Chapter 186

William’s supervisor was also an old Federation citizen and a local. He was very familiar with Golden Port’s development over the years.

When William mentioned the Empire District, he suddenly realized that this must be related to the Lance family, which had been developing rapidly in the Empire District recently.

But he wouldn’t say it out loud; this was their most basic rule. “The development momentum in the Empire District has been fierce lately, William. I think you have a great chance.”

As he spoke, he stood up, walked around from behind his desk, and headed towards William, extending both hands as he walked.

Handshakes also have their etiquette. It wasn’t just a matter of reaching out and shaking hands.

In different situations, who extends their hand first, who extends it second, and whether there are other actions—all of these convey very different meanings.

William immediately noticed these changes. He also proactively extended his hand, took two steps forward to meet his supervisor, and their four hands clasped together, shaking firmly.

“I’m truly reluctant to see you leave. With you here, I never had to worry about anything not getting done. You are more important to this office than I am!”

William had a smile on his face, seeming to agree with his words, but he didn’t take them seriously.

In twenty years, he had remained a staff member, not the head of the office or in charge of a department. He knew very well in his heart whether he was important or not.

But the reason the other party was saying these things now was simply that he recognized William was different from the past and now had backing.

The Lance family not only represented the voter leanings of the Empire District but also represented campaign funds.

In an era where elections were commercialized, money was more important than ability!

With votes, funds, and the certain support of the Federation Party, he already possessed the basic conditions to become a city councilman.

Perhaps the next time they met, it would be in the hall of the city council chamber, with the supervisor sitting in the last row as an observer.

And he, Mr. William Lawrence, would be sitting at the long table closest to the center of power, with only himself in that row!

After the two exchanged final pleasantries, the supervisor escorted him to the entrance of the office building before watching him leave.

The value of power and its meaning for one’s life—at this moment, William felt it more clearly than ever!

In the past, although his supervisor was nice to him, that niceness was just the ordinary niceness shown to a capable employee.

Not like now, where he even walked around the desk to shake his hand and saw him out.

Was it because he was genuinely capable at work?

No, it was because the other party believed that he might become someone they would have to look up to!

A surge of ambition emanated from the depths of his heart. He clenched his fists, looked back at this not-so-special building that nonetheless represented the public face of power in the city, and then turned and got into his old car.

“Darling, if I’m not mistaken, now should be your work time,” Emily said, flipping through a fashion and home life magazine.

The bi-weekly ladies’ themed gathering was about to begin. This time, their focus of discussion was “Modern Living.”

This word was currently in vogue. They had talked about it more than once, but they still enjoyed discussing this topic.

Making one’s life stylish and refined, turning it into a model that everyone envied, seemed to be the favorite pastime of the middle class.

At this moment, William was like a beast. He tossed his briefcase by the door, took off his coat, and walked towards Emily.

Seeing his demeanor, the latter hugged a pillow. “Darling, you’re scaring me a little!”

William made no effort to hide his desire to vent. “I need to relax a bit…”

A dozen or so minutes later, William was lying against the headboard, smoking. Emily was very satisfied; this had been the longest he had lasted in several years.

The room was heated, and she lay horizontally in front of him. “Darling, is there any good news you need to share with me?”

“I resigned,” William said, then rolled over and stood up. Before Emily could react, he walked into the bathroom. “I’m having dinner with Lance tonight, if he has time.”

“At home?”

“No, out…”

Before six o’clock, Lance looked at the phone in his hand and found it a bit strange, but he still agreed to William’s request to meet, especially after hearing that William had resigned.

This was not quite in line with their plan. According to Lance’s plan, William was supposed to resign in late April or early May, not now.

Twenty minutes later, William drove up to the Empire of Night nightclub. He was wearing a beige long trench coat and a dark soft felt hat. His face was hidden under the brim, not even illuminated by the neon lights of the Empire of Night.

Because the Empire of Night was now selling alcohol, there were people watching the door, but it was clear that Lance had already given instructions, and William entered the main entrance directly.

It was a bit stuffy here; he felt it as soon as he came in. Led by a young man, he walked through the main hall.

There were already some performances on stage in the hall. Girls in revealing clothes were dancing hand in hand on the stage.

It was strange; Federation citizens, especially Federation men, seemed to have no resistance to this kind of dance where the performers wore bling-bling two-piece outfits and exposed their thighs, constantly lifting their legs.

The girls’ decorations were exquisite, with white sequins that reflected a psychedelic luster when the colored lights shone on them.

And on the ceiling, a row of large lights illuminated their legs.

Every pair of legs was different, but they all shared a common feature: they were healthy and well-rounded.

The men sitting below were constantly whistling, and some threw coins or banknotes onto the stage.

Below the stage, girls in bunny costumes, carrying trays, constantly moved between the bar and each individual table. The fluffy bunny tail always made one want to give it a squeeze.

The air was filled with the intoxicating scent of indulged desire. He withdrew his gaze, knowing he couldn’t look any longer.

After arriving upstairs, he saw Lance. There were some other people sitting here as well. They all looked at William, which made him a bit nervous.

A girl stood up, walked to his side, and gestured for him to take off his coat and hat.

He was stunned for a moment before realizing, and then felt a bit embarrassed amidst the girl’s soft laughter. “Sorry!”

The girl, however, was quite nonchalant. “It’s alright, you don’t really need to be so nervous.”

Lance was on the phone. Seeing William arrive, he ended the call.

It was from Alberto. He was coming back soon, bringing some good things for Lance, as well as two new friends he had met. He asked Lance to pick him up, and then they would take the new friends to have some fun in Golden Port together.

To this, Lance had no objection.

“Please sit. Have you eaten?”

William shook his head. “Not yet, but I had a little something on the way to tide me over.”

“Our chef here is good. I’ll have someone send up some food…” The first sentence was directed at William, the latter at Elvin.

He made a gesture, and the young men in the room all left. Lance wanted to talk to him alone.

“Why the sudden resignation?” Lance opened his cigarette case, took one out, and tossed it to William. Soon, the two of them were puffing away.

“The Socialist Party representatives will be staying in Golden Port for the next few days. Do you know about this?”

Lance nodded. “I know. Are you planning to use their power to do something for you?”

William became animated, his mood growing somewhat euphoric. “Didn’t we talk about it before, regarding the matter of illegal immigrants obtaining legal status?”

Lance, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, nodded. “Yes, but it’s very difficult to do, as we discussed before.”

“Now’s our chance!” William said with conviction. Lance became interested and gestured for him to continue.

“Right now, for the Socialist Party to win the approval of the grassroots voters, they must find a way to solve some social pain points, to make people realize they aren’t just clowns who only know how to play power games.”

“So, that’s why the party representatives are running around to every state. They want to do something.”

“The Liberal Party’s media blitz is very fierce, especially in the neutral states.”

In this era where information flow was not yet smooth, let alone what was happening in the next state, even if something happened in the next city, no one would know if it wasn’t reported.

The Socialist Party wouldn’t proactively report that they were facing a terrible situation in the neutral states, and the Liberal Party wouldn’t report that they were evenly matched with the Socialist Party; it would sound like they were naturally inferior to the Socialists.

As for the Federation Party, they believed it was not yet the right time.

So, the Socialist Party representatives were, on one hand, denouncing Mr. President’s previous bullshit actions within the party, and on the other, trying to find ways to capture the voters and public opinion.

“Illegal immigrants in the Federation are a huge group. If we can let them see that the illegal immigrants can stand on their side, then they might continue to push the previous plan to grant illegal immigrants status.”

Although there was no one around, he still lowered his voice, acting very mysteriously. Perhaps this was the essence of politics—selfish and secretive!

“There are two to three hundred thousand illegal immigrants in Golden Port. If these people can be converted into legal immigrants, even with only a ten percent conversion rate, that’s still tens of thousands of voters.”

“Then let’s lower the expectation a bit, five percent. That’s still ten to twenty thousand voters.”

“The Socialist Party gave them status and rights, so wouldn’t it be natural for them to vote for the Socialist Party?”

Lance listened intently, nodding continuously in agreement. “Then what about the Liberal Party?”

“They won’t just do nothing, right?”

“Even we know there’s a huge opportunity hidden in this. They’ve always wanted to defeat the Socialist Party, and they almost succeeded this time. They won’t just do nothing, right?”

William revealed a slight smile. “No matter what they do, in the end, it needs the President’s signature!”

That settled it!

No matter how well you do, most people will never know about the dirty dealings and struggles between the two parties. They will only know that Mr. President signed his name on this decree, and then the decree took effect.

People will cheer “Mr. President,” not the names of those who pushed for it!

But this didn’t mean they wouldn’t do anything. They would, but only in the neutral states and on their own turf.

They wouldn’t take the initiative to do this in a place like Golden Port.

“We have to push this matter to profit from it.”

“Listen, Lance, this kind of opportunity might only come once every few years, or even a dozen years, because it has no threshold!”

“This isn’t like discussing national policies and regulations in Congress, where you must have the status of a senator or congressman to participate.”

“Right now, as long as you have the guts and the appeal, you can push this matter!”

He was referring to Lance’s blue-uniformed workers. The media had also paid attention to this group; their numbers had reached an astonishing eight or nine thousand, and it was said that they were not far from ten thousand!

To start a political movement, you don’t actually need many people, because the target of the demands won’t really count how many people there are. As long as they feel there are a lot of people, that’s enough.

After considering it for a moment, Lance nodded. “Anyway, there’s no loss if we fail.”

William pointed at him. “Exactly!”

“If we succeed, there will be no problem for us to win the Empire District together.”

“If we fail, there’s no loss for us either. The immigration bureau won’t send these eight or nine thousand people back, because they don’t have that much money!”

Lance felt it was doable. “I can organize the workers first. When are they going to the docks?”

“In three days. They’ll be socializing in the Bay Area for the next few days. You know, there are many people here who are willing to befriend them…”

Soon, Elvin brought up two servings of seafood and beef fried rice. This was not a food that Federation citizens liked; they actually preferred bread and steak, or macaroni.

Only a few people liked this, and Lance was one of them.

After a few bites, William was full of praise. He rarely ate food outside the traditional Federation diet and found it amazing.

The two ate and talked, and soon they had formulated a plan…

After finishing dinner and sorting out some details, he hurried back, looking very energetic.

At eight o’clock in the evening, as he lay in bed, he once again thought of the snow-white or wheat-colored thighs under the dazzling lights of the nightclub, and a surge of strength was once again produced in his body.

He rolled over, and amidst Emily’s startled cry, he pressed down on her again…

As for Lance, he was looking at the nightclub, whose business was clearly not as good as the previous few days, lost in thought.

The casino was shut down. Some customers came and left immediately; their purpose for coming here was to gamble.

Whether it was during the Camille gang’s operation or now, they believed this place was very stable.

Some casinos were not so stable, and the reason they were willing to come here was that they trusted the strength of the operators.

But now the casino was actually gone, so they could only go elsewhere.

A gambler and a drunkard are essentially no different. If you don’t let a drunkard drink, it’s like not letting a gambler play a few hands—he’ll go crazy!

And it wasn’t just the nightclub’s business that was doing poorly; the business at the other bars wasn’t great tonight either.

The opening of Lance’s new bars and the rumor that there were “plenty of girls” had spread among the drunks.

For a drunkard, alcohol was of course their first love, and their second love was most likely the opposite sex.

They liked money too, but they knew they couldn’t have it.

If they could have it, they would have had it long ago. And since they couldn’t, it was highly unlikely they ever would.

So, sex, on the contrary, became their second goal.

Especially when the news started to spread rapidly that someone had a couple of drinks with a girl in a bar and then took her straight home. This was even more attractive to them!

Have a drink, then get a free lay. What could be more comfortable than that?

They just didn’t know that most of those girls now were “actors.”

But even if they knew, they would most likely pounce. For those at the bottom, besides paying for pleasure and flirting with beer maids, this was one of the few places and opportunities they had to come into contact with young members of the opposite sex.

On Friday morning, Mr. Jobav’s expression was not as good as it had been the past few days. He had thought the mayor had a change of heart and hadn’t arranged too many expenses for him. It turned out it just hadn’t been his turn yet.

For the past few days, he had been footing almost the entire bill for the Socialist Party representatives’ spending in the Bay Area. Another few tens of thousands of dollars were gone.

As he wished, he got to show his face in front of the three party representatives and, under the title the mayor gave him—”the generous sponsor who provided us with all services for free”—he raised a toast to everyone.

Amidst the hypocritical interplay of light and shadow, he felt a moment of confusion.

Exchanging tens of thousands of dollars for a compliment that wasn’t from the heart and some scrutinizing gazes—was this really what he wanted?

He didn’t know.

But having come this far, if he were to leave, he couldn’t accept the sunk costs, so he could only continue forward.

The situation today was a bit better. They just had to go to the docks to chat with the dockworkers and then treat these damn workers to some hot dogs, fifteen cents each. He could afford that.

So his expression today was just not as good, rather than ugly.

The mayor’s secretary had previously hinted that he should buy a few more luxury cars, so that when they needed a car sometimes, they wouldn’t have to rent one from a rental agency.

But he had refused. He knew very well in his heart that once he really bought those cars, it would be hard to say who they would ultimately belong to.

In name, they would belong to him, but if they drove them away, could he go and ask for them back?

He couldn’t!

It was better to rent cars. Although the cost was not low, it was at least more cost-effective than buying them.

After he got dressed, he and his assistant took a car to the hotel. At 9:15, the Socialist Party representatives came down from their rooms, surrounded by a dozen or so people.

Mr. Jobav didn’t have to pay for this part; another fool was paying for it.

He now thought of the other party as a fool, but he also thought of himself as a fool—an Imperial fool who longed for recognition and entry into the Federation’s high society!

The mayor soon appeared as well. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, they all got into the luxurious motorcade and headed for the docks.

Their main purpose today was to understand the dockworkers’ current views on the Socialist Party, then do some work to appease them, and promise some things of little consequence in exchange for their continued support for the Socialist Party…

The start of the motorcade startled the birds foraging outside the hotel. The birds flapped their wings and flew into the sunless sky, which always felt a bit strange.

(End of this chapter)