandoning her really makes people feel dissatisfied and angry."

"But fortunately... Mr. gave another compensation of five thousand yuan, hoping he won't be so violent next time!"

"April 19th, ... Mr. encountered some troubles. Coincidentally, we have a girl who has always been unwilling to cooperate with us. I decided to send her over."

"Sometimes they really don't understand at all. Everything that seems unbearable to them is actually for their own good."

"They can't understand me, they always think I'm harming them, it's ridiculous."

"I can recall the agile and hateful light in her eyes every time I tame her. I hope that this time, she can still hate this world so much!"

The following paragraph was obviously written at another time, and the notebook has also changed somewhat.

"She's dead, piece by piece. The person in charge of cleaning up the scene came back and told me that he almost threw up."

"That's a lunatic. He tore her into pieces. I feel nauseous just hearing about it!"

"These people are really perverted. Are all rich people like this?"

"April..."

After flipping through several pages in a row, the young man's chest was already heaving violently. He roughly understood what this was.

He's not stupid. Of course, he knows that these should be the diaries of the former operator here.

Recorded inside are the diaries of his persecution of the girls here, the evidence of the crime, but he doesn't know who to hand it over to.

He thought about these things for a long time, and found the person in charge of supervising their work, "I want to see the boss, I have important things to report to him."

The person in charge of construction sized him up. Under Lance's excellent "leading by example," the Lance family has not yet become corrupt and degenerate.

"Don't go anywhere here, I'll make a phone call now."

Before long, Elvin drove over, "Who's looking for me?"

The young man raised his hand. By this time, some people were already watching here. After Elvin had people disperse them, he walked to the corner with the young man.

He directly handed a notebook to Elvin. Elvin opened it and only took one look, and his expression became extremely serious!

"Besides you, who else has seen these things?"

The young man shook his head, "No one else, only I have seen it."

Elvin called over the person in charge of supervising the workers' work, "Give me a list of everyone here. Before I call you, none of them can leave."

The supervisor could feel the seriousness of the matter, and he nodded quickly, "I know what to do, Elvin."

Elvin patted him on the shoulder, then looked at the young man, "What's your name?"

"Phillip."

"Phillip, come with me to see Lance..."

Ten minutes later, Lance glanced at Elvin and Phillip standing by the door and opened the notebook in his hand.

He then flipped through a few pages, which roughly recorded the Red High Heels and Bay Area education.

There was no record of Red High Heels' ordinary business, nor was there any value in recording it. The business of a few yuan, ten yuan, or at most dozens of yuan was not worth recording.

Only those businesses with the Bay Area were worth recording.

These notebooks were obviously not from the same batch. He picked up some that looked older, "These should be recorded by Booker (Camilla's gang's manager during his time, who has already committed suicide)."

Then he picked up the other two that were obviously newer, "These should be recorded by Sam (the person the mayor hired, who also committed suicide)."

Sam was obviously more cunning than Booker and more experienced in dealing with these things.

Booker did not leave any valuable "evidence" in the notebook, but in Sam's notebook, there were about forty banknotes and checks in total.

These banknotes were properly sandwiched between two pieces of paper. He should have done this to protect the fingerprints on them. Lance didn't know if it would work.

There were also about a dozen checks, which were obviously much more useful.

They not only had the date, but also the amount, as well as the handwritten signature of the person paying the check, and they could match the amount of service recorded in the diary!

If fingerprints could be extracted from these checks, then this would be solid and valuable evidence!

Lance looked at Phillip, "These things are very important to me. You have done a great service."

"I am a very fair person. If what you do is valuable to me, I will reward you."

"Now, tell me, what do you want to get?"

"Money, identity, or anything else, you can ask!"