Empire of Shadows

Standing on the bell tower of St. Naya Cathedral, one experiences a peculiar sensation when looking around.

In this modern city, there exists a small haven of tranquility, perhaps explaining why some people frequent the church on weekends.

They find a sense of peace there, leading them to believe that this serenity is a gift from God.

Mr. Chobaff, holding onto the railing, gazed into the distance. When Lance came up the stairs, Mr. Chobaff's expression revealed something difficult to decipher.

Envy, jealousy, a mix of emotions churned within him.

He used to conceal these feelings well, but now, he found it increasingly difficult to hide them.

"I heard you wanted to talk," Mr. Chobaff said, glancing down at Hiram, who was discussing with Ethan why people in heaven didn't need clothes. How could the priest allow these blasphemers to enter?

Hiram's discontented remarks about heaven revealed his lack of reverence for God.

However, his attention quickly returned to Lance, and he turned around, "Recently, there have been rumors circulating that have caused me great distress."

Lance walked to the window. The bell tower wasn't particularly tall, only about five or six stories high, but it offered a view of the surrounding area.

He nodded, "About what, specifically?"

Mr. Chobaff replied, "About the safety of my bank. I've heard opinions from people in the Imperial Merchant Guild, which has led some to withdraw their funds, causing me trouble."

"What has made them so irrational?"

"Irrational?" Lance repeated, his tone rising at the end. "No, in my opinion, it's the most rational choice they could make."

"People aren't fools, Mr. Chobaff."

"If you hadn't given them a sense of crisis, the rumors wouldn't have taken root. But if they perceive you as putting them in danger, the rumors will only become more alarming."

"Instead of wondering what caused all this, perhaps you should consider what you did to make people lose trust in you."

Mr. Chobaff looked at Lance, "Is it just because I sided with the mayor and plan to run for Imperial District Councilor?"

Lance didn't deny it, "That's one reason."

"What else?" Mr. Chobaff felt a tinge of curiosity, wanting to know the other reasons. He even felt a bit of anger, suspecting Lance was lying.

He suspected Lance was trying to hide the real reason for his actions with a flimsy excuse – just to help William win the election!

Lance didn't answer immediately, instead smiling and saying, "Have you noticed that you've become a bit… I'm not sure how to describe it. Do you know what 'condescending' means?"

"It roughly means you're less tolerant of others' offenses, you've become more authoritative."

Mr. Chobaff was about to say something, but Lance's next words silenced him—"Because you feel your class is different from everyone else's now."

Seeing him deep in thought, Lance smiled. "See, that's how class works."

"When you stood with everyone, you were the respected Mr. Chobaff, helping them manage their funds, providing reasonable interest, and lending money to the poor to help them through tough times."

"But now, when you try to stand above everyone and demand they do as you say, it's hard for them to admire and love you, isn't it?"

"You abandoned them first, not the other way around."

Mr. Chobaff lowered his voice, his hands clenching into fists. "I didn't!"

Lance laughed as if he'd heard something amusing. "If you think you didn't, then you didn't."

Mr. Chobaff took a few deep breaths to calm himself, "I'm an Imperial citizen, and an old immigrant. I know what the people here need…"

This time, Lance interrupted him directly, "No, you don't."

"I do!" Mr. Chobaff reiterated his point, emphasizing his tone. People often behave this way.

When they want to convince those who are hard to persuade, they subconsciously emphasize their tone and increase their volume.

Hiram, who was downstairs discussing with Ethan whether the Empire's God and the Federation's God were the same God, and whether the two would fight, and Ethan, both looked up at the same time.

Lance raised his hand, signaling them to stay downstairs.

Mr. Chobaff lowered his voice again, looking at Lance, "They want to become richer, want more jobs, more food, better living conditions, more opportunities for education. I've always known what they want, they…"

He said a lot, but Lance just looked at him with a smile, his eyes as if looking at a fool giving a speech!

Mr. Chobaff was a little angry. For some reason, he had suddenly become fond of getting angry lately, perhaps as Lance said, he already felt that he was standing on another class, standing on… the people's heads.

So his temper wasn't as good as it used to be.

You would be polite to a homeless person because you want to show your cultivation.

But if the homeless person does something that makes you unhappy, you will be very angry, you will get angry, not because you lack cultivation, but because you feel you have been offended.

Mr. Chobaff was like this. The reason he was angry was not because he lacked cultivation, but because he felt that everyone's class level was different, and you should not offend him.

He took a deep breath and stopped, looking at Lance, "Am I wrong?"

Lance shook his head, which made him even angrier, "What's wrong?"

Lance looked at him, as if looking at a poor worm, "You think you understand the people here, but in fact you don't understand at all. In the past, you only thought they could bring you wealth, so what you respected was not them, but the benefits they brought you."

"Now you only treat them as a resource, a kind of bottom people, so you will not understand what they want."

"In fact, what they want is very simple."

"You have to respect them!"

Lance shook his head and sighed, "I have other things to do, I don't have time to talk to you here."

"You won't understand, it may be laughable to the gentlemen of the upper class, but for the people at the bottom, dignity, personality, is their last bottom line, and it is also the bottom line that cannot be lost, but you can't give it to them."

"In addition, I have to remind you that those three or five yuan that you may have looked down on long ago once made you successful, but now they can also destroy you."

Mr. Chobaff took a step forward, "You said, if I want to live well, I must first learn to be a bitch!"

"That's your fucking original words!" He even grabbed Lance's collar.

Ethan and Hiram jumped up, but Lance stopped them.

He used his own hands to break Mr. Chobaff's fingers one by one, while answering his question, "I told you to be a bitch, but I didn't tell you to be a dog!"

He broke the last finger, patted the wrinkled collar, "You are blinded by power and desire, Mr. Chobaff, if you still can't calm down."

"Those ordinary people who once created you will eventually become the raging tide that drowns you!"

After he finished speaking, he left the tower without looking back, leaving Mr. Chobaff in a mess in the wind.

"Don't you want to teach him a lesson?" Hiram asked during the process of going downstairs.

In his opinion, being disrespectful to Lance was a reason to kill him, not to mention that the old man grabbed Lance's collar.

Lance shook his head, "If he still doesn't understand what gave him his current status and everything, soon we won't need to do anything, the people will abandon him."

"Moreover, he still has some foundation after so many years, even if we eventually have to do it, it won't be us who do it."

"Those federal politicians are more cold-blooded and ruthless than you think, they won't tolerate a tool that has already been scrapped."

"What's more, he's not a local."

Lance has realized the horror of the word "local", even a guy like the mayor seems very "helpless" when facing local forces.

But this is normal. The federal system allows each region to maintain a certain degree of independence. It is ridiculous for a non-local to want to destroy the interests of the locals!

Even if the establishment of the New Port Area proposed by the mayor is essentially the right choice, and the Jinhang Wharf will definitely be overloaded in the future, it just won't work.

At least not at this stage, and even if it really wants to be done, the decision-makers, the implementers, and the ultimate beneficiaries can only be locals.

In fact, not only Jinhang City, but almost all other cities and regions are like this. Mountain-topism is not a characteristic of a certain city, it is a problem and characteristic that exists in almost all political systems.

It's just that some places are relatively backward in economic development, so there will be less conflict caused by economic interests.

Some regions, such as Jinhang City, have better economic development, and there will be more friction and conflicts than other places.

So no matter where you are, locals and outsiders are always two eternal worlds.

Hiram opened the car door. Lance stood outside the car, one foot already inside. He glanced back at Mr. Chobaff on the tower, who happened to be looking at him as well.

They looked at each other for a few seconds, then Lance turned and got into the car. Hiram closed the door and went to the passenger seat. Soon, the convoy departed.

Mr. Chobaff watched the distant convoy and slammed his fist on the windowsill.

He felt that Lance was playing him. He had abandoned his dignity and personality to squeeze into high society, but now Lance was telling him that what people needed was precisely what he had discarded.

This gave him an indescribable feeling. These emotions lingered, meandered, and swirled in his chest, ultimately causing him to curse "Fuck!" He rarely swore, even when alone.

Not long after, Mr. Chobaff also returned to Jinda Bank, where long queues of people were still waiting to withdraw money.

The people withdrawing money showed embarrassed expressions when they saw Mr. Chobaff getting out of the car, but they had no intention of leaving.

During this period, people judged "capable people" by whether they could make money.

The Imperial Chamber of Commerce, which had doubled its funds in a very short time, had become wealthy in their eyes, so they believed what the wealthy said.

Chobaff frowned as he looked at the long line. His assistant, now the vice president, came out of the bank.

"Sir."

Having not seen him for a while, he felt a distance between himself and his assistant, but he didn't know how to resolve this suffocating sense of unfamiliarity.

He nodded and looked at the long line. He knew he had to do something.

After they went to the office, Mr. Chobaff said, "I've talked to Lance. It must have been him spreading the rumors. He wants William to become a councilor in the Imperial District."

The assistant said, "Since he wants that position so badly, why not give it to him?"

Mr. Chobaff shook his head and said, "This is the closest I've ever been to entering high society. If I miss this opportunity, I may never have another chance in my life."

"Lance is a very opinionated and assertive person. If we cooperate with him, we'll only ever be playing house with a bank in a corner, and we'll never become true bankers."

The assistant had great goodwill and fondness for Lance because Lance had avenged him. He had personally tortured and killed Jimmy, allowing his nephew to rest in peace in heaven.

So he stood on Lance's side, "But at least he's an Imperial citizen. If he can rise very high, we can also benefit from it."

Mr. Chobaff felt annoyed whenever he heard Lance's name now. He raised his hand, "Okay, let's not talk about him. Let's first figure out how to solve the problems we're currently facing."

"How much liquid capital do we have available?"

The assistant knew these figures by heart, "It depends on whether we want to move those bonds or not. If we liquidate the bonds, we'll have about a million in funds available."

"But if we don't use the bonds, we'll only have about three hundred thousand available."

Mr. Chobaff couldn't help but exclaim when he heard this number, "So little?"

The assistant looked helpless, "The public withdrawing funds is one part, and also... you've been withdrawing large amounts of funds from the bank. Our situation is not only unhealthy, but also very dangerous."

"Once there's a larger run and impact, we'll go bankrupt very quickly."

Mr. Chobaff finally felt the pressure. He couldn't sit still any longer and walked to the window, looking at the people still lining up to withdraw money, "We have to think of something."

After his brain churned for several minutes, he finally came up with a solution.

"The best way is to fight rumors with rumors."

"Find a way to spread some rumors, telling people that the run on Jinda Bank is a conspiracy by other large Federal banks. They want to control the wealth of Imperial immigrants and have a comprehensive understanding of their financial situation."

"So we are the last wall standing between Imperial immigrants and Federal capitalists. If we fall, then they will have to face the Federal banks and vampires directly."

"Supporting Jinda Bank is not just helping me personally, but also helping themselves."

The assistant nodded after hearing this, "I will arrange for people to spread it."

Mr. Chobaff nodded, but wasn't very satisfied, and just sighed, "Go do it."

There were still more than half a year left until the final vote, and he was very worried about whether he could hold on until then.

At this moment, he remembered a business that he had always been able to do, but had never done: money laundering.

Some funds within the Empire wanted to come out and become legal funds to enter certain Federal accounts. Someone had already contacted him, hoping to cooperate with him to launder money.

Bank money laundering is actually a very easy thing. He only needs to create some fictitious accounts to completely clean a sum of money.

But he had never agreed because there was a great risk involved.

The Federal government and the IRS paid very close attention to money laundering and tax evasion. Once people knew that Jinda Bank was involved in money laundering, even the mayor couldn't save him.

Secondly, the Imperial nobles might not be reliable. They might leak some information, and once the flow of funds became too large, he would definitely be noticed by the Federal government.

But if the bank's subsequent development became worse and worse, he might have to try doing these businesses.

The assistant spent some money to make the rumors spread faster. At the same time, Mr. Chobaff also processed a batch of bonds to deal with the sudden run that had erupted.

His handling was very timely. Although it didn't stop everyone from continuing to withdraw, the run situation clearly improved a lot.

Some people had already begun to elevate withdrawing money from Jinda Bank to the level of "assisting Federal bankers in persecuting Imperial immigrants!"

People are always highly engaged in this kind of obviously confrontational topic.

Fortunately, this was not within the Imperial homeland, otherwise they might have elevated this matter to the level of patriotism, saying things like "Only depositing money in Jinda Bank is patriotic."

Although these things didn't cause Mr. Chobaff to face a major crisis, they made him feel nervous and further forced the rift between him and Lance.

After learning about this, the mayor gave Mr. Chobaff great encouragement and praise, and said that if necessary, he could say a few words for Mr. Chobaff when being interviewed by the news.

This made Mr. Chobaff believe that everything he had paid was worth it!

With May approaching, Lance went to Johnny's bakery.

In just one month, Johnny looked like he had lost at least twenty or thirty pounds. He had become a less exaggeratedly fat man.

Although he was still fat, he looked much healthier!

Perhaps... this was a good thing for him. Although he had lost all his wealth and house, at least he had gained health!