Empire of Shadows

Watching the young man pack as much of the leftover food as he could into the brown paper bag, Lance had a hint of anticipation on his smiling face.

“You have high hopes for this young man?” Elvin asked.

Given their current age, it wasn’t strange to refer to this boy as a “young man.”

Lance nodded, then shook his head. “Once the federal government forms a military alliance with Slad, more refugees will pour in here.”

He turned to look at Elvin, then at the others behind him. “Why did we ‘stand up’ in the first place?”

Elvin replied, “Because they were coming after Ethan.”

Lance nodded. “That’s one reason, our reason. What about Hiram?”

Hiram shrugged and said nothing.

Lance didn’t ask him to answer, because he himself had already given the answer. “Because of poverty. Because if we didn’t change, we couldn’t survive.”

“Look at all the refugees in the New Port District. How many of them can fill their stomachs, and how many are already struggling on the brink of life and death?”“It won’t be long before a large number of refugee gangs emerge in this city.”

“At first, they might just want to huddle together for warmth, to get more resources to keep themselves and those around them alive.”

“But you’ve seen it. Once you step on this path, besides reaching the end, the only other option is to become a part of history halfway.”

“Instead of waiting for these challengers to grow up quickly, to grow to the point where they can challenge us, why don’t we support a few of them first, give them the hope of survival, and keep this power in our own hands?”

Elvin could understand a little, but only a little, not much.

He still nodded and committed Lance’s words to memory. He believed that one day, he would understand.

Lance gestured with his chin at the boy. “He’s lucky to have met us at this time.”

“Arrange for someone to follow him. See how he distributes that food and how he deals with trouble.”

Bringing so much food back was not a smart choice. If Lance were in his position, he wouldn’t have taken so much.

He would have stacked the bread together, then pressed them with plates, using gravity to compress the soft bread into “biscuits.”

This would make it easy to carry, and at the same time, it would be filling. Then he would consider bringing some meat, but not too much, preferably just enough for himself.

This way, although the other refugees would be envious, they wouldn’t resort to robbing a child’s food before completely losing their minds.

But if he brought too much, someone would always think that he couldn’t eat that much, so it wouldn’t matter if they took some from him.

That would lead to conflict between them, and in the end, he might be left with nothing.

“Don’t interfere. Just watch and record everything.”

Lance looked at the boy, who was holding two large paper bags, a look of anticipation on his face. He was expecting a good story.

The young man didn’t know that he had already become the “protagonist” in Lance’s story. He took the two paper bags of various meats, and after saying goodbye to Lance, he ran towards the New Port District with his younger brother and sister.

He ran very fast. He was eager to get back to the place where they lived, to tell his mother that he had a job and that they could fill their stomachs.

When he was running in the Empire District, people just occasionally looked at him. But when he entered the New Port District and started running, people’s gazes were fixed on the two brown paper bags he was holding.

The grease had seeped through the brown paper bags, and the aroma it gave off made many people stand up.

Many of them hadn’t been able to put down their pride yet, but under the continuous influence of hunger, some began to lose their reason and morality.

“Hey, what are you holding?”

A very thin man in his thirties walked towards the young man. The gazes of the others, after a brief moment of astonishment, all became dangerous.

Some of the people who were leaning against the ground, enduring their hunger, glanced at the two greasy paper bags and couldn’t help but stand up.

Driven by the desire for survival, they walked towards the young man.

The young man was stunned for a moment. He looked at the people who were surrounding him and immediately realized what was happening. “It’s nothing!” he shouted, and quickened his pace towards the place where they lived.

But how could the people who were already extremely hungry let him leave?

Without anyone shouting, someone stretched out their leg and tripped him. He fell heavily, the paper bags tore, and the greasy meat fell out, rolling on the ground before coming to a stop.

The gazes of everyone around were stunned for a moment, but then they ran and rushed towards the pieces of meat on the ground.

Regardless of whether there was sand on the meat, whether it was dirty, as long as they could grab it, they would stuff it into their mouths!

The guy who was in the lead shouted, “It’s all mine,” while trying to cover all the food under his body.

But soon he felt someone kicking his head hard. He held his head, unwilling to leave, but was still dragged away.

The people frantically snatched the pieces of meat on the ground. In less than two minutes, there was not a single piece of the meat the young man had brought back left.

The two brown paper bags were even snatched away, torn to shreds, and eaten strip by strip!

The people had gone mad!

The young man looked at all this in a daze, unable to come back to his senses for a long time.

He returned to his “home” in dejection. In fact, it was just a small tent temporarily built with some branches and rags. His mother was inside.

Because she still had two very young younger brothers and sisters, she stayed here all day.

“What’s wrong?” she looked at the young man. “Didn’t you get any food today?”

The two children behind him took out the seven cents they had snatched. The woman breathed a sigh of relief.

Seven cents was enough for them to buy something to eat.

“You look very depressed.”

“Yes, Mom. I lost the food a gentleman gave me, two large bags of meat.”

His mother was stunned for a moment, then she beckoned to him, asking him to sit beside her and rest his head on her lap.

She gently stroked the young man’s hair. “If it’s lost, it’s lost. At least we still have seven cents and can still get something to eat.”

The young man rested his head on his mother’s lap. “That gentleman said he was willing to let me work for him.”

The woman asked, “And are you willing?”

The young man nodded. “I am.”

He wanted to change his life. A person cannot, or at least should not, lose their reason and live like a vicious dog.

He wanted to make money, to take his family and leave this place. He wanted to be like a man, to protect this family and his mother!

This was his promise to his father!

A little later, they used seven cents to buy a pound of whole wheat bread. And following his mother’s words, they broke it into small pieces outside the bakery and brought it back in their pockets.

Although it was a bit scratchy on the throat, the aroma it gave off was also intoxicating.

This bread had to be divided to last for two days.

He ate very carefully, even finding the bread crumbs in the cracks of his fingernails and eating them.

Although he hadn’t eaten any meat today, he hoped that through his own efforts, he could change all of this.

At night, occasional screams could be heard. Someone else had starved to death.

This place was completely different from the world they had imagined. They had all, more or less, heard rumors related to the Federation. This place was like another heaven.

But it was only after they had really arrived here that they discovered that no one would give you food just because you were hungry.

If you wanted to eat, you had to pay.

He clenched his fists, letting the saliva pool in his mouth. After feeling the aroma of the whole wheat bread again, he swore that in the future, he would definitely be able to fill his stomach every day!

Early the next morning, he followed the address on the business card and came to the outside of Lance’s company.

The huge door and luxurious decoration made him a little at a loss. But fortunately, the lady at the front desk was very gentle and asked him why he was here.

He handed the business card to the other party. Soon, the lady told him how to get to the place he wanted to go.

Lance was frowning in his office. It was a call from the director.

“…Someone is stealing the wealth that belongs to us, Mr. Lance.”

“The Mystery of Angel Lake has had a good reaction in all aspects, and the box office revenue of most theaters is not bad. But at the ‘Colgan Cinema,’ our movie has produced almost no valuable box office.”

“If they’re not not showing our movie, then they’ve deceived us.”

The movie that Lance had them distribute this time used a box office sharing system. He didn’t know much about this, but there was indeed a sharing system now.

From the very beginning, it was almost all the cinema’s, with a 90% share.

Then, as the screening time and number of screenings increased, the proportion that the cinema got from the box office would decrease to 5% in the end.

This kind of sharing method was obviously not very scientific, but from the current market, it was the most accepted and the one that most conformed to the wishes of the cinema chains.

Many cinemas had accepted such a sharing plan. First, it was because The Mystery of Angel Lake did not offer a buyout service, only a sharing contract.

This meant that if they did not accept the sharing, their cinemas would not be able to show this movie.

Secondly, because it was a sharing system, they could say that apart from depreciation and electricity costs, there were no extra expenses.

If it were a buyout system, it might cost a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars or more to buy the film reels, and whether they could make a profit in the end would all depend on fate.

At this time, a very strange phenomenon often occurred. A cinema in a certain region bought a movie, and when it was shown, it was packed.

But after a cinema in another region bought it, not many people watched it.

Even with a blockbuster movie, not everyone dared to guarantee that it would definitely make money. Now the sharing model reduced their possibility of loss, so the acceptance was a little higher.

After all, as long as the movie was good, the most profitable part was also the early stage, not the middle and late stages.

So they all agreed to the sharing.

The box office was generally good. Some film review magazines had already opened up a new genre for this movie—the thriller and horror genre.

No matter what the future holds, it will have a place in the history of cinema.

Under various kinds of hype, people also wanted to see what this so-called pioneering new genre of movie was like.

The continuous increase in the box office also satisfied everyone, but some obviously ridiculous box office numbers were clearly not right.

Stealing the box office, whether now or in the past, has always existed.

“Is this cinema a single one, or a company?” Lance asked.

“A company. They have a total of fourteen cinemas, but the box office they’ve given us is less than a hundred dollars.”

Lance found this number amusing. “A hundred dollars?”

The current cinemas basically had between one and two hundred seats. Taking a middle value, and calculating based on a 60% attendance rate, that would be ninety people watching one movie.

Movie tickets had already moved away from the early money-losing price of five cents a ticket. Now twenty-five cents was more common, and there were also thirty-five and fifty cents, depending on the time.

Calculating based on the cheapest ticket of twenty-five cents, ninety people would be 22.50.

They would be able to get a 10% share from that, which would be 2.25 per showing.

Fourteen cinemas, with an average of one showing each, could get about thirty dollars from the box office.

As long as they had an average of three showings, they could get almost a hundred dollars.

Now it had been shown for so many days, and it was still less than a hundred dollars…

“Where are they?”

The director vaguely knew that Lance was going to find trouble with them, and then said, “Lidom.”

Lidom was a city in Golden State, not too far from New Golden City. It could be said to be an outer satellite city of New Golden City.

“I will solve this problem. Have you encountered any other problems?” Lance asked.

The director hesitated for a moment and then asked, “Is the box office of our own cinemas… a bit too high?”

“Is this a promotional strategy?”

The cinemas under the company’s name almost all maintained a 100% attendance rate, which was outrageous!

He thought this was Lance’s promotional method, because many cinema operators would not buy the film reels at the first opportunity. They would observe the ticket sales of cinemas in other places and then decide whether to show these movies.

He believed that Lance was doing this to make people think that this movie was very good. In the past, some producers had indeed done this to deceive those cinema chain bosses.

Lance laughed twice after hearing this. “These are some accidents. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Are there any other problems?”

The director couldn’t figure it out, so he simply stopped thinking about it. “There are no other problems.”

“Very good. Then how much have we earned from the box office so far?”

A piece of good news after the bad news could keep him in a good mood.

The director’s tone was slightly excited. “According to the data they have reported so far, our income will probably be between 800,000 and 1 million, with a profit of 600,000 to 700,000.”

“And the screening is not over yet. Now the money from the ongoing screenings, a large part of it is ours. In the end, our income may be around a million.”

This income was not much compared to Lance’s criminal businesses, but this money was very clean, and in the film industry, it was not bad.

Perhaps from the perspective of others, it might not be as good as directly selling the film reels, but people’s habits are always cultivated slowly.

As long as the movie was good enough, they would definitely obey.

“Don’t stop the filming plan. Continue to choose good scripts. We don’t consider the cost issue. We’ll talk about it again when we have time.”

“If there are any other problems, just contact me. If not…” he glanced at the person standing outside the door, “I have other things to do here.”

Although the director had not attended Lance’s engagement ceremony, mainly because he was not qualified enough, he had heard about the grand occasion of that day!

He now believed more than ever that following Lance would definitely lead to a bright future!

“Boss, there’s nothing else. You can hang up.”

After Lance put down the phone, he looked at the door and said, “Come in.” The young man entered the room with some restraint.

He had been a little uncomfortable since he entered this building, because the decoration here was too luxurious!

The mirror-like patterned marble floor looked as if he were walking in a palace. He couldn’t imagine that the buildings of the Federation’s people could be so beautiful, and that they were so rich!

In fact, he had already witnessed the wealth of the Federation’s people yesterday.

During the day, no one ate the piles of food on the table. He had asked, and those foods would be thrown into the trash can and then disposed of.

And in the New Port District, every day there were people who starved to death because they couldn’t get food, or died from injuries or diseases.

There is no difference between people, from a species point of view. But there is a huge difference between people, so huge that they may not be able to bridge the gap in their entire lives!

“Are your family members satisfied with the food you brought back?” Lance asked.

In fact, he already knew that the young man hadn’t eaten any of that food, and neither had his family.

An expression that was hard to describe appeared on the young man’s face. He shook his head. “The food was stolen.”

“Do you hate them?” Lance asked.

The young man still shook his head. “At first, I hated them. They knocked over my food and stole my food.”

“But later I didn’t hate them anymore, because they also just wanted to live.”

Lance said with considerable agreement, “Yes, people just want to live. But to live is the biggest challenge for mankind to come to this world!”

He paused for a moment. “I have two jobs for you. You can choose for yourself.”

“To be a dog, or to be a wolf?”

The young man thought for a moment. In fact, he didn’t know anything, what being a dog or a wolf was, but he instinctively replied, “I want to be a wolf.”

Lance nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Boni, sir.”

“Very good, Boni. I will send people to help you establish a gang in the New Port District.”

“You can pick a group of people you know, or people you think are suitable, with the people who have fled from your side as the main.”

“I will give you some jobs, jobs that can make money. You have to run the gang.”

“I hope you can grow as strong as possible in the New Port District and be able to control the order of the entire New Port District. Can you understand what I’m saying?”

Boni was actually a little dazed, but he was trying his best to understand in his own way. “Order, sir.”

“You’re a smart person. I believe you can do it well. This is an opportunity. Seize it!”

(End of a Chapter)