Shadow Empire

Chapter 889 Observations and Skits

When Gomez looked at Lance, his eyes were filled with an emotion of "this can't be like this", but behind this emotion, there was also a feeling of sadness of "why is this the case".

Because he vaguely knew that Lance was right.

He is too rich.

"I remember your gold lighter well, Gomez."

"I know you better than I know Diego, but even if I don't know him well, I know that in his eyes, the whole country is his personal property."

"Including you."

"Do you know why Cassia can gain his trust but you can't?"

"That's the problem!"

Lance tapped his fingers on the table. "Cassia is very poor. Even though he is the Deputy Minister of Commerce and holds great power, he is still very poor."

"I heard him say before that he and his family are still living in a small house because he doesn't have the money to buy a bigger house."

“So Diego trusted him and believed he would be a good tool.”

"If you have a group of dogs, you will definitely have the best relationship with the dog that is closest to you and protects your interests at all times."

"Not with that dog that eats your food."

"Today it can steal your food, but tomorrow it may bite you. Your disloyalty is your biggest problem."

Gomez was already sweating profusely when he heard this. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

He did take advantage of his identity as the president of the Chamber of Commerce to make a fortune.

Everybody is f**king making money, you'd be a fool if you didn't, so he's also making money.

Just wiping the sweat off his face, his handkerchief was wet, and he said unwillingly, "But I have never harmed Diego's interests."

Lance had a different view on his statement, "You have never harmed his interests. Where did the money come from?"

Gomez made his money by selling indicators and batches of certificates.

The price of an imported bread machine from the Federation was about three dollars, and it would be sold for five dollars, and all the profits would be handed over to Diego.

But bread machines are in-demand commodities, and many people cannot buy them even if they want to. So he has the final say on who can and cannot sell this batch of bread machines.

Some people wanted to get it in advance, so they would give him some gifts or money, one or two dollars, and he would sell these bread machines to these people.

Or maybe they imported a batch of cloth from the Federation, and there were also many factories that needed cloth, but they could only meet a part of the demand each time.

So who can be satisfied and who cannot get these materials depends on whether everyone is sincere.

Lance knew the trick, Gomez knew it, and apparently Diego knew it too.

"These... are not the profits from the goods, but the benefits they give me." His face turned slightly pale, and he seemed to finally understand why Diego occasionally looked at him with a very unfriendly look.

But he was still defending himself. He wanted to convince Lance, but he wanted to convince himself more.

Lance said softly, "You forgot that the entire country, the mountains, water, people, even a stone or a weed on the roadside, all belong to him."

"The money they bribed you with was also his!"

This is what happens in a dictatorship, where the ruling group takes it for granted that they own everything, including wealth that has nothing to do with them.

Gomez is too rich. All his food, clothing, housing and transportation are imported from the federation. If he didn't consider keeping a low profile, his fleet would not be much worse than Diego's.

He feels that everything he has today is the result of his own efforts, but from a more objective point of view, everything he has today was given by Diego.

He made a mistake by pocketing the money that belonged to Diego.

It’s just that his sister has not fallen out of favor yet. Once that woman falls out of favor, she and his brother will become a thing of the past.

Gomez's scalp was slightly numb. He picked up a handkerchief and wiped away the sweat that was squeezing out of his pores on his head and face. With a pleading look on his face, he hunched his back, lowered his head, and called out Lance's name in a begging voice.

"Mr. Lance!"

Lance crossed his legs and looked at him, "Work well for me and the Federation, these are not a problem."

"I tell you this just because I hope you can understand one thing, which is that you actually have no way out."

He paused, "Okay, I'm very tired today, come over tomorrow morning and we'll take a look around."

Gomez quickly stood up and said goodbye. Lance shook his head, washed up and fell asleep.

The next morning, Gomez arrived at the hotel early in the morning and waited until Lance woke up before coming up from the lobby.

Before this, he had been sitting in the hall. Diego also gave him some tasks last night and asked him to accompany Lance around.

The breakfast in Lapa is very local...characteristic and should be considered a special breakfast.

They use corn tortillas as their staple food, and a lot of flour must be added to it, otherwise it would not be possible to roll it up with just corn flour.

Then they would roll up various side dishes, including beef, fish, etc., in the pancakes and eat them with some thick sauce.

Each local "tortilla roll" is only the size of a palm. After rolling up, it looks like a small burrito as thick as a medium carrot, and can be eaten in one bite.

As a top-notch hotel, the services provided here must be the best. It is obviously just food for ordinary people, but when cooked by high-class chefs, it does not look low-class at all.

Six cut tortilla rolls were placed on six small square plates with a special sauce in the corner of the plate.

Whether you use your hands or a fork, it is easy to pick it up, wipe it with sauce and put it in your mouth.

When your teeth cut through the outer shell of the corn tortilla and the food inside mixed with the crust and sauce begins to emit their flavor, you can feel the simplest and most direct "surprise" that food brings to people!
Various unique flavors continue to appear on the taste buds, like a feast for the taste buds!

In addition to this, there is also creamy seafood soup as an appetizer. Although it is not a big bowl, it tastes really great, with a rich milky flavor and a strong seafood flavor.

The breakfast may seem plain, but it actually contains a lot of luxury.

While Lance was eating, Gomez came over, but Lance didn't let him come and sit down.

If it were his brothers and family members, he would definitely not neglect them.

But this is a dog, a little ambitious, but also a little stupid.

No matter how well behaved he is, a person will not eat at the same table with a dog.

Of course, it is not ruled out that sometimes he needs to change his identity.

In addition to these, there are also some local vegetable and fruit salads, but they don’t use the federal sweet salad dressing, but a salty and sweet sauce that is not so sticky, which tastes refreshing.

Lance stood up only after he had almost finished eating and the cook and the servants had cleaned up the restaurant and left.

Gomez immediately made way for the main path leading to the elevator and stood aside, slightly bent over.

"Let's go around a bit."

Gomez quickly walked over to call the elevator for Lance, and then went down with him.

Lance's people were ready, including their car.

These armored vehicles have not been discovered so far, but even if they are discovered, it doesn't matter. Federal businessmen are worried about Lapa's safety. Driving a civilian version of an armored vehicle will not violate any laws, right? !
Today they went to the most prosperous city center of Zhuolan, which also looked a bit like the Federal Commercial Center. Brand stores from the Federal and of course their own local brand stores could be seen everywhere.

The people walking on the streets here are all Lapa people who look well-dressed, at least they are all local middle class, and then there are foreigners and their escorts.

The commercial center looks very lively. With the full opening of the Asian Alliance market, more gold diggers and adventurers will come to this land.

The arrival of the convoy also aroused the curiosity of many passers-by. They had never seen such ugly cars and took a few more glances out of curiosity.

Today they didn't have a police car leading the way, so people were a lot more curious than yesterday.

"It seems that Zhuolan's city manager is doing a good job of managing the city. Look, there are no homeless people, no beggars, and no poor people on the streets." "This is even better than some cities in the Federation!"

The federal government couldn’t solve the problem of homeless people and beggars, but here, it was solved.

This definitely has nothing to do with management ability, but rather with ruthlessness.

Some people say that the easiest way to deal with homeless people is to find one and eliminate one, and deprive these people of the soil for survival, then naturally there will be no homeless people.

However, such a thing is unlikely to happen in the federation, as various public opinion organizations will be able to drown out those who raise this opinion with public opinion.

But in fact, judging from the current implementation results of Lapa, it is still quite good.

Gomez explained, "This is the most prosperous place in Zhuolan, and even in the whole country, so people who are not well dressed are not allowed to appear on the streets here."

If you want to go into the city center, you must at least have a decent set of clothes.

This is a fucking terrible place where a decent set of clothes can become a symbol of class.

Cinemas, entertainment equipment, libraries, coffee shops, they enjoy the same life here as in the Federation.

However, once the convoy left the city center, the environment became terrible.

Although there were no piles of garbage on the roadside, there were shanties of various kinds packed together so densely that one could not see the end of them. People who were so skinny that their bones were visible were sitting or lying on the roadside.

Some children in shorts and barefoot were chasing and playing on the street, raising a cloud of dust wherever they ran.

The word "poverty" is presented to people in a particularly conspicuous way.

"How do they survive?" Lance asked.

Gomez shrugged and said, "If the women in the family are pretty, they can sell their bodies. The cheapest ones only cost three to five paras. Young, healthy, and pretty ones will cost a little more, mostly around ten. Only those who are very young, pretty, and in great shape are eligible to sell for more."

Less than a dollar. To be more precise, the cheapest one is only seven or eight cents, and the slightly better ones are about ten cents. In federal dollars, it is really cheap.

No wonder the whole of Yalan is called "Man's Paradise". Here even the homeless people in the Federation can have a good life with meat every meal.

"Men either hunt, reclaim wasteland and plant crops, or pull carts and do odd jobs."

There are actually not many middle-class people in Lapa in the whole society, but when they are all concentrated in the city of Zhuolan, they become a considerable group.

The middle class can’t always walk on the streets, and they can’t afford to buy cars, but they can still afford to ride in human cars.

It's still one dollar or two dollars. If you make ten dollars a day, which is equivalent to 20 federal sols, it's already a good result.

Most of the time, you can only earn three or five dollars a day.

Although there are many middle-class people, they are ultimately only a minority compared to the huge lower class of society.

Another option is to work in a factory. The wages in the factory are a little higher, about five or six yuan. Only if you do heavy physical labor can you get seven, eight or even ten yuan.

I earn three hundred dollars a month, which is less than five dollars in federal sols.

But they can survive.

After walking around the area outside the city center, Lance had a question, "Has no one thought about overthrowing the ruling group in Lapa in all these years?"

"The people are rising up, or there are some ambitious people."

Gomez nodded. "There were some, but they didn't make any waves. The army is controlled by Diego and his men. Even if some people are dissatisfied with their rule, what can they do?"

"How can they overthrow an army equipped with modern weapons if they can't even get a pistol?"

"So now no one would think of overthrowing Diego and his rule. Instead of doing these irrational things, these people are more likely to find a way to get to Zeed."

"There are more opportunities over there in Jed, and the society is much better than here, and ordinary people can live well."

Lance roughly understood it, and then they began to investigate Yalan's market like normal investment businessmen.

At the same time, Lance's production company is actively shooting some very "short" films.

The total length of these films is only about twenty minutes, which is more like the narrative structure before the technological innovation of sound films, which only tell a fragment of ten or twenty minutes.

Since the advent of sound films, the length of films has been increasing because the addition of language and sound can make the story more immersive.

Screenwriters, directors, and actors will be able to do more to present a complete story, instead of just presenting a fragment or a story without a beginning or an end as in the past.

These films, which Lance named "Awakening of Destiny", have no more specific name, and are more like fragments of stories that are not related under a certain theme.

Although they didn't know why Lance wanted to make such a movie and script, the company still gave him enough respect. They were all directors and actors with some fame.

Gerald also took the initiative to join in.

He plays the role of a low-level farmer who has no land of his own and works for his master.

This role is a challenge for the handsome Gerard. He can no longer play roles that steal the show or allow him to act cool and handsome like before.

He needs to show the lowest level of society, but he actually has no life experience in this area.

Whether in the Federation or the Empire, you have to know that he is the only person on Lance's ship who entered the Federation with a legal identity.

So he has nothing to do with the lower class of society.

Fortunately, he has some talent in acting, and after some observations of the lower classes of society, he has found that feeling.

Not resisting fate, being numb and humble.

Both the director and the photographer said that he gave a good performance and that he portrayed the image of a cowardly, trouble-fearing, lower-class person very successfully.

This scene is the climax of this short story.

Under the ruthless exploitation and oppression of the masters, he could not even support his family, but the masters continued to exploit their labor and whip them with whips to force them to continue working and creating value!
Feeling angry from the bottom of his heart and beginning to awaken, he resolutely made a decision that went against his ancestors!

He wants to resist!

He wanted to snatch the master's whip, and then use this whip that had inflicted pain on himself countless times to whip the master who had held the whip before!
It was a very satisfying scene, and he performed it very happily, letting out the frustration that he had felt from getting into the role.

After the director shouted "cut", he slowly came out of the role.

"You're so impressive, Gerald. If they saw your performance, they would never say you're just good-looking!"

Director Youzou praised him with great sadness, because he did perform very well indeed.

Gerald smiled, "The teachers taught well."

During the break, he picked up the script again and looked at the next scene.

The plot of the next scene is very simple. He thought he had committed a serious crime and escaped in a daze, only to find that the whole world was like this.

Those high and mighty masters never treat those at the bottom as human beings, but as mines.

When you can shovel, shovel hard, jump up and shovel. If you make a mistake, just change the mine.

He met some like-minded friends, friends who could not survive because of exploitation and oppression, and they all recognized a reality!
In this terrible, cruel, backward and bad society, there is no soil for good people to survive.

Those who are unwilling to sink and extinguish themselves in despair must stand up and fight against these evil forces!
He subconsciously read the last lines, and a force surged from his body, filling him with passion and indignation!

"If happiness is given to us by God, then God must be blind, because those bad people live much better than us."

“Happiness is not given to us by anyone, but is earned by ourselves, with our own hands, our own determination, and our own life!”

“No pain, no gain.”

"Without sacrifice, there will be no sunrise!"

(End of this chapter)