Empire of Shadows

It is strange how humans are.

Or rather, it is strange how the essence of the world is.

A while ago, the people of Dantra’s Second Largest Party contacted Senator Cleveland, trying to persuade him, the head of the congressional war hawk faction, to give up his obsession with the war and attempt peace talks to let peace descend.

Now they had contacted Senator Cleveland again, but this time, they were hoping to let the war erupt again.

It was currently a ”ceasefire period.” On the one hand, it was too cold. The main battlefield was below zero. Once large machinery stopped operating, it wasn’t easy to get it running again.

For example, those armored vehicles, tanks, including airplanes.

Once they stopped, their oil lines would freeze, and they would need to be baked with heating equipment to restore the oil lines and fuel tanks to normal supply, only then could they be turned on again.

But if they didn’t stop, the fuel consumption was astonishing. Coupled with the fact that both sides had now shifted from a frontal war to diplomacy, the battlefield had gained a rare calm.

They had previously hoped that this calm could continue, but now, they wanted to break this calm with their own hands.

Because only by continuing the war could the President of Dantra keep his focus on the foreign war, instead of the internal purge.Senator Cleveland sat on the sofa, listening to the senior government official from Dantra in front of him state the commitment that the Second Largest Party could give him, and the federal government.

”...We will provide a certain degree of compensation for your side’s losses caused by the war, including cash, natural resources, and some technology transfer.”

”At the same time, His Excellency the Party Leader is willing to reach more and broader cooperation with the Federation, in all aspects.”

”The last time you talked about the issue of opening the market, the Party Leader and the committee members have discussed it and have decided to support your request.”

”We will completely exempt federal products from tariffs and also remove all protective policies.”

Senator Cleveland had been listening to him state his bargaining chips. He looked very relaxed and comfortable, and did not express any views or opinions, just continued to watch him.

The senior official from Dantra who was being watched was already sweating. ”We can also hand over the President to you for disposition. This is our greatest sincerity!”

To hand over the President to another country for trial could indeed be said to be a show of great sincerity, but...

”Not enough!” Senator Cleveland changed his sitting posture. He was sitting on a low, individual sofa, tilting from one side to the other, his hand supporting his chin. It didn’t look like a formal negotiation at all.

The senior official who had contacted him was about to speak, but he raised his hand to stop him. ”Listen to me first. You can take notes. I’m not used to being interrupted when I speak.”

”Second, you must disarm, control the number of troops, and regularly accept audits and inspections from a joint investigation team, to ensure that you do not, for the limited period, influence world peace with war.”

”Third, I have a list here. You need to dismantle these factories, and transfer the technology and original components on it to us for safekeeping, to ensure that these technologies will not be used for war again.”

”And there are some remaining, relatively less important ones, which are in this document. If you can agree, then we will launch a new round of attacks soon.”

”If you cannot agree...”

Senator Cleveland smiled. He put down his crossed leg and stood up, holding the armrest. ”I have other work. I won’t accompany you anymore. You can stay here and use our phone, or you can leave and find a phone you are comfortable with.”

”I’ll see you later.”

He tidied his attire, and then strode away.

His chief aide also followed closely. He nodded slightly to the Dantra official, and then followed Senator Cleveland out.

”He can’t agree. They can’t agree either,” after the door was closed, and they had walked some distance, the chief aide said with a smile.

Senator Cleveland shrugged indifferently. ”I know. What I want is for them to not be able to agree.”

”Look at the patients in the monitoring rooms, those ordinary patients in the ordinary wards. You ask them to inject a dollar’s worth of a special medicine, and they will hesitate for half a day.”

Should they inject this potion that will take effect immediately, or take a pill that only costs ten cents a week?

”But look at the critically ill patients in the monitoring rooms. Forget about a shot costing a dollar. Even if it costs ten dollars, a hundred dollars, as long as it works, they will demand that they be injected immediately.”

”Now, whether it is the Second Largest Party or the President, they have not yet been completely pushed to a dead end. They still have more value that can be squeezed out.”

”They can’t agree now, but in a few days, maybe they can talk. Wait a little longer, and maybe they will reluctantly accept it.”

”Perhaps after another period of time, they will be rushing to sign an agreement with us to facilitate this matter.”

The chief aide walked slightly behind him. ”You are a little different from before.”

The senator pursed his lips indifferently. ”I hope I haven’t become worse in your eyes.”

”Haha, of course not. You’ve become better!”

Senator Cleveland also laughed. ”Actually, I learned all this from Lance. I followed his example.”

”This guy seems quiet, but he is actually a very formidable character. If his background hadn’t constrained him, we might really have become colleagues.”

The chief aide was a little surprised. ”You really think so highly of him?”

Senator Cleveland did not hide his admiration for Lance. ”He is the most thoughtful and daring person I have ever met, bar none. In some aspects, I am not even as good as him.”

”So sometimes I feel a bit regretful, but at the same time, I feel a bit fortunate, because he can’t enter the senior political arena.”

”A tyrant, a dictatorial tyrant, a dictatorial tyrant who can be overthrown, is not at all scary. What is scary is the one who is hard to be overthrown.”

”What is he doing now?”

The chief aide thought for a moment. He had seen the report from Tom. ”The civil war in Rapa is almost coming to an end. He is in Rapa, watching these changes.”

The senator nodded. ”It’s all good news. Facts prove that God blesses the Federation!”

Hearing the senator’s words, the chief aide was stunned for a moment, but quickly laughed and echoed, ”Yes, God blesses the Federation!”

...

The Dantra official returned to the hotel in a huff. Because the war had broken out, Dantra and the Federation had cut off diplomatic relations. Both sides had withdrawn their consulates.

So he could only stay in a hotel.

In the hotel, he dialed the number of the leader of the Second Largest Party. As soon as the call was connected, the party leader couldn’t help but ask, ”Did he agree?”

They had actually carefully studied the Federation. On the surface, the President held great power. Some documents in Congress needed to be sent to the Presidential Palace for a signature before they could take effect, but this didn’t mean that Congress was completely worthless.

Unless the President of the Federation planned to continue serving as a dictator, a tyrant, he would definitely step down.

The harder he fought with Congress now, the more miserable he would be after he stepped down. It wasn’t that this kind of thing hadn’t happened. Now that president and his family had silently disappeared, and no one talked about them anymore.

So for the sake of himself, his family, and his clan, the relationship between the president and Congress would not be too fractured. They would all respect each other’s attitudes and opinions.

So to handle the Federation, they couldn’t just focus on the President. They had to first persuade Congress to agree.

Senator Cleveland was the representative of the war hawk faction. To not persuade him, and to try to persuade others, was meaningless. So the conversation with Senator Cleveland this time was very important. The party leader had to take it seriously.

”He didn’t agree. He offered us some conditions...” Then he relayed the conditions he had recorded to the party leader over the phone.

The party leader, upon hearing the second condition, couldn’t help but interrupt him. ”How can I agree to such a request?”

”If I really agree, the people outside will tie me up and hang me on the statue in the central garden tomorrow. I absolutely will not agree, and it is impossible to agree!”

”You talk to him again. Tell him that we are very sincere. Get straight to the point. Don’t use these meaningless things to brush us off...”

The two exchanged some of the conditions that Senator Cleveland had proposed. They made some modifications to the things that the party leader found acceptable, and then had the official continue to talk with Senator Cleveland.

After they had almost finished talking, there would be a more formal negotiation. Now they were just advancing the possibility and progress of the negotiation.

The party leader put down the phone. His face was not filled with anger, but rather some worry, because the federal people’s attitude made him feel that the federal people seemed to have already noticed something.

There were others in the office, all looking at him. He shook his head. ”The federal people are very greedy. They asked for too much!”

He repeated the requests that Senator Cleveland had made. The gentlemen in the room all felt that it was impossible for them to agree to such an unreasonable request. Just like the initial Diego, they also felt that they wouldn’t agree.

Some even cursed Senator Cleveland, calling him a greedy hyena who could never be satisfied.

But cursing is just cursing. The matter still needed to be resolved. ”We still need to find a way to apply external pressure. Otherwise, the President will eventually go crazy.”

”If the federal side is not working, ask Slad. They can also launch an attack on us from the western front. As long as the war starts again, our pressure will be greatly reduced.”

The others also nodded one after another. This was the best solution at the moment: to use external pressure to reduce internal conflict and pressure.

Just as they were discussing this matter, the party leader suddenly realized that the person in charge of liaising with Slad had not come today.

”Has Gavin not come?”

”Did he tell you what he was doing today?”

The people in the room looked at each other. Only at this time did they realize that a few people were missing. Gavin was just one of them.

So they began to say answers that were different from the party leader’s question.

”XX also didn’t come!”

”Oh, right, ... didn’t come either.”

Several people had not come, and they had not asked for leave. Had something happened to them at this critical moment?

A bad premonition arose in the party leader’s heart. He immediately picked up the phone and dialed the number of Gavin’s office. No one answered.

Then he dialed Gavin’s home number. The rhythmic, slow ringing tone of the phone made the party leader’s heart sink, little by little.

...

The sharp and abrupt ringing of the phone made Gavin, who was holding his wife’s shoulder and two children, standing in the middle of the living room, jump.

A group of soldiers in army uniforms had, early in the morning, very roughly kicked open the door of his house, and had rushed in, controlling all of them.

The two bodyguards he had hired had just tried to resist, when they were already lying on the ground, unresponsive, which had terrified everyone.

Now the family was standing here, pale-faced, while a captain sat on the sofa not far from them.

Everyone’s gaze was focused on the phone, including the captain, but without his permission, no one dared to answer the call.

He was twitching his ankle, and was looking at Gavin, not saying anything, just watching.

Gavin was a little unable to sit still. Because the soldiers had already entered his study. He looked at the captain with an ugly expression. ”This is political persecution!”

”You are soldiers. You shouldn’t be his accomplice. You will be despised by the people and nailed to the pillar of shame!”

The captain’s eyes held a hint of disdain and contempt. ”I am not good at arguing. I will not persuade you, nor will I be persuaded by you. For us to be here, we must have already grasped enough evidence, Mr. Gavin.”

”You had better pray that we don’t find any evidence. Otherwise, your trouble will be great.”

Gavin’s face became even worse. He could now only hope that these soldiers were all roughnecks and that they would be perfunctory. Otherwise, there might really be a problem.

At the instruction of the party leader, he had been in frequent contact with the Slad people during this period. He even had some letters exchanged with Slad officials in his hand.

After all, impeaching and overthrowing the president was not a simple matter. They also had to ally with the enemy, so he had always been very cautious and rarely used the phone.

After all, these calls had to go out of the country to Slad, so they could only go through a few lines. If the operator were to tap these lines, it would be very troublesome, and would cause terrible consequences.

So they had communicated by telegraph and letters. It was also a way to leave a hold on each other, a bargaining chip.

Originally, he didn’t think this kind of thing would lead to any danger, but Mr. President seemed to have decided not to maintain the most basic decency and had completely torn off the facade.

He had had the soldiers rush in without any preparation on his part. If they were to search and find those things, it would be a disaster for him.

He tightly hugged his wife and two children, as if doing so could make him feel a sense of security.

”I want to talk to Mr. President,” he made a request, but the captain ignored him, and just looked at him sideways, and then looked away.

Gavin was just about to take a step forward and emphasize the importance of him talking to the president, when the gun barrels in the living room pointed at him, forcing him to stand back.

Just as he was thinking of what excuse to use to persuade this captain, someone suddenly ran out of the corridor on the second floor, with a surprised expression. ”We found it, Captain!”

The captain immediately stood up, his face full of pleasant surprise. He gave Gavin a meaningful glance and strode upstairs.

And Gavin was already trembling so much that he could barely stand.

He certainly knew what was in his study.

After about four or five minutes, the captain came downstairs with a briefcase. He gave Gavin a side glance again. ”Very good. The people of the Republic have raised traitors like you!”

”Take them all away. If they resist, kill them on the spot!”

Gavin almost collapsed to the ground. What collusion with the enemy, what traitor—these were all excuses for political struggle!

It was just that now the president had grasped the ”moral high ground,” and he had no power to resist.

He and his family were dragged onto the car amidst the children’s cries. Those soldiers were not at all polite.

Their comrades were fighting a life-and-death battle on the front line, while these parasites in the rear were selling out their intelligence?

They didn’t actually know what was in those letters. They just simply believed that betrayal, a traitor, was selling military intelligence.

So they also had no mercy for the ”little traitor,” and immediately whipped him.

Even though it was winter, a whip on the body was still painful. The two children also stopped crying and struggling, and finally gave up resisting, and were thrown into the car.

Soon, the president got the documents. After he had read them for a while, a look of anger reappeared on his face. This was definitely not all the letters, but even these were enough to make him angry!

”Where are the people?” he asked.

”They have already been sent to the military district.”

The president took a deep breath. ”Interrogate them severely. This is definitely not his personal behavior. We must dig out more participants, understood?”