Empire of Shadows

For this lunch, Mayor Williams had invited some rather famous chefs. Anderson (the old chef who got shit-splattered) himself had wanted to come, but his body wouldn’t allow him to do these things anymore.

Having worked in kitchens for many years, Anderson’s body also had some problems. He now found it very difficult to cook.

In fact, he had these problems for a long time—joint issues. It was just that the symptoms were mild before, and were now becoming severe.

Age will eventually make every young person submit, at least in terms of physical health and athletic ability.

This is actually a very cruel process, because everyone once possessed a young body, but eventually, they will lose everything.

Running and jumping, so easy for their past selves, they can only watch young people do it when they are old. They lose the ability to control their bodies, and eventually, they will lose their lives.

Now, the best chefs in Golden Port City are Anderson’s apprentices and his apprentices’ apprentices. They have inherited 70-80% of Anderson’s culinary skills. There’s also a small portion of special secret skills that he only taught to his son and daughter.

It wasn’t anything particularly special, just spice recipes.

Every chef has their own set of top-secret recipes. These recipes determine their status in the restaurant industry and are absolute secrets!

Hearing that this meal was for Lance, even the current general manager—or rather, president—of Anderson’s restaurant chain personally came.

It was the former manager of the restaurant. He had now become the largest shareholder and president of Anderson’s restaurant chain.

He served those beautiful and delicious dishes to Lance and sincerely thanked Lance for all he had done for the prosperity and stability of Golden Port City.

”You are very popular!” Mayor Williams’s tone sounded a bit sour. ”More popular than me!”

Lance smiled. ”Because they can see my goodwill toward them.”

”You and I are different. I can do nothing, and as long as I don’t do things they hate, they will like me.”

”But you are different. You have to do things. As long as you do things, some people will like you, and some will hate you. So we are different. There’s no point in comparing.”

He paused. ”Is Arthur not coming back now?”

Mayor Williams nodded. He had James pour Lance some wine. ”He is living his life over in Gold State. This is what his mother wished for.”

As he spoke, his movements paused, and he said in a slightly mocking tone, ”The upper class, you know.”

Arthur’s wife’s father is high-level in the Socialist Party. His status is definitely higher than Mayor Williams’s, but in terms of actual power, it’s hard to say who has more.

It’s like a party committee member. They have high status within the party, but in terms of actual power, they don’t necessarily have much more than Mayor Williams.

James explained from the side, ”He’s very relaxed there, no one to control him, so he’s not very willing to come back.”

”If he came back, with us here, his life wouldn’t be so easy.”

Lance pouted. ”Understandable. The thing every child wants to do most after becoming an adult is to get away from their parents and family, to go out and explore the world.”

Mayor Williams continued Lance’s thought, ”Until they’ve hit their heads and are covered in bruises, and then slowly grow old, do they begin to truly miss their home.”

He waved his hand, as if shooing a fly. ”Let’s not talk about that little bastard. I’ve been thinking, isn’t the Holy Agriculture Festival coming up soon?”

”Perhaps we could go to the farm to celebrate together?”

Without an invitation from Lance or others, it wasn’t very convenient for Mayor Williams to go. After all, that place was someone else’s home, not theirs.

Visiting is fine, but on a very important holiday like the Holy Agriculture Festival, it seems a bit inappropriate. So, if someone could invite them, that would obviously be best.

Perhaps it was because he was really getting old. Mayor Williams was starting to miss the days of living on the farm.

In truth, he hadn’t lived on the farm for very long before the family farm gradually, bit by bit, turned into a city. But that period of his life was deeply engraved in his memory.

People who reminisce about the past aren’t really reminiscing about that era. They are reminiscing about their younger selves, the selves in their memory.

They can’t go back to the past, but they can find ways to re-experience the things their younger selves experienced, to find that familiar feeling, as if they haven’t truly grown old!

When he danced around the bonfire with the farmers from the farm, he seemed to be in a daze, back in his childhood, when he was ten or so. Back then, he was just like this, around a bonfire.

Meeting Mayor Williams’s expectant gaze, Lance agreed. ”I’ll call the farm later. You can go over anytime, really.”

Previously, Mayor Williams had told Lance, as a joke, that he wanted to spend his old age on the farm. Now it seemed he wasn’t just saying it to be agreeable; he really wanted to.

”I will have them prepare a house for you. You can live there. A train runs there too, so travel will be very convenient.”

”When you want to go, just go and stay for a while. They will definitely welcome you.”

Mayor Williams seemed immersed in the things Lance was describing. After a while, he said with emotion, ”That would be wonderful. Thank you so much for your support!”

Lance shook his head, not delving further into the topic.

The lunch was very pleasant. It was said to be about discussing interests, but it was more like a small gathering of family or friends.

James appeared very calm and steady. In the latter half of the lunch, Mayor Williams basically spoke very little. It was mostly James chatting with Lance.

The thinking of the young and the old are truly not on the same level. James was a bit more aggressive in his considerations for city development.

For example, on the issue of illegal immigrants and refugees, Mayor Williams’s idea was to maintain the current state, not to discuss their legal status.

But James felt they should push the matter forward, reduce the number of illegal immigrants and refugees, and turn them into Federal citizens. This would only be good for Golden Port City’s development, with no downsides.

But Mayor Williams might still harbor the old farmer’s slavery mindset. These illegal immigrants and refugees are the best source of cheap labor.

They aren’t worth much.

Many people think slavery and servitude are inhumane, but this matter can’t be entirely blamed on the slave owners.

Slaves are the private property of slave owners. They wouldn’t just kill their slaves for no reason. If they really wanted to do that, they could just grab a weapon and find runaway slaves in the wild. Why would they spend money to buy them back, just to kill them? Because they have too much money?

In the slave-owning South, slave owners would take relatively good care of their private property. After all, without these slaves, no one would manage their hectares of farmland.

And they would also pay the slaves a meager salary.

They were fed, and fed well. They were clothed. Although not well, perhaps in others’ hand-me-downs, at least they wouldn’t freeze in winter. And they were paid. This is much better than the treatment of refugees and illegal immigrants working now!

As people’s thinking changed, people like Mayor Williams showed support for exploiting and using this illegal labor.

Give them very little money, and work them hard!

On the contrary, turning them into a legal workforce would only increase Golden Port City’s labor costs, which is bad for the city’s development.

As someone who had watched Golden Port City grow from a small town to its current massive scale, Mayor Williams knew how many slaves’ bones were buried beneath this city!

Use those cheap slaves to do the most dangerous, most arduous work. When they die, bury them on the spot. A city rises from their corpses.

The more slaves, the faster the city’s construction. Even today, he felt it was the same principle.

Use lower costs to develop the city faster. This is the future of Golden Port City!

But if illegal immigrants and refugees are allowed to fully enjoy what ordinary workers should, Golden Port City will lose its development potential.

Yes, potential. These illegal immigrants, these refugees, are the development potential of a city. Others can only clear a piece of land for a thousand dollars.

But in Golden Port City, for a thousand dollars, you can have these people build you a house!

Of course, James felt that if they could be given some hope, it could stimulate more of their motivation and bring out more of their strength.

There were many other different viewpoints like this. However, although James had his own ideas, when handling more serious government affairs, he still leaned toward Mayor Williams’s conservatism.

A little past one in the afternoon, Lance got up to leave. Mayor Williams’s energy was clearly failing. He kept yawning.

This is how it is when you get old. You sleep very little at night, wake up before dawn, and then get sleepy in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, in another city, Devon approached a priest from behind with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

The priest’s attention was fully focused on a few small boys. Of course, he might not have been planning anything, just watching the choir boys rehearse their program.

Because the Holy Agriculture Festival was almost here.

The church would hold its own Holy Agriculture Festival activities one day in advance. These young, cute boys would sing praises to the glory of the Lord in the great cathedral.

As for why a harvest festival like the Holy Agriculture Festival could also be linked to the Lord, this only shows again that the Lord is omnipotent. The church says that it is only by the Lord’s permission that fruit can grow in autumn.

If the Lord does not permit it, there will be no edible fruit in the human world.

This is basically something all religions do—link the great power of nature to their source of faith. Even the child in a pregnant woman’s belly is called a ”gift from the Lord,” and it’s hoped her husband is also a devout believer.

By the way, one had better hope that ”the Lord” isn’t short for some person’s name.

”Can we talk?” Devon suddenly spoke, making the priest jump violently.

He turned back, startled and angry, looking at Devon standing not far behind him. He pulled his hand out from under his cloak. ”What the...?”

”Who are you?”

”Why are you standing here?”

”We’re not open to the public today. You’d better get out of here before I call the police...”

The priest saw the stack of money Devon took from his pocket. He suddenly fell silent for a moment. To be honest, whether he spoke now or not, it was a bit awkward.

He wanted that money.

It wasn’t that he had never seen this much money, but that it was a lot of money.

All large-denomination twenty-dollar bills. And it looked like at least forty or fifty of them. That was several hundred, almost a thousand dollars!

Although a priest could use his authority to get some benefits for himself, who would complain about having too many benefits?

”I’d like to make a donation.” Devon pulled out five bills, one hundred dollars, and stuffed them into the hood of the priest’s robe.

The priest didn’t feel humiliated at all. A smile appeared on his face. ”God will have mercy on his devout followers. Your good deed will be watched by him, and you will receive his blessing.”

Devon took out a few more bills. ”And I have some questions I’d like to ask you.”

The priest glanced again at the choir rehearsal. He gave his assistant priest a look, then led Devon to his office.

The huge office was luxurious, with a ceiling at least ten meters high. A small crucifix hung behind him, looking down on everyone in the room.

”What can I do for you?” The priest invited Devon to sit, his face wreathed in smiles.

In fact, it wasn’t easy for the cathedral to get money. Because he wasn’t the only clergyman here; there was a whole team, more than twenty people in all.

Every transaction was clearly recorded. It wasn’t that they couldn’t skim some money. For example, the priest might feel the cathedral’s stained-glass windows needed replacing.

He’d find someone to replace them. The glass-replacer would inflate the costs a bit, reporting a two-dollar pane of glass as two-fifty, or three.

But not more, because everyone knew the price of this stuff. A little bit was fine, considered his extra benefit.

But if he took too much, the people above would be very unhappy.

A large cathedral is usually managed directly by the church. It’s the small churches, the ones with maybe just one priest, that’s the real place to get money.

How much the believers donate is up to them to say. And no one checks where the donation money goes.

So he was very interested in the money in Devon’s hand.

”Do you know this woman?” Devon took out two photos and handed them over.

One was a current photo of Director Roland’s hidden wife. One was from when she was young, taken around the year she got married, according to his investigation. She was very beautiful, mainly with a strong aura of youth.

The priest just glanced at it and nodded. ”I know her. I presided over her wedding.”

At that time, he wasn’t the priest of the great cathedral, just a priest of a small, ordinary church. That was also his most profitable time.

He was stupid then. He thought going to a bigger church would get him more money, so he gave the money he had saved for so many years to the people above.

They did take the money and do the job, very reasonable. But when he actually got here, he found his hands and feet were tied.

Maybe in a few more years, after he had dragged everyone into the muck, it would be more comfortable. But clearly not now.

Devon placed two twenty-dollar bills on the corner of the desk. The priest looked at the bills, suddenly wishing this person would ask more questions.

”Do you know her husband?”

The priest nodded. ”Of course I do. I told you, I presided over the wedding.”

Devon put down two more. ”You must have presided over many weddings. Why do you remember them, and so clearly?”

The priest recalled. ”Because they were the only couple whose wedding I presided over that had no guests. Just the two of them. They came over with one dollar and said they wanted to get married.”

”I advised them to pick another day, to invite their family and friends, but they refused.”

”So I have a deep impression. And it was at night. No one gets married at night, except them!”

Devon put a few more bills on top. Perhaps because he had talked so much, this made the priest even more interested. He had to make his next answer even more detailed!

”Do you remember this man’s name?”

The priest thought for a moment. ”It was so long ago, my memory is a bit fuzzy. I have to think hard.”

He looked directly into Devon’s eyes. Devon put the rest of the small stack of money on the table. The smile on the priest’s face was as if he had been bathed in the Lord’s glory while praying. A heartfelt smile!

”I don’t know his last name, but I know his name is Roland. The woman called him Roland, and he also asked me to call him that.”

Devon nodded, then took out some photos from his pocket, eight in total. Among them was a photo of Roland when he was young, found in his university yearbook.

There was also a recent photo of him. Lance had obtained the reporter’s original print through his connections at the newspaper. Besides these two, the other six were of other people. They might have resembled Roland in some way, but they weren’t him.

The priest studied them for a long time. He himself became a bit uncertain. Devon didn’t rush him.

Perhaps he felt he had taken too long, so long that he himself was a bit embarrassed. He finally explained to Devon with an awkward smile, ”Perhaps it’s been too long. My memory has faded a bit.”

”There are two people here who look very much like him, but I can’t tell which one it is...”