Empire of Shadows

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“A colleague?” Ms. Kailu walked into the living room in her slippers, a bit bewildered. “What colleague?”

She had never considered those people at the Empire of Night nightclub to be her colleagues. Look at what was there.

Criminals, prostitutes, drunkards, johns—everyone but normal people!

If it weren’t for the money, she probably wouldn’t even work there!

Perhaps a former colleague?

She didn’t know. When she walked into the living room, she saw her son, and then Lance. Lance was looking at her with a half-smile.

A surge of anger shot up from the soles of her feet. Just as she was about to do something with her sharp voice, her son, who had suddenly turned his head, looked at her with pleasant surprise and shouted, “Mommy!”

Then, a chill, a wave of fear, followed by fear spreading throughout her entire body!In her son’s hand was a pistol!

She felt a wave of dizziness, her mouth went dry, and even her legs felt weak!

“The thing Uncle Lance gave me is awesome! This is what I’ve always wanted!” The little boy had no idea that the weapon in his hand had become a “threat” in Kailu’s eyes.

He even held up a shiny yellow bullet casing, showing it off. “And this!”

Ms. Kailu rushed to the sofa. In the incomprehensible gazes of her husband and child, she violently snatched away the toy pistol and the bullet casing and threw them fiercely to the ground.

She picked up her son, held him in her arms, hugging him tightly, and looked at Lance with a wary, careful, and fearful gaze. “You are not welcome here. Get out!”

Her husband stood up. He didn’t understand his wife. “Kailu…”

“Don’t you speak!” Her voice drowned out her husband’s. She knew who Lance was. This was a criminal, the leader of a criminal organization!

His actions were not out of kindness!

Her body was trembling slightly, due to fear, and also due to anger.

Lance shrugged, propped himself up with his legs, and stood up. The smile on his face also gradually faded. “It seems Ms. Kailu doesn’t welcome me very much.”

“Yes!” Ms. Kailu said loudly. “So hurry up and get… out of my house!”

She had wanted to say “get the hell out,” but she controlled herself. The bit of reason she had left prevented her from saying something foolish.

Lance glanced at her husband. The latter smiled awkwardly. He still had no idea what had happened!

He had a very pleasant chat with Lance. Lance’s insights on some issues made him feel like he had met a kindred spirit, and some problems he could never figure out were easily solved by Lance.

For example, whether finance would overheat, and whether an overheated financial sector would bring unpredictable consequences.

Right now, all of the Federation was obsessed with finance. The streets were full of stock managers in suits and ties, holding various stocks.

_Some scientists even joked that the switchboards being developed were a result of the overheating financial sector. The speed and ability of manual labor could no longer keep up with the scale that was fissioning every day, and they had to take large amounts of research funds from the financial sector to solve these problems!

The entire Federation was undergoing some changes in the prosperous financial market. Everything had become so beautiful.

Lance raised some very simple issues that required vigilance, which made him feel inspired.

But now, his terrible wife had ruined their exchange.

Lance sighed. “Alright, alright, it seems I’m not very welcome. I’ll leave now…”

As he spoke, he walked towards the door. Ms. Kailu’s husband called her name, seemingly wanting to know if what she was doing was appropriate, but she yelled back at him with a “shut up.”

Just as Lance changed his shoes and was about to leave, he turned to look at Ms. Kailu. “I noticed there are a lot of cars in your community when I came. I like your boy very much; he’s very lively.”

“You must watch him carefully. If he gets hit by a car, I will be very sad.”

Ms. Kailu’s face turned pale in an instant. Her husband, however, couldn’t help but thank Lance for the reminder. “I also think there are too many cars in our community. You’re right…”

“Thank you for the reminder,” he finished his sentence early under his wife’s murderous gaze.

Ms. Kailu pushed her son into her husband’s arms. She strode after him, and the two of them chased him out of the house.

“What on earth do you want?” Ms. Kailu closed the door. “Giving you five hundred was a decision made by Lawyer Orson and Mr. Eric. I’m just an accountant. It has nothing to do with me!”

She was still a little scared. After all, Lance was a bad guy in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of Lance dealing with her at work or otherwise, but she was afraid of her family being harmed.

“We’ve been colleagues for over a month, and I’ve never come to visit you and your family. Today I had some business nearby and just dropped by to see you. You’re too sensitive.”

Ms. Kailu glanced back into the house. Their door was a common type, with a small glass window through which one could see inside the room.

Her husband was standing by the door holding their child, which gave her a desire to protect her family that she had never felt before.

“Lance, don’t talk to me like that. I am highly educated. Tell me, what do you really want?”

Lance’s hand reached into his coat. Ms. Kailu couldn’t help but take two steps back, a look of horror on her face. But then, she saw an ivory-white cigarette case being pulled out by Lance.

He really liked the cigarette case Luigi had given him, mainly because it felt so comfortable in his hand.

“Do you mind?” Lance took out a cigarette. Ms. Kailu shook her head.

He lit the cigarette and took a drag. The porch light made the smoke appear and disappear in the light and shadow. “I need you to do your job quietly and not meddle in other people’s business.”

“If you can do that, we’ll be good colleagues.”

“If you can’t, I will attend your and your family’s funeral, and I will speak as your colleague’s representative.”

“You can take it as a threat, but you can also take it as a kind reminder.”

Ms. Kailu thought he was going to mess with the company’s money, and her scalp tightened. “Those accounts are all recorded, and Orson and the others have more professional accountants. I can’t help you steal money from the company!”

For some reason, when she thought Lance was going to “steal money” from the nightclub, she became less nervous.

Lance shook his head. “I have no intention of doing that. The casino on the third floor is about to reopen. Don’t tell Orson about this.”

“Also, the casino’s income will not go into the company’s books.”

“This money will go directly to Eric…”

Lance left soon after. When Ms. Kailu returned home from outside, her husband had already calmed down their son.

He had been frightened just now, and after Ms. Kailu chased after Lance, he started to cry.

A child’s emotions come quickly and go quickly. He ran back to play with the toy Uncle Lance had given him.

Standing by the door, the husband and wife had a conversation. “Why were you like that, as if you were crazy?”

Kailu looked at her husband. “Do you know who he is?”

“Who?”

“Isn’t he your colleague, Mr. White?”

Ms. Kailu rolled her eyes. “His name is Lance White. Does that remind you of anything?”

The man’s expression also changed slightly. “The one from the Empire District?”

When his wife looked at him with a “you finally fucking get it” expression, he showed some shock. “My God…”

After a full day of fermentation and preparation, Morris got a few dealers. These people came from other places and had been working in underground casinos.

The turnover of these dealers was relatively high, and thanks to Morris’s gambling-addict old man who had been to almost every casino in the Empire District, he was able to find these people.

The dealers were very clear that it didn’t matter who they worked for, and they were also willing to work in a place with more customers.

This meant they could get more income. After all, they got a commission on every cent earned at the gambling tables.

The Empire of Night nightclub, which was supposed to start business only in the evening, already had people coming in one after another by noon.

With Lance’s instructions, the security guards did not stop them, and they went directly to the third floor.

When they entered the room and saw the green tablecloths, the shiny chips, and the dealers in bow ties standing behind the gambling tables, every gambler became excited.

Before long, the entire room became exceptionally lively.

Lance even made a special call to Eric. “Our casino is open today. Want to come and see?”

How could Eric still sit still?

In less than forty minutes, he appeared in the casino.

“Eight gambling tables?” He stood in the shadows to one side, watching the various states of life at the gambling tables. The rising smoke from his cigarette made his expression a bit hazy.

“How much fucking money can this make?”

Lance introduced it to him. “We provide free drinks here, but don’t worry, they won’t get drunk, because if they get drunk, they can’t gamble.”

“Each gambling table will provide us with a profit of about four to five hundred dollars. After deducting the dealers’ commission, it’s about a little over four hundred.”

“One table is four hundred, two tables are eight hundred, three tables…”

“Three thousand two hundred.”

Eric turned back to look at Lance. “What?”

“Eight gambling tables can make three thousand two hundred a day.”

Eric sucked in a breath of cold air. “That much?”

Lance had a half-smile. “Because we didn’t pay taxes to the Kodak family. If we paid taxes, it would only be a little over a thousand, and it would all be black money.”

“If you want to launder it, you’ll only get seven or eight hundred in your hands in the end.”

Eric’s teeth hurt a little after hearing this. “The Kodak family must have made a lot of money over the years, right?”

Lance agreed with this view. “They must have tens of millions, maybe more.”

The Federation was not short of wealth myths. Decades ago, even forty or fifty years ago, there were billionaires in the Federation. This was a place good at giving birth to and creating miracles.

Lance could clearly hear the sound of Eric swallowing his saliva.

Eric’s eyes quickly became fanatical. Three thousand a day, thirty thousand in ten days, more than a hundred thousand a month…

With so much money, he didn’t believe those bastards could still suppress him!

“Well done, Lance!” he turned around and said seriously to Lance. “I may have misunderstood you a little, but now I understand you. Let the past be the past…”

Lance extended his hand. “All for the sake of… service.”

Eric stayed here for a while and then left with over a thousand dollars in cash from the tables. He didn’t have much money left on him. Tonight was Shayna’s performance in “The Prince’s Revenge.” She was the female lead, playing a farmer’s daughter.

The prince was persecuted by his stepmother and fled the palace. He was injured and eventually fainted in a river, drifting downstream, where he was found and rescued by the farmer’s daughter who was cleaning by the river.

The two thus fell in love. After a period of recuperation and development, His Highness the Prince began to actively prepare for revenge.

Finally, after a series of plots, he led an army, recaptured the palace and the throne, executed his stepmother, and lived happily ever after with the farmer’s daughter.

The usual “standard plot.” A poor boy’s revenge story often ends in tragedy. Only the revenge stories of princes and nobles can have a happy ending.

But regardless, this script was very popular. After all, at this time, those who could truly appreciate opera and feel its artistic beauty were either rich people or prestigious families with prominent high-society backgrounds.

They could really relate to this kind of plot. After all… perhaps the prince’s life was their life, just a little more advanced.

This was why the protagonists of movies during this period were always from the lower class. These two art forms were completely separate.

As the female lead of this play, Shayna had a lot of performance content. An opera couldn’t be sung in one performance; it took many days, like a TV series.

Tonight’s scene was a small climax. The prince was about to recover from his injuries and embark on the road to revenge. It was a process that connected the old chapter with a new one. He wanted to give Shayna a special surprise.

Whether it was a surprise or romance, it meant he was about to start splurging again!

By the time the casino closed at night, it had brought in a net income of about two thousand seven hundred dollars. After deducting what Eric took, there was still over one thousand four hundred.

Lance threw it directly into the safe and then simply recorded an account. Actually, he knew that Eric didn’t care, and neither did he.

After returning home, the guys were chatting in the living room, seemingly in a heated discussion.

When they saw Lance return, everyone stood up.

After Lance sat down in the middle of the living room, he noticed that Lisa was also there.

Red High Heels was no longer bothering her, and she had gone back to work at the bar. But today she said she had something she wanted to talk to Lance about, so the people at the bar had sent her over.

“What they were just discussing, is that what you wanted to say?” Lance leaned back on the sofa, crossing his legs. Lisa looked a little nervous.

She nodded, then looked at the others and said softly, “Mr. Lance, I want to… continue in the flesh trade.”

Hearing this, Lance knew why the discussion had been so intense. He frowned. “Did a customer harass you, or did someone force you to do this?”

Lisa quickly shook her head after hearing this. She was a little afraid of Lance. Not only could Lance rescue her, but now he also ran such a large operation. She couldn’t help but be afraid.

“Selling beer is too tiring. I only earn one or two dollars a day. Only when I’m very lucky can I earn two or three.”

Her voice grew smaller and smaller until it was almost inaudible.

The flesh trade was indeed a fast way to make money. As long as there were many customers, it was very easy to make ten-some dollars a day.

There was a girl from Yalan who was said to receive more than fifty customers a day. She had a certain talent and her own special techniques; no one could last too long.

At two dollars per transaction, a sales champion like her would get a sixty percent share, which was one dollar and twenty cents.

Forty customers would be forty-eight dollars, almost fifty dollars a day. That’s fifteen hundred a month.

In this era that was both terrible and wonderful, if you let go of your moral bottom line, you could definitely make big money.

Lance shook his head slightly. “We don’t provide this service, but we can provide you with protection.”

“I can’t make anyone organize you to do this, but I also know that some of you want to earn more while you’re young. I won’t stop you, and I can’t.”

Everyone nodded. If they were really determined to do it, and Lance’s side didn’t let them, they would proactively go elsewhere to do it.

If they could abandon their bottom line, could they still not make money?

If worst comes to worst, they could just stand on the street.

“You can do it on your own. If you encounter trouble, I will provide you with shelter.”

“For example, if a customer tries to beat or harm you, or doesn’t pay, I will arrange for someone to step in.”

“But I won’t organize you myself, nor will I take your money. If I did, it would be no different from me organizing it.”

“I still hope you can do some… decent work, although it might be a bit more tiring.”

“But if you strongly insist on this, then… I won’t object either.”

It was normal for Lisa to have such thoughts. Her current job was too tiring, and every day she had to deal with those rough-handed drunkards who would slap her butt until it was swollen, yet they didn’t spend much money.

In a month, her income was about seventy or eighty, or eighty or ninety. This income was actually not low in Golden Port.

Although it couldn’t compare to the income of the middle class, it was much better than the lower class who earned thirty-some dollars a month!

But… she always hoped to make more money easily. This situation was not uncommon, and Lance wouldn’t comment on it. It was her own choice.

Lance’s statement made Lisa breathe a sigh of relief. Actually, she wasn’t just asking for herself, but for herself and some of her other sisters.

They were all tired of living a life of earning one or two dollars a day in the bar and were unwilling to work ten hours a day in a factory for a monthly salary of over thirty dollars.

After thinking about it, they still found that lying down to make money was the simplest and easiest way.

And recently, the Red Dog Gang’s territory in the Empire District had been swept clean by Lance. The market demand was greater than the supply. Some streetwalkers were now charging two dollars, which was too tempting for them!

(End of this chapter)

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