Chapter 180

It had been a while since they met, nearly two months, and there was some indescribable strangeness between the two.

Clearly she had been looking forward to seeing Lanse again, and had thought about what to say when they met, but now Lanse was standing in front of her, and she was a bit at a loss.

Emily was very polite. "Sit down, wait for me a while. When eating, you must tell me those thrilling stories!"

She seemed a bit excited. "Weilian, come to the kitchen, I need you!"

Lanse could actually understand this excitement. A figure who only appeared in newspapers and news suddenly appeared by her side, and Lanse's reputation was good now.

Except for the means he used to deal with the Camila Gang that made some people feel astonished, he had achieved the approval of most people on the issue of managing the Imperial District.

In nearly two months, with their family background, it was easy to find out about things that didn't involve the upper levels.

In the rumors heard, Lanse was a non-violent, gentlemanly, and humane gang leader.

His image conformed to some people's imagination of "romantic violence," so some people were interested in him, rather than fearing him.

Federal people were obsessed with romance, and the image of a gang leader who was ruthless to enemies and tolerant to ordinary people was very consistent with people's understanding of "romance."

Of course, the people here referred to the middle and lower classes of society, mainly the lower classes.

Weilian put down the newspaper and went to the dining room.

Only Lanse and Patricia were left in the living room. Lanse took the initiative to sit beside the girl and took her hand, placing it in his palm.

Perhaps it was the temperature Lanse brought to her palm that dispelled some of the strangeness, and she seemed a bit more natural than just now.

"I was a bit worried about you." She still said the dialogue she had prepared for several days, her voice a bit small, her head lowered.

Lanse played with the girl's fingers, slender, very white, revealing a healthy pink.

He suddenly laughed.

This laughter made Patricia feel a bit curious, after she felt some shyness.

"What are you laughing at?" She looked at her outfit a bit confusedly, and then looked at her hands and sleeves. She didn't find anything funny about herself.

Lanse looked up at her. "I thought of a book."

"A book?" Perhaps entering the rhythm of chatting, the strangeness disappeared a lot. "I hope it's a normal book!"

Lanse sat naturally on the sofa, but he didn't put his arm around the girl's shoulder.

Many virgins would make a mistake here. They watched too many movies, or through some literary and artistic works, and thought that this was a good time to put their arm around the girl's shoulder, but it actually wasn't.

First of all, the person whose shoulder was being held wouldn't feel too comfortable from a physical perspective.

If there was someone taller and stronger than you holding your shoulder, you would only feel pressure, especially when you were still a bit strange to each other and not so intimate.

And now the girl hadn't completely lifted that strangeness toward Lanse, so excessive contact would provoke her negative reaction, so he just sat on the sofa. "A very serious book, you must have never read it."

Patricia started to become curious. "If it's a serious book, how do you know I haven't read it? What book is it?"

Lanse took her hand, rolled up a small section of her sleeve, revealing her pink wrist and a small section of her arm, and then turned it over, back of the hand facing up.

"See these fine fluff?"

Patricia focused her attention on the tiny fluff that was wantonly stretching on her forearm. She nodded. "Yes, I see them. What's wrong with them?"

"This shows you are very healthy!" Lanse's tone was very certain, as if he could be one hundred percent sure.

This made Patricia feel even more curious. "How did you see it?"

The smile on Lanse's face became more. "I said just now that I read a book, right?"

Patricia nodded. "Yes."

"That book told me that pink skin and these fluff symbolize health."

"Its name is 'How to Choose a Healthy Piglet'."

"Haha!"

Patricia was first a bit annoyed at being teased, but soon followed and laughed. This wasn't an excessive joke, and she herself felt it was very interesting.

Strangeness, tension, discomfort, soon disappeared quickly.

"You are really interesting, Lanse. Do you also have these fluff on your body?"

Lanse smiled but didn't smile. "It's not very suitable here, I'm not used to taking off my clothes in someone else's living room."

When the atmosphere was suitable, some small, non-offensive hints could bring the distance closer faster.

The girl's face was a bit shy and red, and she rolled her eyes. "People all say you are a gang boss, but you don't look like those rumors at all!"

When she started saying this, it meant that everything had returned to the past, and the atmosphere became more relaxed.

No restraint, no distance, and the strangeness disappeared a lot.

"So what do you think I should be like?" Lanse asked back, but didn't let her answer. "I am just me, and I won't change because of my work."

Patricia was also very interested in this topic. "Do you think a gang is a job?"

Lanse reached out and took two pieces of fruit from the tray on the coffee table, stuffed one into his mouth, and gave the other to the girl. "This is a job."

"We also work every day, earn money, but I have to say it's much more profitable than ordinary work!"

The girl seemed to have endless curiosity and "why," and she moved closer to Lanse again. "How much, ten thousand dollars, so much, is there?"

Lanse nodded. "Yes, but even more than this!"

The girl revealed a surprised expression, feeling that this was too unbelievable!

The federal civil servant's welfare benefits were very good. If all those welfare benefits were converted into "cash," although Patricia was only a low-level civil servant, her monthly income was about ninety dollars.

Sometimes it might be more.

It was hard for her to imagine what the concept of more than ten thousand dollars was!

She came back to her senses and asked again, "Then what do you rely on to earn money?"

Lanse said a lot, such as the office that currently had the most legal income, as the scale of Wanli Labor became larger and larger, occasionally advertising in newspapers, plus the Lanse family had already handled most of the Imperial District.

Now Lanse held about 4,700 or 4,800 work cards, and nearly 8,000 illegal immigrants were working for him.

Every month, he could obtain a net profit of at least 6,500 to 7,000 dollars from these work cards.

It sounds like very little?

You have to know, this is the net profit after removing all other costs, and it is very clean money, reported for tax, and deposited in the bank.

The income of Lanse Financial Services Company could all be reported for tax, because they all met the requirements of federal law and were not usury.

As for the service fee being very expensive?

You fucking talk to a lawyer for a while and they want a service fee of dozens of dollars. If the service fee is expensive and unreasonable, then clearly the income of lawyers is even more unreasonable!

In this regard, there were about ten thousand or so every month, sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes only six or seven thousand.

The rest was operating those five bars and the Imperial Nightclub for the mayor, but the first batch of money wouldn't be received until next month.

So he actually didn't know how much specifically. The mayor, or Osen, arranged their own people in all positions related to money. Even Lanse didn't know how much the nightclub earned every day, so he was even less clear about how much money he could get.

Listening to Lanse roughly say these incomes and sources of income, the girl felt a bit unbelievable after listening. "Don't you have other... sorry, don't you talk about criminal income or something?"

Lanse shook his head. "If you say selling alcohol, soon I will have bars that belong to our own family."

"But if you are talking about criminal income, such as kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, etc., then I'm sorry, I don't plan to operate these for the time being!"

Patricia's last bit of unease also disappeared.

The two young people chatted happily on the sofa in the living room, and Weilian also revealed some smiles after seeing it.

Emily poked him with her elbow. She knew her husband very well, otherwise she wouldn't have married him, and wouldn't have been together until today.

"You seem not so opposed now."

Two young people chatted in the living room, and two old people chatted in the kitchen.

Weilian was skillfully making steak. He was very good at eating meat and cooking related to meat.

"Patricia is already a big girl, and she will marry someone else one day." He said while turning the steak. "And I have never said that she is not allowed to fall in love with others. I just said that she cannot give away her most precious things so simply."

Emily could feel some changes in her husband. "So Lanse is not just a simple gang leader?"

Weilian shook his head. "He has at least eight or nine thousand legal votes in his hand. You know, these votes almost occupy one-fifteenth of the votes in Jincheng."

"From the perspective of those big figures, he already has some qualifications to stand in the room."

"And some time ago, I went to the party congress there, and they were very supportive of my proposal to run for municipal councilor."

He said and cut a small piece of steak, looked at the color, and put it back. "Lanse is a good guy, he doesn't earn money by hurting others."

Emily seemed to be looking for trouble. "I heard he killed many people."

Hostesses in middle-class communities also had their own social circles, and the news was very well-informed.

Weilian shook his head slightly. "If someone holds a gun and wants to break into my house and hurt you, I will do more excessively than he does."

Emily put down the kitchenware in her hand, turned her wrist outward so as not to let the oil stains on her hands dirty Weilian's clothes. She kissed Weilian on the face. "Oh, dear, you are really a warrior."

Weilian shrugged. "People have things they want to protect, so I don't think he is a bad person."

"And I have been observing him. I heard he refused to take over Red High Heels. I told you before."

The middle class was full of curiosity about the upper class. They collected all the news they could collect, including some dog-shit habits of big figures.

Naturally, more or less, they had also heard of Red High Heels.

Weilian continued to handle the ingredients. "And, you see, Jincheng can be so stable today, it's not Charlie's credit."

"The only thing that old dog is good at is being a thug for the rich. He can't handle public security."

"If there were no five major families, there would be no stable life now."

"So this may not be a path, and he has already taken the first step to success."

Weilian looked down on Charlie, the police chief. When Charlie was the branch chief in the Bay Area, he privately helped those rich people, stars, and politicians do many sordid things.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have sat in the position of police chief until retirement, and before that, he had a nickname called "Bay Area Hound."

For the true rulers of this city, they didn't care if the management of the city was capable. They only cared if the management could listen to them, that's all!

He tried again, the steak was just right, almost well-done. While plating, he said, "Others can do it, I think I can too, I want to try."

Emily didn't say anything, just gave him a firm look.

From marriage to today, for more than twenty years, Weilian had been... without any ups and downs. Every day he worked as if he were dealing with errands, and even his life was very passive.

He never talked about things in the office, and rarely talked about things at work, because there was nothing worth saying.

This was also why when Patricia's cousin Barbara had a birthday, and the whole family gathered together, he insisted on going on a business trip.

There was nothing to say, the dead life had no waves, not to mention despair, but it was gray, without any color.

This man once had passion and ambition in his heart, but work had worn away all his impulses toward the world.

Until recently.

From their sex life at night, Emily could feel that Weilian was changing. He was releasing his desires more powerfully and actively!

This was a positive signal!

As a wife, she would support Weilian, in this society and era that didn't distinguish between black and white.

Soon the sumptuous dinner was served on the table. Lanse took Patricia's hand and walked over. The bad feelings from the beginning were gone, and they became intimate again.

The four sat down separately. Emily, as the hostess, was more suitable to speak first in the family banquet, so that the atmosphere of the family banquet wouldn't be too serious.

"I hope you like today's dinner. Just now I heard you laughing loudly. Is there anything funny you are willing to share with us?"

The girl simply said a little, which amused the couple. Non-offensive jokes were indeed good helpers for socializing.

Most of Emily's questions were the same as Patricia's questions, revolving around real gang life and work.

But everyone avoided some of the more negative sides as much as possible, and they were all relatively ordinary.

It could be seen that she was indeed very curious about these.

After dinner, Lanse was quite full. During this period, capitalists were still making money from meat and eggs, so they always advocated eating eggs, drinking milk, and eating beef, and advocated eating full.

Only by eating full could they earn more money, so this kind of sumptuous dinner was often seen.

After dinner, Weilian "robbed" Lanse, the reason being that Patricia and Emily occupied too much of his time, and he also needed to talk to Lanse.

The two went to his study. Weilian made a cup of black tea. Two men sat in the quiet study. With the fragrance of black tea permeating the room, the whole world seemed to be quiet in an instant.

Outside the window was the falling heavy snow, and inside the house was a warm room, and warm black tea.

Weilian pulled the curtains and sat behind the desk. "I will probably resign soon." He held the black tea cup and sipped it in small sips.

"Although the election for municipal councilor is slightly more troublesome than the election of other government officials, the preparation time is longer."

"For the Imperial District, I am very strange. I must do something for them, let them know me, so that I can succeed in the election."

He looked at Lanse. "I know you can also mobilize some votes, but we must make people have nothing to say!"

He paused, slightly emotional. "So..."

Lanse asked, "How much?"

Weilian took out a piece of paper from the drawer, which was full of things. He handed it over. "This is what I took time to count."

"I need at least three assistants to work for me, and these people must have experience working in government agencies, otherwise just sending documents will make them confused."

"I asked, about 120 dollars per person, and three people are 360 dollars..."

Patricia's kind of civil servant didn't have a similar election organization to hire her, because she was the kind of low-level civil servant who just mixed days.

Except for the things she was responsible for, she knew nothing.

What Weilian said were those who worked in the municipal office and were not willing to be lonely.

These people knew the municipal system very well, and knew the operation of the government and the structure of various departments like the back of their hands. They also had their own connections.

Although these connections might not be high enough, for Weilian at present, it was enough.

Lanse nodded, but he took out a pen and changed this number to 500 dollars.

"I don't care how much you give them, I give you 500 dollars, you have to take good care of your family, Emily and Patricia."

Weilian nodded repeatedly. "You consider it very comprehensively." In fact, he also thought of it, but it was just a bit difficult to speak, after all, Lanse hadn't married his daughter yet.

"And then I need an office, in Prinsiya, which is closer to the city hall and various government departments, and not far from the Imperial District."

"I found an office, the rent is 25 dollars a month, paid for three months, and 300 dollars a year."

Lanse asked him, "How many square meters?"

Weilian scratched his head. "About 70 square meters, can be separated into an independent office, and can also put down four desks..."

Lanse crossed out this line again. "Find one of at least 200 square meters. Now you are choosing a municipal councilor, but in the future, maybe we are choosing a mayor."

"It's best to find a place in the city center, which will help you promote your image, people will feel you are very capable!"