Chapter 256: 257. Chapter 254: Discovery, Punishment, and Another Step Forward

257. Chapter 254: Discovery, Punishment, and Another Step Forward

Belief is a very magical thing.

The magical part is that for the sake of belief, people can do many things that others find unimaginable or incomprehensible.

Just like Enio's father; he was willing to make himself suffer, make his family suffer, and see his wife and children leave him, all because he wanted to find the "Federal Dream" in books.

Although he has recently begun to wake up a little.

Or perhaps some immigrants; their immigrant status has become the final obstacle to embracing a new life. They are impatient to throw off this "immigrant" hat, and are even willing to pay a great price for it!

Becoming a Federal citizen and having a job that allows them to shed the immigrant label has become an obsession for many immigrants. To achieve this, they are capable of sacrificing many things.

Furthermore, this concept is being passed on to younger immigrants, perhaps because there is much discussion about it within their families, making it impossible for them not to notice these things, which then influences their thinking.

Ma Zi is a typical descendant of immigrants; he longs for recognition from the mainstream social group and longs to integrate into it.

Every time he attends various social gatherings, when they are chatting happily, someone asks if he is a local, and what his parents do, it becomes a social disaster.

It cannot be said that everyone is excluding immigrants; it is just that the negative influences generated by political movements over these years are still continuing. In fact, they not only exclude immigrants but also exclude those "little cotton-picking experts," and they express this more obviously and directly.

Native-born Federal citizens, under the indoctrination of their old-school Federal families, are very unfriendly toward the "little cotton-picking expert" group and immigrant descendants.

Society also frequently reports this: "They are invading our homeland" and "They are taking away our jobs" have become the things Federal citizens fear most, even though they are actually very clear that the lack of work is not because jobs have been stolen, but purely because they are lazy.

Ma Zi needs a job to make himself an immigrant who can be accepted by society, and even make people forget his immigrant descendant status.

And the best choice is to be a civil servant.

But Federal civil service positions are not that easy to get into. Perhaps you think you are signing up for a Federal government job, but there is a high probability you will be transferred to some company and not be recognized as a civil servant.

Until someone contacted him, promising that if he completed a task, he could join the Hazardous Materials Administration and become a member of it.

This temptation was too great. Even though he knew there were huge risks, he still agreed.

In a daze, Ma Zi thought of the things his contact had instructed him to do: do not make phone calls casually, do not expose yourself casually, do not do things that will attract others' attention casually; be gregarious, be low-key.

"Hey, Ma Zi, come over here," someone shouted his name.

He came back to his senses, pushed through the crowd, and walked toward the bar. This was a bar, a bar of the Lansi family. He had been arranged to work here, supposedly to prepare for the opening of other bars.

This group of them had all received different levels of heavy responsibility; it seemed the Lansi family was very short of people right now.

"Coming, brother, what do you want me to do?"

The bartender pointed his thumb at the door behind him. "We don't have much liquor left. Deruixi's people are sending liquor over; go and receive it."

Ma Zi's heartbeat accelerated slightly. He nodded and, while saying "Okay," walked toward the back door.

Just as he had walked a few steps out, his arm was suddenly grabbed. In that instant, he instinctively felt an urge to "run away"!

His heart was also telling him that he had been discovered!

But he forcibly endured this instinct and impulse, used what he considered his best acting skills, turned his head, and looked at the bartender in confusion. "What's wrong?"

The two stared at each other for a moment, a few seconds. The bartender revealed a faint smile. "Run there; we are all waiting for your liquor."

Ma Zi nodded vigorously twice. The bartender let go, and he also let out a sigh of relief.

The bar does not use a large-scale liquor storage method now. The liquor available before the bar opens every day is actually not much. When only thirty percent of the liquor remains, Deruixi will arrange for people to send liquor over.

Ensuring there is enough liquor for two hours of use, but not too much.

This way, even if the bar is discovered and sealed, the family's losses will not be too great.

Moreover, Deruixi coming here is not just to deliver the liquor, but also to take the money away.

When Ma Zi came to the alley from another door, there were already several people here; they seemed to be chatting.

About ten boxes of various liquors were scattered on the ground. He didn't know Deruixi, but he saw the manager hand a tin box to the other party.

He knew that it was full of money inside.

"Ma Zi, come over and move these inside..."

The manager gave an instruction, and Ma Zi began to move things. His eyes remained fixed on the license plate number of the van.

His contact told him to remember all valuable information; this information would eventually become powerful evidence to convict the criminal group.

In Ma Zi's eyes, Lansi and the Lansi family are the tumor of the Empire District, a gang. He has no good feelings for these people; he doesn't even feel that he is one with this place; he doesn't feel he is an immigrant descendant.

After Ma Zi moved the liquor into the bar, the manager continued chatting with Deruixi, but as long as Ma Zi was on the scene, they would stop talking, seemingly discussing something very important.

Ma Zi vaguely heard some keywords they said a few times; some might be place names, some might be times. He felt these clues were very important.

He had been firmly...

Ten boxes of liquor were moved very quickly for a young man. After the last box was moved in, he found an excuse to go to the restroom.

In the restroom, he took a pen out of his pocket and wrote down the words he had just recorded on a piece of paper torn from somewhere.

This was a single stall; he locked the door, not worried about someone suddenly pushing the door open, and... no one would know what he was actually recording.

It's just that he didn't notice that at this moment, above his head, there was a mirror, and someone was observing his every move through the mirror.

The bar replenished liquor several times in one night. He only moved it once; other young people who came with him had all moved it. According to the bartender, they had to try everything.

For three or four consecutive days, Aierwen had roughly figured out the situation of these people. His expression was very ugly; there were four people in total.

These people would record what they saw and heard every day, as well as record some things Deruixi and the manager said.

None of them made phone calls; they should have received some brief training, knowing that making phone calls easily exposes oneself.

They might be waiting for an opportunity to pass information out, but it is currently unknown how they intend to pass the intelligence.

"This is my problem; I didn't do a good job of personnel screening." Aierwen took the initiative to take responsibility. Although this group of people was not recruited by him personally, he had to take on his screening responsibility.

There were others in the room. Lansi glanced at him. "Deduct three months of your dividends; any problems?"

Aierwen shook his head. "No problems."

According to the rules initially set by Lansi, thirty percent of the monthly income is distributed to them according to a ratio. Aierwen's work is very important now, and he is Lansi's confidant; he can get about two percent of the dividends every month.

Looking at the family's current profitability, the monthly income is about two hundred thousand; two percent of two hundred thousand is about three or four thousand. Three months is over ten thousand.

This amount of money is enough to make him feel the pain!

Yisen has the best relationship with Aierwen; he couldn't help but say, "I'll go and slaughter these sons of bitches!"

Lansi raised his hand to stop him. "Don't move them for now."

"We haven't fully determined whose people they are, and whether they are really passing intelligence out. Besides, Pang Da should also do something soon."

"Just use the intelligence he gave us to verify whether he is really cooperating with us."

In Lansi's safe, there is not only the loan contract personally signed by Pang Da, but also his fingerprints and even a group photo with Lansi.

Although this money eventually returned to his own hands, Lansi felt that since he had taken so much of his money, he should work hard.

Yisen sat back down, feeling unhappy. "After the matter is over, let me handle them!"

Lanse nodded, "No problem."

As he spoke, he began to arrange new work, "Don't worry about those bars of Eric's for now; continue to look for other places suitable for opening bars."

"Also, find more houses that can be used to store alcohol. The situation ahead will become increasingly severe, and we cannot put all our eggs in one basket."

Lao En leaned against the wall and asked Lanse a question, "Since we aren't going to operate those bars, why do we still have to clean them all up?"

Lanse had directly pried open the locks on Eric's bars and arranged for people to clean them up, making them look like they were about to be operated.

Many drunks had already inquired; it was time they could taste strong, fine wine in those places.

"The purpose of taking the bars isn't really to operate in those places. Many people know about these bars now, and I believe the people at the Hazardous Materials Bureau also know where these bars are."

"As long as we actually dare to open them, they will actually dare to arrest us. I'm not an idiot!"

"The purpose of fixing them up again but not operating them is to tell everyone that in the Imperial District, I am the one who calls the shots."

"Even if he is the mayor's illegitimate son, if he ate what was mine, he has to spit it back out for me!"

"Spit it back out with interest!"

Lao En had no further opinions and nodded to indicate he understood.

The mayor was also quite irritable now; even if he knew, he wouldn't make things too ugly with Lanse, or rather, he simply couldn't spare the energy to deal with Lanse right now.

Lanse had just made him look like a fool. The Viper Gang, which he had favored to replace Lanse, had already become a thing of the past. Now, even if he wanted to deal with Lanse, he had to consider what methods he could use to do it.

The only law enforcement department he could mobilize was the Hazardous Materials Bureau, but the Hazardous Materials Bureau could not arrest people for ordinary criminal behavior.

Perhaps some would say... framing is possible, but that is a tactic for ordinary people.

If you stop someone at random on the road, stuff a bottle of alcohol into their arms, and accuse them of transporting smuggled alcohol, that's no problem.

But if you deal with Lanse and the Lanse family like that, they will resist, and the effect won't be as useful as dealing with ordinary people!

Plus, with the Viper Gang wiped out by Lanse, the mayor would not engage in retaliatory actions that would have no substantial harm, like those immature young people, without sufficient strength to guarantee he could wipe them out in one go.

Other districts were also starting to counterattack against outsiders, and he had to focus his attention on those big guys.

If he could ultimately win, Lanse and the Lanse family would be easy for him to clean up whenever he wanted.

But if he couldn't win in the end, even if he won now, he would still lose it all back later.

Therefore, the Imperial District had now entered a very special kind of tranquility; he had no heart to worry about places that couldn't bring him benefits and would only bring him trouble.

And the "person directly responsible" was not him; it was Eric.

It was Eric who was more embarrassed, not him.

He even had a reason not to handle these matters, because Eric was only his "illegitimate son."

After arranging the tasks, Lanse picked up the phone, thought for two seconds, and dialed Pang Da's number.

Pang Da was analyzing some documents. There were some fragmented clues in the files, and they were trying to find some key clues to catch a big guy again!

Director Dai Er had also been under a lot of pressure recently. The Hazardous Materials Bureau across the country had begun to enter a state of readiness. Today, they caught a case worth tens of thousands here; tomorrow, they caught a case worth tens of thousands there.

Although he had won a first prize, he had gradually begun to become less conspicuous amidst the continuous stream of major cases everywhere.

For politicians, unless there is a very deep connection between them, as long as one does not appear in front of them for a long time, one will be marginalized by this circle and eventually forgotten.

But before being marginalized and forgotten, even if just a name appears, it can remind them who the hell this is.

The conflict between the mayor and the locals was still escalating. Director Dai Er felt at this moment that the decision he had made earlier was still a bit rash. The local forces were too massive and not that easy to handle!

The only thing worth being happy about now was that the Congress intended to continue to strengthen the power of the Hazardous Materials Bureau. The Congress also felt the resistance to Prohibition from the local level.

Even local governments had behaviors that resisted Prohibition!

It was actually no longer entirely about pushing for the strict enforcement of Prohibition for the sake of social experiments; it was more of a political game between the Congress and the local level.

The purpose of the vertical management of the Hazardous Materials Bureau lay here. They were trying to dismantle localism through some means, and as for the results, it was hard to say.

If it's done well, everyone is happy.

If it's not done well, anyway, only the Hazardous Materials Bureau is unlucky, and the big shots remain high and mighty.

In this level of political game, the executors are often cannon fodder. Director Dai Er did not want to be cannon fodder, so he had to make some eye-catching achievements as soon as possible to fill in his previous point deductions.

Catching major cases, or even "making" major cases, had become his obsession.

Whoever could help him could become an important figure in the Hazardous Materials Bureau!

The sudden ringing of the phone on the desk almost gave Pang Da a fright. He steadied his mind before picking up the phone, "This is the Hazardous Materials Bureau, I am Agent Pang Da."

"Pang Da, I thought you would call me immediately after you went back, but it seems you only want to leave with my money?"

Hearing Lanse's voice, he suddenly felt his bladder tighten and almost peed himself!

"Are you crazy?", he turned his back to the others and lowered his voice a little, but one could still hear the disbelief in his tone.

This is the fucking Hazardous Materials Bureau, and Lanse actually called directly!

"Rest assured, no one will monitor our calls. If there is, give me his name, and I guarantee there won't be a next time."

He paused, "You took my ten thousand dollars, but there hasn't been a sound until now. You have made me feel disappointed."

Pang Da was actually still struggling a little bit inside, "Those lists are not easy to check.", he glanced at the paper placed at the bottom of a pile of files, which recorded a few names.

He actually had them, but he didn't really want to give them to Lanse; he also had his own bottom line.

Lanse's disdainful laughter came through the receiver, "Actually, I already know who the running dog is, but I'm just seeing if you really want to cooperate with me, Pang Da."

"I heard your girlfriend is called what again?"

"Lisa?"

Pang Da stood up all at once, and many pairs of eyes looked toward him. He covered the microphone, "My girlfriend's call."

As he spoke, he pulled out the paper recording some names and put it into his pocket, then said to Lanse, "I'll call you later," and hung up the phone.

The others showed kind smiles; although young people's love is full of a foul smell, it is ultimately a beautiful thing.

He walked out of the Hazardous Materials Bureau with big strides, found a phone booth, and ducked in, "Don't you fucking touch her!"

As soon as the call was connected, he roared.

Lanse was still in that unhurried tone, "If you speak loudly to me again, I guarantee we will meet very soon tomorrow, at her funeral!"

This sentence was like a basin of cold water poured down; Pang Da calmed down all at once, as if his whole person had shrunk a size.

His breathing was heavy, "I apologize for my irrationality, but don't go bother her!"

Lanse said with a chuckle, "That depends on whether you treat me as your friend, Pang Da."

"Now, give me a list and let me see if you are lying."

After waiting for more than ten seconds, he still had a trace of hesitation and was still making a final struggle.

Lanse reminded him again, "Although doing this is indeed despicable, Pang Da, think about Lisa."

"Fuck!", Pang Da hammered the public phone booth with force, and the whole booth vibrated with a bang, causing some passersby to look over here.

He quickly reported three names, "Are you satisfied now?"

Lanse was still in that tone, "I knew who they were long ago. I said it before, I just wanted to see if you really knew what you were doing."

This sentence was filled with something unquestionable, giving Pang Da a sudden feeling of his scalp itching and a shock in his heart.

His speaking speed slowed down a bit, "Now, does it match?"