Life Dungeon Game

He looked up at the taxi window.

He was now on a two-lane road, where FBI vehicles honking their horns incessantly and old taxis were passing by.

The person in the car glanced at He Ao, stepped on the gas, and drove towards the bustling Newkel neighborhood.

He Ao turned around and looked at the data projected by the bracelet.

"Another big shot must have gotten into trouble."

The taxi driver glanced at the rearview mirror and sighed.

He had barely finished speaking when a gunshot rang out from the street next door.

He Ao turned his head and saw two groups of menacing gangsters fighting fiercely on the edge of the street, while pedestrians around them scattered in fear.

"Here we go again, buddy, sit tight."

The taxi driver said something nervously, then slammed on the gas pedal.

A powerful push-back sensation acted on He Ao in an instant. For a moment, he felt the buildings on both sides receding like phantoms, their specific shapes no longer visible.

At the same time, the taxi began to shake violently as the driver recklessly overtook other vehicles.

The taxi, which wasn't in great condition, spun out beautiful S-shaped trajectories on the narrow road.

He Ao reached out and grabbed the handrail on the car door to steady himself and prevent himself from swaying back and forth with the vehicle.

After about several tens of seconds, the gunfire outside subsided considerably, seemingly indicating that the distance had increased, and the taxi driver finally slowed down.

"Brother, don't blame me for driving fast. We have to get out of here first, otherwise if stray bullets hit us, no one will care. If we die, that's fine, but if we don't die, that's terrible... The medical bills could make us wish we were dead for the rest of our lives."

He Ao nodded slightly and lowered his hand from the armrest.

"You're pretty skilled, bro. Have you trained before?"

The driver looked at He Ao's unchanging expression through the rearview mirror and asked with a smile.

"There was one"

Duan's experience in gangs.

He replied casually that Reggie had been involved in gangs for a long time.

"Brother, judging from your appearance, your kids must be quite grown up by now?" the taxi driver remarked. "Well, I used to drive underground race cars too, but after I got married and had kids, I had to find a stable job."

He glanced out the window. "These days, stable jobs are getting harder and harder to find. Everyone's laying off workers. Nobody has any money, and even those who do have money are taking taxis less often."

"Now even taxi companies are pushing hard to increase the proportion of driverless taxis, and I don't know when I'll lose my job."

"If you lost your job, what would you do?"

He Ao raised his head and asked softly.

"I don't know. I have a wife and kids to support. I'm too old to drive race cars anymore. Even gangs don't want people like us who can't kill people anymore," the taxi driver sighed. "I'll just take it one step at a time and do whatever can make some money. I can't just starve to death, can I?"

"To be honest, I'm doing alright now because my company provides medical insurance. But if I lose my job and get sick, my whole family might really have to go homeless. Medical expenses are just too high these days."

"Ah."

He looked out the window.

This location is still close to the city center, and the headquarters building of Qunxing Pharmaceuticals in Limen City stands here.

The magnificent, towering buildings reflected a beautiful halo under the bright sunlight.

In fact, those 'volunteers' who participated in the research institute's experiments may not have been completely affected by the addictive drugs, nor may they have been unaware of the harm the experiments would cause to their bodies.

But what good is knowing?

That was the only way they could quickly make money and support their families.

If it were just Pete sitting here, that penniless, unemployed, middle-aged man burdened with huge loans and a daughter to raise, he probably wouldn't even consider giving up participating in the institute's experiments, and might even beg Reed and the others to arrange more 'experiments' for him.

They are simply choosing between hell and a slightly better hell.

After the topic came up, the taxi driver fell silent. He stared ahead and began to drive quietly.

He Ao regained his composure and looked down at the bracelet in his hand. Everything needs to be done step by step.

A thousand miles begins with a single step.

The most important thing right now is to find out exactly where the Fountain of Youth is.

And, figure out exactly what the Fountain of Youth is.

The bracelet contained information Eve had found for him about Senator Genos.

The highest legislative body of the federal government is the Federal Parliament.

The entire parliament is divided into two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The House of Representatives is determined by the number of people, with approximately one representative for every 500,000 people, resulting in about 400 representatives for the entire federal government.

This means that the House of Representatives is highly influenced by population size; the larger the population of a megacity, the greater its influence on the House of Representatives.

For example, Dawn City, with a population of 28 million, has 53 members of the House of Representatives, which is more than one-tenth of the total number of seats in the House of Representatives.

If the federal parliament only consists of the House of Representatives, the entire parliament will favor megacities, which will inevitably lead to discontent in smaller cities and may even cause the federal government to collapse.

The state disintegrated.

To balance the power of the large cities, the founders of the federation established a separate Senate.

The number of senators does not change with population; instead, each city has a fixed number of two senators.

With over a hundred fortified cities and nearly three hundred senators across the Federation, Dawn City's influence in the Senate was diluted to negligible levels.

The Senate and the House of Representatives have roughly equal powers, and each can veto the other's bills, together forming the federal parliament.

This is the result of a final compromise among the various factions within the federation.

This 'balanced' system is one of the foundations for maintaining the stable existence of the federal government.

Senators are not selected based on city size; even small cities like Limen have two senators.

Genos is one of them.

His father was a senator, his grandfather was a senator, and his grandfather's father was also a senator.

There are many such 'political families' in the federal government.

Following the information provided by Romörk, Eve unearthed many interesting things.

The Genos family controls nearly 80% of the construction projects in the entire city of Limen.

They became the 'winning bidders' for most projects in Limen City through indirect shareholding or participation by agents.

Despite his seemingly glamorous life, Romörk was actually just a hired hand working for the Genos family.

The vast majority of federal projects are contracted out through bidding.

Whether it's a public project from the municipal government or a project from a conglomerate like Star Pharmaceuticals, as long as it's a construction project and bidding is held, the Genos family will usually send someone to submit the bid.

Moreover, they often win bids on their first try, no matter how stringent the conditions for the project are, the Genos family always manages to 'just happen' to meet them.

Then it was easy to 'win' the bid at a relatively high price.

Meanwhile, some construction companies that offer low prices and are cheap are finding it difficult to win bids.

At this point, the Genos family, who had already won the bid, would contact these cheaper construction companies and 'subcontract' the projects they had secured to them.

They can enjoy the price difference without doing anything.

Under federal law, this behavior is permitted and is considered normal corporate profit-making activity.

At least on the surface, all of this is in accordance with the rules.

Of course, these things will not be known to ordinary people.

If it weren't for Romörk's reminder, Eve would have found it difficult to uncover the Genos family's series of actions by only collecting publicly available data and not digging deeper.

Through this long-term 'accumulation,' the Genos family should have amassed an astonishing fortune.

Heo opened Genos's personal information.

It is generally difficult to completely conceal the personal information of such politicians, and their family background will more or less be revealed.

When Genos was born, his father had already served a second term as a senator. He grew up in a comfortable environment and had a happy childhood.

This continued until he was eight years old.

His father was suddenly murdered in his mansion in the southern part of Limen City.

This mansion is one of the few detached villas in the entire Federation.

This incident shocked the entire Federation. The FBI's final investigation concluded that it was a homicide, but the killer has not been found to this day. Genos was in that mansion at the time and witnessed his father's狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) expression after his death.

According to a later interview, that incident left a deep scar on his heart and ultimately prompted him to study medicine.

He said that if there had been a doctor with his father at the time, his father might not have died.

Later, he entered the Star Medical School in Irons and earned his medical degree before the age of twenty-six.

After graduating with his doctorate, he worked at the headquarters of Star Pharmaceuticals for several years until he returned to Limen City at the age of thirty, where he announced his candidacy for senator to carry on his father's legacy and was successfully elected.

This is now his third term.

After his election victory, most of the bills he promoted were related to medicine, and it seems that he has been working around his identity as a medical doctor.

Upon seeing this, He Ao fell into a brief moment of contemplation.

Genos's father died around forty years ago, around the same time as the Morak Park demolition and reconstruction project. Almost immediately after Genos's father's death, the Morak Park project came to a halt.

Genos joined StarCraft Pharmaceuticals when he was twenty-six years old, which is...

Twenty-two years ago.

Chapter 461 Impossible, Absolutely Impossible (Long Chapter, Requesting Monthly Tickets)

11:15 AM.

He Ao's taxi stopped at the entrance of a small alley not far from the research institute.

After saying goodbye to the taxi driver, He Ao walked into the alley.

The alley was dark and the road was somewhat dilapidated and rotten, but it was short. He Ao had only walked a few steps when he saw the light emanating from the distant exit.