Empire of Shadows

When you first visit your girlfriend's home and see her father, and he asks you if you're nervous, how should you answer?

Nervous?

Why nervous?

Not nervous?

Why not nervous?

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

No matter how you answer, it will lead to more questions, and each question will be very difficult to answer. A little carelessness can lead to a fall.

Lance glanced at Patricia in the dining room and replied, "Not nervous."

He looked at Mr. Lawrence again, "If you truly love someone, standing in my current position, you will understand that my heart is full of courage."

"I will overcome all difficulties and then take her home."

"The only thing that can make me nervous is losing her."

"But that will also fill me with courage, because I know I will take her back!"

Mrs. Lawrence smiled so widely that she couldn't close her mouth. She leaned over and asked Patricia in a soft voice, "Has he always been this good at talking?"

Mr. Lawrence glanced at his wife and daughter, who were enjoying the show, and felt that Lance's answer was too… practiced, "How many girls and their fathers have you said these words to?"

Lance directly retorted without fear, "You and Pat are the first. I can swear to God."

In the Federation, eighty percent of the people are believers, so swearing to God is a very serious matter.

He looked at Lance, and Lance also looked at him calmly. In this world, it was indeed the first time.

This calmness relaxed Mr. Lawrence's attitude a little, "You can call me William."

A very good shift.

Patricia quickly ran to the bathroom, laughed for a while, and then came back with a flushed face. She felt very happy now.

Mr. Lawrence then began to inquire about Lance's recent situation.

"I heard that you were sold to a black factory when you were young?"

He had done an investigation. For a government official, it was too easy to investigate an ordinary person's identity information.

As for the so-called privacy management, it was actually just used to fool ordinary taxpayers, and even senior taxpayers couldn't be fooled.

No one knows better than them what this country and government are like.

Lance repeated those old things. Mr. Lawrence listened very carefully, "How do you plan to handle the relationship between you and your parents, and your sister?"

"You haven't been together for many years. I believe you should understand what I mean. You are like strangers, but also relatives."

The people of the Federation value family very much. It has risen to become a direct label for distinguishing whether a person is good or bad.

If you can maintain good family relationships, even if you do bad things, others will think it might be an accident.

But if you can't maintain good family relationships, even if you always do good things, they will think that you will eventually cause a big mess.

"I will try to integrate into it, but I will not force us all to do it. I will bear everything I should bear. That's all I can do for now."

At least it was an answer above the passing line. Mr. Lawrence changed the subject, "I heard Pat say that you have registered two companies?"

"Yes, a financial consulting company and a labor intermediary company."

He briefly introduced the business of these two companies, as well as the legal part of the income they could bring to him. Mr. Lawrence's expression became softer.

Although he was a Federalist, he also understood that the Social Democratic Party's policy of focusing on developing a modern industrial economy was correct, and it was inevitable that capital would become the god of this country.

Lance has money. Without discussing what he can do for society or for their family, at least it is not a bad thing.

Inevitably, they talked about the recent anti-immigration movement again.

Lance didn't go into more detail on this issue, appropriately showing some sympathy for the immigrant groups. Mr. Lawrence didn't express his position, but it could be seen that he was very satisfied with Lance now.

Before long, it was time for dinner. Mrs. Lawrence had already opened the wine. Top-quality cognac brandy was just like that, but Mr. Lawrence liked it very much.

The dinner was very rich. It could be seen that Mrs. Lawrence was a good housewife, at least impeccable in terms of cooking.

In just a short meal, Lance established a very full image of himself as "being abducted since childhood, then working hard to become self-reliant, finding his way home, and finally succeeding after hard work."

He called the encounter with Patricia "God's arrangement," and the Lawrence couple, who were all believers, were also very satisfied with this statement.

From now on, they can't find many faults in Lance.

The host and guests were happy.

After dinner, Lance didn't stay long. After resting for a while, he very tactfully offered to leave, and Mr. Lawrence of course agreed.

After watching Lance leave, Mrs. Lawrence was very satisfied with Lance's performance during the family dinner.

Funny, humorous, intelligent, sharp, and also in line with the aesthetics of people in this era, tough and handsome.

She joked with her husband and said, "Now you won't be worried anymore, will you?"

Mr. Lawrence sighed heavily instead, somewhat helplessly, "On the contrary, I am even more worried!"

As for what he was worried about, presumably he had plenty of time to talk to Mrs. Lawrence. Sometimes being too good is not a good thing. He hesitated a little, not sure how to face this matter.

The next morning, when Lance was at the company, Ervin suddenly knocked on the door, "What's the matter?"

Lance asked him to come over and sit down. Ervin took a sip of water, "Guess who's here?"

"Who?", Lance gave him a cigarette. Ervin skillfully lit Lance's first, and then his own.

"Your former boss, Johnny, he came to borrow money."

Lance was a little surprised. Ervin briefly explained what he had found out. After listening, Lance also felt a little unbelievable. This was too unlucky.

He had always thought that the apprentice would endure to the end. He didn't expect that as soon as he left, the apprentice would give Johnny a hard time, and he even thought that the tax evasion problem was reported by the apprentice.

Because there were not many people who knew how much his actual income was, just a few people.

Originally, Lance planned to wait until Sean got his law license, and let him go to Johnny to practice his skills when he had nothing to do, to thank him for taking care of him in the past, but now it seems that it is too late.

Lance considered it, "I will personally go and receive him."

"That's what I thought too!", Ervin said with a smile.

At this time, Johnny was very frustrated in the office. He had already gone to other financial companies to ask, and they could only lend him two thousand dollars, and the interest was very high.

He couldn't afford to borrow it, and he couldn't afford to pay it back.

The lawyer came today and told him that the lawyer had obtained the tax bureau's demands through some connections. They advocated recovering Johnny's unpaid taxes for ten years, as well as corresponding fines, totaling ten thousand dollars.

The court will agree to their request to recover taxes. The only room for maneuver now is the amount of the fine.

But in any case, he must prepare the money as soon as possible. This lawsuit is very likely to be pronounced on the spot.

After the verdict is pronounced, it will enter the enforcement period. If he does not pay the money, the tax bureau will apply to auction his real estate after the enforcement period expires.

The situation will be even worse at that time, and they will also calculate late fees.

He had found three financial companies, and the prices they gave were much higher than the bank, but the interest was much higher. He had no choice but to come here with a try-it-out mentality.

The person who received him looked a little familiar. He seemed to have seen him somewhere, but he couldn't remember for a while.

The other party said that such a large transaction required the manager to come, and asked him to wait a moment.

In the process of waiting, he thought about a lot of things, which eventually turned into a helpless sigh.

At this moment, the door rang. He quickly stood up. When he turned around, he saw Lance.

Lance was wearing an expensive suit, with the air of a successful person, "Long time no see, Johnny."

Johnny was stunned for a while, and asked somewhat uncertainly, "You... here?"

Lance walked to Ervin's chair and sat down, looking at him very properly, "I am the manager here. I heard that you are in trouble?"

Johnny, who was already about to leave, changed his face again and again, "Yes, I urgently need a sum of money."

Lance smiled and fiddled with the small ornaments on the table, "Money is never a problem, but what do you use to guarantee that you can repay this money?"

"You know, your bread-making skills are worthless here."

Johnny's face was a little flushed. His bread-making skills were what he was most proud of. He had been proud of this skill all his life!

But now, he couldn't even refute it.

Lance didn't intend to let him go, "It seems that you don't agree with me. How much is your skill worth, Johnny, five yuan, ten yuan, or twenty yuan?"

"How much money are other financial companies and banks willing to give you because of your skills?"

"Tell me, no matter how much they give, I will add twenty percent on their basis."

Johnny didn't speak, his face turned red and white, because he knew that in the bank, his skills were worthless at all.

He couldn't stand it anymore. If it were someone else, he might be able to endure it, but this was Lance!

"If you want to humiliate me, then you have succeeded, but only this time!", he stood up and wanted to leave, he had had enough!

Lance didn't give him a chance to leave, "I'll give you three thousand dollars."

Johnny, who had already stood up, slowly sat back in Lance's half-smiling smile.

"You want to leave?"

Jonny was silent for a moment, "My butt hurts a bit."

This made Lance laugh out loud, "You need to come up with a better lie, Jonny. This isn't a bakery; no one likes listening to your nonsense!"

He laughed for a while, "Now, tell me that your baking skills are worthless."

"Of course, you don't have to, but you know, it's three thousand dollars."

Jonny struggled with the decision for a while. Although he wasn't a great person, he was still persistent in some ways.

But no matter how persistent he was, he couldn't hold on any longer. He said in a very dejected voice, "You win, my skills are worthless."

Lance waved at him, signaling him to hand over the documents.

Lance took one look and felt something was wrong, "You're not mortgaging the bakery?"

Jonny stared blankly for a moment, "I just need three thousand dollars."

He had a sum of money from the court in his bank account, plus his own three hundred and something dollars, totaling close to one thousand eight hundred dollars.

If he could borrow three thousand dollars from Lance, and then find a way to scrape together the rest, he could come up with five thousand dollars in cash.

This was also a relatively suitable number that the lawyer thought of, possibly even a bit less. After all, he was only evading taxes, not intentionally committing tax evasion. The judge should consider reducing the fine accordingly.

He didn't need to mortgage the bakery, nor would he mortgage the bakery. "If you want my bakery, I can leave right now."

Lance considered for a moment, "Considering that you at least once provided me with a place to live and fed me, Jonny, I'll lend it to you."

Jonny couldn't believe it was real!

He stared at Lance with wide eyes. He began to regret what he had done before, although it was only temporary, and he would forget these things before long, but at least he regretted it now.

"What interest rate are others giving you?"

Jonny recalled for a moment, and hesitantly lowered the interest rate a bit, "They're willing to lend me two thousand dollars, and I have to pay back five thousand dollars in six months."

"A twenty-five percent interest rate is very high. I'll lend you three thousand dollars at an eighteen percent monthly interest rate."

Jonny wasn't very good at arithmetic, "If the time comes, how much money do I have to pay you back?"

Lance simply wrote out a calculation on a piece of paper, "Six thousand two hundred and forty dollars."

Jonny was silent for a moment, "The interest is still too high, can't it be..."

"No!" Lance's answer was firm, "Jonny, others are asking for five thousand for lending you two thousand. I'm essentially lending you an extra thousand without asking for interest."

"People have to learn to be grateful. If you think the interest is too high, you can try other places."

Jonny hugged his head in pain, "I don't know, Lance!"

Lance took out two contracts. One was a legal loan contract, executed according to the federal judicial regulations' upper limit of twenty-two percent annual interest rate.

The other was a "financial consulting fee," which exceeded the reasonable interest rate, thus circumventing the 'Usury Law' very well.

After filling in all the blanks, he placed the pen and a total of four contracts in front of Jonny, "Sign, or don't sign, the choice is yours."

Looking at the two contracts, thinking about the tax bureau causing him trouble, thinking about the lawyer saying that there would be late fees if he didn't pay, he finally painfully picked up the pen and signed his name.

Lance had Alvin come over and took three photos of Jonny with a camera. One was of him standing next to Lance holding the two contracts, and the other was of him turning to the page that said, "I voluntarily…"

After doing all this, Lance asked, "Cash or transfer?"

"Cash!" Jonny said fiercely. Federal people have a special obsession with cash.

Lance quickly counted out a large pile of money for him. He counted it again, and when he finished counting, he looked up at Lance, "The money isn't right, there's eighteen dollars missing."

Lance looked at him with a smile that wasn't a smile, "You forgot, you owe it to me."