Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 121
“So it turns out that besides two families, there are also other people from Paradise Island in the inner city, and the proportion isn’t low.”
Eugene hummed in agreement with his hands in his pockets. Most of the streetlights on this street were broken, and hardly a few worked. Idlers were everywhere, and some people were lying by the roadside, oblivious to whether they were drunk or asleep. If one didn’t approach and see their breathing, they would look no different from corpses.
In winter, it was common for people to freeze to death on the streets.
Shivers wore a dark gray wool coat, his brilliant blonde hair completely covered by a hood, only exposing his beautifully shaped chin. But in this area frequented only by the poor, even the wandering nightingales* wouldn’t come, and no one would care how two idle ruffians looked.
*Term used to refer to a prostitute.
“Most of them are young people. The old and children aren’t needed,” Eugene said. “There are two types of people who go out to work: one type does dirty and tiring jobs that don’t involve contact with outsiders, such as cleaning ditches or garbage or assisting in the kitchen outside in the dark, and guests like us hardly realize their existence. They return to Paradise Island after their work. The other type either doesn’t return, or their families receive a death notice—it’s considered very merciful if the body is sent back, and if they also get some money, that’s unimaginably good luck.”
Because of this, most natives considered their relatives who entered the inner city as already dead, since they would have to grieve for them sooner or later, and worrying constantly only added a burden to their already difficult lives.
So when Eugene first walked through the houses and saw people being returned in wooden boxes, apart from the mothers who lost their children, the rest of the people showed little sadness.
Such things happened too often but given the large population of the entire Paradise Island, these “wooden boxes” were like small stones thrown into a pond, quickly settling after a splash.
Shivers whispered, “You need to be careful. Prioritize safety above all.”
The auction was scheduled three days later and would last seven days. The first and last days were mainly various banquets and entertainment programs, where the atmosphere gradually whipped the guests into a frenzy, and extreme emotions such as brutality, excitement, hatred, ecstasy, resentment, and humiliation were infinitely amplified, primarily affecting a particular group of people.
Eugene nodded. He wasn’t completely ignorant of the ways of the world. On the contrary, his senses for danger and unease were quite sharp. As the auction drew near, the air in Paradise Island became more tense, and small-scale violent conflicts occasionally erupted.
Jason also mentioned that for most people working in the inner city, their fate often changed drastically after the auction, with very few hit by a “pie from the sky” and receiving rich rewards or even being taken away from White Bridge, but more often, they got burned in the madness and couldn’t escape.
“Paradise Island is different from other lower cities. It’s not conducive to hiding and escaping,” Eugene stated factually. “If you want to cause trouble, you might have to start elsewhere.”
Eugene had his own wisdom for survival. He lacked the knightly combat power, the complex experiences and skills of the rabbit-headed shopkeeper, and the vision and decision-making power brought by a Duke’s status and wealth. Therefore, he always prioritized planning exits and safeguarding himself and his companions, a job he had always done very well.
Unlike any other lower cities he had seen, this place almost rejected no one, but it also didn’t really accept outsiders. Eugene could feel this contradiction—probably because from birth to death, the ties among the natives were much tighter than those in other towns.
……
Alexander sat behind a massive desk, buried almost entirely by various documents.
The auction was the Wolf’s hallmark event, the one that the family put the most effort into, and the corresponding workload could drive someone mad—especially since his boss had been pretending to be sick since fighting a witch at Fortuna Dock. Lately, outsiders could only see him at routine meetings, always looking pale and sickly, as if speaking a few more words might make it hard for him to breathe.
This was very rare. Louis’s style was almost entirely inherited from the White Wolf Fahim, always mild yet forceful, rarely bowing even before the head of the family, and only a fool would take their polite demeanor at face value.
The investigation into the witch incident wasn’t over yet, and Louis rarely showed his inability to cope to outsiders, whether or not they believed him, using this appearance to decline many social obligations and shifting the work to his poor assistant. As a result, Alexander hadn’t been home to sleep in three days, relying solely on increasingly strong doses of herbal tea for alertness.
“What is this?” he asked tiredly, staring at the object in his hand.
His assistant, wearing a twill coat, carefully said, “This is the Azman family’s hospitality plan. They’ve come up with a new idea, organizing several cruise ships to leave the shore for a wild party after the auction ends, extending the farewell banquet to three days.”
Leaving the shore for a wild party was clearly a loophole—both the Wolves and Monkeys relied on shipping routes for their livelihood, but their bases were on land. Over time, rules in the water and on shore differed, allowing some activities that weren’t permitted within White Bridge limits once on board, but these were often not good things.
The Azman family was adept at organizing these events. Their head was one of the five elders, particularly skilled in entertainment. Most of the Wolf’s entertainment was from their hands, and Louis, responsible for security, often clashed with him because unleashing human nature almost equaled losing control. Often, extra work stemmed from the Azmans’ “novelties”.
Yet as peers, it was impossible to completely cut ties, and this time the Azman had also sent an invitation to Louis as a means to maintain superficial relations and as routine business.
But their usual ways were too wild. Louis didn’t like it… Alexander sped through the documents with a grim face, his expression changing unpredictably before finally tossing the plan into a basket labeled “Processed”.
“Next time, bring this kind of thing directly to me—don’t just put it in front of him,” Alexander added before the assistant left. “If anyone asks, say that Master’s health hasn’t recovered, and his schedule is uncertain.”
Louis wasn’t exploiting Alexander out of laziness. In fact, his workload hadn’t decreased much. He was still young and didn’t have many capable people under him.
Pretending to be sick hadn’t made Khalif pay him any less attention. Fortunately, Priscilla was trading with the Wolf family under the name of the Countess of Mokwen. Otherwise, Louis would have had to spend a lot of effort to find a few reliable doctors without attracting attention.
“Water Carnival Night,” he murmured, the gimmick written on the silver-embossed invitation, flicking the stiff card away with a snap of his fingers. Alexander watched it fall to the carpet without picking it up.
“They hope not to arrange too many people, ‘to let the guests loosen up’,” Alexander said in a businesslike tone, and sure enough, he saw Louis’s face fall, glad that he hadn’t brought in the detailed plan. If Louis had seen the absurd games written on it, he would definitely not be able to stop rolling his eyes at Azman the next time they met.
“As usual, if you’re not satisfied, go find the family head,” Louis said without hiding his disgusted expression. “For the guests to ‘loosen up’? I think they’re too loose, ready to rip open their ties and run naked in the forest, becoming true wild beasts… Has the budget been approved?”
“Berger’s side should have some cuts, but Azman is closely connected with ‘that side’, and I heard they’ve brought back some contraband from the sea.”
Alexander watched Louis’s expression go from “seeing a cockroach crawling on the desk” to “seeing a cockroach and a beetle holding a wedding ceremony.”
“…Warn Azman in my name. Don’t go too far,” Louis said after a long while. “There are more death reports from Paradise Island than in previous years. He should show some restraint. The family head’s indulgence isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card, and Paradise Island isn’t his rabbit breeding farm.”
Alexander remained silent.
Louis was the main enforcer of order in White Bridge, and no one knew better than him that the compiled statistics of deaths on Paradise Island had reached an ignorable level, a large part of which weren’t natural deaths.
But besides him, it seemed no one else really faced this issue. For a long time, Louis’s insistence on providing relief for verifiable deaths had become a joke among other executives, who thought such excess mercy was nothing but a waste of funds.
Perhaps it was because of his childhood experiences in Fortuna City that Louis thought differently. He had a brother who liked to mingle in the streets. Every time he sneaked out and got caught, he would end up getting punished along with him, having to copy texts. To appease him (or perhaps because Charlie naturally liked to share), he would tell him all his experiences in great detail.
Dockworkers had virtually no rights to formal education, but that didn’t mean they were as stupid as monkeys. On the contrary, Charlie thought that the poor, who racked their brains every day to survive, were smarter than the well-fed upper class living off their ancestors.
They were actually very united. Knowing the weakness of individual strength, they would automatically band together to form brotherhoods. The most respected among them would be elected as the leader, representing the dockworkers in fighting for various rights—if a single laborer’s demand was a joke, then the joint demands of hundreds or thousands were a negotiation. They would calculate costs precisely, set conditions just right, and most of the time, they would succeed.
After witnessing a major negotiation, Charlie had secretly told him he thought the brotherhood was still too conservative.
“They only asked to eliminate unfair deductions and for basic working hours, and even that took many days of negotiation.” Young Charlie’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “They didn’t even ask for a raise—I think they could have gotten it.”
“Merchant ships and the port have signed agreements, and if things escalate, the security team will join in the suppression,” young Louis said. “They don’t have weapons. There will be bloodshed.”
“A few people will bleed,” young Charlie corrected him. “You didn’t see the scene. There were so many people. The streets of the dock were full. The security team was less than one-twentieth their number. Swords are limited, but weapons are everywhere—boxes, picks, and pitchforks can all be used in combat. The docks would be taken over by the brotherhood. If someone told them—”
“And then what? The merchant ships stop coming in, and they lose their jobs.” Young Louis was tired and just wanted him to shut up.
Charlie did shut up, but Louis knew his brother was still pondering—yet who would listen to a child’s opinion? The brotherhood’s negotiation had ended, and tomorrow everything would return to normal.
And now, years later, Louis thought Charlie was right.
If someone had told them.
The author has something to say:
The shopkeeper has always been clever since he was a child.
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