Empire of Shadows

Sometimes, being manic, loud, and angry cannot exert pressure and fear.

On the contrary, a calm attitude can make people more afraid.

On the way here, Carl had been thinking about how to distinguish who among these people had betrayed him and who had not.

He wanted to find something in his mind that even he himself would be afraid of. In the end, he thought of Lance.

Lance would never, like those who were trying to prove that they should not be underestimated, stand up, shout loudly, or pound the table and throw things on the ground.

He wouldn’t do that. He would just watch calmly, like a gentleman, and in a gentle tone and manner, say some things that would make people feel a chill down their spines.

Without any loud voice, without holding a weapon and gesturing at you, he would just sit there, and he could make people feel fear to the bone.

He wanted to learn.

And to understand it in his own way.

And the calmness he was showing now was what he had grasped from his contact with Lance.The calmer, the more unsettling, the more frightening, the more terrifying!

He had just said these words so simply, without any effort, and the guy sitting opposite him already had an uneasy expression on his face.

He was trying to convince himself.

”Carl, I promise, I swear to God, I have absolutely not betrayed you or anyone else!”

He was very flustered, his eyes a little evasive, and with his body language, he seemed to be trying his best to make Carl realize that he was not that kind of person.

Carl took a puff of his cigarette and slowly exhaled. He lowered his head and glanced at the cigarette in his hand.

He thought of his childhood, when he had been wrongly accused by his parents of stealing two coins from their pockets.

He had been very angry when he had been wronged. His eyes could have shot fire. He had stared at his parents and had told them that he had not done it!

He would not be like this person in front of him, flustered.

To be wronged, you are either aggrieved, or angry, but you should not be flustered.

He scratched his ear, which was suddenly a little itchy. ”You say you haven’t betrayed anyone, but the time you spent with them was the longest of all.”

The middle-aged man cried out in grievance, ”They just talked to me about some messy things. They didn’t talk about the relationship between me and you at all.”

”They deliberately stayed with me, to make our time together a little longer, to cover up their real purpose!”

”This is a frame-up!”

Carl couldn’t help but laugh twice. ”What’s there to be framed for?”

This sentence made the middle-aged man stunned for a moment. His expression froze on his face.

He couldn’t find any way to counter Carl’s words. What was there to be framed for?

He... alright, he really had no value in being framed.

After a while, about seven or eight seconds, Carl took another puff of his cigarette, and then reached into his pocket, took out a tie, and threw it in front of the man.

”You want me to believe you, it’s very easy!”

He nudged his chin at the tie. ”Prove it to me.”

The guy opposite him was stunned for a moment, and then he subconsciously picked up the tie, looking at Carl with a dazed look on his face, as if he were asking what the fuck this tie was for.

Carl pursed his lips, gestured twice at his own neck, and then pointed at the window on the side. ”Prove it.”

This guy understood. He took the tie and looked back at the window on the wall, a look on his face that was about to cry.

”Carl...”

Carl looked at him with a blank face. ”I don’t like people who lie.”

”Everyone may be influenced by others at a certain period of time. I have also been influenced by others before.”

When he said this, the image of Boni appeared in his mind. He had once been influenced by Boni, and for many years.

Now, looking back on these past events, he suddenly no longer had so many other emotions towards Boni, but just a sense of normalcy towards the stupid things he had done in the past.

He shook his head. ”You can be deceived by them, be influenced by them, but don’t lie to me!”

”I trusted you, chose you. This was also your request, but you were trying to do something that would harm our friendship.”

”Think about your family, think about the people outside.”

”They are still waiting for you. They are still looking forward to a better life.”

”Now if you want to prove that you are not the bad guy, then prove it to me.”

”Either tell me what you said to them.”

”Or prove that you did not betray me.”

Carl’s words were spoken without any ups and downs, just a direct narrative, but it gave the middle-aged man a great deal of pressure.

He could hear that Carl was threatening him, threatening that if he did not do as he said, he would implicate everyone else.

A middle-aged man, to be able to take such a big risk to do those things, was definitely not entirely for himself. He had other reasons.

He looked at Carl, his eyes full of despair. Carl was indifferent to the despair in his eyes, and just stared at him.

The middle-aged man slowly untied the tie, constantly cursing in his mouth.

He stood up, carried a chair to the side of the window, and even looked back at Carl.

After the two had looked at each other for a moment, he stood on the chair, cursing, and had the tie go around the iron bar on the window and come back, and then he tied a dead knot.

He stood on the chair, and it could be seen that he was very nervous.

Carl had been observing him. He felt that there was a problem with this person. He had been with those lawyers for the longest time, and his eyes had been constantly dodging. He also seemed very flustered, but now it seemed that he was a little less certain.

Whether he was one of the people he was looking for, Carl had a bit of a headache.

He took another puff of his cigarette and looked at this middle-aged man with indifference.

The middle-aged man’s body was trembling. He slowly tied a dead knot with the tie, and then put it around his own neck. He stood on the chair and looked at Carl. ”Don’t forget your promise to me!”

”Fuck!” he couldn’t help but curse again, and then he kicked the chair over.

Looking at the struggling middle-aged man, Carl’s butt suddenly left the chair, but just as he was standing up, before he had fully stood up, his action paused.

The hope that had flashed in the eyes of the guy hanging on the wall had dimmed again.

Carl slowly sat back down. He smoked his cigarette, one puff after another, watching the middle-aged man hang on the wall, and in the end, there was no movement at all.

He took a final puff of his cigarette and slowly exhaled.

The moment the smoke left his mouth, it rose up in a curl, blocking his line of sight, making his vision blurry.

”I’m sorry, don’t blame me,” Carl stood up, supporting himself with the table. His legs were a little weak.

It wasn’t that he was scared to see someone die in front of him, but that he had associated it with the fact that if he didn’t do this well, then one day he would also, like this person, kill himself, which made his legs a little weak.

At the same time, he also swore that he would never let this day, this scene appear!

In fact, he had no idea who had betrayed them, and who had not.

He was just bluffing, putting on pressure, and through the psychological pressure, to make them reveal a flaw. He didn’t know if this would work, but he knew that as long as he did it, it would have some effect, a warning effect.

Maybe everyone had betrayed him, but it was also possible that no one had betrayed him. Just like this middle-aged man in front of him, he could hang himself on the wall, but did he really have no problem at all?

If he had no problem, it would be fine to let him down, but what if he had a problem?

At that time, it would not be this middle-aged man who was making a choice here, but Carl.

He didn’t want to be a person who had to make a choice. He wanted to be the one who let others make a choice, so he could only nip all the dangers in the bud.

He went out of the room. The police officer outside looked inside and said nothing.

The ”script” had already been arranged. The branch director here would resign to take the blame in two days. It just so happened that at the same time, he would also take the blame for the indecisive handling of the parade and demonstration. To carry two pots at once, but only have to bear one consequence, it was clear that he had made a profit.

Lance had already prepared a new job for him, a supervisor in the security department of the Empire Chamber of Commerce. Although the people he managed were not as many as the people he managed now, his income would be more than here.

In the director’s office, Chief Bruce was sitting in the branch director’s chair, talking to the branch director as if he were the master here.

”They all think I’m biased, to have chosen you.”

The branch director did not have any negative emotions at all for having to lose his job as a director soon. His face was full of smiles, including his family, who all thought that he had made the right choice.

He said with a hint of showing off, ”This is luck!”

They had, by drawing lots, chosen who would take the blame. He had won!

God wanted to choose him. How could he possibly lose?!

Chief Bruce sighed lightly. ”Have you written your resignation letter?”

The branch director nodded. ”It’s in the second drawer on your left. Maybe you can help me check it again?”

Chief Bruce did not object. He took out the resignation letter and read it seriously, and even found a few places that could be modified.

When Carl had come out of the second room, the police officer, after glancing at the suspect who had hung himself again, had taken the initiative to greet Carl.

”Mr. Carl.”

Carl was just about to go to the next room. He looked back at this police officer. ”Is there something?”

His tone was not very good, nor was it very bad. It gave people a feeling of being a little impatient.

The police officer explained with a smile the reason why he had stopped him. ”If so many people in our branch were to hang themselves at the same time, it might be guided by someone, which would create a situation that would make us even more passive.”

Carl turned to look at him, his tone carrying a hint of vigilance and scrutiny. ”What do you mean?”

The police officer did not show any uneasy expression at all because of Carl’s expression and his tone. He just said with a smile, ”Although to have everyone hang themselves can indeed deter others, this will also leave us with a relatively large flaw and trouble.”

”My idea is that next, if you still want to kill someone, you don’t have to do it yourself. I will take them to an ordinary cell, and then someone will cause a riot, and this person will accidentally die in the riot.”

”It’s the same death, but I believe that to die because of a riot in a cell will definitely bring less trouble than... to just hang yourself in a room like this, and at the same time, the deterrence produced will not be less.”

Carl thought for a moment and then nodded. ”You have a point. What’s your name?”

The police officer told him his name. Carl nodded. ”I’ll remember you.”

A little later, Carl had selected all the people he thought had betrayed him. These people were locked in the same cell.

At night, for some reason, a conflict broke out in the cell. Some of them, from god knows where, had gotten a knife, which had resulted in the death of several people...

At the same time, there was also a piece of gossip that was circulating among these arrested refugee attackers—

The people who had died had betrayed Carl, so Carl had retaliated against them!

And, this news was followed by another piece of news. Carl would be keeping an eye on them.

If any of them tried to betray him, then they, along with their families who were still outside, would all be finished.

For a time, this had made these arrested refugee attackers all become very cautious. They did not talk to others, and became withdrawn. It seemed that only in this way could they prove that they had not been spreading random news.

Carl didn’t know what had happened after he had left. He returned to Lance’s office and recounted everything he had done to Lance.

Lance listened quietly as he recounted how he had distinguished these people, and how he had dealt with them. He nodded noncommittally. ”Well done!”

Carl was still a little worried. ”Mr. Lance, I can’t guarantee that everyone has been picked out. Maybe there are still some who are hiding among them, but I haven’t found them.”

Lance shook his head slightly. ”You have already done your best, but you also have to be prepared for the what-ifs.”

”Our opponent this time is not so easy to muddle through. Maybe you will run into some trouble, but I believe that you can handle it, right?”

Before Carl could answer, Lance had signaled for him to go back. ”Don’t run around during this period. I will notify you as soon as there is any news.”

Lance could feel that this Mr. Walter was not a fool.

Carl was a good breakthrough point, if he couldn’t hold on.

For the next few days, Mr. Walter had been visiting the workers who had been injured in the conflict on behalf of the Labor Federation. He had the ”style” of a politician. As long as he appeared in public, there would be many reporters by his side.

The reporters had taken pictures of him visiting, and also of him putting some ”condolence money” into the hands of the injured workers, and had sent them to the newspapers. This had become the Labor Federation’s concern for the health of the injured workers, and they had also aided them with some money.

In fact, what they had aided, for the people who were in urgent need of medical expenses now, could not be said to be of no use at all, but it could only be said that it was of not much use.

For example, Auge.

Auge had also accepted the ”aid,” a total of fifty dollars, but what he was facing now was a bill of over 950. What he needed was a few hundred and fifty, not fifty.

But... it was better than nothing.

In the morning, when the doctor came in, he saw that Auge’s wife’s face was a little angry when she left. He didn’t know what had happened between the couple.

In fact, the reason was very simple. Auge wanted to eat three painkillers, because one was of no use to him, and two were of little use. He hoped to increase the dosage to make himself a little more comfortable.

He could no longer afford the three-dollar-plus special painkiller. Now he was using a painkiller that was five cents a pill, fifty pills a bottle.

The effect of this painkiller was certainly not as fast as the injection, nor was it as comfortable as after the injection.

After taking this painkiller, it could only relieve the physical pain and discomfort, but there was still this obvious discomfort, unlike the special painkiller, where with one shot, the whole person, the whole world had relaxed.

The doctor had had him take two pills a day, one in the morning and one in the evening.

But he was taking it four times a day, starting with two pills each time. Today he was even planning to take three pills directly.

Maybe it was because a reporter was following him, recording his actions during this period, and his machismo seemed to have exploded.

He had had a fight with his wife. The woman had left in a huff, leaving only Auge.

For Auge, this might be the best grace and power in the world. He could do whatever he wanted.

In fact, the effect of the medicine had not yet come into play so quickly, but under the psychological effect, he felt that his body was already not so painful.

He smiled and greeted the doctor. ”Are you on your rounds again?”

The doctor shook his head. ”The Labor Federation’s vice president, Walter Carril, has had a talk with our company. We have decided to postpone the payment date to the first weekend of May.”

”This way you have about six days to raise the medical expenses. If you still can’t raise the medical expenses, then we can only, with regret, do it according to the hospital’s procedure.”

He did not say what the procedure was like, and what the result was like. It was nothing more than to sue Auge and ask him to pay this money. If he couldn’t pay, then it could only be an auction.

The tricks of an auction, he was very clear. If his house fell into the hands of a bank, then his house would become worthless.

In a not-so-painful situation, he once again felt a sense of urgency.

In the afternoon, a new patient came to the bed next to his. As soon as he came in, he was talking to the people around him about how he had dominated the gambling table last night.

”Do you know how much money I brought with me when I went over last night?” he was saying to his friend with all his might.

His friend was also very cooperative and replied, ”I’m not sure. A few hundred?”

”A hundred. I just brought a hundred, and now, I have more than two thousand. When I get out of the hospital, I’ll go and find trouble with them again!”

Carl glanced at the patient in the bed next to his. He didn’t believe what this person was saying, to win more than two thousand with a hundred.

Although he didn’t quite believe it, the idea of getting a sum of money quickly through a casino was not a problem.

The people of Golden Port City were very familiar with gambling. Almost everyone could play a hand or two!