Shadow Empire

Chapter 453: Seeking Help, Refusal and Targeted Strike

The spacious room was filled with boxes of money sent from various bars, and the young members of the family sat together and quickly sorted the banknotes in the boxes.

Lance was sitting on the sofa nearby, holding a cigar in his hand. Actually, he didn't like cigars very much because he couldn't inhale them into his lungs, but recently he seemed to have found some fun in them.

A powerful cigar that tastes like alcohol and leaves you feeling slightly dizzy.

This is because a large amount of nicotine acts on the brain, causing excessive secretion of various hormones, resulting in a dizzy feeling.

So after taking two puffs, you need to stop for a while.

However, this dizzy feeling will gradually ease as he smokes such cigars frequently.

Humans are also resistant to nicotine. The more they consume, the stronger the resistance becomes, and they become dependent on more consumption to achieve happiness.

But after stopping intake for a while, everything will reset.

Someone kept bringing in a box and pouring the money onto a special table.

The table is arranged in a grid pattern, with gaps just wide enough for coins to fall into.

The coins will clatter along the talcum powder-sprinkled slide under the table for screening and sorting, and eventually one-cent, two-cent, and five-cent coins will automatically fall into the same box.

The banknotes on the table will be placed in a box nearby by these young people according to their denominations.

Lance didn't come here often to check these income screens, but he was a little interested today.

There was an unpleasant smell in the air, like the smell of fermented, slightly sour oil.

The smell comes from these banknotes and coins.

The oils from people's bodies stay on the banknotes, and bacteria and the like cause them to start fermenting, creating this "money smell".

Some people like the taste very much, but some people don't like it so much.

When a person's banknote box is visibly full, it is replaced.

Then a special person quickly sorted the money in the box and tied it together with a rubber band.

This is a whole assembly line-like operation, except there is no conveyor belt.

After the money is counted, it will be sorted again. Small denominations will be given to gang members and work uniforms as wages.

Large denomination notes, such as ten and twenty dollars, would be taken to Lance's underground safe and stacked up.

That's why he wanted Mr. Jobaf's bank. His basement was almost full and he needed a safer and more suitable place to store the money.

He has an even more radical idea, but it will require stronger support.

While he was thinking about some follow-up plans, his thoughts were interrupted.

"Lance, the phone..."

Derisi, wearing a white shirt and brown vest, stood by the door and said something.

Lance looked back at him, supported his knees and stood up. He walked into the office with an ashtray and a cigar, then closed the door.

"Lisa wants to talk to you, you can call him."

It was Erwin's voice. She called the villa directly, but Lance was not there at the moment.

Lisa rarely contacted him on her own initiative, so something must have happened.

He called Lisa back and the call was answered soon, "They said you wanted to talk to me?"

Lisa said, "Hmm," "Ponda looked very aggrieved after he came back. I asked him and his plan for promotion fell through."

Lance frowned, he also contributed to making Ponda a senior agent. He consumed two warehouses at a time just to make Ponda's performance look impeccable.

"What happened to him?"

Lisa wasn't sure, "He didn't tell me, and I'm worried."

"I see. I'll talk to him."

After hanging up the phone, Lance sat and thought for a while and then returned to the hall. People didn't pay much attention to his return. They were all concentrating on sorting out the money.

In fact, when they first heard that this was their job, everyone felt that this job was not boring. Dealing with money, how many people long for it?

But after a long time, they finally began to be unable to bear it and even had physiological reactions, such as nausea and vomiting.

Now each group will only work for two days and then be replaced by another group. In the eyes of Derisi's men, counting money has become a punishment.

"Today's revenue is at least over 100,000 yuan." Derisi has a lot of experience. He is the one who delivers the drinks, so he knows exactly how much drinks these bars have sold and how many there are here.

With an income of 100,000 yuan, the net profit is about 40%, and the net profit of 40,000 yuan is huge profit from alcohol!

Lance nodded slightly. "We still need to continue expanding. The Port District and the Empire District are where poor people live. They have to think for a long time before buying a 15-cent glass of wine. It's hard for us to make a lot of money here."

"Only by going to a better place can we make more money!"

Derisi had no objection to this. Mello came in from outside with some food and put it on the table, "Eat something."

Lance asked everyone else to come in. Hiram grabbed a beef rib and stuffed it into his mouth. Lance glanced at him and said, "You better wash your hands."

Hiram rolled his eyes and ignored Lance, continuing to chew on the beef on the ribs. Derisi smiled and said, "Let me tell you something interesting..."

Hiram was suddenly stunned. He put down the beef ribs and rushed towards Derisi, which made everyone a little... at a loss!
Deresi laughed as Hiram shouted "Shut up" and quickly said, "He ate boogers when he was a kid, so he doesn't care at all!"

The others couldn't help but burst into laughter when they heard it, and Lance also laughed so hard that he couldn't stop, "Some people are like that!"

Hiram took out a rubber band from his pocket and tied his hair up. "You're dead, Derisi. Even if your sister comes, it's useless!"

The two men got into another fight, and the others started cheering them on!

No one tried to stop the fight, it doesn't mean they were really fighting, it was just a way of expressing friendship and affection!
In the end, Drisi rode on Hiram and pressed his head to the ground. In hand-to-hand combat, Hiram's fighting ability was not as good as Drisi's, but after getting the weapon, the result would definitely be reversed.

"Well, come and have something to eat."

They all grew up together and came to the Federation together, so they have better feelings and relationships.

Hiram climbed up and kicked Derisi on the butt when he wasn't paying attention, almost making him fall. He then breathed a sigh of relief.

A few people sat at the table laughing and started eating.

Those guys who were counting money were also eating. This was not a capitalist factory, so their labor was not exploited and oppressed so severely.

They were actually quite excited that Lance was here today.

Although we are all brothers, it is not easy to meet Lance.

They don't talk about important things, just very ordinary things.

A young man asked, "Boss, when are we going to grab another piece of territory?"

They just heard from Lance that the Empire District and the Port District were places where poor people gathered, and they should go to better places.

As members of the Lans family, they are proud of their family and hope that it will get better and better.

Someone followed up and said, "Everyone is saying that we were supposed to be one of the new five great families, but someone refused us from joining. Is that true?"

Lance was obviously surprised when he heard these questions, but not too surprised.

When a person cares very much about something, they will spontaneously collect all the information and clues related to it.

This is a manifestation of their love for their family.

Lance put down the rib in his hand. He thought for a moment and said, "Rather than joining the five major families, I prefer to conquer them!"

The room was silent for a moment, and then cheers broke out...

At night, a van and Lance's convoy returned to the villa, and several people took several boxes of money to the basement. There were already many piles of cash neatly stacked in the basement, and now there were more.

Before going to bed, Lance casually said, "Find something else for the people from Liji Group to do tomorrow."

The next morning, Ponda came out of the study. After a night of thinking, helplessness, and acceptance, he was now in a slightly better mood.

Seeing his wife busy in the restaurant, he hurried over and said, "I should do these. We think we should hire a maid. This is not the time for you to be busy."

Lisa nodded. She did feel a little overwhelmed.

Her belly gradually grew bigger and various physiological reactions began to appear. Some things became particularly difficult or uncomfortable to do, so she no longer insisted on doing everything by herself.

After the two of them finished their work and enjoyed breakfast, Ponda kissed Lisa goodbye and drove to the office.

His colleagues were looking at him cautiously at this time, and did not detect any negative emotions on his face. They tried to talk to him, and he could now barely face the problem calmly.

"…This was decided by the higher-ups. We can't blame Director Dell. To the higher-ups, he and we are the same. We don't have any chance to speak out."

"I'm fine, don't worry about me, whether I'm a senior agent or not, we all love our jobs!"

A very high level of awareness. Sometimes the level of awareness has nothing to do with one’s ideological realm; it is purely forced out.

Not long after he sat down, the phone on the desk rang, "Come out and talk?"

Ponda's expression remained unchanged and he whispered "OK". Lance gave him an address, then he hung up the phone and walked outside.

"There's an informant who might have some clues."

No one else said anything. He had recently cracked several cases of liquor smuggling, and some people were very interested in his informant, believing that the informant might be a member of the criminal group that smuggled liquor.

They were also curious about how he bribed these informants, but curiosity was just curiosity. It was not convenient for them to ask, and Ponda would not tell them even if they asked.

The place where the two met was in a car wash, which was a manual car wash. Although Jinzhou already had the so-called automatic car wash, it was generally still manually controlled by the staff.

It simply changes the situation where people wash their cars by hand using tools to one where machines wash their cars using tools. It is said that because of this, the price of car washing has doubled!
After the car entered the car wash, the rolling door was pulled down, and Lance opened the door and got in.

"I heard you failed in your promotion?"

Pang Da frowned, then softened his tone, "They airdropped a high-level agent here, and we don't have any extra space here, so I can't go up."

After all, he benefited from Lance, so he had to give Lance an explanation.

"How is your relationship with your colleagues, and how is your relationship with this high-ranking agent who was airborne?"

Ponda was a little confused about the purpose of Lance's questions, but he still said truthfully, "It can only be said that they are very common. After all, they are all senior agents. If they are not on a mission, we will most likely not meet."

"Besides..." He paused and glanced at Lance meaningfully, "I've been in the spotlight lately!"

Lan nodded in understanding. Being so prominent meant that some of the senior agents must be unhappy.

If a junior agent overwhelms them at work, it will make them appear very incompetent.

Maybe some people are not so narrow-minded, but as a super power department, there must be narrow-minded people!
"As for the guy who parachuted in, I haven't seen him yet."

He looked at Lance, wondering why Lance was asking these questions.

Lance smiled and spread his hands apart, making a "丿"-like gesture. "If a vacant position for a senior agent appears now, are you the most likely to be selected?"

Ponda agreed with this point very much, "Yes, but it is obvious that there is unlikely to be an empty seat waiting for me now."

The expression on Lance's face made him feel vaguely uneasy, and he also realized something, "This is a dangerous job, Ponda, you should have received some warnings when you joined the company."

"They want you to be prepared to make sacrifices. After all, you are facing vicious criminal gangs and dangerous armed elements."

"If something unexpected happens to someone..."

"Your chance has come!"

Ponda's eyes widened, "Are you crazy?"

"I can't... let you kill my colleagues just because I want to be a senior agent. I'm not that crazy, Lance!"

He repeatedly warned, "Don't interfere in this matter, this is my bottom line!"

Seeing how serious he was, Lance shrugged. He didn't want to push Ponda too hard.

So far he has not been able to develop a second insider. The Hazardous Materials Administration is a very special department and its power is too great.

This kind of department is difficult to corrupt in the early stages because these carefully selected people from various departments still have some "ideals" and colleagues do not really understand each other.

The disadvantages of the fermentation of power have not yet begun to emerge, just like the trade unions and labor federations at this time.

Perhaps it will be easier to gain more inside information only when those in power begin to rot.

Before a new inside player is hired, Lance will not put too much pressure on him. After all, the information he conveys back is still very useful.

"I'm just giving you a suggestion, you don't have to accept it."

"Since you won't be able to be promoted to a senior agent in the near future, you should just do your job well."

Lance said as he opened the car door and stepped out, "Have a nice day at work."

He smiled, shook his head and left.

Pang Da sat in the cab, watching the workers who had gathered around him again start washing his car. He had mixed feelings at this moment.

He was struggling, an inner struggle, a moral struggle, and finally his reason overcame his desire. He breathed a sigh of relief and lit a cigarette.

The white bubbles covered his entire front windshield, taking away all the dust and dirt on the windshield, leaving only two bright windows.

Just like his clear mind at this moment, spotless.

In the past two days, the general manager arranged a lot of people to guard the warehouse at the dock, for fear that similar incidents would happen again. Fortunately, no one came to cause trouble in the past two days, which made him feel a little relieved.

He didn't know whether the vice president had already settled the matter, but he secretly guessed that it hadn't been done.

If they had managed it, they would have informed me now. The general manager's only thought was to hold on until the specialist arrived.

The other party should arrive at noon, and there is not much time left until noon.

There were still some goods to be loaded in the morning. He heard that the headquarters had already placed part of the goods at the northern port instead of transferring them here. The goods would only be transferred here after coordinating and resolving these problems.

Although this will increase some transportation costs, it is better than having it mixed with irritating industrial waste, which will not only cause it to be completely scrapped, but you will also have to spend extra money to deal with it.

While he was thinking about these things, he suddenly heard the sound of quarreling in the warehouse. He frowned and walked towards the warehouse. Some workers on the dock were arguing with their employees.

The two sides were no longer just arguing verbally, they had already started pushing and shoving, and the situation was about to escalate. He strode over and asked, "What happened?"

The worker standing at the front turned around and looked at him, looking him up and down, "Your people look down on us!"

The general manager turned his gaze to his employees, and one of his employees whispered, "These workers curse while working, it's hard to hear."

"I just told them to shut up..."

Before the general manager could say anything, the leading worker suddenly shouted, "You look down on us workers, we're not going to work anymore!"

"Go move it yourselves!"

"Brothers, let's go!"

In just one or two minutes, all the thirty or forty workers in the warehouse had left, and the general manager sighed heavily.

He glared at the employee, then walked to the duty room and called the service company.

"We have had some misunderstandings with the workers here. Can you transfer some more workers over?"

(End of this chapter)