Empire of Shadows

At night, a smuggling ship cut its engine as it approached the waters near Goldport City, and all lights on board were extinguished.

This was a smuggling ship from Yalan, carrying approximately 250,000 bottles of smuggled liquor.

This was a routine smuggling operation. They had arranged to meet in this area, their task being to unload the liquor onto the recipient's ship and leave with the cash.

Smuggling was now much more difficult than before, with success rates not very high even in the middle of the night.

Coast Guard vessels constantly patrolled the waters, searching for fishing boats in need of assistance or smuggling ships.

They were equipped with advanced equipment; the sound of engines and lights could be detected from afar. Times were getting tougher, and if the liquor itself wasn't so cheap, they likely wouldn't be doing this.

The cost of producing 250,000 bottles of liquor in Yalan was probably only around 70,000 to 80,000.

A 300% profit margin was enough to drive anyone crazy.

In the darkness, they blended into the moonlit sea and the dark night sky.

If someone didn't know they were there, it would be difficult to spot them.

Everyone on board waited quietly, sometimes for an hour or two.

Someone couldn't resist the urge to smoke. He put a cigarette in his mouth, took out a lighter, and as he flicked it, he was slapped on the head.

"Do you want to be thrown overboard to the sharks?" a man who was clearly a small boss scolded. "Have you forgotten what the Boss said?"

"If you want to smoke, wait until we've unloaded the goods."

"If you attract the Coast Guard because you lit a flame, you and your family will go to hell!"

The eyes that were initially filled with dissatisfaction and resentment gradually softened and became submissive.

Under the moonlight, the small boss looked at the young man before him, the faint light reflecting off his eyes, carrying a hint of coldness.

"I was wrong..."

"Yeah, next time if you do that again, I'll throw you overboard."

Soon, someone suddenly shouted, "A ship is coming, three o'clock."

They looked towards three o'clock, but it was pitch black, and they couldn't see anything.

The guy making the judgment had a special receiver for listening to sounds, which could gather surrounding sounds, making even faint noises clear.

About four or five minutes after he spoke, a glimmer of light appeared on the sea.

A larger fishing boat, its lights seemingly broken, flickered constantly.

Only these smugglers knew the meaning of those flickering lights.

It was a secret code for contact. Only when the code was matched would they reveal themselves.

Watching the other party's lights flash the complete code three times in a row, the small boss allowed the lights to be turned on.

Soon, the smuggling ship began to respond with lights in the same way, and the other party easily spotted their location.

After confirming the code, the two sides gradually approached each other, and the people from the receiving ship used ropes to connect the two ships, allowing their people to jump onto the smuggling ship.

The Black Society members responsible for receiving the goods and the smuggling small boss embraced each other. This wasn't their first meeting, nor was it the first shipment they were responsible for.

After a few casual words, the receiver, led by others, entered the ship's cabin.

The cabin was full of liquor. He randomly selected a case, opened it, and carefully examined it for a while under the dim light.

From the liquor's foam formed by the rolling, from its color when illuminated at night, and everything else.

Finally, he opened a bottle, poured a little for himself, and tasted it.

"This batch is excellent!" he praised sincerely.

The "cost" of this liquor, including the Black Society's production and the profit they wanted for bringing it here, was about 55 per bottle.

But its price in bars was over 200 per bottle.

And that wasn't the craziest thing. The craziest thing was the whiskeys with a cost price of only a dozen yuan, which were basically priced at seventy or eighty yuan per bottle in bars, and some could even sell for a hundred.

With profits of several times, or even ten times or more, it was no wonder people went crazy for these things.

Not all liquor could be sold at high prices everywhere. Only in a few cities could liquor sell for very high prices, and Goldport City was one of them.

After chatting for a while, the leaders of the two groups shook hands and then embraced each other.

The receiver placed two briefcases on the table. The delivery man didn't skip checking whether the money was enough just because they often cooperated.

While they began to check if the money was enough, the receiver had already started arranging for his men to move the liquor out and load it onto their cargo ship.

"I heard these days that the Lance family in your area said that no bottle of liquor that has not been approved by him is allowed to enter Goldport City. Is that true?" the small boss responsible for transporting the liquor lit a cigarette.

After these liquors are loaded onto the ship in twenty minutes, everything will have nothing to do with him. It can even be said that at this moment, safety has nothing to do with him.

The money had already been put into the hidden compartment. Not to mention smoking, if he had fireworks, he wouldn't mind setting off one now.

The receiver nodded, looking a little depressed. "That's indeed the case."

He didn't seem willing to say more. The Lance family's reputation wasn't prominent outside, but within Goldport City, there were still many people who could see its strength.

It was said that the entire city's law enforcement agencies were now people from Lance. Under these circumstances, there was really no good way to get around the words and rules set by Lance.

Purchasing smuggled liquor like this could only be said to be one less purchase each time.

Usually, they would only buy about 100,000 worth of liquor each time, but this time, they bought 250,000, considering some changes in the later stages.

It wasn't that they weren't willing to buy more, but they were worried about what might happen.

If this transaction went smoothly, then they would arrange the next transaction as soon as possible, no more than a day apart.

Listening to the receiver's admission, the delivery small boss sneered. He patted his holster, "If I were you, I would let him know how great a sin it is to stop others from making money."

The receiver didn't intend to continue arguing about this issue. These monkeys from the Yalan tropical jungle didn't understand the terror of the Lance family at all.

The Lance family could now be said to have completely established its power. Once they took action, it wouldn't just be a gang fight, but the police would cooperate with them to enforce the law.

If you fire a gun, you're assaulting the police.

If you don't fire a gun, then they will fire first.

There's no solution.

The reason they dared to trade now was actually exploiting a loophole. Lance said it would start from October, and it wasn't October yet.

As the two were chatting, suddenly several light sources appeared on the surrounding sea surface. Some high-powered searchlights instantly targeted them, and shouts from loudspeakers echoed on the surrounding sea.

"This is the Likalai State Coast Guard. Everyone immediately raise your hands and stand on the deck to accept our contact."

"Repeat, this is the Likalai State Coast Guard. Everyone immediately raise your hands and stand on the deck to accept our contact."

Whether it was the people who were moving the liquor or those who were escorting the goods and had completely relaxed, they were all stunned.

The blinding searchlights made it impossible for them to open their eyes, but they quickly reacted.

Two different attitudes emerged among the people on the ship.

The Black Society members from Goldport City who came to receive the goods raised their hands one after another and stood in the most conspicuous places.

But those members of the smuggling group from Yalan tried to fight back.

The expression of panic appeared on the face of the cadre in charge of receiving the goods. He watched the guy who had just been chatting with him take out a rifle from under a tarpaulin, and his entire consciousness went blank for a moment!

He suddenly used all his strength to shout loudly, "Don't shoot!"

But the moment he opened his mouth, the gunfire also rang out, and the words he shouted did not have any effect!

More than one gun, more than one burst of bullets was fired, one of the searchlights was shattered, the light suddenly dimmed a lot, and then they began to shoot at another searchlight.

Their idea was very simple: shatter these searchlights, then use all their strength to escape directly on the dark sea. They had a high probability of being able to escape.

If they were caught, they didn't know what they would face. It was possible that their families would also suffer the Boss's wrath because they were caught.

This kind of thing happened often in Yalan, and they often heard about so-and-so losing a batch of goods or a batch of money, and then the whole family being thrown into the sea to feed the fish.

So their only thought now was to find a way to leave here!

But they clearly underestimated the firepower of these Coast Guards and overestimated themselves.

In the horrified eyes of these people from the Goldport City Black Society who were receiving the goods, the three armed ships on the sea directly opened fire.

The bullets fired by the autocannons could no longer be called bullets, they were small shells!

The tongues of flame spewed out by the quad-mounted autocannon ports were like a powerful long sword in the night, tearing through the darkness!

The expression of fear on the face of the contact person solidified at this moment. A companion next to him was instantly torn in half by a bullet the size of a child's arm, and blood and internal organs splattered all over the surrounding deck.

His face even had a small piece of intestines or something hanging on it.

People were constantly being torn apart, and the ship's hull groaned under the strafing fire. With a loud "Boom!" the surrounding sea visibly sank a little.

The two ships on the sea also swayed violently.

"Fack, fack!"

He could only lie down, trying as much as possible not to become a target in the storm of metal.

This "downpour" came suddenly and ended quickly.

When the gunner on the armed vessel realized there were no more bullets, he licked his lips with some satisfaction, "That was fun, it's just the ammunition belt was too short."

"They should design longer ammunition belts…"

A sea breeze dispersed the gunpowder smoke, leaving only two lifeless floating objects like ghost ships on the tranquil sea in the distance.

They lowered a small boat, and some fully armed men boarded it, approaching the two ships.

Although the firepower coverage was short, it almost destroyed the two ships, and they were slowly sinking.

Some of the gang members who had not been hit cried out for help, but were only met with a flurry of bullets.

A dozen minutes later, the two ships sank to the bottom of the sea, but before they did, they used a floating beacon to mark the spot.

As veteran members of the Coast Guard, they knew very well that these kinds of deals were basically cash transactions.

In other words, there could be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash down there.

It was too dark to operate well, so they would come back tomorrow morning after daybreak to find the money inside.

Each person, without exaggeration, could get a thousand or two dollars, which wouldn't be a problem.

After confirming there were no survivors, the small boat began to return, and they would continue to search the surrounding waters.

Because Lance said that no bottle of alcohol was allowed to enter Goldport City without his permission!

The next morning, at the customs wharf, two merchants were surrounding a customs officer, constantly trying to stuff gold bars and other things that represented wealth into the officer's hands.

But the customs officer blocked them all, whether it was these things or money, he didn't want any of it, nor did he dare to want it.

"Help me out, after this is over, I can give you another number!"

They called themselves merchants, but the gangster vibe they radiated couldn't be washed away.

They had been notified early in the morning to clear customs, which was originally a good thing, but the terrible thing was that their container had been randomly selected for inspection.

This was really too bad!

Unlike those gangs who were still trying to smuggle alcohol and beverages on smuggling ships, these gangs were obviously more "advanced". They disguised their alcohol as other goods, then went through the formal customs clearance process, and then entered the Goldport City wharf warehouse.

After repackaging, they could be sent to designated locations, and then the sales gangs would bottle it themselves, put on the labels, and it would be a bottle of original imported wine.

Goldport City is a super port, with the largest throughput in the Northern Hemisphere. The customs here cannot check every container, so they have always used random inspections.

They randomly select some containers for inspection based on various factors such as arrival batch and origin of goods.

The probability of being selected is very small, and even if they are selected, they have ways to solve the problem, which is to give money.

Opening the container to take a look is also considered an inspection. Opening the container not only to take a look, but also to go inside and randomly open some goods to check the bottom is also a kind of inspection.

Given enough money, most of the customs officers will raise their hands high and put them down gently.

But this time, he didn't know why the customs officer in front of him, who had cooperated with them before, wouldn't accept the money.

"Fifteen thousand!"

The guy behind him couldn't help but offer a higher price, "I guarantee that as soon as the container leaves the wharf, I'll let you see the money immediately."

The customs officer glanced at him sideways, and considering that the other party had given him money before, he said softly, "You should say these words to Mr. Lance. As long as he calls me now and tells me it's okay to release the goods, I'll sign the inspection form directly."

The small merchant's face turned black, "Can't we discuss it at all?"

"No one will know what you did!"

The customs officer shook his head, "I can't gamble my family's happiness on them not knowing."

"I can't afford to gamble, and I can't afford to lose!"

He paused for a moment, then pushed past the two men, "Sorry, I still have work to do, you don't have much time left."

The two men looked at the customs officer's departing back, exchanging glances, their eyes filled with disappointment and even despair.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods would most likely be confiscated.

Once a container is randomly inspected and contraband is found, all containers in that batch must be fully inspected.

Those wines exported in oil drums under the name of soybean oil would definitely be discovered.

They now only had one question, how did the customs find their container?

Hundreds of containers were piled together, and even they themselves couldn't accurately find their own container, so why could the customs find it?

They didn't understand, but that wasn't important, what was important was that this batch of goods was finished.

Sharing the same frustrated and desperate mood as them were two trucks on the road leading into Goldport City.

The drivers stood on the side of the road, their trucks had been stopped by patrol officers, and the drivers were explaining that they didn't know what was in the trucks, nor could they open them casually, otherwise they wouldn't be able to explain to their company.

But the police demanded that they open the cargo hold immediately, otherwise they would not be allowed to enter Goldport City, and even talked about arresting them!

"I've never encountered anything like this before, do you see this lead seal?"

"This is the lead seal that the company put on after loading the goods. If I open it casually, I will have to compensate for all the losses."

"God, I'm just an ordinary driver, why do you have to make things difficult for me!"

A patrol officer, with his hands on his hips, said, "We can give you a certificate stating that we requested a temporary inspection of the goods in the truck. If they don't pay you, or want you to compensate, you can sue them, and we can provide assistance."

But the driver obviously didn't agree with this, the bearded driver complained loudly, wearing a sleeveless leather jacket, looking a little fierce, "Why do you have to make things difficult for me?"

"What did I do wrong to make me encounter such a thing?"

"I'm not someone to be bullied!"

When he got emotionally excited, he took two steps towards the patrol officer, his tall figure and fierce appearance making the patrol officer tense up immediately. They immediately pulled out their guns, loudly demanding that the other party retreat and lie on the ground.

Sometimes, when emotions run high, people lose their minds. The driver felt that he was being deliberately harassed again and again. He kept waving his arms forward while expressing his views with a flushed face.

But he was too excited, and as an old Federal citizen, he hadn't been treated like this for a long time.

This was something that only those dark-skinned people could enjoy. He thought that those police officers wouldn't shoot.

He thought…