Empire of Shadows

In the evening, after dinner, Lance came to a room on the third floor that directly faced the main gate of the manor and sat down. The butler brought over the latest coffee, which cost over a thousand a pound.

Lance had drunk many good coffees, but he always found it very difficult to, just by taking a sip, be able to tell the origin of the coffee, the season of its picking.

He could never figure out those wine tasters, coffee connoisseurs, who could, with a small sip, even call out the name of the farmer who had grown the raw materials. Was this real or fake?

He didn’t know. Maybe it was an open-book exam. He didn’t have the paper, nor was it an exam, so he didn’t know the answer.

“…So, what’s so good about this thing?”

The butler stood by the side and watched with a smile as Lance took a small sip. Then he bowed slightly. “Master, its oils, its unique and complex fragrance, and the roasting process will neither make you feel excessively bitter, nor will it have the slightest sourness.”

“Everything is balanced very perfectly, leaving only the best side of the coffee. This is its value.”

“Of course, if you need me to tell you more about its story, I can also say some.”

“The person who sent the coffee said that from the planting of their coffee beans to the final roasting and packaging, they are all done by unmarried, and have not had any sexual experience, and are loyal to God, devout virgin believers.”

He walked to the side of the coffee table and poured himself a cup, and then used his hand to swirl some air to his face, and then took a deep breath. “This allows you to clearly perceive the special, pure milky fragrance in its complex taste, and also the taste that can penetrate the soul!”He himself also took a small sip and said a whole bunch of things that Lance couldn’t understand, but it has to be said that his appearance was very impressive.

“Were you like this when you were working for the nobles?” Lance was a little curious, with no malice, purely out of curiosity.

The butler put down his coffee cup and was silent for a moment. “You know, as a job, and as a worker, I always have to fool them, so that I can have a meal, right?”

He had a smile on his face. “The nobles are very obsessed with these things. They believe that ‘what is done by a pure person is a pure thing,’ and that using these things will be blessed by God.”

What a person lacks the most is what they value the most.

Lance shook his head slightly. He turned his head to look at the sky outside the window.

The summer sky, even if it was dark, would not be so dark. It would not be like a winter night, as dark as a pool of stagnant water.

A summer night is a bright night. Even if you are in the wild, you can still vaguely see everything around you.

Lance waited until it was a little after nine, almost ten o’clock. The moon seemed to have risen in the sky like the sun. The silver moonlight gently illuminated everything on the ground.

Lance put down the book in his hand. He was a little impatient. “Put on some music.”

The butler walked to the side of the gramophone. “Master, what type of music would you like to listen to?”

Lance looked back at him. “Choose one that is suitable for me to listen to now.”

The butler bowed slightly. He chose and chose, and chose a record of a symphony, and then placed it on the turntable.

The moment the music began to play, Lance leaned back on the backrest and closed his eyes slightly. His left hand was tapping lightly and rhythmically on the armrest, without making the slightest sound.

The opening was a piano solo. It sounded very cheerful, like an elf running in the wilderness.

But with the addition of the orchestral instruments, there was a touch of heaviness. It was no longer a free-leaping and chasing elf, but a person who was running away from disaster.

The wonder of music is here. It can let you enter another, higher-level spiritual world, and let your spirit resonate with the content that the music wants to express!

The soul, at this moment, is vibrating, trembling. Those who cannot understand music cannot understand this.

The cheerful sound of the piano began to become rapid. The moonlight that had fallen into the mortal world began to stir up the dust. The relaxed mood was instantly tightened. More instruments joined in. Lance could already feel that on the vast land, a lonely but unyielding figure was competing with everything.

Whether it was the dark clouds, the lightning, the strong wind, or the wild beasts or demons chasing behind him, none of them could stop him from rushing out, from breaking through all the determination!

His body began to relax and to enjoy the wonderful situation brought by the music at a deeper level.

The butler quietly left the room, then slowly closed the door, and stood at the door, shouldering his responsibility.

Ted, who was swaying in a large bus and had already arrived near the manor, looked at the brightly lit manor in the suburbs with some confusion. Some… a sound he didn’t know how to describe seemed to have sounded in his ear.

Grand, majestic, filled with a suppressed emotion that he didn’t know when it would erupt!

Is it music?

He didn’t know. He had also, like Frank and those people, gone to a concert before. The feeling it gave him was that it was boring, boring, and a waste of his life’s time.

But at this moment, he suddenly, seemed to have vaguely understood something, understood why those people were willing to spend dozens or hundreds of dollars to buy a ticket, and to go in and waste their time.

The cigarette ash in his hand was blown away by the night wind. He glanced at the already dim cigarette butt and wanted to take another puff, but seeing that it had already gone out, he casually threw the cigarette butt out of the window and lit another one.

“We’re almost there, Ted.”

The speaker was Ted’s trusted subordinate. The Perez family, like all gangs, from the lowest level, to the combat captain, to the cadre.

It was just that here, above the cadre, there were also the two classes of collateral family members and direct family members.

An ordinary person, an “outsider” without the Perez surname, the end point they could reach was a collateral family member.

They needed to marry a girl from the Perez family and become a part of the family. Only in this way could they go up another level.

As for wanting to become a direct descendant?

For them, this was not possible, but their children had a chance to do so. If they were willing for their own children to have the surname Perez, then their children, after many years of hard work, they or their children might become direct family members.

However, becoming a direct family member did not mean that you would be very glamorous and have a lot of power. Everything had to be obtained through your own efforts.

The only thing that could be said was that the starting point of a direct family member was higher. As long as they were hardworking enough, they had a chance to enter the core circle of the family.

The guy who had walked over was a cadre of the family. He had been with Ted for more than twenty years and was also in his forties this year.

Ted’s expression was a little complicated. In the dark of the night, the light in his eyes flickered with the constantly appearing or disappearing moon between the crowns of the trees.

He had originally wanted to say something else, but the moment he opened his mouth, the words he had said turned into something else.

“Have the brothers get ready.”

Before they had come, they had actually already arranged for someone to keep an eye on Lance. Lance also knew that someone was watching him.

The crazy little old men who wanted to get some money from a stranger, they wished they could gouge out their eyeballs, wipe them, and then put them back in every day!

They could find the people who were not right, so Lance knew that Ted was paying attention to his whereabouts.

Since Ted was definitely coming, then instead of letting them have a “chance encounter,” it was better to just choose the battlefield himself.

At this time, the symphony had reached its first climax. The rain was pouring down, but it still could not stop the determination to continue to run.

The emotions were advancing layer by layer, fiercely, like a pot of the strongest wine!

Three large buses and a dozen or so small cars directly broke through the main gate of the manor. Lance’s room had a very good soundproofing effect, and the brand of the gramophone was also very high-end. The setting, the layout of the entire room, were all specially set up for this gramophone.

Let alone the opening outside, even if it thundered outside, he couldn’t hear it!

He closed his eyes, feeling the explosion of emotions in the symphony, and his head was constantly swaying with the change of emotions.

Outside the glass window, a meter away from him, Ted’s men had already rushed into the manor.

On the first floor, behind the gardening, behind the things that could be used as cover, Lance’s men suddenly stood up with their submachine guns and began to strafe the people who had broken into the manor.

The firefight broke out from the first second, like a summer thundershower, coming as it pleased, and when it came, it was like the end of the world!

The sound of bullets flew around in the space. Ted lowered his head and commanded the driver, “Ram through, ram through, don’t stop here, ram through!”

He pointed at the main gate of the manor in the distance. Only by driving the car closer to the manor’s building would they have a greater chance of winning.

The moment Lance’s men had directly strafed them, he had known that they had been exposed.

But he was not surprised.

If the Lance Family couldn’t even figure this out, couldn’t even get to this point, then they wouldn’t have had today’s achievements.

So today’s battle, in essence, when they had arrived at the manor, was left with only a head-on firefight!

The driver of the bus he was on floored the gas pedal. He knew that this battle was very dangerous, and he also knew that there was a high probability that he was a dead man.

But at this moment, his individual will was covered by the collective will. He had completely lost himself!

The windshield was shattered in an instant. The bullets flew back and forth in the carriage. Someone let out a cry of pain, and someone fell to the ground with a thud.

Some people, unable to bear the huge pressure, began to shoot at the people outside. The large bus finally stopped less than twenty meters from the main gate.

It had crashed into a flower bed. The people in the carriage, because of the huge inertia, had also suffered a huge impact in the carriage. Each of them had fallen to the ground.

Ted supported himself with the seat and fell to his knees. Around him were gunfire. He was also shooting outwards.

He couldn’t see clearly who the enemy was at all, but as long as something was on fire, he would shoot at it.

This place was not too remote. The first moment the gunshots sounded, Mayor Williams had called Lance, but the call was intercepted by the butler.

“Mr. Lance is enjoying the music and is temporarily unable to answer your call, Your Honor the Mayor.”

“After he is finished, I will inform him of your call.”

“A firefight?”

“There is a little, but it’s a small problem. The specific matter has to be explained to you by the master himself.”

“Okay, that’s it, goodbye.”

Mayor Williams couldn’t get any news, let alone others. But because this firefight had happened in the suburbs, the people in the city, although they were panicked and didn’t know what had happened, were not so scared!

He wanted to call Chief Bruce, but the police department said that Chief Bruce had left with his men, which also made him realize that Lance had arranged everything.

He sat there quietly, smoking, with a glass of wine in front of him.

Never before had he been like now, where he actually strongly hoped that a gang that was actually a threat to him could win a great victory!

Tonight, many people were destined not to be able to sleep. The phone at the police station had also been blown up, but the gunshots still did not stop.

Ted had already rushed out of the large bus. He was leaning against a flower bed that was only one meter high and was constantly shooting at the enemy on the flower bed, and also around it.

There were also some riflemen on the roof who were reaping the lives of the enemy on the “battlefield.” In addition, being surrounded by more people, Ted already had a sense of enlightenment.

He looked back. The people he had brought were hiding behind the cars, behind the flower beds, and were still fighting hard.

In an instant, his ears suddenly became quiet, with only his own heavy breathing, and the sound of his heartbeat.

At this moment, he was a little dazed, his mind a blank. He instinctively raised his hand and pulled the trigger on a young man he had found who was shooting.

Then his gaze was attracted by the gunfire that lit up next to him. His whole person seemed to have entered another realm.

His mind and body were separated. His mind was still dazed, but his body had already instinctively gone to fight.

The high-pitched music that rang in his ears made his blood boil. He raised his hand and fired a few shots, forcing some of the people in front to lower their heads and dodge.

Taking this opportunity, he rushed onto the flower bed, closer to the main gate!

Just a little more!

He told himself.

There were lights in the manor. In addition to the lights of the house, and the moonlight under a clear sky, everything was so clear.

Just a little more. As long as he could rush into the room, he would be able to see Lance!

But his wish was probably going to be in vain soon, because another group of people had come, from behind them.

Seeing the “reinforcements” arrive here, although Hiram did not say it, he still let out a heavy sigh of relief!

These people of the Perez family were indeed good hands. It was not to say that there were no cowards, but most of them were not afraid of death. They dared to fight, and they dared to stand up and shoot in the face of more muzzles!

Sometimes he also didn’t know if this was stupidity, or if it was real courage!

The enemy from behind made Ted and his men feel a huge pressure. Looking at these subordinates who had been with him for a long time, and at the good hands that Robin had transferred from the family who were a little panicked, he said loudly, “Rush, rush into the door, and we can live!”

Whether they could really live or not, he was not clear, but he knew that if he did nothing, he would be a dead man.

He didn’t want to die so quickly. He wanted to avenge Milo. Even if he couldn’t kill Lance, he would spit on him!

His voice had worked. First, his own group of men began to gather towards him, and then the men that Robin had transferred.

The military instructors would always say—

The more you are afraid of death, the faster you will die. In fact, you also have to add a sentence: if you are not afraid of death, you will die even faster!

But this fearlessness was precisely what could bring a threat to their enemies. In an instant, these fearless people began to gather, and they really beat Hiram and his men so hard that they couldn’t even lift their heads.

Looking at the increasingly close main gate, Ted’s heart was excited.

He was not clear if there were still enemies in the house, but looking at the lineup tonight, even if there were, there wouldn’t be many.

People were constantly falling around him. Everyone was holding back their breath at this moment. As long as they could get into the house, the situation could be turned around!

But what they didn’t realize was that the gunmen of the Lance Family had not stopped them from approaching the main gate!

After paying the price of at least thirty or forty people, the remaining less than one-third of the people finally pushed open the main gate.

Ted, while commanding the people to go in, also did not let the pursuers from outside come in. They exchanged fire around the door for a while, and after leaving a dozen or so bodies, they finally held the main gate.

But in the next second, many people with submachine guns suddenly appeared on the corridor on the second floor. Ted was just stunned for a moment before a fierce gunshot rang out.

The fierce and dense gunshots were like the climax of the symphony in Lance’s ears at this time!

The explosion of emotion after being compressed to the extreme!

The whole person, spirit, body, hair, all exploded at this moment. The whole person was stretching himself. The soul was like a blade of grass in the ocean, swaying in the hall of music!

He had passed all the difficulties, had finally broken through the layers of shackles of fate, and had also shaken off the terrible things that were chasing him, and had rushed out of the inky black, thunderous, and stormy night!

All the music, the moment he rushed out, came to an abrupt halt!

Without leaving any “lingering sound,” it was cut off cleanly, cut off neatly, but unexpectedly, it gave people a long aftertaste.

After two minutes, Lance slowly opened his eyes. He let out a long sigh of relief.

Music could indeed wash a person’s soul. That feeling of shock was something that those who had not experienced it would never be able to understand.

He turned his head to look at the glass window. There were two cracks on the glass window. He could even clearly see the bullet in the middle of the two cracks. It was stuck on the bulletproof glass.

The cracks made it impossible for him to see everything outside, and he couldn’t hear the sound outside, but he knew that he would not lose.

A timely knock came from outside the door. Lance felt for two buttons on the side of the sofa and pressed one of them. The door opened.

This was a very ingenious design. Rich people always like these unconventional things.

The butler came in from outside the door and bowed slightly. “Master, are you satisfied with the content I chose?”

Lance nodded with great satisfaction. “This guy… is he still alive?”

Lance was talking about the composer of the symphony. The butler shook his head with regret. “He has been dead for a hundred years.”

“However, this symphony is still being performed. If you want to listen to it live, you may have to go to another place, or have them come over.”

Lance stood up straight and exhaled. “Call them. I want to hear them play for me.”

As he spoke, he turned and walked outside. “Is it over?”

He seemed to be asking about the music, and also about what was happening below.

The butler was still standing by the door, his waist bent and his head lowered. “It’s over, master.”

(End of a Chapter)