Empire of Shadows

After Deputy Director Duke left the Koda family's manor, he immediately called Director Blue, "I'm out. Is that all I need to do?"

"Yes, that's all. You might have to run a few more errands in the next few days. It will be over soon."

"Okay, just let me know when the time comes."

"I'm going to be busy with other things."

The purge was nearing its end, but it wasn't completely over. He still had a lot of work to do.

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He was actually very curious, but he also knew that you could ask certain questions, but don't ask questions that he shouldn't know. That would only bring trouble to himself.

Director Blue looked at Lance after hanging up the phone, "I don't quite understand..."

He was actually very confused. What was the point of doing this?

Threatening and intimidating Bandi with these past cases?

It didn't seem to have any practical significance, because the executor was Stone. Even if he said that Bandi instructed him to do these things, it wouldn't directly incriminate Bandi.

He would hire a lawyer, and the lawyer would help him find every possible way to escape conviction. Moreover, so much time had passed with these cases that a lot of evidence might have been lost.

It would be very difficult to send him in through these cases.

Lance shook his head slightly, "I just want to make him panic. Fear and panic can make people lose control and the ability to think calmly. Only when he is panicked enough will he continue to make mistakes."

"We don't have much time!" Lance emphasized his tone a little, "We can't just follow the procedures in time. We can only force him to make mistakes and then quickly solve him."

"Stone started to get involved in family affairs before he even graduated from high school. He was already responsible for some work when he was in his early twenties. It's been more than ten years. How much of the Koda family's criminal facts and evidence do you think he has mastered?"

"They will definitely try everything to get rid of Stone."

"The more he knows, the more it spreads, the more Bandi wants to get rid of him as soon as possible."

"Stone hasn't fully cooperated with us without reservation. We need him to take another step forward, but this step can't be pushed by us, it has to be pushed by others."

"Just once is enough to push him far enough!"

Director Blue listened carefully, analyzed, and finally strongly agreed with Lance's view.

Who knows if he has left any evidence behind after more than ten years?

Moreover, as Stone reveals more and more content, maybe in a certain case, he can send himself in.

They won't wait forever. The longer they wait, the more passive they become. They must take the initiative.

"Then what should I do?"

In this "great wave", if he doesn't do something, he will feel incomplete.

He won't have that sense of heavy historical participation, and he won't have the feeling that he is also one of the creators of history.

Once people have power and have no worries, they will think a lot and start to become a little philosophical.

This is all brought about by a comfortable life and work. He wouldn't have considered these things before, but now he does.

"Just follow the plan."

That afternoon, some newspapers began to report on these old cases. The Tide Newspaper even used a very sensational headline—

"Ten Years, One Hundred Murders: Revealing the Bloody and Cruel Internal Strife of a Certain Family"

This headline was fully qualified to be put on The Federal Daily. The reported content was only a part, introducing the mysterious disappearance of about several important managers of the Koda family.

Some of these people were their employees, and some were also surnamed Koda and were from the same family, but they all disappeared in the end.

The report used some vague words to describe and speculate on the entire process, although all the endings did not clearly point the finger at anyone.

But anyone who has read the report can taste a special flavor from it. They are talking about the Koda family.

Coupled with the recent series of events targeting the Koda family, the entire King's Port City and even the surrounding areas have begun to discuss these matters.

The more people discuss, the more bizarre the information people spread.

Even though Lance hasn't produced evidence that they killed a hundred of their own people in ten years, overnight, distorted rumors began to appear.

Like, "Bandi is actually not from the Koda family. He is a person with a different surname pretending to be one, and his purpose is to eliminate the Koda family's bloodline."

Or, "They have actually killed tens of thousands of people, but no one has ever dared to report these things."

Although it was outrageous and obviously fake, people were obviously more interested in and trusted these outrageous news.

The pressure formed by public opinion didn't directly put pressure on Bandi at first. How many years have those mud-legged people outside been discussing the Koda family? Why would he care about these people's discussions?

But as Director Blue stated that some people hoped that the federal government could give the people the truth, they hoped to restart these investigations.

Director Blue also decided to restart the investigation into these missing cases, and at the same time called on the entire society, if anyone knows anything, or has any evidence, they can submit it to them.

They can ensure that the person providing the evidence will not be exposed to the Koda family's sight, and they have also set up special mailboxes and telephones.

Media reporters used reports that "people are calling in almost every minute, saying some news that may be related to the Koda family's crimes" to give people a feeling that "everyone is working together to push down the wall of the Koda family".

Including Bandi himself, he became very anxious. He really couldn't remember every time he silenced someone, and he couldn't guarantee that every silencing was clean.

Some things that were not done by them, but were framed on them by rumors, he himself couldn't fully distinguish, and some he had never even heard of.

That's why he became more and more uneasy.

You can't care about the malice of one or two people, but when the malice of ten thousand, millions of people gathers into a sea, no one can withstand it.

In addition to this matter, there was another thing that made him feel very bad, that was that Stone really didn't die, and was still with Lance's people.

Someone saw him sitting in the car, and then the family members began to look for information about him everywhere, and they really found it.

They discovered that Stone was currently living in a villa in the New Bay Area. That place was next to the Empire District, almost sticking to Lance's territory.

Letting him live there must also be Lance's arrangement and decision, in addition to hiding him, it is also convenient to manage him.

Bandi didn't tell Gory these things, he was afraid that Gory would be distracted and directly send someone to deal with Stone.

He has said enough content that he shouldn't have said. He should shut up!

During these few days, Stone was controlled in this villa. Lance didn't even stop him from contacting the outside world, as long as Lance's people were watching beside him when he made a call.

But even so, he didn't contact the outside world, because he didn't know how to face those people he used to know, and how to face his family.

He sold a lot of information to Lance. He felt that he couldn't be blamed for this, after all, he had died twice.

But to say that he didn't feel any guilt or embarrassment at all was actually wrong.

He was very guilty, and sometimes he would hate himself for not having the courage to choose suicide. In fact, he can completely do what he wants to do now.

But he just didn't have the courage to do that, he didn't know how to describe his current feeling.

Sometimes he would even think that if everyone who knew him was dead, maybe he could get real liberation.

But soon he would deny these thoughts himself. He felt like he was going crazy.

In just a short while, he began to stare blankly, and then came back to his senses, focusing his attention back on the newspaper.

The newspaper mentioned that the federal government held a relatively professional expert discussion meeting. After discussion, the experts believed that the core reason for the current economic depression was the unreasonable distribution of social resources.

A large amount of funds are stored in the accounts of those rich people, and do not participate in social circulation, so people originally have no money in their pockets. In order to improve their ability to resist risks, they can only continue to save money.

This leads to the fact that after one or two simple circulations, money becomes waste paper in a certain sense.

Without consumption, the efficiency of stores decreases, factories cannot get the final payment, and cannot pay wages to workers.

And workers who cannot get wages or cannot get full wages dare not spend money indiscriminately, which forms a terrible vicious circle.

Experts have always believed that this society is very wealthy, but it is only because funds cannot circulate that the current depression has been created.

For example, those rich people, big capitalists.

They are willing to spend money and like to spend money, but they only account for a very small part of the whole society after all.

Their consumption cannot drive the economy of the entire country at all. Only when all ordinary people consume together can it work.

The solution to this problem is very simple. Re-adjust the way resources are distributed, let the capitalists release some profits, and let the people become richer.

When people have money, they will have the desire to consume, and commodities and wealth will begin to circulate in all aspects. Everyone will get a part of the benefits because of the circulation of wealth. This is a healthy way of operation.

However, it is basically impossible to persuade capitalists to increase wages for workers by relying on this method.

They would rather go bankrupt together than return the value that originally belonged to the workers' labor to them.

Looking at these reports, Stone felt very bored. He didn't understand these things. He had never been bothered by money since he was born.

He flipped through it, but there wasn't anything interesting. He tossed the newspaper onto the coffee table and walked over to the window.

Outside, the sun was shining brightly, and everything seemed full of life. He suddenly had an urge to go out for a walk, but the urge was just an urge because he knew Lance wouldn't allow it.

He stood by the window, his mind wandering again. Suddenly, he heard a 'thud' sound, followed by a second and a third.

A white, layered crack the size of an egg suddenly appeared on the floor-to-ceiling window in front of him, then a second, and a third.

They were bullet marks!

He realized what was happening. Seeing more marks on the glass wall, he cursed and fled into the room.

When he realized that he might already be dead if it weren't for the bulletproof glass, he began to tremble uncontrollably.

Lance had killed him twice, giving him an unspeakable, deep-seated fear of death, a shudder that went to the marrow of his bones and the depths of his soul!

He sat in the room, locked the door, and picked up the phone, but the phone line had already been cut.

He could only pray, pray that the people Lance had arranged to come were at least somewhat useful.

Outside, a rifleman was grimly preparing to put away his weapon. He didn't understand how afraid of death the owner of that house was, that he had actually used bulletproof glass, causing this assassination attempt to fail.

The person behind him walked over. "Don't put it away, we'll storm in."

The rifleman looked sideways at him, as if asking, "Are you sure?" The other person nodded. "Bandi wants us to take care of Stone as soon as possible. We can't let him keep talking."

The rifleman re-positioned the bolt-action rifle. "I'll provide fire support."

Before he could finish speaking, he saw several cars smash through the gate of the villa on the other side and rush in.

Close-quarters gun battle broke out immediately, with gunfire everywhere. He also provided support from time to time.

The intense gunfire echoed throughout the Xin Wan district in a very short time. What they didn't expect was that this was a trap.

Soon, a large number of police surrounded the area and began to advance layer by layer. All those who resisted were shot dead.

Lance had said that these minor characters, it didn't matter whether they lived or died.

The rifleman and the person beside him wanted to escape, but it was too late. After a few minutes of stalemate, the two finally chose to lay down their weapons.

Those bottom-level family members desperately tried to kill Stone for the stability of the family and the orders of the upper echelons.

And the true beneficiaries of the family behind them did not hesitate to lay down their weapons.

It has always been like this in this world. It is always the soldiers who are not afraid of death, while the generals often sit at the table of the victors as prisoners of war, enjoying a sumptuous dinner!

Ten minutes later, the door to the room where Stone was hiding was knocked. His body trembled slightly.

From the time the gunshots stopped until now, he didn't know what was happening outside. The unknown knocking disturbed his tense nerves.

He looked uneasily at the door.

But then Lance's voice came from outside the door, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

He had never been so… filled with goodwill toward a person he should hate.

And not just goodwill, Lance's voice also brought a sense of security. He walked to the door and opened the complicated lock.

Lance stood outside the door.

"Are you injured?"

Stone shook his head. "The bulletproof glass helped me block the bullets."

Now, recalling the fear he felt when several 'bullet flowers' suddenly appeared on the glass curtain wall in front of him, they really hadn't planned to let him live!

Lance looked him up and down, then told him to follow him downstairs. "We've caught these people. Maybe you know them?"

"Want to see?"

Stone was silent for a while, then silently followed Lance downstairs.

As soon as he went downstairs, he saw two people standing in the living room.

He didn't recognize one of them, probably not a powerful figure, but he recognized the other one. It was his cousin.

His cousin also noticed Stone, who was standing behind Lance, and who was also the target of his operation this time.

When the two met, one face was full of hatred, and the other face was calm and showed no emotion.

Stone followed Lance into the living room. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, he saw that there were still many police officers outside clearing the scene.

There were many corpses in the yard, and someone was wiping the blood stains on the glass wall with a rag.

Originally, there was only a little, but the more they wiped, the more there was, but the more transparent it became.

Stone originally wanted to ask questions such as "Why did you want to kill me?", but he quickly gave up.

What else could it be?

The fact that he was still alive was the biggest reason!

"Looks like you know each other," Lance said with a smile, sitting on the sofa.

Stone stood by the sofa, looking like Lance's subordinate. He nodded. "My cousin."

"F*ck!"

"Don't call me cousin, it makes me feel sick!"

His cousin shouted loudly, seeming to have some courage. He seemed to hate Stone very much, and even said things like, "I don't have a cousin like you. You should have died the moment you were caught…"

Stone's expression changed constantly, with guilt, dissatisfaction, and a hint of inexplicable disgust.

In fact, Lance could understand his current mood, probably similar to the feeling of "You're not me, do you know how I've been living these past few days?"

In order to allow the cousins to communicate better, Lance glanced at the gang member behind the rifleman.

The young man took out a steel cable with two antlers connected to it and tightly strangled the rifleman's neck while he wasn't paying attention.

He strangled hard while pulling upwards.

In the shocked and terrified eyes of Stone's cousin, his face quickly began to turn red.

At first, he could still deal with the matter relatively rationally. He tried to insert his fingers between his neck and the noose, hoping to apply force to allow himself to breathe.

But as he failed to do this, his reason began to dissipate under the strong influence of his desire to survive.

He struggled frantically, tearing at the noose around his neck with all his might, scratching his neck until it was a bloody mess.

His flushed, bluish face was slightly tilted, and he looked at Stone's cousin with a pair of pleading eyes, expressing his desire to live.

He struggled constantly, struggling in vain. Finally, his face was already a little purplish, and his eyeballs were bulging outwards. He beat the person behind him hard, but in the end, his movements lost their strength.

He died with fear of death in his eyes, attachment to living, resentment towards Stone's cousin for not saving him, and many, many other emotions.

He was looking at Stone's cousin until his death.

The room was very quiet. There were even police officers here, but the police turned a blind eye to the murder that was happening right under their noses.

Lance looked at Stone's cousin. "Do you want to prove that you have more courage than your cousin?"