Shadow Empire

Chapter 211 Revenge [Monthly Ticket 666+1]
In the afternoon, outside the Empire Night nightclub, two guests walked in quickly from the side door next to the main door. They went directly to the third floor and knocked hard on the door outside the lobby on the third floor.

It seemed that one of them was very familiar with the entire process, and there was even a hint of impatience on his face.

After a while, the back door opened a little, and suddenly a special smell that only exists in casinos came out from the crack.

One of the two men's eyes lit up slightly.

The gatekeeper looked at the two men and found one of them was an acquaintance, but the other was a stranger and seemed to have never been there before.

"Your friend?" he asked, standing at the door.

The gambler who came here frequently nodded and said, "My friend, I'd like to play a few rounds too. We don't like to cause trouble, I promise."

The guard looked at them again, then opened the door, "You better not be lying, or you know the consequences."

The two men squeezed in through the crack in the door, and the guy who was here for the first time was stopped by the guard just as he was about to walk in.

"Have you got anything like a dagger or a pistol?"

The man shook his head. "I'm here to gamble, why would I bring this?"

The guard stared at his face for a moment, "Do you mind if I search it?"

The man hesitated, but agreed.

The guard searched him and found nothing dangerous, so he allowed him in and warned them one last time, "Don't cause trouble, or I'll be rude to you."

The two men thanked each other repeatedly, walked a short distance, and then lifted the leather-wrapped door curtain.

In an instant, a heat wave seemed to be blowing towards me.

Alcohol, cigarettes, the smell of sweat, and the hysterical laughter and cursing of gamblers, all intertwined together to form endless desire.

The regular customer glanced at his friend, whom he was not very familiar with. If it wasn't for the five dollars, he would not have brought the other person here.

"Don't cause trouble. When you leave, you can leave by yourself, or you can find me and leave with me. I hope you have good luck today!"

After he finished speaking, without waiting for the man to respond, he rubbed his hands, took the money out of his pocket, and went to the gambling table he was most familiar with.

Chips are supported here, but cash is also supported, and sometimes cash is more convenient.

It has to be said that in Jingang City, apart from the Kodak family's chips which are very "strong" and credible, people do not recognize other chips too much.

The guy who came for the first time walked around, stopped at each gambling table for a moment, then found a gambling table and took out a dozen dollars from his pocket.

Soon he became addicted to gambling, just like the other gamblers around him, immersed in desire and greed.

In fact, it's not just here, but several other bars have also welcomed some unfamiliar guests.

But they didn't look like police or agents, so they entered the bar smoothly.

There are 200,000 people in just one imperial district, and no one can guarantee that they know every one of these 200,000 people.

So strangers often come to the bar to consume, and Lance’s requirement is that as long as he makes sure they are not agents of the Hazardous Materials Administration, then there will be no problem.

These people did not cause any trouble after they came in. They bought a beer or a glass of wine and found a corner to stay.

In fact, the business of these bars is not particularly good, and it has only started to pick up slightly in the past few days.

Lance used the low-price strategy to make it impossible for commercial bars in the Empire District to survive. For the same liquor, they could make more than ten cents per glass in the Port District, but only a few cents here.

Everyone knows how to make a choice.

This is actually the inevitable practice for capitalists to monopolize the market. Before monopolizing the market, they will definitely make crazy concessions to consumers.

They eliminate all competitors through price wars, and once they have monopolized the market share and gained control of pricing, they can earn back many times what they once lost from these consumers.

Although this set of tricks is not very sophisticated and capitalists have been using it for many years, sometimes the simpler the means, the more obvious the effect.

The Lans family is gradually controlling the pricing power of alcoholic beverages in the Empire District, while also cultivating an inertial consumer market.

It’s not that no one has thought about giving Lansti some advice and asking them to raise the price a little, such as the people from the Red Dog Gang.

But Lance never accepted this request. He seemed determined to stick to the low price policy to the end. This behavior gradually compressed the living space of taverns and bars in the Empire District to the extreme.

Except for some pubs and bars that have been in business for many years and are run by the Imperials themselves and cannot be moved, the rest have basically moved away.

Then, the prices of alcoholic beverages started to increase in the past few days, from a few cents to more than ten cents. The more popular the alcoholic beverages, the smaller the price increase.

But if calculated as a percentage, it is definitely not a small amount.

The ten-cent beer went up to fifteen cents, and an ounce of potato wine was twenty-five cents.

The price is not really cheap but much better than other area bars.

With a series of actions taken by the Hazardous Materials Administration in recent times, the price of alcohol continues to rise.

The increase in prices at Lance's bar helped to slightly improve the business of the bars under Eric's name, but only slightly. It was an ordinary day, and at night, these people returned to the same place. Fleming listened to them talking about the business of those bars without much interest.

The bar does make money, but how much money can the bars in the Empire District make? And he heard that business there is not very good.

This also made him a little depressed. Eric also had some industries that were legitimate and legal industries. These industries could not provide Eric with so much funds in the short term.

During this period, there are only two types of businesses that can make money quickly.

The first is finance, and the second is criminal trafficking.

Just when Fleming was wondering if Eric had some other business that had not been discovered, one of his men walked back from outside with an excited smile.

"Boss, they opened a casino in Empire Nights with eight gaming tables!"

The next moment, Fleming's whole body stretched out like a plant that had been watered.

"You saw it with your own eyes?"

The man nodded and said, "I know a few friends in the Empire District. We have participated in some gambling games together before. I asked them about the situation and they found someone to bring me in."

"It's on the third floor of Empire Night. There are a lot of people there. It can provide them with at least a few thousand dollars of income every day!"

A smile appeared on Fleming's face. He encouraged his men and then picked up the phone.

"I remember we moved the Empire Night gaming table, didn't we?"

The person on the other end of the line was his cousin, who was currently in charge of part of the family's casino affairs.

"Yes, I arranged for people to move it. All the gaming tables and gaming equipment were pulled back. What's the matter?"

"My people said that their casino is now open again, and they have set up eight gaming tables!"

The person on the other end seemed to be shocked by the news and paused for two seconds. "Let me ask you something. Don't hang up yet."

After waiting for more than a minute, the call was reconnected. "No one has talked to them about putting up a gambling table. They built this casino themselves. What do you want to do?"

Previously, the mayor's agent, Lawyer Orson, had a bad relationship with them because the Kodak family not only did not give them a lower "tax rate", but instead asked them to follow the rules.

This is actually a very difficult thing to do. If the mayor agrees to their request for equal tax rates, it means that the mayor has bowed to the Kodak family and local forces.

So there was no way he would agree.

For the Kodak family, if they agreed to the mayor's request to lower the tax rate, then would the council members also have to lower the tax rate to open a casino?

Should other people with connections also have their tax rates lowered or even be exempted from tax?

Then the entire casino industry in Jingang City will be completely ruined. This is the bottom line, and they cannot waver!
Both sides had their reasons for not compromising, and the agreement ended up ending in a bad mood.

Now, they have secretly opened the casino again, which is equivalent to a slap in the face to the Kodak family, and there is a hint of anger in cousin Fleming's tone.

"There are two ways."

"First, we use legal channels and have Charlie take people to shut down Empire Night."

"They had no licence and were operating illegally, and we had good reasons to do so."

"But there is little point in doing so. Charlie is a cunning old dog. At most, he will only catch some small fry. This will not only fail to deter those who try to do something, but may even encourage their ideas."

"The second option is to storm this casino."

"This will not only let those who are always testing us know that even the mayor must abide by our rules here."

"Besides, it allows me to vent my anger."

Although Fleming did not show any manic emotions after being beaten by Eric, the bastard from outside, he was indeed very embarrassed.

His cousin thought for a while and then said, "It's up to you to decide. If you need to transfer manpower, I can help you arrange it."

Fleming took a deep breath and said, "Thank you. I want to mobilize more people and deal with his bars as well."

His cousin laughed out loud. "No problem. I need two days to gather the people and arrange the things. We will start in two days."

Fleming seemed to have thought of something and asked, "I heard that the Lance family is helping them run these places."

His cousin didn't care at all, "It's just a small role, I haven't heard of it, don't worry about it!"

After hearing what he said, Fleming didn't pursue the matter any further. After all, the one in the family who was really dealing with gang and social affairs was his cousin, not him.

What he knew was definitely not as detailed as what his cousin knew.

At this time, his mood became better. There were still two days left!

He couldn't wait to see Eric's face, which turned red due to anger.

(End of this chapter)