Empire of Shadows

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When Hiram kicked him in the abdomen, the young man felt as if a nerve in his entire body had been suddenly pulled tight.

He immediately curled into a ball! Hiram shook his head and lifted his foot to kick him hard, “Not looking for a job, robbing stores?”

“And shooting?”

Originally, some people on the roadside looked on with sympathy, but when Hiram said these words, they were all somewhat startled, and then realized that these young men were the ones who had robbed the small store yesterday.

They not only stole money and goods but also shot and wounded the store owner. If the doctors hadn’t rescued him successfully, he might have died.

But even so, without considering the high cost of rescue, just hearing that he had half his liver removed made people feel terror and anger!

No one wants such a thing to happen to them, especially when they haven’t provoked anyone; anyone could encounter this situation.The small store owner’s ordeal spread quickly throughout the Empire District, and people were very angry. They had already identified one of the perpetrators.

Some spontaneously went to the branch bureau’s entrance to provide clues, but the police’s response was “we are currently investigating” and a demand for the public “not to interfere with judicial procedures,” telling them it was best to do nothing.

They also said that loudly publicizing who robbed the store could cause the culprits to flee early, putting them at a disadvantage.

However, the police themselves did nothing, with only two officers listening to these matters, recording them, and then returning to the police station.

This dissatisfaction continued to accumulate, leaving some people feeling lost.

They wanted to do something to make this country, this society, at least not deviate so much from their perception of it, but they couldn’t do anything.

Now, when someone did something about this matter, they suddenly felt an inexplicable satisfaction.

Some people who knew about this showed faint smiles on their faces. Evil was judged, and wickedness could never overcome justice.

Although this justice was a bit strange, at least it wasn’t allied with evil and actually judged it, right?

Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the other side. Hiram flinched, and then Morris’s curses followed. Hiram pulled out his pistol and ran over.

Lawn looked at the two new recruits, pointing at the young man on the ground, “Keep beating him, but don’t kill him.”

He also drew his pistol and followed Hiram across the street.

Across the street, Morris was hiding behind a wall, and in the car, two other young men were also hiding behind it.

Hiram ran up to him, “Shot?”

Morris shook his head, gasping for breath, and lifted his trench coat; there was a hole in it.

Hiram quickly patted him down, confirming there were no wounds, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

“That son of a bitch!” he quickly peeked out, and the guy had already run off.

The onlookers nearby had long since screamed and hidden themselves.

He directly pulled open the passenger door of the car Morris was in, and Lawn smoothly squeezed in.

Morris gestured for the driver to get out, and he personally sat in the driver’s seat, releasing the brake and flooring the accelerator.

Tires smoked and spun, the entire car shook in place twice, then suddenly shot forward.

Ultimately, people cannot outrun cars.

Hiram and Lawn sat one behind the other in the front passenger seat and behind it. As they approached the frantically running young man, both simultaneously extended their pistols out of the car windows.

Bang, bang, bang, bang! After several shots, the young man holding a revolver suddenly staggered a few steps and almost fell. He leaned against a shop window to regain his balance and continued to run.

But his speed had clearly decreased.

After running about ten more steps, he stumbled and fell to the ground, his gun slipping from his grasp.

Morris swerved the wheel and slammed on the brakes, the car screeching onto the sidewalk.

When Hiram and Lawn got out of the car, the young man had already started crying.

“Spare me… Mom!”

This was the closest Morris had been to death since that alley fight. He pulled out the gun he was carrying and rushed to the young man’s side.

Hiram had already kicked the revolver aside. Morris cursed as he emptied the magazine.

Following the Lance family’s excellent tradition, Hiram and Lawn also fired their bullets.

The young man lay on the ground, shedding his last tear, moved by the continuous outpouring of “great love” into his body.

His tensed muscles and frightened expression gradually relaxed, becoming peaceful.

Only when the clicks of empty chambers sounded did Hiram drop the magazine and insert a new one.

Some people hid in the alleys watching them, while others hid in stores. The street was dead silent.

He glanced at the shattered shop windows of two stores on the roadside, broken when he and Lawn fired from the car, and walked straight towards them.

Countless eyes followed his steps, their emotions rising and falling with him.

He first entered one shop. There were three customers inside, plus the owner, making four people. They all stood in a corner, heads bowed, very frightened.

Hiram still exuded a strong aura of hostility. Although he looked foolish now, no one dared to underestimate him.

“Accidentally broke your glass…” he held up his thumb and gestured towards the cracked shop window behind him, then pulled out five dollars and placed it on the counter, “This is to compensate for your glass.”

“If it’s not enough, you can come to the Lance family and find me, and I’ll make it up to you.”

The owner was too scared to say anything. Hiram, seeing him trembling, couldn’t help but smile and pat him on the shoulder, “I don’t eat people, brother!”

Saying that, he turned and left, going to another store, a bakery. There were still some fresh breads in the window.

Looking at the bread under the shattered glass, Hiram rolled his eyes, pulled out two five-dollar bills, and placed them on the counter, “This is to compensate for your glass and bread. I don’t know if it’s enough.”

The owners were a young couple, and there were a few customers standing dumbfounded by the tables in the bakery.

The couple quickly nodded, bowing slightly, “Enough, sir, more than enough, it doesn’t cost that much…”

They even tried to return the money to Hiram, but Hiram refused, “If there’s extra, give me… a bag of donuts, they all love them.”

The young couple saw something incredible in each other’s eyes, but soon they prepared a large bag of donuts and handed them over, no longer as frightened and uneasy as before.

“I hope I didn’t scare you. Please believe me, this street will soon be quiet again. Good day!”

He left the bakery with the bag of donuts, leaving behind only some bewildered people.

“They seem… different from other gangs.”

The young couple whispered. Ten dollars was indeed far more than their losses.

The glass probably cost a little over three dollars, and the bread underneath was only worth two or three dollars. Giving ten dollars was indeed too much, even if they filled an entire bag of donuts.

But this wasn’t about the amount of money; it was about these people actually compensating them for their losses!

Several customers eating bread also walked to the window and looked outside.

An older man couldn’t help but say, “Yesterday… a store a few blocks away was reportedly robbed by five young men. They also shot and wounded the owner, it must be these guys.”

“My God, how is the injured owner?”

This older man seemed very talkative and well-informed. “His liver and spleen were removed because he was severely injured. I heard he even needs to defecate through an opening in his stomach now…”

“That’s horrible!” other customers exclaimed.

These exclamations made the old man realize the significance and value of his words. “So I think their actions are not extreme at all. You should consider that if no one manages these lawless people, perhaps we will be the next victims.”

“If someone has to carry a gun, I hope it’s them. At least they know how to compensate when they break your shop window and bread.”

No one spoke, carefully pondering the old man’s words. But they didn’t know that soon, the injured owner, who had only had a large part of his liver removed, would become a “vegetative state” in the rumors…

Of course, this actually had little to do with them, or rather, it had something to do with everyone. If the store owner was “said to be dead,” then every link in the rumor chain was a murderer and participant!

Outside, Lawn had already taken a waterproof tarp from the car’s trunk and spread it across the entire trunk. The two of them lifted the body and tossed it in.

Lawn drove away directly; he had to go back and dispose of the body.

Perhaps because this guy was shot dead in the street, the fellow who had just come out of the antique shop also gave up trying to escape.

The four individuals were severely beaten, then loaded into the car, and quickly disappeared from the street.

About ten minutes later, two more cars arrived. Several young men in work uniforms sprayed the remaining bloodstains on the ground, seemingly using some chemical agent…

The police arrived twenty minutes later, but they received no information. Almost no one remembered what the shooters looked like, or the color of their car, or who was killed and taken away.

Mass amnesia!

At this moment, Nick, in the hospital, looked at his dying father on the bed, and the anger and hatred in his eyes seemed about to ignite the air with sparks!

Of course, “dying” was merely his current appearance, extremely weak, but it didn’t mean he was actually about to pass away.

For the sake of money, the doctors had snatched his life back from the hands of death. He was now conscious, just a bit too weak.

“I will make them pay!” Nick’s voice squeezed through clenched teeth. Anyone could hear the hatred in his words.

The old man shook his head slightly, closed his eyes, seeming tired, then opened them after a while, “After calling the police, just let it go. They are desperadoes. You don’t need to risk your life for me; it’s not worth it.”

Nick didn’t speak. The old man knew his youngest son was the most stubborn. “I’ll get better. Let this matter go. This is the Federation, not the Empire.”

As they were talking, Nick’s eldest nephew suddenly rushed in, his face full of joy, “They’ve been caught!”

The other relatives in the room all stood up, their faces showing similar joy. Nick also stood up abruptly, looking at him, “If you don’t want your ass to be in trouble, you’d better finish what you’re saying in one go.”

Nick’s brother also asked, “Did the police catch them?”

“Are they being held at the branch bureau or the city bureau now?”

Criminal cases are generally handled by the city police department, but some assault cases that do not result in serious consequences are handled by branch bureaus.

A little more light entered the old man’s eyes.

The child shook his head and laughed twice, “The police didn’t catch them, the police didn’t even do anything. It was the Lance family!”

“They went to Eleventh Street this morning to fence stolen goods, and then someone saw them, and then the Lance family came over.”

“Several of them tried to escape, and someone even fired a gun, and then the one who fired was directly shot dead on the street by them!”

“The others were all taken away, and everyone is discussing this now…”

He said, his expression still a bit strange.

Nick was too overjoyed to speak!

“Anything else?”

His nephew glanced at his grandfather lying on the hospital bed, and stammered, “They say Grandpa’s internal organs have been cut out and he’s a vegetable now.”

Although such rumors can be very unpleasant to hear, everyone in the room now laughed. Nick also laughed. He turned and sat back down by the hospital bed, “Do you hear that?”

“They all say you’re about to kick the bucket. You need to get better quickly and surprise them!”

The old man also laughed twice, but his expression immediately became serious, “How do you know the Lance family?”

“What did you promise them to get their help?”

Nick knew his father disliked gangs the most. The old man arrived here during the most active period of the Camille gang.

Every day, there were either gang fights or kidnappings and extortions. To prevent those who were extorted from reporting them to the police and causing trouble, they would tear up the ransom note regardless of whether they received the ransom.

This made the Empire people very afraid, afraid of the Camille gang, and also afraid of all gangs.

Nick recounted the course and outcome of the events, speaking loudly enough for the other relatives to hear, “I didn’t pay any price, Dad.”

“I met Mr. Lance. He’s very young, but I saw in him the kind of demeanor only big figures possess.”

“I told him about our encounter and begged for his help, and then… you saw it. What the police couldn’t do, they’ve already done!”

The old man was silent for a long time after listening. “Go to the warehouse and get some gifts. Take the family and thank Mr. Lance and the others. He helped us, and we should be grateful.”

Nick nodded, “I will.”

The old man nodded, “Go now.”

After leaving the hospital, he went directly back to the warehouse behind the store. He didn’t know what to take, and finally, from a very hidden spot, he took out two bottles of his homemade wine, wrapped them in paper, and carried them with him.

As he left the store, some old neighbors gathered around him; they had seen Nick enter the shop earlier.

“We are all very concerned about your father’s condition. We heard he has become a vegetable, and I heard there’s a psychic in the Xilin District…”

Nick smiled and raised his hand, “Stop, stop. My father is doing very well and will be discharged from the hospital soon.”

“I don’t know who told you these things, but it’s clear these are all rumors!”

The old neighbors were stunned for a moment, then began to congratulate him, as this was indeed good news.

Then, someone well-informed asked, “I heard you asked the Lance family for help?”

Nick did not deny it. “Mr. Lance is very young, but also very reasonable. He understood my difficulties and sympathized with my situation, so he helped me.”

“So the rumors are true?” someone exclaimed. “I heard they were just caught and executed in the street!”

Others, who were behind on the news, also gasped, “My goodness, that’s too terrifying!”

But others didn’t care about these details. They recorded these rumors, and to prove their authenticity during transmission and add their own sense of participation, they would often embellish them further and use “I saw it with my own eyes” to increase realism.

Nick watched them discussing heatedly, bade them farewell, and then, along with his family, headed to the Wanli Firm.

However, unfortunately, Lance was not there. Elvin received them and accepted their gifts, stating that he would convey their gratitude to Mr. Lance.

At this time, Lance had already been called to the Imperial District Branch Bureau by its director, and was currently in his office.

“…The rumors on the street are now very bad, with all sorts of things being said, and these rumors will make me very passive.”

“They will think I am an incompetent branch bureau director, or even inferior to a family head.”

Director Bruce of the Imperial District Branch Bureau was a bearded man. His skin was very fair, and his beard was thick and black, likely indicating mixed ancestry.

But because he was well-mixed, or rather, mixed early, he had become a “pure-blood” Federation citizen.

He looked at Lance, his expression somewhat displeased, a technique he often used. “We asked you to resolve the chaotic street problems, not to solve them in this manner.”

Lance looked at some trophies and ribbons on the wall behind him, a small wall of honor.

Seeing Lance’s inattentive look, he sharply knocked on the table, “Watch your attitude, Lance.”

“I don’t know how you persuaded those important people, but this is the Imperial District Branch Bureau, and here, I am the one in charge.”

“You have to learn, and you must respect me!”

Lance’s gaze returned from the wall of honor to Bruce’s face, “Within a week, those serious cases in the Imperial District will completely disappear, and even petty thefts, I will make them less frequent. This place will become one of Golden Port’s administrative districts with the highest public safety rate…”

(End of this chapter)

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