Chapter 666

The atmosphere in the city was a bit dull. People didn't know what had happened, but they could feel that raindrops had already fallen with a patter.

Hitting the ground, hitting the puddles, and also hitting people's faces.

That kind of walking in a rainstorm, with dark clouds covering the sky and the sun, making the world feel as oppressive as a dark night, was particularly terrible.

Mayor Williams withdrew his gaze from outside the window. He had already received the complete news that Lan Si had sent people to the school to take action.

He held a cigarette in his hand, but didn't take many puffs.

The slowly burning white long ash fell from the cigarette butt as a gust of wind blew.

He looked down and let the ash drift out of the window.

"The spearhead of every matter points directly to Houf, but Houf is just a character in the foreground. Those people behind him are the key."

He walked from the window back to his office chair and sat down. The office was decorated very luxuriously, but it was luxury in low-key.

These tables, chairs, and cabinets that looked like "old furniture" revealed a nobility that ordinary people couldn't grasp everywhere.

Perhaps some ordinary people would have a strange feeling after coming in, which was that Mayor Williams must be a good mayor. Look, how simple his office is.

James, sitting opposite him, nodded. "I don't like the current political environment. Everything is linked to money. Capitalists are corroding it too severely, yet we have no good way."

Houf's decisive "escape" gave Mayor Williams some feelings, very special feelings. He felt emotional that Mr. Houf, such a regional opinion leader, was already in the middle class of high society in Golden Port City and Liklai State, yet he was still just a character in the foreground.

Is money really that important?

He asked himself.

Then he agreed with this point of view.

Money is very important!

As his son, James understood his father's thoughts. As he became a municipal councilor, he also began to have more feelings.

"When I was still learning by your side before, I was very puzzled many times."

Mayor Williams turned to look at his son, focusing his attention on him, signaling him to continue.

After James adjusted his sitting posture, he lit a cigarette. "The puzzling part is why you, Councilor Wei De, and others sometimes feel emotional about capital's invasion of politics."

"I didn't understand at that time, but as I became a municipal councilor, I finally understood."

He began to count on his fingers. "City Hall gives me seventy-nine dollars a month..."

Mayor Williams couldn't help but laugh. He raised his hand and waved it like driving away flies. "Come on, you know, that has nothing to do with me. Municipal councilors in the entire federation are all this price!"

James was also laughing. "I know, I don't mean to complain about you, I'm just stating this fact."

"I have an office of about twenty square meters in City Hall, which can't even fit a sofa set."

"I must rent an office, and it can't be too small, because I have my team that needs to be taken care of."

"I rented a floor of an office building in the city center, which costs two hundred and twenty dollars a month."

"I also have eleven people under me: drivers, secretaries, clerks, receptionists..."

"On average, each person takes about seventy-five dollars from me every month. Eleven people, more than eight hundred dollars."

"I also keep five cars, and I need to take care of their maintenance and fuel costs. Although it's not much, it's still several tens of dollars every month."

"And then sometimes we have to hold some political activities, a few hundred dollars at the least, three to five thousand dollars at the most."

This kind of political activity within the jurisdiction is actually relatively frequent, especially for newly elected municipal councilors. They need to communicate more with the public to understand this district and understand what they need.

You bring the citizens together, you can't just let them sit in a row in the park. Even if James could do this, he would need to let these people have a drink of water and something to eat.

And when they leave, it's best if they can take some with them.

This has already become a bad habit in politics. As long as you have close contact with voters, you must let them gain something.

This is still referring to the worst. People like James who have the "Williams family burden" will spend money to rent venues and rent some security guards, and the price will be very high.

He doesn't want others to say that "the Williams family can't even take out this little money" kind of bullshit!

"And the expenses when on business trips."

He counted on his fingers, talking to Mayor Williams about some of his discoveries and changes in his work. "My average monthly expenditure is two thousand to three thousand dollars. If there are any political activities, business trips, etc., it basically exceeds five thousand dollars."

"Even if the average is two thousand five hundred dollars a month, that's thirty thousand dollars a year."

"Father, thirty thousand dollars!"

"A municipal councilor wants to maintain his work well, wants people to see his ability and progress, he has to invest thirty thousand dollars or more every year!"

"But our salary is less than one thousand dollars a year."

"Without capitalists and their money, we are nothing!"

This is James's own experience. Only after he started serving as a municipal councilor did he feel this... he didn't know how to describe it, that there was no way without money.

Mayor Williams looked at his son with great satisfaction as he had made such significant progress in this regard. A smile appeared on his face:

"It's good that you can have these insights. This shows that you are really taking your work seriously."

"Money is like a noose, placed around the neck of every politician."

"The bad news is that it not only can't be untied, but it will also get tighter and tighter."

"But the good news is that whether the noose will hang you up depends entirely on yourself."

"The funding for every general election is rising astonishingly. In the previous few times, it only took seven or eight million to handle the general election."

"But the last time, it was still the midterm election, and they used seventeen million."

"What about the next time?"

"How much will it use?"

"Some people speculate that it might be over twenty-five million, and every time it rolls, there will be a significant increase."

"No one knows if it will stop, but everyone knows that its role will become greater and greater!"

"Great enough to influence the final result."

James nodded. "Yes, so from this point of view, Houf's escape is not strange. Lan Si exposed him. Whether for himself or for the people behind him, he must disappear."

"To protect those capitalists!"

Mayor Williams recognized this point of view of his. "This is also why I let Arthur put his mind on business. If we rely on external wealth, we will also become someone else's character in the foreground one day."

"They use wealth that we can't take out to force us to bow our heads, and then listen to their arrangements."

"From a municipal councilor to the president, it's all like this."

"But if we have money ourselves, we can do whatever we want, and no one can threaten us with elections and funds!"

James didn't deny it and nodded. "That's right."

"Houf ran away, so he ran away. There are other characters in the foreground in Golden Port City. Lan Si will dig them out one by one!", Mayor Williams raised his eyebrows.

"Charles can't hide. He wove a huge net, netting everyone in it." "This net will become their strongest barrier when they are strong, protecting them from harm."

"But when their situation becomes precarious, this net can also make it so that none of them can escape!"

"This time, the entire city's pattern will undergo a huge change. This is also an opportunity for us, an opportunity that completely doesn't need to rely on others!"

Mayor Williams's turbid eyes were shining. People have different thoughts and demands at different times.

At the beginning, he felt that as long as he could maintain the status and prestige of the Williams family, it was enough.

But with the departure of the Wade family, he began to want to be mayor and constantly changed his thoughts, wanting to put the Williams family's brand on Golden Port City!

Now, his ambition is no longer limited to this city.

If more benefits can be gained for the family from the changes in the city's pattern this time, then it's not impossible to impact the governor in the future.

The governor's election, to put it bluntly, is still a competition within Liklai State. As the mayor of Golden Port City, he has an innate advantage.

Coupled with huge political power and wealth, it's not impossible for a "His Excellency Governor Williams" to appear!

Listening to his words, James was also a bit moved, but soon he frowned again. "Arthur's side..."

Before he could finish his words, the phone ring on the desktop suddenly rang.

The father and son's gazes were focused on the phone. Inexplicably, they both felt that this call might not be that simple.

!

The weather outside the window, which originally still had sunshine, suddenly became a bit gloomy. The sky was still bright, but the sun was gone.

It was going to snow again.

At this time in the old industrial area, a large number of factory buildings were facing demolition. There was no cheaper labor than refugees.

The weather was still very cold, but at the demolition site, there was a feeling of being in full swing.

Refugee workers waved heavy sledgehammers to beat those already damaged factory buildings. They wanted to completely clear out all the places that had already been vacated, and then there was a large amount of construction work.

Communities and buildings could be handed over to real estate developers and construction companies to bid for, but the highways were planned early on and could be built first.

Looking down from the air, dense workers gathered together, transforming this land bit by bit.

Several refugee workers gathered together. They wore patched cotton-padded clothes. Several people were panting, and every breath would spray a large amount of white mist from their mouths.

The expressions on the faces of these few people were a bit different from others. Besides them, there were some other people around who also stopped their work at this time.

They exchanged glances, and soon they seemed to have made a decision.

One of them suddenly shouted, "Let us rest, we've been working for most of the day!"

The people beside him also followed and shouted, "Yeah, we've been working for most of the day, we can't work anymore, we want to rest!"

The demolition work in this area was the responsibility of Arthur's company. This... it was clear that it could make a lot of money, and it didn't require any technical work. Mayor Williams still took good care of Arthur.

Of course, Arthur himself was also very promising. He never came to the construction site to command randomly, and didn't even take the initiative to interfere with the company's operation, although the company was under his name.

The federal government didn't prohibit officials and their family members from doing business. Mayor Williams contracting the project to Arthur complied with the federal legal standards.

As long as there was no power-for-money transaction between them, and Arthur could meet the demolition standards according to the agreement, then no one could accuse Mayor Williams of using his official power for personal gain.

Who should the project be given to if not to outsiders, could it only be given to outsiders and not to his own son?

There was no such law at all!

If nothing went wrong, this would probably be the same as those projects that had already happened in the past. After the project ended, Arthur would contact the mayor's secretary and then get all the payments.

Hiring refugee workers was currently the way to make money from the price difference in Golden Port City, and even all cities with refugees. The huge gap between the cost and the actual expenditure could let every company eat its fill.

Now people weren't afraid of big projects. The bigger the project, the more primitive the project plan, the happier people were!

Because this could gain extra profits brought by the price difference of wages. Many companies, in order to gain opportunities when bidding, would even lose money from the cost budget!

But today, now, some things were happening.

The supervisor was quickly attracted by the shouting of these people. Not being able to hold hot coffee and eat donuts in the office in the middle of winter was like hell for federal people!

The supervisor's temper wouldn't be too good either. People with good tempers couldn't be supervisors.

They and the slave owners of the past only had a difference in title, and they couldn't kill these workers at will.

The supervisor walked toward this side, saw those people who were making trouble and wanting to rest, and his brows immediately knitted together. "Didn't you just rest?"

About an hour ago, these people had already rested once, and now they wanted to rest again, which made the supervisor think they were clearly looking for trouble.

Resting is contagious. If they wanted to rest here, other workers who were working would feel like they were afraid of suffering a loss, and would also take the initiative to put down their tools and stop.

Everything had been fine for the past few days, why were these people so annoying today?

Originally, having to come out to drink cold wind in this terrible weather already made the supervisor unhappy. Now these lazy bums wanted to be lazy and slippery, and he was even more unhappy!

"Didn't you motherfuckers just rest?", he shouted loudly.

Some strange smiles briefly appeared on the faces of those few workers. One of them suddenly shouted loudly, "Why are you scolding people?"

"The wages given to us are so low, only ten dollars or so, and you don't allow us to rest, and you scold us and insult us!"

"We are also people, we are not slaves!"

"If you spoke properly, maybe we could continue to work for a while. You are so arrogant, today we just have to rest!"

Several workers threw their tools heavily on the ground. At this time, refugee workers around had already gathered around. Several older ones even took the initiative to mediate.

It wasn't that they were biased toward the refugees or biased toward the federal people; they were just afraid of causing trouble and letting these supervisors fire them all.

It was really not easy to find a stable job these days, and it was the middle of winter. Even if it was only ten dollars a month, it could let a family survive the cold winter!

It was just that these few old workers didn't understand at all. It wasn't that they couldn't persuade them, but from the beginning, the purpose of these people was to provoke conflict!

The supervisor's authority was questioned and impacted. He immediately waved his hand and shouted loudly, "You are fired!"

Several young people immediately rushed over. "Why are you firing us?"

"It's fine to fire us, pay the money for this month!"

With physical contact, the conflict between the two sides quickly evolved from verbal to physical.

A refugee worker suddenly punched the supervisor, making the supervisor see stars. He had worked in the company for so many years, thanks to Arthur, when had he ever suffered such a big loss?

He staggered and sat on the ground on his butt, then immediately took out the whistle from his clothes and blew it!

Toot~~

Toot!

The security guards who were roasting fire in the shelter in the distance were stunned when they heard the whistle, and then ran toward the direction of the whistle with solemn faces. Before they got close, they found that many people had already gathered there.

They didn't know what had happened in the crowd, just subconsciously, instinctively pushing away the crowd, wanting to walk in.

Just with this push and pull, someone suddenly screamed: "Federal people are hitting people!"

Immediately after, several refugee workers began to fight back, and the security guards who were beaten into a daze also followed and began to fight back. The entire construction site quickly became chaotic!

Under collective consciousness, soon people all lost their reason and became simple and fierce.

The number of people managing the company was definitely not as large as the refugee workers, and they were soon submerged in the refugee workers.

Some refugees had already realized that something was wrong and left early, but more young people had already had their behavior and thoughts controlled. They even began to take the initiative to attack the federal supervisors and company staff around them, and even went to grab food and grab supplies!

The news of the sudden riot in the old industrial area spread throughout the city in an instant. After receiving the alarm call, Chief Bulu rushed to the front line in person. A large number of police forces came to the scene of the old industrial area under the wailing of police cars.

Chief Bulu, who didn't even get out of the car, took a deep breath and directly ordered the police cars to retreat. They had too few people and needed more support!

And at this time, Mayor Williams was answering that phone call that suddenly rang.

"Arthur is in our hands.", the guy on the other side of the phone threw out this "bomb" as soon as he came up.

Mayor Williams pressed the speaker button so James could hear it too. "How can you prove this?"

(End of chapter)