After the Lance convoy disappeared into the darkness, Dewent returned to the room, hugging his wife.
It was only then that he noticed her body was trembling slightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with concern.
A trembling body was a clear sign of discomfort or illness. He was worried his wife was sick.
Getting sick at this time was not a good thing. Although it was absurd that getting sick in the Federation had to pick a time, that was the reality.
The series of problems brought about by the war were continuously affecting society, in all aspects.
For example, the prices of various special medicines were starting to skyrocket, and they were also very difficult to buy.
After the Federation joined the military alliance, the allied countries began to purchase large quantities of various materials from the Federation.
Because of the war, many of their own industrial productions had completely stopped. They couldn’t produce them themselves and could only buy them from the Federation.
And this was also an irreconcilable contradiction between the federal government and the Dantra Republic.
Among the many commodities, medical supplies had the largest export volume.
Although everyone was an ally within the same military alliance, this did not mean that the federal government would provide various precious medicines to its allies for free.
Even if the federal government had this idea and wanted to buy a good reputation with some materials, those capitalists, medical groups, would not allow them to do so.
They believed that before the war was over, it was impossible to determine whether the currencies of these countries would still have value in the future. So now, in the trade with these countries, all medical supplies, especially some special medicines, were all traded through barter.
Medicines were exchanged for gold, jewelry, or something else, and the price had to be raised.
On the one hand, there was the relatively “cheap” domestic civilian medical market, and on the other hand, there was the “expensive” foreign medical market that traded in gold. How to choose, they no longer needed to consider.
The purpose of the capital groups in developing various special drugs was not to benefit mankind, but just to make more money.
This also led to the price of drugs within the Federation starting to rise, rising to the point where some of the middle class could not afford them, and they were also not easy to buy.
Currently, the price of the latest special anti-inflammatory drug had risen to the price of seven grams of gold per milliliter. Each injection was about five milligrams, which meant it required thirty-five grams of gold.
You might as well hope that ordinary people can recover on their own than expect them to be able to afford this.
Dewent was not too worried about not being able to afford the medicine, but he was worried that he couldn’t buy it even with money. He hugged his wife and came to the living room, let her sit down, and began to check her body.
But she held her arms and shook her head. “I’m not sick.”
She looked at Dewent with a deep fear in her eyes, and her face was also slightly pale.
Dewent seemed to have realized something. He looked at his wife. “So…”
“He… didn’t do anything to you, did he?” she asked.
Dewent didn’t speak. She continued, “I’m not the kind of housewife who doesn’t know anything. I also read newspapers, and I have a social life in the community.”
“Lance White. I’ve heard this name more than once, and also the Lance Family.”
She seemed to have thought of something terrifying, rubbing her arms back and forth, as if this could bring her some warmth and a sense of security.
“I didn’t know he was Lance. He said he was your colleague. I opened the door at that time, but when he came in and told me that his name was Lance, Lance White, I knew there was trouble.”
Dewent looked at his wife. He found it hard to imagine how this woman had behaved… it made him feel incredible!
“Then you…” he didn’t know what to say. When he had just come back, he had seen his wife talking and laughing with Lance, and he had been worried about it.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know. My mind was particularly clear at that time. I knew that if I did something wrong, I would definitely be in trouble, and you might also be in trouble.”
“I could only pretend that I didn’t know who he was, and pretend to really think that he was your colleague!”
Hearing this, Dewent hugged his wife tightly and gently patted her back. “It’s all over now. Everything will be fine.”
She broke free from Dewent’s embrace, looked at him, and asked, “What did you two talk about later?”
Dewent was silent for a moment and then said softly, “We’ve cooperated.”
This answer did not make his wife feel angry or unacceptable. On the contrary, it made the woman breathe a sigh of relief.
Dewent was a little confused. “Don’t you think… I was wrong to do this?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t care who you work for, dear. I only care that we can live safely.”
Lance’s influence on this city was constantly deepening. When she socialized with the ladies in the community, it was hard not to mention Lance, and naturally, it was also hard not to mention the things he had done.
For many ordinary people, Lance and the Lance Family were like a “mythical story” of this city. It was not ugly, and it was not evil.
On the contrary, it was filled with a kind of alternative romance that originated from ordinary people, from the bottom of society, full of glory!
Yes, a kind of alternative romance, representing the great success of the ordinary class!
Everything that the protagonist of this story did would be naturally beautified and become a story that people could accept. So ordinary people were not afraid of Lance at all. On the contrary, they would like him.
She was very worried, worried that her husband had angered Lance. But now it seemed that the situation was not so bad.
Dewent didn’t know what to say, how to understand his wife’s performance. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved.
After a moment of silence, he asked, “Don’t you think it’s a terrible thing for me to cooperate with a gang leader?”
His wife shook her head. “I don’t know your work, but I know that everyone in this city, as long as they are not Mr. Lance’s enemies, will say that Mr. Lance is a good person!”
The moment these words came out of his own wife’s mouth, Dewent felt a sense of absurdity!
The next morning, he went directly to Dale’s office and sat down there.
Dale looked at him with a puzzled look on his face. He even made a gesture, as if to say, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
After about twenty or thirty seconds, Dewent finally said, “Lance came to see me.”
Director Dale frowned. His right hand quietly moved under the desk. There was a handgun in the second drawer.
If necessary, he would directly shoot and kill Dewent, and then find an excuse to smooth things over.
For example, Dewent had been bribed by Lance and had tried to bribe him, but after being severely rejected, he had tried to harm him but was killed in self-defense.
Framing, people don’t need to learn it. They are born with it.
Dewent also noticed his small movements and shook his head slightly. “He talked a lot with me, and also talked about you.”
“To be honest, I can’t imagine we have so many problems here.”
Director Dale’s hand came back from under the desk and was placed on the desk again.
If Lance had told him the truth and hadn’t killed him, then there was only one possibility—he had also become a friend.
Director Dale didn’t know what to say and could only remain silent. After all, in the eyes of these people, he had always been the representative and embodiment of justice.
As a result, he had, second only to Ponda, sided with Lance. He would also feel embarrassed.
“Lance asked me to contact the other two senior agents. He also asked me to pass a message to you, to see if you have a chance to deal with the deputy director.”
Director Dale nodded. “I see.”
After these words were spoken, the office fell into silence. The two sat face to face for about two minutes. No one spoke, and no one made any movements.
After a while, Dewent stood up. “I’m going to work.”
Director Dale nodded. “Okay, if you have any problems, contact me at any time.”
Dewent smiled, turned, and left the office. Director Dale sat there in a daze for a while, then picked up the phone and dialed the extension number of the deputy director’s office. “Are you free after work tonight?”
After returning to the office outside, Dewent took the initiative to contact Ponda. Ponda was a little surprised that Dewent was also “one of us.” He didn’t show any abnormality, just had a simple conversation with him, and then they each went to do the work of the other two senior agents.
At this moment, they, more than Lance himself, hoped that these people could be pulled down into the water by them.
Only in this way could it be proved that this was not their problem, but the problem of the entire institution, the problem of Congress, but not theirs.
For a whole day, the seemingly peaceful Golden Port City had some extremely insignificant small things happening.
For example, a gang member of a certain gang was assigned a task, and hurriedly left the city, disappearing into the wilderness outside the city.
Or, for example, a gentleman was waiting for a bus at a bus stop when he was accidentally stabbed in the spleen by a thief and fell to the ground, losing his life before the ambulance arrived.
For example, someone had a car accident on the road and died very unfortunately because of the car accident.
These people who had accidents all had a characteristic that people didn’t know about: they were all informants for the Bureau of Hazardous Materials.
After work at night, Ponda glanced at Dewent standing at the door as he left the Bureau of Hazardous Materials. The two exchanged a simple glance with their eyes and then left separately.
And in the distance, Director Dale was smiling as he had the deputy director get into his car, on the grounds that it was more convenient to talk about things this way.
No one knew that this most powerful law enforcement agency would be welcoming some changes.
At a little after eight in the evening, the phone in front of Lance rang. He picked it up, listened for a while, and then hung up.
Then he took out a stack of files from the drawer, selected two of them, and placed them on the table.
“Have Devon and Alan come over. There’s a job for them.”
Soon the two young men appeared in the office. Lance pushed the two files forward. “I don’t want to see them again.”
The two looked at each other, each took a file, bowed slightly, and then turned and left.
Of course, they knew what Lance’s words meant. This was also the value of their existence.
After giving these instructions, Lance turned his attention to other matters, as if he had just done an insignificant little thing.
(End of a Chapter)