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On the bell tower of St. Nayea Cathedral, standing here and looking around gives one a very strange feeling.
In the modernized city, there is a small piece of tranquility. Perhaps this is why some people always love to go to church on weekends.
They are able to find some spiritual peace here, which in turn makes them believe that this peace is a gift from God.
Mr. Jobav leaned on the railing, gazing into the distance. When Lance came up the stairs, the expression with which he looked at Lance held something hard to describe.
Envy, jealousy, various emotions were churning.
It’s just that in the past, he would hide these emotions well, but now, it was already very difficult for him to hide them.
“I heard you were looking for me to chat.” Mr. Jobav glanced down the stairs at Hiram, who was discussing with Ethan why people don’t need to wear clothes when they ascend to heaven. The priest actually didn’t stop these blasphemers from coming in?
From Hiram’s remarks full of dissatisfaction with heaven, it could be seen that he lacked reverence for God.
But soon his attention returned to Lance, and he turned around, “There have been some rumors outside recently, which have caused me a lot of trouble.”
Lance walked to the window. The bell tower wasn’t actually very high, only about five or six stories tall, but one could already see some of the surrounding scenery.
He nodded, “What are they about, roughly?”
Mr. Jobav said, “About my bank not being very safe. I heard their views from some people in the Empire Merchants Association, which has caused some people to start withdrawing money. This has caused me trouble.”
“What is it that has made them so irrational?”
“Irrational?” Lance repeated, using a rising tone at the end. “No, in my opinion, this is precisely the most rational choice.”
“People are not fools, Mr. Jobav.”
“If you didn’t give them a sense of crisis, rumors would have no room to survive. But if they find that you are making them feel endangered, then the rumors will become more and more terrifying.”
“If you want to know what caused all this, you might as well think about what you have done to make people no longer trust you.”
Mr. Jobav looked at Lance, “Is it just because I went over to the mayor’s side and plan to run for the Empire District councilman?”
Lance did not deny it, “That’s one of the reasons.”
“Then what about the others?” Mr. Jobav felt a trace of curiosity. He wanted to know what other reasons there were, even with some anger. He felt that Lance was lying.
He was trying to use a flimsy, unreliable reason to cover up the fact that he was doing this just to make William win the election!
Lance did not answer his question immediately, but said with a smile, “Have you noticed that you’ve recently become a bit… I’m not very good at describing it. If you know what ‘overbearing’ means.”
“It probably means that you’ve become less willing to allow others to offend you. You’ve become more majestic.”
Just as Mr. Jobav was about to say something, Lance’s next sentence plunged him into silence—”Because you feel that your class is already different from others.”
Looking at his thoughtful appearance, Lance smiled, “See, class is like this.”
“When you stand with everyone, you are the admirable Mr. Jobav. You help them keep their funds, give them appropriate interest, and also lend money to the poor to help them through difficulties.”
“But now, when you are trying to stand on everyone’s head and also demand that they do as you say, it’s hard for them to admire and love you anymore. Isn’t that right?”
“You abandoned them first, not the other way around.”
Mr. Jobav lowered his voice a little, his hands also clenched into fists, “I did not!”
Lance laughed as if he had heard something funny, “If you think you didn’t, then you didn’t.”
Mr. Jobav took a few deep breaths to calm his emotions again, “I am from the Empire, and also an old immigrant. I know what the people here need…”
This time Lance did not let him finish, directly interrupting him, “No, you don’t.”
“I do!” Mr. Jobav reiterated his point of view and emphasized it with a louder tone. In fact, people would often show this kind of behavior most of the time.
When they want to persuade those who are not easily persuaded by them, they will subconsciously emphasize their tone and raise their voice.
Downstairs, Hiram, who was discussing with Ethan whether the God of the Empire and the God of the Federation were the same God and whether the two would fight, and Ethan, both looked up at the same time.
Lance raised his hand, signaling them to continue staying below.
Only then did Mr. Jobav’s tone recede again. He looked at Lance, “They want to become richer, want more jobs, more food, better living environments, want more opportunities to go to school. I have always known what they want, they…”
He said a lot. Lance just looked at him with a smile, his eyes as if looking at a fool giving a speech!
Mr. Jobav was a little angry. For some reason, he had suddenly started to get angry recently. Perhaps it was as Lance said, he already felt that he was standing on another class, standing on… the heads of the people.
So his temper was not as good as it used to be.
You would be polite to a homeless person because that is you wanting to show your refinement.
But if a homeless person does something that makes you unhappy, you will be very angry, you will lose your temper. It’s not that you lack refinement, it’s just that you feel you have been offended.
Mr. Jobav was like this. The reason he was angry was not that he had no refinement, but just that he felt that everyone’s class level was different, and you should not offend him.
He took a deep breath and stopped, looking at Lance, “Am I wrong?”
Lance shook his head, which made him even angrier, “Where am I wrong?”
Lance looked at him as if looking at a pathetic worm, “You think you understand the people here, but in fact, you don’t understand them at all. In the past, you only thought they could bring you wealth, so what you respected was not them, but the benefits they brought you.”
“Now you only see them as a resource, a kind of lower-class people, so you understand even less what they want.”
“Actually, what they want is very simple.”
“The respect you give!”
Lance shook his head and sighed, “I have other things to do. I don’t have time to talk about this with you here.”
“You won’t understand. Perhaps for the gentlemen of the upper class, this is ridiculous, but for the people at the bottom, dignity, character, is their final bottom line, a bottom line that cannot be lost, but you can’t give it to them.”
“Also, I have to remind you, those three and five dollars that you might have long looked down upon once made you, but now they can also destroy you.”
Mr. Jobav took a step forward, “You said that if I want to live well, I must first learn to be a wh—re!”
“Those were your f—king original words!” He even grabbed Lance’s collar.
Ethan and Hiram jumped up, but Lance still stopped them.
He used his own hand to pry Mr. Jobav’s fingers off one by one, while answering his question, “I told you to be a wh—re, but I didn’t tell you to be a dog!”
He pried off the last finger and patted his collar, which had been wrinkled from being grabbed, “You have been blinded by power and desire, Mr. Jobav. If you still can’t calm down.”
“Those ordinary people who once made you will eventually become the raging tide that drowns you!”
After he finished speaking, he left the bell tower without looking back, leaving only Mr. Jobav himself in disarray in the wind.
“Aren’t you going to teach him a lesson?” Hiram asked as they were going down the stairs.
In his opinion, being disrespectful to Lance was reason enough to kill him, let alone the old man grabbing Lance’s collar.
Lance shook his head, “If he still doesn’t understand what gave him his status and everything today, soon we won’t have to make a move. The people will abandon him.”
“Besides, he still has some foundation after all these years. Even if we have to make a move in the end, it won’t be us.”
“Those Federation politicians are more ruthless than you imagine. They won’t have much tolerance for a tool that is already broken.”
“What’s more, he’s not a local.”
The term “local,” Lance had already recognized its terror. Even a guy like the mayor seemed very “helpless” when facing the local powers.
But this was normal. The Federation’s system allowed each region to maintain a certain degree of independence. Being a non-local yet wanting to destroy the interests of the locals was simply ridiculous!
Even if the mayor’s proposal to build a new port district was essentially the correct choice, and the Golden Port docks would definitely be overloaded in the future, it just wouldn’t work.
At least not at this stage. And even if it were to be done, the decision-makers, the implementers, and the ultimate beneficiaries could only be locals.
In fact, it’s not just Golden Port. Other cities and regions are almost all like this. Parochialism is not a characteristic of a certain city; it is a problem and a characteristic that exists in almost all political systems.
It’s just that some places are relatively backward in economic development, so there will be fewer conflicts arising from economic interests.
Some regions, like Golden Port, have better economic development and will have more friction and contradictions than other places.
So no matter where you are, locals and outsiders are always two eternal worlds.
Hiram opened the car door. Lance stood outside the car, one foot already in the car. He looked back at Mr. Jobav on the bell tower, and Mr. Jobav happened to be looking at him.
The two looked at each other for a few seconds. Lance got into the car. Hiram closed the door and went to the passenger seat. Soon the convoy left.
Mr. Jobav looked at the distant convoy and slammed the windowsill.
He felt he had been played by Lance. He had given up his dignity and character to squeeze into high society, and now Lance was telling him that what people needed was precisely what he had discarded.
This gave him an indescribable emotion. These emotions circled and lingered in his chest, making him finally unable to resist cursing “f—k.” You know, he rarely swore, even when he was alone.
Not long after, Mr. Jobav also returned to Jinda Bank. There was still a long line of people waiting to withdraw money.
The people withdrawing money saw Mr. Jobav get out of the car and showed some embarrassed expressions, but they had no intention of leaving.
People’s way of judging “capable people” during this period was whether they could make money.
The Empire Merchants Association, which had doubled its funds in a very short time, had become rich in their eyes, so they believed the words of the rich.
Jobav looked at the long queue with a frown. At this time, his assistant walked out of the bank. He was now the vice president.
“Master.”
Having not seen each other for a while, he felt that there seemed to be some estrangement between him and his assistant, yet he didn’t know how to resolve this suffocating sense of strangeness.
He nodded and looked at the long queue. He knew he had to do something.
After they went to the office, Mr. Jobav said, “I’ve spoken with Lance. It should be him who spread the rumors. He hopes William can become the Empire District councilman.”
The assistant said, “Since he wants this position so badly, why not give it to him?”
Mr. Jobav shook his head and said, “This is the closest I’ve ever been to entering high society. If I miss this time, I may never have such an opportunity in my life.”
“Lance is a very opinionated and strong person. If we cooperate with him, we will only be a bank playing house in a corner for our whole lives. We can’t become real bankers.”
The assistant had a lot of goodwill and favorable feelings for Lance because Lance had allowed him to take revenge. He had personally tortured and killed Jimmy, allowing his nephew to find peace in heaven.
So he stood on Lance’s side, “But at least he is from the Empire. If he can go very high, we can also benefit from it.”
Mr. Jobav now felt annoyed whenever he heard Lance’s name. He raised his hand, “Alright, let’s not talk about him. Let’s first think of a way to solve the problems we are currently facing.”
“How much capital do we have that can be mobilized?”
The assistant knew these numbers by heart, “That depends on whether we want to touch those bonds and such. If we cash out the bonds, we’ll have about a million in funds that can be mobilized.”
“But if we don’t use the bonds, we only have over three hundred thousand in funds that can be used.”
Mr. Jobav couldn’t help but exclaim when he heard this number, “So little?”
The assistant looked helpless, “The public withdrawing funds is part of it. Also… you are also withdrawing a large amount of funds from the bank. Our current situation is not only unhealthy but also very dangerous.”
“Once there is a larger-scale run and shock, we will soon go bankrupt.”
Mr. Jobav finally felt that pressure. He couldn’t sit still anymore. He walked to the window and looked at the people still queuing to withdraw money. “We have to think of something.”
After a few minutes of thorough stirring, his brain finally came up with a method.
“Using rumors to fight rumors is the best way.”
“Find a way to spread some rumors, tell people that the run on Jinda Bank is a conspiracy by other big Federation banks. They want to control the wealth of the Empire immigrants and have a comprehensive understanding of their financial situation.”
“So we are the last city wall between the Empire immigrants and the Federation capitalists. If we fall, then they will have to face the Federation’s banks and vampires directly.”
“Supporting Jinda Bank is not just helping me personally, but also helping themselves.”
The assistant nodded after listening, “I will arrange for people to spread it.”
Mr. Jobav nodded, but was not very satisfied, just sighed, “Go do it.”
There were still more than six months until the final vote. He was very worried about whether he could last until then.
At this time, he thought of a business he could have always done but never did: money laundering.
Some capital within the Empire wanted to come out, become legal funds, and then enter certain Federation accounts. Someone had contacted him long ago, hoping to cooperate with him to launder money.
It’s actually very easy for a bank to launder money. He only needed to create some fictitious accounts to wash a sum of money clean.
But he had never agreed because there were great risks involved.
The Federation government and the IRS were very concerned about money laundering and tax evasion. Once it was known that Jinda Bank was involved in money laundering, then even the mayor couldn’t save him.
Secondly, the nobles of the Empire were not necessarily reliable. They might also leak some news. And once the flow of funds became too large, he would definitely be noticed by the Federation government.
But if the subsequent development of the bank became worse and worse, he might have to try to do these businesses.
The assistant spent some money to make the rumors spread faster. At the same time, Mr. Jobav also dealt with a batch of bonds to cope with the sudden bank run.
His handling was very timely. Although it didn’t stop everyone from exchanging, the bank run situation had clearly improved a lot.
Some members of the public had already started to elevate withdrawing money from Jinda Bank to the level of “assisting Federation bankers in persecuting Empire immigrants”!
For this kind of clearly confrontational topic, people’s participation was always very high.
Fortunately, this was not within the Empire, otherwise they might have raised this matter to the level of patriotism, saying things like “only depositing money in Jinda Bank is patriotic.”
Although these things did not cause Mr. Jobav to encounter a major crisis, they also made him feel nervous and further forced the tearing of his relationship with Lance.
The mayor gave Mr. Jobav great encouragement and praise after knowing about this matter and said that if necessary, he could say a few words for Mr. Jobav when interviewed by the news.
This made Mr. Jobav feel that everything he had paid was worth it!
Seeing that it was almost May, Lance took the opportunity to visit Johnny’s bakery.
Just a month’s difference, and Johnny looked to have lost at least twenty or thirty pounds. He had become a fat man with a not-so-exaggerated body shape.
Although still a fat man, he looked much healthier!
Perhaps… this was a good thing for him. Although he had lost all his wealth and his house, at least he had gained his health!