The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 165: A Lesson in Expensive Cloth
More than half an hour later, Noah got to his feet and took his leave. On the one hand, his visit represented Currilan City’s respect for investors and businessmen. On the other, it conveyed his desire to establish a personal relationship with William.
Politicians always stood in front of television cameras and radio audiences denouncing the ugliness of capitalism. Yet the moment they stepped away from the cameras, there was a very good chance they would be sitting at a banquet hosted by capitalists, laughing and drinking together.
The two sides stood in opposition to one another, but sometimes they needed each other just as much.
William thought Noah was a very interesting young man. In some ways, he was more proactive than the Mayor of Sabine City and more aggressive than Ferraler. Or perhaps a better word would be more nakedly direct.
“He’s somebody important?” Eleanor asked as she emerged from the bedroom after William had seen Noah out.
William nodded.
During their conversation, Noah had made it abundantly clear that he could easily influence the mayor’s attitude and opinions. That meant certain matters could continue to be discussed, just not right now.
Both sides clearly intended to deepen their relationship, but there was still one test left before that happened: Friday’s Consignment Auction.
Eleanor had no idea what the two men had talked about during those thirty minutes. She only felt that William had changed so much that she could never quite ignore the sense of unfamiliarity surrounding him.
Just a few months ago, William had spent every day worrying about how to find a suitable job. Or, more often, how to avoid doing anything at all.
Now influential people were coming to visit him of their own accord.
The contrast was so extreme that it made her raise an eyebrow. At the same time, a strange thought lingered in her mind.
The William standing before her looked nothing like the William she used to know.
If the two of them hadn’t known each other so well, she might have mistaken him for someone else entirely.
The confusion in her eyes vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
She stopped dwelling on it.
Her upcoming college life occupied all of her attention now. That was where her future battlefield lay.
Still...
“You don’t plan on going back to school?” she asked over dinner that evening.
It was the question they had both wanted answered more than any other over the past months.
School.
They had once made an unspoken agreement. If one of them found a good job first, that person would support the other through school so they could pursue their dream.
Reality had been cruel.
But it had also possessed a twisted sense of humor.
It had destroyed their dreams and somehow carried them to where they were now.
In Eleanor’s opinion, William should go to school too.
After all, it had once been their shared dream.
William set down his knife and fork, wiped a trace of sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin, then leaned back in his chair.
“Of course. Just not now. Maybe next year, or the year after, I’ll choose a place and enroll. But not at the moment. I don’t have that kind of time.”
Something inside Eleanor settled at those words, though she could not have explained exactly what it was.
A bright smile spread across her face.
“What school are you thinking about? The same one as me?”
She looked at him expectantly.
William’s answer was completely outside her expectations.
“I’ll probably attend the Sacred Harmony Society Affiliated Academy. Studying there would be much more helpful for my future.”
Within the Federation, there was a popular conspiracy theory.
Its central claim was that the Sacred Harmony Society controlled the Federation’s economy and politics from behind the scenes.
Most of the nation’s upper-tier capitalists and politicians were said to come from the Sacred Harmony Society Affiliated Academy. The Sacred Harmony Society served as the bond connecting them. From the very beginning, they had been part of the same network.
Even more unsettling was the fact that these social elites often brought their children into the Society as well, creating a new generation of insiders.
In some old families, it was common to find not merely three generations but four, five, or even more generations of Sacred Harmony Society members.
And they were proud of it.
William had listened carefully to everything the Mayor of Sabine City had said during their dinner meeting.
Sometimes society was simply that cold.
You could be more talented than everyone around you, but if you lacked the ticket, you could spend your entire life wandering outside the house, circling the walls without ever entering.
Once you possessed that ticket, that key, however, the people inside would open the door for you before you even reached for the handle.
To truly step into high society, the first requirement was the crest of the Sacred Harmony Society Affiliated Academy.
The second was becoming a full member of the Sacred Harmony Society.
This year was already too late.
Making that happen required more than money. If it could be bought that easily, the Federation’s economic decline would never have accelerated so quickly.
In fact, some foreign interests had once tried to integrate themselves into the Federation’s innermost circles.
The self-appointed guardians of the establishment considered themselves superior and rejected outside influence.
As a result, foreign capital never truly developed a sense of belonging in the Federation.
Without belonging, there was no security.
Without security, people naturally longed to return to places where they felt safe.
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