The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 54: A Question for the Press
From the moment Young Michael was sentenced in court, some media outlets had already begun to rethink the issue. Was the conflict between Michael and William rooted in law enforcement and suspect, or in a private matter?
If it was the former, they did not need to care much about anything else. But if it was the latter, then public opinion had been moving in the wrong direction.
It was like a red little man fighting a blue little man. The blue little man got hurt. If it was only an isolated incident, then it would forever remain an isolated incident, and no one would care.
The problem now was that everyone said the red little man was a law enforcement officer, and the blue little man was an innocent civilian. Without evidence, the red little man had injured the blue little man, and what caused all this was that the red little man possessed too much enforcement power and was abusing that power to harm the public.
That was the current situation. But if that layer were stripped away, if the red little man beat the blue little man because they had a private grudge, then there was no law enforcement officer and innocent suspect, no question of whether enforcement power was appropriate. It would simply be an isolated incident.
When William saw the latest newspaper, he realized that the IRS senior leadership, at least an administrative chief at the state level, had begun to exert force. Before he could even have Director Johnson accidentally leak some information, speculation had already appeared in the papers.
Some less reputable newspapers, the tabloid kind, were treated by many people as entertainment because they often published sensational stories.
But it had to be said that this time the coincidence was too perfect. One entertainment tabloid said Young Michael had been sentenced for burglary, and the house he had burgled just happened to belong to the innocent suspect involved in Michael’s enforcement case. Could there be some connection between the two?
People often said the masses had no brains and lived every day under a collective consciousness. That was obviously a laughable view.
At least under the tabloid’s reporting, some people had already begun wondering whether there was a deeper conspiracy here.
In truth, every person, every citizen of every country, was fundamentally unwilling to believe that their country was rotten beyond cure. They always believed there was still hope for the country, even if they spent every day in their rooms pulling down their pants at the President on television while shouting “ma re fa ke.”
So when they realized the country could still be saved, and that what could not be saved was merely one man, they subconsciously found an outlet they themselves did not even notice. The tide of public opinion began shifting from condemning the national system to attacking a single individual.
After reading the whole newspaper, William casually set it down. He was currently in Mr. Fox’s office. Much of Mr. Fox’s money had been cleaned, and he had moved out of the basement and up above ground, into a bright, street-facing, two-story detached building, complete with a Gatnau sign and a telephone.
“This is good news...” William picked up another newspaper and glanced at Mr. Fox. “The IRS has also realized that staying tangled up with us is pointless. Abandoning Michael may be a little cruel to him, but for the whole system, it is salvation. We’re safe.”
Only then did Mr. Fox let out a breath. These past few days, he had been constantly on edge. Several of his peers had already been sent to county jail on money laundering charges while awaiting final judgment, and several others had vanished overnight without a trace.
There were now only two or three companies left in Sabine City that could provide small-scale financial assistance services. For a while, the telephone outside the office had not stopped ringing.
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