Empire of Shadows

From December to the beginning of January, the turmoil near Zhuolan had completely stabilized.

Those people of Rapa who couldn’t stand the hunger also realized that the possibility of finding the Great President to save them was almost zero.

A portion of them who still had some strength, or had stored some food, began to move towards the surrounding countries.

And those who had not yet left began to, just like their ancestors, to gather around some people, forming new ”tribes.”

It was definitely impossible to stay in the city. In the city, only the privileged class could have sufficient food reserves.

The middle class, in this food crisis, had no ability to resist risks, and had also begun to join these tribes, walking out of the city.

One after another, the cities, which were almost like empty cities, made people feel a strong sense of unease.

Diego sat on his thickened sofa, which made his buttocks less uncomfortable.

He picked up the newspaper by his side and began to read.

This was the newspaper printed by Lance and those federal people. It looked clearer than the local newspaper, and the pictures were also clearer.This printing equipment was clearly more advanced than Rapa’s printing equipment, and the ink used was also better, so that the newspaper, when held in the hand, would not easily get one’s hand covered in black ink.

On the front-page headline, Diego’s photo had been enlarged and printed in the most prominent position. He looked to be in excellent condition, and also very mighty.

The photographer had used a lower angle to shoot, which would give people a feeling that Diego was very tall.

He was wearing decent clothes, and was holding a golden wine glass in his hand. Although this was a black and white newspaper, people could still vaguely realize that the wine glass was not simple.

If it wasn’t gold, it was silver.

He was very satisfied with this photo, which had set him off to be very remarkable.

Then he began to read the newspaper. The newspaper talked about a series of collaborations between the Federation and Rapa, including the exploitation of mineral resources, which would recruit at least twenty or thirty thousand miners from the society.

They were willing to give the miners a monthly salary of twenty-five Federal Sols, which was almost equivalent to two thousand Paras. For this place where the current per capita income was only a few hundred, this was definitely a high income.

The federal investors would also open some factories, and build economic projects such as rubber plantations, and they also needed to hire a large number of workers.

The entire plan would hire about 100,000 workers, and it would also be continuously increased in the subsequent expansion.

The newspaper had mentioned a lot about Diego, and there were also photos. Every photo had made Diego have a smile on his face.

Luxurious, solemn, with a sense of historical weight. This was what a real reporter should do!

”Ask Lance, see if we can get the negatives of these photos. I want to hang one in my study.”

A photo that could set him off so well, he even wanted to print it on the currency!

The butler bowed slightly. ”I’ll go and contact him later.”

Diego glanced back at the butler. ”Has the turmoil all stopped now?”

The butler nodded and said, ”The military has already begun to clear out the refugees who have gathered around. They are returning to their homes, waiting for rescue.”

It wasn’t that they really believed the government’s words, but purely because they were no match for those weapons and soldiers. Otherwise, they would still try to enter Zhuolan, to find some chance to survive.

For these refugees now, they had lowered the concept of ”food” a lot.

The leaves on the side of the road had been pulled off by them, and were boiled in water and eaten as a meal. It was just that some of the leaves were indeed not tasty, and were scratchy on the throat, and could not be swallowed.

There were also some plants that contained all kinds of toxins, and many people had had accidents in the process of trying.

There would always be some unexpected situations in a tropical jungle.

There was no way out on the Zhuolan side. They could only move to other places.

Now many cities had become empty and smelly.

Empty, because people had almost all gone to the wild. There was no food at all in the city. To stay in the city was a dead end.

It wasn’t just the low-level public who were like this. A small number of the middle class were also facing the same problem.

Only the privileged class and the ruling class could manage not to go hungry.

Once a person left, it would be very difficult to come back in a short period of time. Every city, every village, was almost empty, leaving only a small number of people with grain who were still holding on.

As for why it was smelly?

Because on the side of the road, in the houses, there were many bodies of those who had died of hunger.

Although it was winter now, the temperature had not dropped to zero or below zero, but was still maintained at a dozen or so degrees.

Although the temperature was indeed not high, it was enough for those bacteria to multiply in a person’s body—the metabolism of bacteria, microorganisms, and the like will generate heat, so one by one, the corpses had become a source of heat.

If someone was bold enough to touch those corpses that were beginning to swell, and to stick their fingers in, they would find that most of the corpses, even if they had been dead for many days, they were still ”hot.”

A sticky, gooey heat, like the heat generated by fermentation!

In addition, with the relatively closed environment, the stench had quickly spread in the city.

The more in the areas where the elderly were concentrated, the more obvious the stench was. In addition, now there was no one who could clean this city, so every city was empty and was stinking.

Some people really couldn’t stand it and had already begun to move towards the Zhuolan side. Of course, here we are talking about the rich, or the privileged class.

After they had also left, the city would completely become a paradise for wild animals, and also for plants.

All of this had happened in the places outside of Zhuolan. Some of the city’s officials also did not dare to easily report this matter to Diego.

If no one else reports it, and you are the only one, it means that the problem has only happened in your place.

Then whose fault is this?

First, rule out a correct answer. This certainly cannot be the fault of the Diego government.

Then it is clear that it is the problem of the local officials.

So if there is a problem, don’t report it, which is equivalent to there being no problem.

Whether it is here or in the Federation, or in any other place, it is a universal truth!

If people don’t report, then there is no problem. The butler also bent his waist and lowered his head. ”I haven’t heard of any other riots happening in any other place.”

”Master, your public speech has played a role. It has prevented the situation from deteriorating further.”

”What they could only do with an army, you have done with just a speech. You are a remarkable person!”

A clear smile appeared on Diego’s face, which he was trying to control, but he couldn’t. The curve of the smile on his face grew wider and wider, and in the end, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

”Do you know why I like you?” he asked.

Before the butler could answer, he had taken the initiative to give the answer, ”Because you are smarter than others, and you also know how to talk!”

”Do a good job. Your family has served me, my father, and my grandfather for a lifetime. I also hope that your children can continue to serve my children.”

Although he had no children born, it might be his own problem. He was too fat.

But it did not prevent him from making such a promise.

The butler was naturally full of thanks. To be able to continuously serve the ruler, in the eyes of some, he might just be a butler.

But in the eyes of others, and in the eyes of most people, he was also a gentleman, also a big shot.

Diego casually threw the newspaper onto the table. The news and the comic strips in the back, he was not very interested in, so he did not continue to read.

In his opinion, at this moment, Rapa was great!

At the same time, Pedro was holding this free newspaper in his hand. He had read the articles, and was not surprised that the federal people were going to make a large-scale investment here.

Capital is always in pursuit of profit. For the federal people to invest here is not to do charity. They are investing here because they have seen the benefits.

However, what he cared about were the enlarged photos, where you could see piles of food everywhere, and also some pictures of food being dumped.

For Diego, this might not be a problem, and they had used a very clever splicing method to make the dumping of food only in the corner of the picture, not very noticeable.

But the people who read the newspaper, especially the people who were reading the newspaper with an empty stomach, would always be keen to find these.

Besides this news, in the back, besides a few articles that were relatively professional, the remaining main content was a comic strip.

These comic strips were drawn very interestingly. Pedro had even seen the shadows of some people in them. It was alluding to the current social situation of Rapa.

Among them, there was a comic strip of one page that he found very interesting.

A group of pig-headed people in suits and bow ties were sitting at a dinner table, frantically enjoying their food.

A group of dog-headed people, dressed like waiters, were helping them to bring a continuous stream of food.

The scene changed. In a factory, humans were exhausted, producing food for the pig-headed people. But soon, the raw materials for the food had run out.

At this very moment, the factory’s director, another, slimmer-looking pig-headed person, had directly thrown the humans onto the assembly line’s conveyor belt, using their bodies as the raw material for the food.

So one after another, the plates of bloody food were brought to the dinner table, and were being chewed by the pig-headed people in large mouthfuls, and were being swallowed into their stomachs.

The workers in the factory really couldn’t stand the fate of becoming food, and the remaining few had begun to resist.

They had, with their own intelligence, defeated the factory owner, and also the dog-headed people, and had rushed into the dining room.

They were waving those sharp weapons, and had easily killed all the pig-headed people!

From then on, all the workers had lived a happy life.

The entire comic strip did not have a single word, but Pedro could completely understand what it was trying to express, and could even feel something that it had not shown, which was further away.

As a high school teacher, and also considered a scholar, he had integrated his own understanding of the world into this comic strip, and had even gone deeper to spread his thoughts.

He had thought of another possible development—

When the workers have killed those pig-headed people, will they, by any chance, sit in the chairs by the dinner table?

Will there be new dog-headed people who will bring new food, and feed them until they are white and fat, and in the end, they will become new pig-headed people?

Power is the most terrible poison. It corrodes people’s souls, not their bodies.

In that situation, and in the case of holding absolute power, absolute corruption will definitely be bred.

Thinking of this, he inexplicably shivered.

There were also several other comic strips that were full of satire and an awakening meaning. If you didn’t look carefully, and think seriously, it would indeed be ignored by some.

But as long as someone explained it, almost everyone could understand it.

Pedro had no choice but to sigh at the formidableness of this group of Lance’s. They didn’t care if the public could understand or not. They first had to let the public have a deep impression.

When one day, at a certain time, they came into contact with this information, they would immediately transform this impression into a certain kind of power!

This was a seed. It was being quietly planted in people’s hearts, without people even noticing.

Pedro currently had more than a thousand people gathered around him, and this number was still constantly increasing.

Besides the people at the beginning, many people from the place where he lived had also come to take refuge.

Humans are social animals, especially in a dangerous environment. People are more willing to stick together.

Compared to a small group of three or five, twenty or thirty people, it was clear that the scale of Pedro’s group was larger.

The larger the scale, the more it can attract others.

And after attracting more people to join, the scale will also further expand.

This is the so-called ”first-mover advantage.” An older brother is always a year older than his younger brother, unless he dies halfway.

Now, to say if he would die or not was still too early, but anyway, he was developing quite well.

He put down the newspaper and let more people see, see that they were living on the edge of the jungle, and every day they were living by eating tree bark and some of the leaves that had no nutrition. Many people were so thin that they were a little out of shape.

And their great president was, on the contrary, throwing all kinds of food into the trash can.

Everyone who saw this photo was grinding their teeth in hatred. They were eating leaf cakes here, and the great president was wantonly wasting that food. Everyone’s heart was filled with a sense of hatred.

”Time to eat!”

The surprised shouts of some people came from a distance. For the people now, eating was the most important thing.

Pedro was also very hungry. He actually couldn’t eat his fill either. It wasn’t just him. No one could eat their fill.

Many people only maintained the minimum food requirement every day, so you could see in this camp on the edge of the jungle, everywhere were people who were lying down and not moving.

This was also the reason why they did not return to live in the city. It was too far, and it would waste their already-scarce physical strength.

For the people now, the best way of life was to eat a little something, and then to lie down, and to get through this day.

Today’s lunch was still a leaf cake, a food invented by the cooks.

The food they had brought back was not much, and they needed to use it bit by bit, so the cooks had ground all the wheat into flour.

They used some flour, some clay, and then mixed it with some grass stems, and some crushed wood dregs, and also some of the flour from the wheat trees they had found in the wild to make a paste, and had pasted it on the back of a palm-sized leaf.

Then they had dried these leaves and had collected them.

When it was time to eat, they would steam them on a pot. After the leaves and the paste had absorbed enough water, each leaf cake would weigh about two or three hundred grams, which could more or less make their stomachs not so hungry.

The elderly, the children, the women, could all only eat half a piece. Only the men who had gone into the jungle to find food could eat a whole leaf cake.

Although this stuff was very hard to eat, and it was a little difficult to take a shit after eating it, at mealtime, it was still the happiest time for the people.

Pedro, as the ”Boss” of this group, also had to queue up to get his leaf cake, and the size would not be anything special.

Just as he had gotten a leaf cake, and had found a place to sit down, and was eating the terribly unpalatable food in small bites, another, younger teacher had run over. ”Someone is looking for you.”

Pedro was stunned for a moment. He held the leaf cake in his hand and stood up. ”Who?”

The younger teacher had an incredulous look on his face. ”A federal person!”

Yes, a federal person had actually come!

Pedro looked into the distance. Some people had already gathered over there. Was it Lance?

He handed the leaf cake in his hand to his wife, and then straightened his attire, and strode over.

By the time he had gotten close, he had found that the person who had come was not Lance, but a person he had not seen before.

”Pedro?” The person who had come was a little arrogant. He hadn’t even used the word ”Mister,” but had very impolitely and directly called him by his name.

Pedro nodded. He pushed his glasses with his hand. ”And you are?”

The arrogant guy handed over a business card of his. ”I am a special commissioner from the Federal International Human Rights Investigation. I have come to Rapa to conduct human rights investigation work.”

He looked around. ”It’s clear that you are facing some problems, and I can help you to solve these problems.”

Pedro looked at the business card for a while. He was not blindly optimistic. ”What do you want from me?”

He lowered his head slightly and glanced at the name on the business card. ”Mr. Andy?”

Andy still had that damn arrogant look. ”You, and your men, are not yet enough to bring me any help.”

”So this is unconditional!”

Pedro didn’t believe this. After his contact with Lance, he knew very well that if one day, someone was to give you a large sum of benefits, and he didn’t want anything in return, then what he actually wanted was something that you definitely couldn’t give, or wouldn’t give, which was why he wouldn’t mention it.

Pedro didn’t speak. Andy was also too lazy to ”compete” with him. ”If you are willing to accept our aid, then we will fund you with a sum of money, about 20,000 Federal Sols.”

”And a batch of medicine, worth about 5,000, all of which are some of the more common medicines.”

”And food.”

When this federal person had said the word ”food,” the attention of more of the surrounding people was all focused!

If you gave them money, gave them medicine, they did indeed need it, but they would not be very excited.

Because money was of no fucking use now. You couldn’t buy a full meal with any amount of money, so money, from a certain aspect, was not something that people had to have.

Medicines were also, although some were sick, but they would not die from these diseases.

But hunger would!

Food was the hard currency now.

So when he had said the word ”food,” even Pedro was a little moved.

”How much food can you provide us?”

Andy pursed his lips. ”That depends on how much you can take!”