Chapter 141: An “Adventure” in the East Borough

Chapter One Hundred Forty-One
An “Adventure” in the East Borough

Backlund’s East Borough, at a crossroads.

Mike Joseph saw quite a few children by the roadside, their clothes tattered, their eyes pitiful. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and was about to go over and give them some pennies.

But his action was stopped by the former vagrant, Old Kohler.

“Those are thieves!”

“Thieves? What about their parents? Or are they controlled by gangs?” As a veteran reporter, although Mike had never come to the East Borough before, he had vaguely heard that certain gangs here controlled homeless children and had them steal or beg.

“Parents? Either they have no parents, or their parents used to be thieves, or still are thieves now. Of course, Mr. Reporter, what you said is right too. Quite a few of them are indeed controlled by gangs. It’s said those gangs even teach them how to steal. For example, they hang a gentleman’s coat on a wall, put a handkerchief in the pocket, and hang a pocket watch outside. Through repeated practice, the children learn to take the handkerchief without making the pocket watch sway. Heh, these are things I heard in the workhouse when I was still a vagrant.” Old Kohler rambled on. “I remember the youngest thief ever caught on this street was only six. Sigh, six…”

He seemed to recall the child he had lost to illness. Unable to help himself, he took a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, but he could not bear to smoke it. He merely sniffed its scent.

“Six…” Mike was somewhat stunned by that number.

Klein listened quietly to the end, then sighed.

“This is the East Borough.”

He looked around once, adjusted his emotions, and said, “This place is closer to a jungle than to human society.

“We must treat our interviews as an adventure. We need to understand how to avoid the territory of dangerous creatures, and also stay far away from the little things that look as if they cannot do you any real harm. Mm, I mean mosquitoes in the jungle.

“Mike, if you reveal the thickness of your wallet before those children, then even if you guard it well enough and do not let them steal it, you will encounter an inevitable robbery later in this adventure. And if you dare resist, perhaps tomorrow morning there will be one more body floating up from the Tussock River.”

“Mr. Detective, you’re absolutely right! There are so many people in the East Borough. If a few vanish every day, no one will care.” Old Kohler agreed.

Mike listened with a heavy expression. After several seconds of silence, he suddenly said, “One point three five million.”

“Ah?” Because of his cold, Klein’s voice had already grown noticeably hoarse.

Mike stepped forward and said, “That is the preliminary statistic for the population of the East Borough.

“But I know the actual number is certainly quite a bit higher.”

“That many?” Old Kohler was startled.

Although he had experienced the East Borough by day and by night, and intuitively knew that many people lived here, he had never imagined the number could be so great.

That is several times the population of Tingen…

Klein instinctively made the comparison to the place most familiar to him.

He looked toward the crossroads a few steps ahead and asked, “Where do we go next?”

Old Kohler raised his head and glanced around.

“Whatever you do, don’t go straight ahead. That district is controlled by the Zmanger gang. They’re vicious and don’t listen to reason at all. If they find a reporter interviewing people there, they’ll definitely beat us up!”

The Zmanger gang? Isn’t that the gang that “idiot” who caused me to lose ten thousand pounds belonged to? He was some kind of Executioner. Er, I can’t even remember his name now… Fortunately, those ten thousand pounds were ultimately exchanged for the Sequence 7, Sequence 6, and Sequence 5 potion formulas of the Diviner pathway, for the All-Black Eye, and for the death of the Intis ambassador… I wonder which faction eventually obtained the manuscript concerning the third-generation Difference Engine…

In an instant, Klein recalled the events that had occurred at the beginning of the previous month.

“The Zmanger gang? The gang mainly made up of Highlanders?” Mike asked thoughtfully.

“Mr. Reporter, you’ve heard of them?” Old Kohler asked in surprise.

Mike gave a heh.

“They are involved in quite a few cases and have some reputation even outside the East Borough. It is said that some of their members were once involved in an Intis spy case.”

…The person standing beside you is one of the parties involved, the one who reported the case, and the victim…

Klein silently added that line.

“Since respectable gentlemen like you all know about the Zmanger gang, why don’t the police arrest all of them?” Old Kohler asked, thinking from the perspective of someone at the bottom of society.

Mike’s expression immediately turned a little ugly. He coughed twice.

“They can only arrest those who have committed crimes. Without evidence, the others cannot be arrested. Besides, the East Borough is so large and has so many people. If someone truly wants to hide, it is very difficult to find them.”

As he spoke, he sighed.

“Destroying one Zmanger gang is easy. But as long as Highlanders keep coming to Backlund, as long as they still maintain a tradition of bravery and fighting, and as long as they cannot find any other way to make a living, it is only a matter of time before a new Zmanger gang appears.”

This is a complicated social problem…

Klein pointed to the roads on the left and right.

“Choose one side.”

Old Kohler looked toward the street on the right.

“The gang active there is the Intis word for ‘outlaws.’ As long as you don’t provoke the women on the street and in the bars who do, uh, that kind of business, they won’t notice you. Heh-heh. It’s morning now. There shouldn’t be any problem. They’re all still asleep.”

That word, when used in Loen, indeed meant “lawless men” or “outlaws.” A gang choosing that name could be said to have quite a clear sense of self-awareness.

Klein and Mike had no objection. Led by their guide, they entered that district.

The buildings here were comparatively better. The street environment was also not as filthy. The air was filled with the smells left behind by street vendors: oyster soup, pan-fried meat fish, ginger beer, and other foods and drinks, mixed with the fishy scent of seafood.

Walking here, Klein felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. It was as though he had returned to Tingen, to Iron Cross Street, to the street outside the apartment building where he had first lived.

The only difference was probably that Backlund lay closer to the sea and had more developed transportation. There were far more sea fish here.

“That is one of the better apartments nearby. I wandered around here several times before and noticed the gentlemen and ladies inside all dressed comparatively, mm, comparatively clean,” Old Kohler said, pointing toward a pale-yellow three-story building.

The three of them approached and discovered that a sign hung at the apartment entrance. On it were painted a pocket watch, a wall clock, and a screwdriver, along with words such as “Clock and Watch Repair.”

“A clockmaker lives here?” Klein dug out similar scenes from the original owner’s fragmented memories.

At the time, Benson, Melissa, and he had gone to a similar place to have their father’s silver pocket watch repaired. But that object had been fixed several times, only to quickly break again, until Melissa finally tinkered with it and fully repaired it herself. During that period, it had become the most respectable thing on Klein’s person.

After Klein’s “death,” that pocket watch, which carried both financial and emotional value, had not been buried with him.

It should belong to Benson now, right? I wonder whether every time he takes out that pocket watch, he thinks of me…

Klein suddenly blinked and curved the corners of his mouth.

“It should be,” Mike answered uncertainly.

If his own pocket watch developed problems, he would normally send it back to the original watch shop. The shop would then assign it to one of its repairmen or entrust it to a long-term partner craftsman.

The moment they entered the apartment, they saw a middle-aged man with an unshaven face.

The gentleman had just come out of the washroom and was returning to his room. Seeing three strangers enter, he hurriedly asked, “Are you here to repair a clock or watch?”

What a coincidence… We directly ran into the craftsman…

Klein felt slightly puzzled.

Mike took out his pocket watch and smiled.

“Yes. My pocket watch has been keeping inaccurate time lately. Could you take a look?”

He did not reveal his identity, planning to conduct the interview through casual conversation.

The middle-aged man immediately smiled and led them into a two-room apartment with the door half-open. Pointing toward chairs beside the wooden table, he said, “Wait a moment. I’ll go get the tools.”

“Your tools aren’t at home?” Mike asked in surprise.

The clockmaker shook his head with a smile.

“How could they be?

“A set of tools is very expensive. I cannot afford one alone. We can only pool our money and buy three or four sets. Whoever has business uses them. That’s why we all moved near one another. Heh-heh. It’s more convenient. If we lived too far apart, we’d have to spend extra time and public-carriage fare just to borrow the tools.”

As he spoke, he left the room and walked toward the neighboring apartment.

So we did not happen to meet one clockmaker by coincidence. Many residents here are clockmakers…

Klein suddenly understood.

Old Kohler examined the room with envious eyes and said, “Before I fell ill, I lived in a place like this too. My wife would mend clothes for others at home. My two children, my two children…”

Mike sighed as well. Lowering his voice, he said, “I thought clockmakers were all very wealthy.”

“So did I…” Klein pinched his nose.

…

After friendly exchanges with several households in the apartment building, Klein and the others once again set out on their journey of adventure.

They had walked around a hundred meters when they suddenly heard people quarreling by the roadside.

The two women were screaming at the top of their lungs, greeting one another with every kind of vulgar language. Klein learned quite a few words he had never heard before.

The reason for their quarrel was that the woman on the left accused the woman on the right of making the apartment environment filthy and creating noise. The woman on the right fired back, saying this was the other woman’s own problem, because no one had forced her to solicit customers at night and sleep during the day.

“Is that a laundrywoman?” Mike asked after listening, his brows slightly furrowed.

“Yes. I know her. She is a widow, and she has two daughters. She washes clothes for others,” Old Kohler answered with certainty.

Mike thought for several seconds.

“Take me to their home.”

Old Kohler nodded. Leading the two men around the quarrel, he entered a dilapidated building noticeably worse than the apartment from before.

They had only just arrived outside the laundrywoman’s room when Klein immediately felt the dampness.

Inside hung piece after piece of still-wet clothing and skirts. A girl of seventeen or eighteen crouched before a large basin, washing foaming things. Another girl, a little younger than her, held a scalding iron wrapped in damp linen and carefully worked through items already washed and dried. Her movements were extremely cautious, as though she had been burned by steam many times before.

This was both their workplace and the place where they slept at night. Damp vapor pervaded the room, seeping into their bodies.

In addition, the stench of various mixed odors was extremely obvious.

“Don’t you find it hard to bear?” Mike pinched his nose.

Klein answered in a muffled voice, “I have a cold…”

There was not the slightest humor in his words.

Mike let go of his nose, walked into the room, and said to the two astonished girls, “I am a reporter. I would like to interview laundrywomen.”

The girl rubbing the clothes numbly shook her head.

“We have a lot to do. We can’t afford delays.”

Just like that, Mike’s request for an interview was refused.

With a heavy expression, he walked back out and silently returned to the street.

After looking around, he pursed his lips and said, “Let us continue.”

…

The City of Silver. After a detailed examination, Derrick Berg, who had developed auditory and visual hallucinations, was brought to the bottom of the round tower.

This place held residents showing signs of losing control. Various methods were used to try to save them.

As he walked through that gloomy, dim corridor, he suddenly felt an inexplicable chill.

“Help!”

From a sealed room came such a sudden scream.

“Hel—”

The voice cut off abruptly, and all around them was silence.