The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 70: After the Boss Fell
The newsboys who had gotten rid of the news boss discovered something afterward.
Misery did not disappear just because one person who oppressed and exploited them was gone.
People often describe suffering as a boulder hanging over their heads. Remove the boulder, they say, and life will naturally get better. Some even go further, using persuasive rhetoric to convince others that the people exploiting them are precisely the people paying their wages and putting food on their tables.
Maybe there was some truth to that.
But only some.
The news boss was dead, yet the children’s lives had not improved. Because the real thing exploiting them was never the news boss himself.
It was a society built around profit.
In fact, the news boss’s disappearance may have made their situation worse.
Without his connections.
Without the intimidation he exerted over outsiders.
Without the resources he could obtain, resources the children had never thought much about and often viewed as the source of their suffering.
They suddenly found themselves unable to buy newspapers.
In an era when print media still dominated the information industry, newspaper offices never worried about sales. Most of their daily print runs sold out without difficulty, which meant a portion of the market was always left unsatisfied.
Once the news boss disappeared, other news bosses immediately moved to swallow that share.
They seized his territory.
They seized his market.
And through arrangements the children neither understood nor even knew existed, newspapers were simply redirected to other distributors.
Soon unfamiliar newsboys began appearing throughout the neighborhood.
Fresh newspapers, still carrying the smell of ink, waved in their hands as they collected payments that should have belonged to someone else.
Payments that should have belonged to them.
The scrapyards were no better.
Many of them had enjoyed good relationships with the news boss for various reasons.
Now that he was gone, they no longer bothered hiding their greed.
They drove scrap prices down further and further to increase their own profits.
The children had no means to resist.
And so those people enjoyed money squeezed from children without the slightest concern for consequences.
The children had always believed the news boss was the source of their nightmare.
Only now did they realize how shallow their understanding of society had been.
The money he left behind could support them for a while.
But only for a while.
Without a new source of income, it would eventually run out.
The older children concluded they could not continue like this.
If they failed to bring money home to their families or orphanages, they would be separated, scattered, and sent elsewhere to endure another round of exploitation.
So they had to stand up.
They needed income.
They had already rebelled against fate once.
They had already overturned one stone.
Then they would keep fighting.
Someday, surely, they would tear apart the clouds and see blue skies again.
That was why they had come to William.
At the moment, it seemed the simplest solution they could imagine.
William looked at the two boys and shook his head slightly.
“Sorry. I’m no longer in that business.”
As large numbers of financial companies and laundries were raided, more and more people realized someone might be tampering with coins.
The coin-exchange trade had barely reached its peak before collapsing into decline.
And with the bank-issued proof of a large cash withdrawal, Mr. Fox no longer needed such a primitive method to make his money appear legitimate.
The boys tried to look indifferent.
They failed.
The disappointment on their faces was impossible to hide.
The older one hesitated before asking again.
“Mr. Carter, you’re a good man. Do you have any work we could do?”
Afraid William might refuse, he hurriedly added:
“We can work for less than ordinary laborers. As long as we have food and a little spending money, that’s enough. We don’t ask for much.”
There it was.
The irony of reality.
After removing one stone, they had finally understood the truth.
And now they were searching for another stone, one they considered more suitable, intending to place it upon their own shoulders with their own hands.
A smile tugged at the corner of William’s mouth.
Whenever he smiled, he looked his kindest.
A smile was a language that transcended race, gender, age, education, and intelligence.
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