The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 116: A Lesson in Customer Initiative
In another room, the mayor sat on the sofa, sighed, took a sip of coffee, and suddenly asked, “Have the people from Ristowan arrived?”
Ristowan Group was one of Sabine City’s local pillar industries, and also a fairly well-known light-industrial corporate group within the Baler Federation.
More than seventy different brands under its control covered every aspect of people’s daily lives. Some had already become famous trademarks. Others were merely ordinary. But overall, it was certainly no ordinary small firm.
Roughly thirty to fifty thousand people in the entire city provided services somewhere along the industrial chain connected to Ristowan Group. Ristowan Group itself was also an excellent firm standing on the Federation Progressive Party’s side. Over the years, cooperation between them had been very pleasant.
By convention, whenever there was a closed-door meeting of this sort, one that divided up dividends from society, Ristowan’s representatives would appear on time and do their utmost to demonstrate the leading role they played in such matters.
But this time, no one from Ristowan had come.
Another aide-de-camp beside him shook his head. “I called Neo just now. No one picked up on the other end.”
The mayor gave a casual nod and made no further statement.
Neo was Ristowan’s current president, and also one of the major shareholders on its board. Having just passed his forty-fifth birthday, Neo had not yet traveled even half of life’s long and brief road, yet his career had already reached its peak.
He and the mayor were also “good friends.” But beginning some time earlier, certain problems had appeared between these two good friends.
The problem originated from the Federation Progressive Party’s “arrangements” for Biddle Group. Before Biddle fell, Ristowan’s idea had been that they should directly and fully take over Biddle. Such an idea, however, was obviously impossible.
Ristowan was indeed one of the important supporters of the Federation Progressive Party, but it was hardly the only supporter of its kind. There were many within the state.
Once a juggernaut fell, everyone wanted to take a bite. Neo and his people wanting to swallow it whole was obviously impossible. Even their so-called concession, their desire to absorb at least one-third of Biddle, had not been successfully negotiated.
Ristowan had in fact contributed no small amount of effort to Biddle’s fall. Yet now, at the moment of harvest, they had failed to achieve the goal they had set at the beginning. This left many of Ristowan’s shareholders deeply dissatisfied.
Feeling that he had been betrayed, Neo immediately showed a different side from before. He began reducing occasions where he appeared together with the mayor and other Federation Progressive Party politicians. There were even rumors that he wanted to change positions and support the Federation Conservative Party, in order to retaliate for the benefits they had lost in the Biddle case.
Neo had not come, nor had he sent anyone. That intensified the fighting among the people in the boardroom outside.
No one would wait around and let benefits be handed to others. They were greedy and cunning, and they wanted to take advantage of Ristowan’s absence to swallow the benefits first.
Even if they had no choice but to spit them back out in the future, setting aside whether that would disgust anyone, at least they would have tasted them.
The more fiercely they fought, the more the mayor understood one truth. When facing capitalists who had bared their fangs, he needed a predator even more vicious than they were standing on his side to suppress them.
Otherwise, even if he held considerable say, in the face of naked profit, he might still not be as persuasive as cash smelling of fresh ink.
To cultivate a capitalist attack dog of his own, once the idea appeared, it took root deep in the mayor’s heart. If such a person truly existed, would those people outside still dare question his plans in front of him again and again?
There would be no need for political persecution, no need for assassinations and duels. As long as they felt the threat of bankruptcy, they would know how to tuck their tails and become obedient dogs.
Almost unconsciously, William’s young face flashed through the mayor’s mind. He did not know why he thought of that young man at this moment. Perhaps it had something to do with the aide-de-camp’s reminder just now. Or perhaps William had left too deep an impression on him.
While many young men were still obsessed with chasing thrills and so-called pleasure, William had already begun doing things that even the fathers of his peers could not accomplish.
Could it be him?
Thinking of this, the mayor sighed, smiled, and drained the coffee in his cup. He had rested enough. He needed to go back out and face those clawing, fang-baring capitalists.
Wearing an expression that seemed calm and composed, and keeping his emotions well under control, he spent a long while maneuvering among those capitalists, men like wolves licking their sharp teeth as they prepared to tear apart their prey. Finally, they negotiated a result everyone could accept.
All of Biddle Group’s investments in Sabine City would be internally auctioned in a nonpublic manner, and the people participating in that auction would be those seated here.
At the same time, these people had also obtained a ticket to an even greater feast.
Sometimes the world was just this cold, cruel, and disappointing. Perhaps it had its reasons for operating this way, but it still disappointed most people.
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