Shadow Empire

Chapter 333 Middleman

The consecutive losses of two batches of wine made Luigi feel that someone was targeting him.

If his goods cannot enter Jingang City, he will become a joke among the forces of the Aldra Republic.

Those rival gangs that he once looked down upon or had a bad relationship with were soon able to make huge profits by smuggling liquor to the federal government, but he did not make such high profits!

Jingang City is always one of the most popular places for all smugglers. It has strong logistics capabilities and the local gangs are of amazing size. They can consume shocking amounts of alcohol.

Then spread these drinks across the entire federation!

It’s not that no one in other places needs smuggled liquor, it’s just that the price of smuggled liquor in those places cannot be raised.

It's like those girls who have to rely on the help of kind people to survive in this society. There may be two girls who are similar in appearance, figure, and inner qualities.

But if a person is a high-level call girl, every time he repays kind people with his warmth, he can get dozens, hundreds or even more dollars in aid.

The other one is just a fast food restaurant on the roadside, and even kind people won’t stop for too long and just give her three or five dollars.

They both need help from kind people and have the same enthusiasm, but in the end the profit gap is dozens or hundreds of times. This is what Luigi least wants to see.

Delivering goods to other places not only requires arranging people to expand the market, but also does not bring much profit.

The gap between him and other gangs will be widened with each trade.

In a place like Yalan, money is everything!
Money matters more here than anywhere else!

As long as you have money, you can have everything.

You can sleep with any woman you see, without even any coercion, just show your financial ability.

You can quickly build up a huge force by spending money, and you will become a frequent guest on the tables of top national figures such as the president and prime minister.

Money is omnipotent. People in some places even jokingly call banknotes "God", and different banknotes are "God in different clothes"!
People need to eat, but many people here don't have enough to eat.

If Yalan was not a tropical region, the winter alone might be enough to kill many Yalan people.

So here, there is nothing that money can't solve. If Luigi develops slowly when others are developing rapidly, he may become the target of others.

He thought about it over and over again, and finally he only thought of one person who might be able to do this, and that was Lance!

He had only offended Lance. Before this, he was furious when he thought about this matter. He picked up the phone and dialed the number Lance left.

This kind of international long-distance call requires multiple relays, and it was several minutes later when he heard the waiting tone from the Curtain Federation.

The call was quickly connected, "This is Wanli Office."

"Is Lance here?"

"who are you?"

"I'm his friend, Luigi!"

The person on the other end of the receiver wasn't Lance, but Luigi could still recognize Lance's voice.

"Wait, I have to ask him if he wants to talk to you."

Luigi took a pipe, lit the tobacco in the pipe, and sat there smoking.

On the other side of the receiver, Erwin knocked on Lance's office door and poked his head in. "Would you like to borrow Luigi's phone?"

Lance raised an eyebrow, "Which line?"

"Line 2."

He nodded once, and Erwin closed the door.

He picked up the phone and pressed the "2" button on it, and the call was immediately connected.

"I heard you were looking for me?" His words were very impolite, without even saying hello. Lance never had a good temper towards people who didn't keep their words.

After hearing Lance's voice, Luigi couldn't help but ask, "Did you do this?"

Lance shifted his sitting position, "What did I do?"

"My goods!"

"And my fucking people!"

Luigi almost roared!

His nephew died, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods were lost in the two incidents.

The main reason was that he felt the pain of throwing away the wine. His nephew, his subordinates, as long as there was money, there were countless people willing to work for him.

The locals of Aldera and people from other countries in Yalan are willing to do anything as long as they have money.

As for nephews, that's even simpler. He can spend money to find a few more girls for his brothers. As long as he finds enough, won't he have as many nephews as he wants?
But the key to all this lies in how much money he can get!
Money is the real reason for his anger.

After a moment of silence, Lance asked slowly and jokingly, "Do you have any evidence?"

The moment he said this, Luigi actually understood that it was Lance who did it.

And Lance said this on purpose. He just wanted Luigi to understand that his goods were lost and his life was gone because he offended him, not anyone else!

"How dare you?"

"Lance!"

Luigi suddenly roared, not at all like the easy-going guy he was when they first and last met.

Lance moved the receiver away from his ear and waited until his voice became quieter before returning it to his ear.

"We need to talk, Lance!" Luigi finally calmed down after a tantrum.

Lance had a look of disdain on his face, but he still said, "Aren't we talking about it?"

This made Luigi silent for a while. "I don't need you to apologize to me or anything. The two batches of wine together cost more than 500,000. You give me a cost price of 350,000."

"I won't bother with you about those dead people. After the money arrives, I will arrange for someone to send you another 400,000 worth of goods, and the problems between us will be written off."

"You don't owe me, and I don't owe you."

"If you touch my things again, I will be rude!"

He originally owed Lance 800,000 for low-priced liquor, but because he didn't want to sell it to Lance at a low price and wanted to seek greater profits, he refused to continue supplying Lance at a lower price.

This resulted in the relationship between the two parties, which was originally quite good, suddenly becoming sour.

Listening to the other party's irrelevant words, Lance sneered and said, "You think too simply, Luigi."

"You've ruined our friendship and also cost you this line of business."

"We are not in an equal relationship now, understand?"

"If you want to regain my friendship, you will have to pay a greater price than giving me something that originally belonged to me as alms as you are doing now."

"If you don't understand this, ask someone who does, and see how you can ask for my forgiveness!!"

Lance's tone was also a little fierce. "Before I nod, I promise that as long as I know that the goods come from you, not a single bottle can enter Jingang City!"

He hung up the phone without waiting for Luigi to say anything.

He sat at the table and thought for a while, then strode to the window, opened it, and shouted outside, "Mador?"

"At this!"

Soon Madore came to Lance's office, "Boss, you looking for me?"

Lance pointed to the chair across from him, "Sit down and talk."

After Mador sat down, Lance said, "What is the latest situation in the empire?"

Mador was stunned for a moment when he heard this question, then he sighed, "It's getting worse and worse. Now the rebels have come to their senses and are starting to unite again, but it seems that it's only a matter of time before they are wiped out."

The nobles were disappointed with them and no longer planned to support them. Without the support of the nobles, lacking funds and supplies, it was difficult for them to organize a threatening counterattack or attack.

They can only stay where they are and wait to be annihilated!

Of course, they did gain a lot of things in the war, including a large amount of land and real estate, but these things are worthless unless the nobles agree!

The funds in their hands are being consumed bit by bit, but they have no way to obtain new funds. They can only wait for the doomsday in agony!

Under such circumstances, many people have completely given up resistance and started fleeing overseas.

During this period, someone contacted Madore. He was doing well in exile overseas, and some people wanted to come and join him.

"Boss, some people from my hometown want to come over. They want to ask if we still need anyone."

Lance looked at him, "Can you trust me?"

"I don't want people we don't trust. You can bring in all your friends, but you have to make sure they can only have a positive impact on the family business."

"If they cause us trouble or do something harmful to us, you are responsible."

His words were very clear. If Madore wanted to act as a guarantor, and if they did something wrong after they arrived, Madore would also be implicated.

If it were in the past, Lance would not have said this, because at that time, Madore's family had not yet been brought here, and they had not yet settled down in the Federation.

Now his family has been brought here and they are living a very good life. Everything is very stable.

When people are in this state, what they fear most is change. Sometimes they are even willing to make some concessions or even sacrifice for the sake of stability.

When he realizes that doing something may have consequences that may have unpredictable effects on him and his family, he becomes very cautious.

He did not answer immediately, but thought for a while, and faces kept flashing through his mind.

After more than ten seconds, he nodded and said, "I can guarantee it!"

Lance said "hmm" without commenting, "That's great. I also have a task for you guys to do. Now is a good time to test your friend's ability."

"In the Aldera Republic of Yalan, there is a Sumurian merchant named Luigi."

"I don't like him, you know what I mean?"

Mador nodded repeatedly, "I'll arrange for them to go to Aldra and bring you a gift you like before they come, Boss!"

Lance was satisfied that he understood his instructions, "I will have Mello give you a sum of money, including providing all the necessary equipment."

"Take care of those problems, I'm here waiting for our new family!"

"I'll get ready now, Boss."

Lance nodded and watched him leave.

In fact, the conflict between him and Luigi can no longer be resolved. Even if he does not indirectly admit that he was the one who did it, Luigi will eventually believe that it was him who did it!

He didn't know whether Luigi had offended anyone recently, but he knew that in Jingang City, he should have only offended himself.

So the best way now is to replace him with other partners or ordinary people, and the problem will be solved completely at once.

What Lance didn't know was that after Luigi hung up the phone, he called Paul again. Now the atmosphere on Sumurri Island was the same as the friction between the four countries. It was about to get out of control, and there were simply not enough people who could be transferred out.

On the contrary, the four major families are constantly recalling family members from all over the world, asking them to fight for the glory of the family.

As the Pasreto family was a relatively famous family in the Federation, they were naturally among those recruited, but Paul refused.

The Pasreto family, which has become almost completely independent, would definitely not agree to be conscripted. Why would they, the people above, fight to the death while those others just sit back and reap the benefits?
The family faction behind Paul gave him another choice. If he was unwilling to bring the "children" back to Sumur Island to participate in the battle for justice, then he had to pay at least five million!
The five million is used to hire others and purchase military supplies. You can't just not provide either manpower or money, right?
But he still refused to be blackmailed, which led to his current bad reputation. Many people say that now that he has money and status, he has forgotten the fact that he has Sumurai blood flowing in his veins.

Luigi's situation was similar to his. He had not been doing well on the island of Sumurri before, so he was sent, or exiled, to the Republic of Aldra.

Now that his business is starting to pick up, those people are planning to take advantage of him again.

In fact, he and Paul are the same. The people of Sumurai, the four major families and those politicians put forward the concept and statement that "the resources of Sumurai Island are limited, but the world is infinite" in the early years.

The general meaning is that there is no living space for people like them on Sumuli Island. If they don't want to be at the bottom of society, then they should stop fighting with others for living space on Sumuli Island.

The so-called "outward expansion" was more of an outward exile and deportation from the perspective of the actual ruling class in Sumul. It was definitely not an expectation that they could make a name for themselves in the international community.

In the past, they were kicked away when they were looked down upon, and now when they are needed, they are kidnapped in various ways. Many people from the sumuli who have already settled down outside are unwilling to go back.

But there are only a few people who would never go like Paul.

So Luigi and Paolo still have something to say about these things.

"I need some help from you, Paul."

As the leader of the most powerful Sumurri gang in the Republic of Aldera, Luigi is indeed on par with Paul in terms of "status", so he does not need to be so careful and polite when speaking.

Including the fact that I have been having a headache recently, "Tell me what it is first, I may not be able to help you, and I am a mess here too."

Luigi wasn't in the mood to ask him why he was in such a mess, he was only thinking about his own business, "Lance and I had a little conflict..."

He told about the little conflict between him and Lance, "I need you to act as a middleman to help us make peace."

"It's just a matter of money. I've already talked to him and he can make up the 800,000 yuan worth of goods at cost price."

"I have already made a big concession. If he wants to buy goods from me again in the future, I can give him a price that is not available in the market!"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this between us. We need a middleman."

It’s not that Luigi didn’t consider sending a gunman, but he wasn’t sure if the gunman could kill Lance, so he planned to talk to Paul first.

If Paul could step up and help him talk to Lance, then he wouldn't have to take the risk.

Assassination is indeed a very useful method to physically eliminate the enemy, but if it is a failed assassination, it is definitely the worst case scenario.

Paul frowned as he listened to him talk about his little conflict with Lance.

"I'm not sure I can convince Lance. I can try, but not now."

"We have some big things to do during this period. After we finish them, I will definitely make an appointment with him as soon as possible."

"Don't worry, I will take your matter to heart."

Paul has a bad reputation on Sumur Island, but among the Sumurians who have left, he is still considered to be very good.

Hearing him say he wanted to wait, Luigi didn't continue to force him, "No problem, I'll wait for your good news."

"Is there anything I can do to help you with your troubles?"

Paul smiled and refused, "You can't help with these things, but thank you for your kindness, Luigi."

"Believe me, your problems with Lance will be properly resolved!"

The two chatted a little more about some things on the island and then ended the call.

After hanging up the phone, Paul rubbed his temples. Mueller came in with a tray and tea, "Do you want to take a break?"

He placed the things in front of Paul, who shook his head slightly. He still had a lot of things to deal with. Only by standing in his position could one understand how difficult it was to be the head of one of the five major families.

He took a sip of his tea and breathed a sigh of relief. "I heard that Dover was drunk again and was sent back?"

There was obviously a sense of dissatisfaction in his tone. He hoped that Dover could cheer up, inherit his father's aspirations, and become his right-hand man.

Instead of... a waste that no one in the family likes!
Mueller sighed expressionlessly, "He and the people around him drank until they were unconscious and slept until just now."

"The man just woke up, took a shower, and then went out again."

Paul was speechless when he heard this. He sat there for a while and said, "Forget it. Let him be."

"I owe this to their family!"

Soon, he buried himself in his work again.

(End of this chapter)