Empire of Shadows

"Is there anything I can help with?"

Chief Blue's attitude was very humble now. He was actually very clear that if Lance was okay, then he would be okay too.

If something happened to Lance, he would likely be immediately purged after Lance's misfortune.

The fact that Charlie and Hunter weren't touching him now didn't mean he was safe and sound; it just meant they hadn't freed up their hands yet, or that "tall Lance" was still helping him withstand the pressure.

Charlie and Hunter had long regarded the police force as their ladder to climb up, and Chief Blue's behavior was tantamount to destroying this ladder and even giving it to someone else. How could they possibly forgive him?

It's just that as long as Lance didn't fall, it wouldn't be easy for them to attack Chief Blue. At the same time, leaving him now was also a warning to others who had other ideas.

Whether in the past, present, or future.

No matter what kind of Goldenport City and forces Charlie and Hunter faced, at least in the police force, they had the final say!

So what if Blue defected to Lance?

Wasn't he still forced to go to the Forest Police Station to accompany the little animals?

External changes couldn't affect their control over the police force. That's what they wanted to express.

Therefore, no matter what, Lance couldn't have an accident. From Chief Blue's point of view, that's how it was.

"You don't need to be so nervous. The situation isn't as bad as you think!" Lance first reassured him. "Everything is under our control."

"Right now, I need some help. Because the police force is relatively independent, I need to know the situation of my people on the police side."

"It's not that I don't trust them, but that I believe humans always have shortcomings."

"Some people can't resist some temptations, some people can't resist pain, some people are afraid of fear. People have all kinds of defects and problems."

"We can't guarantee that everyone can resist their torture. We need some insurance."

Chief Blue understood what he meant, and his mind started to work. After a while, he said, "I have a few friends in the headquarters. They might be able to help."

The police station was very lively today, and the Hazardous Materials Administration was also very lively, because they had arrested a large number of suspects, totaling more than a hundred people.

These hundred-plus people were divided into two parts. One part was handed over to the Hazardous Materials Administration for them to investigate.

The other part was in the police station. Charlie wanted Hunter to also obtain some confessions or even evidence about Lance and the Lance family, instead of handing everything over to the Hazardous Materials Administration.

Of course, Hunter knew what Charlie meant. The knife is always most reliable when it's in your own hands; it's not safe at all in someone else's hands.

Either the person holding the knife won't listen to you, or they might stab you with the knife.

So as soon as these people were sent back, the entire headquarters went into high-speed operation. They began to interrogate these suspects.

Every interrogation room was occupied, and even some police officers' offices had people being interrogated. This was an unprecedented large-scale operation, major move, and major harvest for the headquarters!

Hunter also participated in the interrogation work. He took off his coat, leaving only a brown vest, and the rolled-up sleeves and unbuttoned collar showed that he had been quite busy.

He lit a cigarette and looked at the young man sitting in the opposite chair. The young man slumped his head, and viscous blood slowly dripped from his mouth.

Gastric juices, plus blood, and saliva, made up this mixture.

He was as still as if he were dead, but from the slight rise and fall of his chest, it could be seen that he was still alive.

Hunter was slightly out of breath, smoking, and staring at the young man. He was already tired.

Beating people is also tiring, and even more tiring than working!

After taking a few puffs, he walked up to the young man, grabbed his hair, and made him look up to face him.

The young man's face was bruised and swollen, and one of his eyes was so swollen that he could barely see his pupil. The slits of his eyes were also red and swollen like fresh blood.

He took the cigarette butt in his hand and pressed it against the young man's swollen cheek. The young man's body trembled slightly, but that was all.

There was no scream. This level of pain had no deterrent effect compared to what he had just endured.

"We have all night," Hunter said, releasing his hand. The extinguished cigarette butt fell to the ground, and his voice seemed to be squeezed out of his throat, with a cruel taste.

A smile suddenly appeared on the young man's face. Because his face was a bit deformed, the smile looked a bit ferocious, but Hunter could tell that it was a smile.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" he punched the young man hard in the abdomen.

The young man let out a muffled groan, then vomited, spitting out a mouthful of viscous blood.

The mixture of blood, gastric juices, and saliva was sticky and difficult to break.

After spitting out a mouthful of blood, he felt like he was a little better.

"Kill me if you have the guts," he said.

This sentence made Hunter extremely angry. He had never seen such a difficult person. As he spoke, he raised his fist to give the young man a little more color, but his new assistant grabbed his arm.

"Another beating and he'll die."

Interrogation, interrogation with injuries, and interrogation leading to death are three completely different types of problems.

Federal law mentions that interrogation is not allowed, but almost all police stations, or rather all law enforcement agencies, are interrogating.

It's not like what foreigners think, where the police will bring you a cup of coffee and chat with you like a friend until the interrogation is over.

They will give you a few punches to let you know that they will take action, and then they will use some "small tricks" to make you open your mouth as soon as possible.

If you don't cooperate, then there will be a feast next.

So the issue of interrogation is very common. After all, criminals can't be like elementary school students who have made mistakes in class, where the teacher asks something and they say something.

Even elementary school students sometimes lie!

So interrogation is necessary, but you can't casually leave injuries.

Once there are injuries, the possibility of the confession being invalidated is very high, especially for those who have hired more professional lawyers, their lawyers will question the legality of the confession.

Words spoken by a person under beatings and interrogation are obviously said for self-protection and are not sufficient to be adopted as valid evidence in court.

As for interrogation leading to death, that is an even more serious problem, and the main person in charge may lose their job because of it.

Hunter looked back at his new assistant, then lowered his fist.

But that young man laughed twice again, "Boss will avenge me."

Hunter's eyes held fire, "Who is the Boss?"

The young man used all his strength to raise his head and looked at Hunter, then spat a mouthful of bloody saliva on his pants, and then laughed loudly.

A weak laugh.

Hunter's assistant quickly leaned over. He was worried that Hunter would lose control, but what he didn't expect was that Hunter not only didn't become furious, but seemed to have lost interest in the interrogation.

He looked at the young man for about ten seconds, then walked outside, "I'll go see the other rooms. Clean up here."

His assistant nodded and began to clean up the mess. This was his job. He obtained his position, power, and benefits because of his current efforts.

While cleaning up the room, he said, "You shouldn't have done that. Just say something to fool him."

The young man slightly raised his head and glanced at him, but didn't say anything.

The assistant continued, "That's at least better than you being beaten like this."

After waiting a few seconds, the young man spoke, "What he does to me today, Boss will inflict on him tomorrow."

The young man looked at him with shining eyes, "He's dead!"

In an instant, the assistant shivered, because he had a strong intuition telling him that what this young man said was true!

This made him feel scared, uneasy, and silent.

He didn't speak anymore, sighed, cleaned up a bit, and then helped the young man up, "I'll take you to the place where you'll spend the night."

He was taken to a separate office and then handcuffed to the radiator.

Fortunately, this assistant wasn't a black-hearted person. If that was a radiator with the power turned up to the maximum, it would be enough for this young man to suffer all night.

As long as he relaxed a little, he would be scalded, and by tomorrow morning, his whole body would be covered in blisters.

But the radiator was only turned on to a very low temperature, which wouldn't burn him, but would warm his body.

The young man wasn't completely ungrateful either. He had heard from the "seniors" about the possible treatment when entering the police station. He asked, "Can you give me a pack of cigarettes and a lighter?"

He now had a little bit of strength, "I definitely won't be able to sleep tonight."

The assistant thought for a while, then took out most of the pack of cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket and placed them on the ground, and then took out two small candies and handed them to him, "I'll get you a glass of water later."

The young man nodded slightly, "Thanks."

Because there were too many people, almost all the rooms were used to avoid collusion.

So far, no one has confessed. Hunter has also become ruthless. Now that he has completely offended Lance, he won't be able to sleep until he sends Lance in and quietly wipes him out.

He didn't rest, but stared at those who had been caught, and even occasionally had to interrogate them himself.

But not everyone was like him. Many police officers had gone home to rest. They were tired after working late into the night.

At two thirty, Nate drove home.

Nate was one of the chiefs of the Crime Division of the City Police Department, responsible for almost all types of cases except criminal cases.

The department had a total of eight offices, with eight chiefs, each with their own team members, and they were not usually very busy.

Most cases were investigated and closed at the precinct level. Criminal cases were handled by the Criminal Investigation Division. Their Crime Division often played the role of 'Headquarters Thug'.

For example, there was a case where a big shot's child had a traffic accident. His car collided with another car, and he beat the other person with a golf club.

This case was originally handled by the precinct, but the child's father contacted Charlie, and the Crime Division of the headquarters began to intervene.

They transferred the case from the precinct to the headquarters, and then, through a series of technical means, including but not limited to intimidation and threats, they made the victim accept 'mediation' and give up the lawsuit.

This was their main job, they could be thugs, or they could clean up messes for the big shots.

However, today they would play a sharper role, they had to interrogate those stubborn young people.

Nate was in his forties, a bit old, and staying up late was like taking two punches to him.

He wasn't God, two punches could knock him down, so after the end of his periodic work, he took the initiative to come back.

The car stopped steadily on the driveway outside the house. His house had a garage, but he had to go to the police station early tomorrow morning, and he was too lazy to park inside.

Besides, the rolling shutter door would make a sound when opened, and his family should all be resting, so he parked on the side of the road.

After getting out of the car, he took out the key, and as he had done countless times in the past, he aimed at the keyhole from a distance of a dozen steps and walked towards the door.

When he approached the door, the overhead light would automatically turn on —

There was a carpet in front of the door, running from the front of the door, down the steps, and onto the ground, extending about a meter or so on the ground.

This carpet was specially made. When the pressure inside it changed due to being stepped on, it would trigger a switch to turn on the light at the door.

This ingenious design was common in many middle-class communities, and some communities even had voice-activated lights, but the effect was not as good as this.

Although voice control was a cutting-edge technology, it was best not to make noise in the middle of the night, otherwise the neighbors would have opinions.

If there were no accidents, he would insert the key into the lock in one go, as if he had practiced it millions of times, but today a small accident happened.

The moment the light came on, he saw a person standing by the door. He was so frightened that he shivered, reached for the holster under his ribs, and cursed!

"Be careful, don't let it go off," the person said, and took off his hat. When Nate saw Chief Blue, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"You almost scared me into a heart attack!" he complained impolitely.

The two were classmates at the police academy and even lived in the same dormitory, so they had a good relationship.

Nate didn't open the door, but stood under the light looking at Chief Blue. In fact, he already had some feelings in his heart.

Many people knew that Chief Blue was now mixed up with Lance, so his appearance here meant that trouble was approaching him.

Nate didn't like trouble.

"Is there anything wrong?"

"It's almost three o'clock in the morning, I won't invite you in."

Chief Blue knew his meaning and caution, and was not surprised by this. "Let's talk in your car, unless you want others to know what we said here."

"You're like a piece of shit, you know?" Nate walked impatiently towards his car. Although he kept cursing, he didn't refuse.

Soon they got into the car, and Chief Blue handed him a cigarette.

Neither of them spoke. After smoking for a while, Nate said, "Actually, you can turn back."

He meant that if Chief Blue expressed support for Hunter's position as chief, and supported his work, then he could come back from the Forest Police Department.

Even if he couldn't become the precinct chief, there would be no problem in being a deputy, or an office chief in the headquarters.

Chief Blue shook his head, "There's no need, because Hunter doesn't represent all the police in King's Port City, he doesn't even represent the police department."

Nate frowned, "But he is the chief of the police department."

Chief Blue said in a very subtle tone, "John used to be too."

This sentence made Nate realize that this old classmate was really deeply tied to the Lance family, and also realized the meaning in his words.

John used to be, but he's dead, so he's not anymore!

"Are you implying that Hunter will die?"

Chief Blue didn't directly answer this question, "How long has Hunter not left the police department?"

When Nate first heard these words, he didn't immediately wake up, but as he began to think about this answer and ponder this question, he suddenly realized Chief Blue's potential meaning.

Hunter doesn't leave the police department because he's afraid of death.

Seeing that his old classmate understood his meaning, he continued, "He's just gambling now, gambling that he can disintegrate the Lance family and send Lance in before he dies."

"You see, he's actually very scared, more scared than anyone else."

"I know Lance and the Lance family better than all of you. He won't fall, at least not be tripped by such a small pebble."

"Then what will happen next, do I need to say it?"

Nate took two big puffs of his cigarette, "I can arrest you right now, because of what you just said."

Chief Blue didn't care at all, "If you want to arrest me, you have to be prepared to stay in the police department like him without coming out, and then hide your family."

"He can send his family to the capital, he has earned a lot of money by being Charlie's thug for so many years, he can afford to buy a house, a villa, in the capital, so that his family can live well without working."

"What about you?"

Nate was also an old policeman, and the drowsiness in his mind had been washed away by these messages. He realized that Lance's people might have already tracked down information about Hunter's family.

When he heard this, his first reaction was to remind Hunter, but immediately afterwards, there was a chilling feeling!

The tail that had disappeared in evolution for perhaps hundreds of millions of years seemed to reappear, and was trembling, causing his whole body to shiver!

"Is it necessary?" he asked with a wry smile, and lit another cigarette for himself.

Chief Blue asked back, "If someone wants to kill you, would you let go of the other party and the other party's family?"

He shook his head, "No, I would do the same as him, whoever wants to kill me, I will kill their whole family!"

He patted Nate on the shoulder, "And you have to understand that if Lance and the others really can't hold on, they can run away, and then hide in the dark to look for opportunities for revenge."

"Can Hunter run?"

"He can't run away, no matter what, he's dead!"

"I told Lance that you are my good friend, and if I become the chief in the future, you will be the deputy chief."

"Think about it, I came to you first, but you are not the only one I need to contact. Give me a chance, and give yourself a chance."

The car suddenly fell into dead silence. This was indeed not a simple choice, and Chief Blue didn't urge him.

After waiting for about five minutes, he still didn't come to any conclusion. Chief Blue's patience also ran out. He directly pushed open the car door and stepped out.

Just as he was about to leave, Nate asked, "What can I do for you?"