Chapter 604 - 281: Jealousy Outside the Wall

The voice of reason was drowned out by a tsunami of desire.

Every lawmaker who received a call felt a sense of being robbed. They realized that in the chaos created by this information asymmetry, Leo Wallace was seizing their legislative power from a distance.

The entire bureaucratic system in Harrisburg showed a hopeless sluggishness when faced with this unconventional attack.

They were used to political gamesmanship in hearings and backroom deals, but they had no idea how to counter a full-scale assault stemming from a process that hadn’t even officially begun.

This torrent of anger eventually coalesced into a collective anxiety in Harrisburg.

The lawmakers began calling each other, their conversations focused on one topic: how to make the damned phone calls stop.

"When is Leo going to present that bill?" became the most frequent greeting in the hallways of Harrisburg.

Leo stood before the map of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh City Hall. He could almost smell the scent of anxiety drifting in from Harrisburg.

On the map, aside from the deep red of Allegany County where Pittsburgh was located, the rest of the area was filled with small blue flags.

Those small flags represented petition requests from all over the state.

They were packed so densely that they nearly covered the entire map of the state.

"See, Ethan?" Leo said, looking at the blue flags on the map that represented the public’s grievances. "They’re now more desperate for this bill to pass than I am."

Ethan Hawke had to admit that this method—creating a power vacuum to force the process forward—was more efficient than any lobbying effort.

"But Leo, what if this sentiment spirals out of control and leads to violent conflict?"

"That’s why we need to submit the bill before that string snaps."

’Mr. President,’ Leo said in his mind, ’the time is right.’

"Yes."

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.

"If you had gone to Harrisburg with the bill from the start, begging those lawmakers and telling them it would benefit the people of the entire state, they would have talked to you about procedure, about interests, about risks."

"They would have buried you in hearings."

"But now,"

Roosevelt let out a cold laugh.

"you’ve manufactured scarcity. You’ve manufactured privilege."

"You’ve turned Pittsburgh into a beacon, and also a fortress under siege."

"The people outside the fortress, watching those inside feast to their heart’s content, will have their jealousy burn away all reason."

"Now, it’s no longer you begging the legislature to pass the bill."

"It’s the voters—the angry, jealous voters who feel they’ve been wronged—who are holding a whip to their lawmakers’ backs, forcing them to pass it."

Leo nodded.

He turned to look at Ethan, who had been standing behind him, waiting for his command.

Ethan was holding a black folder.

It was the Medicine Benefits Transparency and Fairness Bill, which had been locked in a safe for two full weeks.

Ethan stepped forward and placed the folder on the desk.

Leo’s fingers tapped lightly on the cover of the file.

"Now, this document is no longer a radical reform proposal."

"It is a lifeline for the people of the state, and it is the only talisman those lawmakers in Harrisburg have to save their own seats."

Leo stood up and left the office.

He walked to the elevator and looked at his reflection in the metal doors.

"Once I’m in Harrisburg, I’ll immediately summon the chairs of several key committees and start the legislative process."

"The justification is ready-made: to prevent another tragedy like Arthur Vance’s from happening again, and to respond to the urgent calls for medical justice from voters across the state, the State Government must act decisively."

The elevator doors opened, and Leo stepped inside.

"We’re going to tell those lawmakers that this is the ultimate revenge against the greedy insurance companies."

"At this juncture, no smart politician will dare to vote against it. Anyone who dares to stand up and object is objecting to data transparency, supporting commercial kickbacks, and standing against all the suffering voters of Pennsylvania."

Leo’s voice, carrying a chilling sense of pressure, echoed in the cramped elevator car.

"We are going to use morality to chain them firmly to their chairs."

"We are going to use the tidal wave of public opinion to force open the tightly shut doors of the legislative chamber."

Ethan understood Leo’s logic.

This was taking extremely aggressive commercial monopoly clauses and, through political rhetoric, disguising them as universal moral justice.

Voters who couldn’t even comprehend the main text of the bill would end up cheering wildly for a law that was, in fact, establishing a new oligarchy.

It was the height of irony, and also the pinnacle of efficiency.

"Understood."

Ethan opened his briefcase and double-checked the itinerary.

"I’ll contact our liaison office in Harrisburg. Those centrist lawmakers should already be waiting for you when you arrive."

Leo nodded as the elevator doors slowly closed.

「From Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, and then to Philadelphia.」

The great net woven from law, money, and power had been completely cast.

He knew exactly what his bill was doing: he was using executive power to create a monopoly of his own.

This was an exploitation of due process, using one evil to terminate another.

Inside the confines of the sealed metal doors, a realization dawned on Leo.

’In this world, there are no saviors who can conjure bread and medicine out of thin air.’

’What people call "change" is, in essence, just the forcible transfer of the right to allocate resources.’

’To let the workers have cheap medicine, I first had to place heavy shackles on this city.’

In this enclosed space, he felt an unprecedented clarity.

’I used to think that power was a tool to achieve ideals. Now I understand that power itself is the price of those ideals.’

’However many people you want to save, that’s how many you must first control.’

’If you want to shatter old shackles, you must first forge a new, stronger set of chains.’

’All compassion must ultimately be built upon absolute control.’

The elevator chimed softly, the display stopping on the ground floor.

The doors opened.

A gust of wind rushed in from outside, scattering the residual warmth within the car.

Leo stepped out of the elevator.

The bill was ready.

It was the funeral Leo Wallace had prepared for the old world.