Chapter 3245: Bloodied New City (Part 5)

Schiller was sitting in the Mayor's office. He had already organized the vast majority of the administrative documents since the Pale Knight took office—it had taken less than three hours.

Bruce suspected Schiller was cultivating immortality, but he had no evidence.

He didn't know how Schiller had instantly sorted through those thousands of tangled and unclear documents. By the time he came to his senses, Schiller was already holding a few of them and speaking.

"Have you contacted the former mayor?"

"Not yet." Bruce said. He had been watching Schiller work and hadn't even gone to check on the former mayor yet.

"Within half an hour, I want him to appear before me. If he can't, tell him I already know about the Xinhe Building in District G5."

Bruce had no choice but to go find former staff members to inquire about the former mayor. The one who finally gave him a lead was Ms. Wei Si, and Bruce made a phone call.

The other party's attitude wasn't great, but upon hearing the term "Xinhe Building," he immediately indicated his willingness to come over and talk.

About 20 minutes later, Bruce met the former mayor, a very ordinary fat man with typical politician qualities. Bruce didn't say much, just opened the door to let him in.

Not seeing the Pale Knight behind the desk seemed to surprise him, but soon Bruce was also kicked out. He didn't know what the two of them had talked about.

In any case, when the former mayor came out, he was sweating profusely.

Watching the former mayor leave, Bruce walked into the office and said, "What is going on here?"

Schiller just put down the documents in his hand and said, "It's nothing major. After it was confirmed that the Pale Knight would take office, the former mayor, under the instigation of certain people, dug a few pits for him. I exposed them, so naturally, they have to pay a price."

"Is that the so-called building?"

"Yes, that was a stalled construction project that had dragged on for three or four years. It was a hot potato for anyone who got their hands on it. The former mayor deliberately concealed some information to invert black and white. If the Pale Knight had seen it, he might have misjudged the victims and the perpetrators, and then they could have used that to make a fuss."

"It seems his position isn't stable either."

"If it were stable, he wouldn't be out of money." Schiller aligned the documents and set them aside, then picked up new ones and said, "Have Ke Weize from the Environmental Protection Department come over. I have some questions about environmental protection funds to ask him."

Bruce went to find someone again. Not long after, a middle-aged man entered the office, and they talked for about half an hour.

When he came out, he was also pale-faced and sweating profusely.

"What is going on this time?"

"Nothing, just that to incite a strike, there naturally needs to be funding. I misappropriated a bit of money from the Environmental Protection Department."

"Are they willing to give it to you?"

"I said I was going to use it for a nuclear power plant." Schiller said in a flat tone, "Once the tritium leak incident is exposed, they can get three times the current environmental protection maintenance fee. Why wouldn't they?"

"Then that should be a good thing for him. Why did he have that expression?"

"Because I also told him that I would only let the wind out, but wouldn't actually do it. And the people behind him, in order to get a higher environmental maintenance fee, will definitely make him find a way to facilitate this matter. If he can't get it done, he'll be in trouble."

Bruce clicked his tongue. He could fully imagine that if the people behind this guy didn't know there was such an opportunity, they might have been content with the current money. But once they realized how much benefit Schiller's proposed tritium leak incident could bring them, they would definitely do it at all costs.

But this matter wasn't so easy to do. Everyone knew what a deadly thing a nuclear power plant was. It wasn't that one couldn't tamper with it, but this wasn't something a small head of a municipal department could handle. Once the pressure came to him, it would be all over.

A better ending might be that he was kicked out for incompetence, and a worse ending might be committing suicide with eight shots to the back. What a great move of killing with a borrowed knife.

"Is he willing to let you misappropriate the funds?"

"Not all of it." Schiller sighed and said, "City Hall is too deeply infiltrated. I can only misappropriate the part that was supposed to fall into his pocket and the part about to fall into his superior's pocket. But it's enough to buy off a few people."

Schiller then called in some people one after another. They all came in high spirits and left with tangled faces.

After Bruce walked in, he found Schiller frowning, so he asked, "What's wrong? Is it not going smoothly? I see their faces all look quite bad."

"The level of corruption here is far beyond my imagination." Schiller said, "Their appetites are huge, and it's clear they've always been well-fed, so I have to use some unconventional means."

"So that was the conventional means before?"

Schiller glanced at Bruce with some dissatisfaction and said, "Of course, the most common political struggle means. You don't even know this? How did you lead the Wayne Group?"

"The situation in our universe is okay." Bruce said in a low voice, "And I am also someone who has fought three hundred rounds with Congress."

"Then that's right." Schiller looked up at the ceiling and said, "Whenever an unexpected event happens, it's always the weakest among us who goes to deal with Congress."

The corners of Bruce's mouth turned down.

Schiller sat up straight and said, "These people are asking for the moon, and the amount they want completely exceeds my budget. I have to use some intelligence to threaten them, but this can only work in the short term."

"So what?"

"The intelligence is made up by me, just based on some speculations about the possible development of the situation. It works well when talking to them individually, but once they are allowed to reconcile their accounts, it might be exposed."

Schiller looked at Bruce and said, "Have your super-criminals go find some trouble for them to ensure they don't have time to reconcile their accounts."

"I have no way to guarantee the Pale Knight won't know."

"I'm not asking you to kill them; they still need to incite a strike. And I'm not asking you to fight, just use some means to contain them, understand?"

"Speak specifically." Bruce said, "I'm worried the means I think of won't be the same as what you want."

"Some of them are in the same camp; you need to sow discord. Some are at odds with others; you need to intensify the opposition. Some have money; you need to make their money have problems. Some don't have money; you need to let them see hope for making money. Have I made myself clear enough?"

"Be clearer." Bruce said.

"If they work for the same master, then create some work trouble for one and frame it on the other. If they serve different masters, then make them fall into a conflict of interest. If something has benefits, let them fight for it. If something only has downsides, let them fight to throw it at the other."

"Can you give an example?"

Schiller sighed. He knew it wasn't that Bruce couldn't do it; he just wanted to know how he should do it.

Schiller pulled one out of a folder and said, "Ellen Tan Shixi, five-year extramarital affair history, has an illegitimate daughter who just started elementary school. Tell his father-in-law about this."

"How did you know? You investigated it?"

"For his daughter to attend elementary school, he found a connection in the Ministry of Education. His daughter borrowed a spot from a charity foundation for special admission. The process is legal, but you can see something is wrong."

"Then his father-in-law..."

"A member of the upper class, he works for him."

"Alright, it doesn't seem like a very unique means."

"What unique means do you want?" Schiller asked with some confusion.

"I thought you would be more..." Bruce dragged out a long sound, thinking while saying, "Have some particularly useful means I haven't seen before. I wanted to learn this from you."

"This is the most useful means, because it's useful, so it's classic." Schiller looked at him helplessly and said, "You seem very obsessed with those flashes of inspiration, but you can't get things done with just those. Take a look at this."

Schiller handed Bruce a document, and Bruce took it and glanced at it, knowing it was a document approving the terms of a land transaction.

He carefully read the document from beginning to end and compared it with some laws in his mind, nodding and saying, "Just looking at the document, there are no problems."

"Then what about this?" Schiller handed him another one.

"That is an application for special admission to a charity foundation." Bruce immediately realized this should be the clause for the daughter of the small supervisor with the extramarital affair that Schiller mentioned earlier.

Bruce looked at this document and also felt there were no problems; the process was reasonable. Now he realized something was wrong, so he went back to look at the land transaction document.

But looking at it over and over, the whole page only had the word "legal" written on it.

This kind of document isn't a surveillance camera; there's no way to see who the two parties to the transaction are. The information is really too little.

"What's wrong with this document?"

Schiller pointed to the map on the table next to him. Bruce walked over and saw that this plot of land in District B26 was actually connected to District X15, where the chemical plant pollution occurred earlier. It was located about 15 miles east of the chemical plant area and had about 23 miles of border area.

Bruce's brows furrowed deeply.

"I appreciate your detective talent, but political struggle requires a sharper sense of smell." Schiller also stood up and walked over, saying, "Why do you think they want to buy this plot of land?"

"To detect air pollution?" Bruce frowned and speculated, "I just didn't expect them to be willing to spend so much capital. This plot of land isn't cheap."

"That is the problem." Schiller pointed to the transaction terms and said, "After the municipal department's review, the transaction process for this plot of land is legal, but the key is why does the transaction of this plot of land need to be reviewed by government departments?"

Bruce was stunned for a moment. He had also just realized this problem. Land in the United States is private; government departments cannot intervene in land transactions unless the nature of the land is special.

"This plot of land requires government approval to be traded because there is a natural woodland in the area of about 20 square miles to its east that may affect the local ecological environment and air quality. According to Article 263 of the State Natural Ecological Protection and Environmental Protection Act, the transaction of such land must be approved by the municipal environmental protection department."

Bruce felt as if some clues in his mind were connected, but they weren't detailed enough, so he turned and asked, "Does this have anything to do with the chemical pollution in District X15?"

"If it didn't, I wouldn't have shown it to you." Schiller said, "After the chemical plant pollution case occurred, this transaction approval application was sent to the desk of the municipal environmental protection department, and it will definitely be sent to the mayor in the end."

"This will easily make our mayor realize that there is an ecological protection forest not far from the chemical plant, and this natural woodland may affect the air quality of an entire area."

"So what?"

"Our mayor is a good man; this is a well-known fact. He will be very worried that this woodland will be polluted by the chemical plant. To prevent this from happening, he will send people to test it as soon as possible."

"But he won't detect anything." Bruce said, "Because the pollution was faked by me, I just wanted to teach those profiteers who speculate on land a lesson."

Schiller walked back to the desk and placed a document in front of Bruce. The moment Bruce saw the content, his brows furrowed deeply.

"Groundwater pollution? Heavy metals exceeding the standard? How is this possible?" ===== CHAPTER 3246 =====