Chapter 958: Arrival at Lamen

On a sheet of pure white paper, if there is one spot of red, that red becomes an anomaly and will be erased.

But if red covers the entire sheet, with only a few tiny patches untouched by its stain, then the white becomes the anomaly.

Color is an attitude, an emotion—it spreads, it infects.

A ruling group that an ambitious man cannot overthrow can be toppled by the people—that is the power of the people!

Senator Cleveland “chewed” on the word “awakening,” his eyes briefly losing focus, then quickly clearing again.

“You’ve found a good term to describe your plan—so you’re saying you’re coming… you’ll go to Yalan yourself?”

He asked a key question, one that appeared to be a question but was really asking something else entirely.

The entire plan was Lans’s idea, including the annexation of the Yalan region—he possesses a more complete and advanced approach than anyone else.

If Lans doesn’t do it himself, but instead implants his ideas in others and lets them carry it out, can those people achieve what he intends to show?

Senator Cleveland thought it was difficult—it’s like the conductor’s technique: some prefer pressing with fingers clenched together to create a steady, continuous pressure.

Others prefer spreading their fingers slightly, creating a rhythmic, fluctuating pressure.

Everyone has their own habits and methods; what works for you may not work for others, unless you do it yourself.

But such matters are never simple—any country that overthrows another through covert means keeps it a secret.

The Federal political arena is deeply infiltrated by capital; “Congress has no secrets” has already told people this truth—the political arena, riddled with holes corroded by capital, has grown accustomed to measuring a person or event by its capital value.

The more people who know, the greater the risk of leakage.

Senator Cleveland is a politician with ambition—he is not content merely to be one of the stronger political factions in Congress, along with his friends; he wants more!

Lans’s plan could be the key to his next step forward, so he needs to know: is Lans going to do this himself, or is he merely offering a plan?

Lans was also considering—the receiver was silent except for faint breathing.

After about ten seconds, he said, “I’ll go myself.”

The situation at home is too stable for him.

The soil for gang growth and expansion is chaos, but the current situation is too stable—everything must yield to war.

For example, his conflict with the Perez family—if not for the war prompting Congress to mediate, he could have gained far more during the gang war than he has now.

Reputation, wealth, status, power, and broader territory and influence!

But to make way for war, the war had not even broken out before it was called off.

If he does nothing and stays holed up at home, he can only keep selling his liquor.

Denuozhou has indeed opened a crack, but that crack is not easy to tear open—if gang violence exceeds the tolerance limits of local and Federal authorities, the government will quickly intervene again.

In the end, he’ll still be stuck selling liquor in one region.

When a person is poor and has low social status, wealth is their value.

If an ordinary person owns one million, his social value is expressed as one million.

But when a person owns a hundred million, and continues earning—two hundred million, a billion, ten billion—his social value doesn’t increase much beyond what it was when he had one hundred million.

In fact, having too much money might lower his social value, due to the risk of being targeted.

Wealth growth alone is not a good thing; only when wealth grows alongside everything else is it truly beneficial.

A barrel, even if one plank reaches the clouds, can only hold as much water as its shortest plank allows.

So he needs to evolve. He needs to grow.

Resolving the Yalan issue will bring him massive growth in every aspect—he’ll become the problem-solver in Senator Cleveland’s eyes, and his personal power will swell again.

This swelling will be real swelling!

So he is willing.

He will go—not anything else.

The senator’s tone immediately lightened, “I’ll keep an eye on things here for you. You know, I told you before—these are all minor matters.”

“If not for certain reasons we both know, I’d actually prefer you to work beside me—or I could arrange another position for you.”

Lans still declined politely, “Aren’t all Federal people chasing the spirit of freedom?”

“Not working—that’s the freedom I pursue!”

Senator Cleveland did not grow angry at Lans’s second refusal—excellent people always have more privileges than the mediocre. “Alright, I hope you find the freedom—and everything—you seek.”

“Is there anything you need me to assist with?”

Lans lit a cigarette. “We should deepen our understanding of the Yalan region and strengthen exchanges…”

In late July to early August, after two rounds of talks, the Yalan National United Alliance was officially established in the Jide Republic, the Yalan region’s most powerful nation by overall strength—the Jide Republic has a population of 41 million, though that figure is from official statistics taken ten years ago.

No one knows the current number, since this miserable place has no government that bothers to conduct censuses, and many families secretly underreport their populations.

The Jide Republic has the largest population, and its long coastline, countless golden sandy beaches, and fiery women have made it a famous tourist destination.

It’s much like other Yalan nations, except its ruling group is relatively more united, giving it a higher degree of state integrity.

It has a formal, non-warlord military and a fully functional social system; aside from slightly heavier exploitation of ordinary people, it has few major flaws.

The president of the Jide Republic serves as the first chairman of the Yalan Alliance, with a four-year term—and rotation is mandatory.

It seems fair, but it isn’t at all—eleven nations mean that even if each nation rotates once, the eleventh nation won’t get its turn for another forty years.

But small nations are like this everywhere—they have no voice, and fairness or justice is out of the question.

After the Yalan Alliance’s formation, the Federation expressed “curiosity,” and the Alliance immediately sent a lavish delegation to visit the Federation.

They knew exactly why the Alliance was formed, and they knew that if they didn’t align with the Federation on key issues, they’d be seen as provocation—and likely face war.

Not all members of the ruling groups are fools; because they are wealthy and hold high status, many have received higher education, and some have even studied abroad in the Federation or other countries.

In some ways, they don’t differ much from mainstream society.

This was a major event—the Federation gave the Alliance’s visit proper attention; the Secretary of State led the reception.

Both sides held talks in Xingang on a series of issues, and daily newspapers reported on developments and progress.

The Yalan Alliance chairman stated that the formation of the Yalan National United Alliance was not meant to compete with the Federation militarily, economically, or in any other possible way.

The Alliance’s emergence represents Yalan’s progress and effort to rapidly integrate into the international community—to form a unified, cohesive political entity that gains greater attention on the global stage.

They hope to engage in more friendly exchanges with the Federation, exchanges not aimed at harm.

The Secretary of State responded positively, stating in his speech that the Federation respected the decisions of Yalan’s nations, congratulated the Alliance’s formation, and sincerely wished the Alliance a swift path to development.

The Federation is not a nation filled with ambition; it respects other nations’ sovereignty and does not interfere in their internal affairs.

Both sides can engage in greater exchanges under completely equal conditions.

Economic, cultural, and civilian exchanges, to achieve mutual understanding.

The visit lasted one week, and several cooperative projects were agreed upon.

Their real purpose, in plain terms, was simple: on one hand, to demonstrate their unity—they are no longer eleven separate nations, but a single whole.

Any attack on one nation will trigger the other ten to reinforce, making invasion and annexation extremely difficult.

On the other hand, they signaled they would not engage in military competition or armed conflict, and were willing to compromise within limits—for example, during talks, they agreed to open their markets to the Federation, allowing Federation individuals and enterprises to invest and trade in Yalan.

The Alliance even volunteered to sell Yalan’s ores and metal ingots to the Federation at prices slightly below international spot rates.

They offered so many benefits for one purpose alone—

To “diplomatically” reject the Federation’s request to station troops.

It seemed the Federation received the signal—no one mentioned troop deployment again, as if everything had been agreed upon amid laughter.

When the news reached Yalan, many Yalan people believed they had used their wisdom and courage to repel the invader, and some even thought the Federation wasn’t so formidable after all.

Victory is like that—it always breeds blind arrogance.

During this time, Gomes’s days weren’t terrible, but they were certainly far worse than before.

Lamen was also affected by this “change”—previously, imported goods in Lamen were “exclusive.”

That meant all imported goods were controlled by the Lamen Chamber of Commerce; any local shop wanting to sell them needed quotas.

But now, after the Yalan Alliance talks ended, the eleven Yalan nations would open their markets to the Federation—imported goods were no longer scarce, and the Lamen Chamber of Commerce lost its purpose.

Previously, people went to great lengths to curry favor with Gomes—to bribe him with money or offer him women—just to get more of these scarce goods.

These scarce imports weren’t just profitable—they represented “capability” to the middle and lower privileged classes.

If you gave a middle-tier privileged person a thousand, he wouldn’t think you were particularly impressive.

But if you gave him a Federation-made washing machine worth five hundred, he’d think you were definitely someone with connections.

Now that the market was open, it was rumored that Federation merchants would soon arrive with goods—his quotas and goods would soon become commonplace.

He understood Federation merchants well—if there was money to be made, even a little, they’d accept it.

But Gomes couldn’t accept this.

“If their goods appear freely in our market, we won’t be able to make money anymore.”

“Our exclusivity, our quotas—they’ll become worthless.”

President Diego sat in a large chair, dressed in military uniform—his habit.

He wasn’t just president of Lamen—he was Lamen’s supreme marshal!

He disliked being called “President”; he preferred “Marshal” or “General”—a common habit among dictators.

He needed people to understand that his rule here stemmed not from politics, but from the military power in his hands.

President Diego was overweight, over two hundred jin, living simply but indulging in every pleasure available.

Though they were indoors with no strong sunlight, Diego still wore tinted glasses.

Behind the lenses, his eyes shifted slightly, finally settling on Gomes.

His voice sounded sharp, perhaps due to his weight: “So, are you and the Chamber useless now?”

Hearing this, Gomes’s scalp prickled; he quickly explained, “We also have goods we export to the Federation—that’s my responsibility too.”

Whether it was an illusion or not, after saying this, Gomes felt some of the unsettling things in Diego’s tinted glasses had vanished.

“You’re still useful!” President Diego chuckled twice.

He just laughed, and his fat rippled like gentle ocean waves, layer upon layer.

After laughing twice, he stopped. “Good—it’s useful, and if it’s useful, there’s work to do. I can’t stand people who sit idle.”

“I know what you want to say, Gomes. This isn’t something I can decide—it’s up to the Jide Republic and the Alliance Chairmen and the rest of them.”

“If they say to open the market, we must open it. Anyone who refuses to open the market is offending the entire Alliance.”

“So you don’t need to think about this matter anymore.”

“Aren’t you still able to sell some goods to the Federation?”

“Just focus on doing these things well. Be careful now—this isn’t the past.”

As he spoke, Diego’s face showed deep dissatisfaction, but he had no way out.

Let alone that Lapaa was never the strongest nation in the Yalan region.

Even if it were, it couldn’t possibly fight all ten other nations at once.

The pressure from the Federation is too great. Whoever dares to ruin the fragile situation won through negotiation becomes a criminal against the entire Yalan region—and will be attacked by all.

As a hereditary president, he shared certain traits with the senatorial lords in the Federation Congress.

Both sought stability, avoiding chaos.

The wealth he and his family had plundered here was enough to waste for a lifetime.

After leaving the presidential palace, Gomes’s face was grim. He hadn’t told the full truth just now—full market opening meant Federation people could buy cheap goods from the commoners and resell them in the Federation.

His only option now was to barely maintain the Lapaa Chamber of Commerce. After all, a dead camel is still bigger than a horse. With his current title, he had to think hard about how to profit from it.

He returned home in his car, sat on the sofa, and drank two glasses of freshly chilled orange juice—but still found no good strategy.

The matter weighed on his chest like a stone, making it hard to breathe.

Diego was moody. If he found out Gomes had become useless…

Even with a sister, Gomes was in great danger—he’d learned too much about the ruling elite.

For example, helping them transfer money overseas.

Gomes had acquired an art trading company in the Federation. He used art purchases to legally channel funds into the Federation, then stored them in different accounts as instructed.

Of all people, only Gomes knew better than the ruling elite themselves how many accounts they held and how much money they had.

Once he truly lost his usefulness, his fate was obvious.

This was one reason he went to any lengths to become a traitor to his nation—he had fewer escape routes than anyone else.

Others might be poorer, but at least they could live to old age.

He, however, might meet God any day.

People in Lapaa also believed in God. It was said that early Federation missionaries had crossed the sea to Yalan and ignited the spark of faith.

Like the Federation people, they all worshipped God and begged His help in trouble—but they had no desire to actually meet Him.

Just as Gomes was racking his brain to extend his power and wealth, to secure his future, the phone rang.

Gomes answered the call carefully, speaking softly and clearly: “This is Gomes.”

He knew a man had once shouted loudly and startled Diego—Diego had killed that man and his entire family.

The voice on the other end made his mouth slowly open wide, then his face lit up with surprise and joy!

“This is Lans. I’ve just arrived in Lapaa. How do I find you?”

(End of Chapter)