Rule Strange: Urban Legends That Don't Exist

Chapter 92 Leprosy Lane and Smoky Lake

"Downtown, Dirty Street, Leprosy Alley, Building 247."

Hearing this name, Chen Yan's heart sank.

There are a total of 8 streets in the lower city, and Dirty Street is the most chaotic street among them.

Leprosy Lane, where Building 247 of Dirty Street is located, is known as the most notorious block in Yanan City.

People say that Leprosy Lane is like a cancer in Yanan City. It is a blessing that it can be cured, and it is impossible to cure it.

Chen Yan recalled what he had learned about dirty streets:

Due to the rapid development of the empire in recent decades, a large number of laborers have poured into the city.

Those farmers from the countryside and more remote areas, who lost their land, became workers.

However, the prosperous areas in the city center do not have enough industries to accommodate these new, low-end labor force.

These new workers, they have survival needs, but also need a shelter.

In order to seek higher wages and shelter, those new workers who have no skills and can only do coolies can only gather in industrial areas and try to live in places close to industrial areas.

As a result, on the edge of Yanan City, all kinds of buildings that did not comply with the regulations rose from the ground.

Downtown emerged.

In order to accommodate more people, a building is often built up to about 50 floors.

In fact, the empire did not have such advanced construction technology.

As a result, the buildings in the lower city are almost all dangerous buildings with various data that do not meet the standards.

Ordinary high-rise buildings, such as major colleges and universities on the high street in the city center, are often built to a height equivalent to about 20 floors of ordinary buildings, which is already the limit.

What does a 50-story building look like?
This problem was never imagined by anyone before the downtown area was scaled.

No one cares about safety, only how many people these buildings can live in - because, more people means higher taxes.

Higher taxes will definitely make Yanan more prosperous.

That's the result everyone wants to see.

The workers in the lower city, and those who have lost the ability to work due to various reasons and can only engage in the most pathetic industries, are despised by most people and have become synonymous with dirty, low-quality, and polluted city appearance.

In fact, Chen Yan doesn't understand, since the workers contribute their labor to the factory, increase the tax for the city, and the city becomes rich because of the workers, then, why do people think they are dirty?

Because they are illiterate, uneducated, swearing and spitting in the streets?
What kind of fucking shit is this.

Chen Yan finds it difficult to accept that this is the current situation in Yanan City.

High-rise buildings have sprung up from the ground. It was originally just a small fishing village in the lower city, and it has grown into a behemoth in a few decades——

The area where the entire lower city is located is like a huge gray concrete mountain crawling above the ground.

Every morning, this huge mountain of gray concrete is bathed in morning light, which is the end of night life in downtown and the quietest time in downtown.

The situation in Leprosy Lane is even more special.

Even in the entire Yanan City, Leprosy Lane is the closest to the outside of the city.

At the end of Leprosy Alley is the Smoky Lake in the east of Yanan City.

The area of ​​the smoky lake is larger than the entire city of Yanan, where not only scavengers living in broken ships, but also pirates——

Pirates on the lake.

When Chen Yan first heard the news, he was also very surprised.

How could there be pirates on the lake?
Later someone explained to him:

One is because the empire does not have the term "lake pirate", and it is impossible for the government to create a new term for those dirty guys.

The second is because the smoky lake is big enough.

There are many small islands on the smoky lake, and after a long time, some pirate-like guys gathered.

They make a living by plundering the civilians around the Smoky Lake, and they often plunder the east and southeast of Yanan City in groups—

It is the lower urban area with the densest population and clusters of handicrafts in Yanan City.

An industrial area lined with factories and factories, which is the main source of tax revenue for Yanan City.

The infestation of smokey lake pirates will cause huge economic losses to Yanan City every year.

The government has organized troops to go to the Smoky Lake many times, trying to wipe out those pirates.

However, the area of ​​the smoky lake is too large, and the pirates do not gather in groups, which makes it very difficult to carry out the extermination activities in most cases.

Once the army is separated, it cannot maintain sufficient combat effectiveness.

As a result, the pirates in the Smoky Lake became a stubborn disease in Yanan City.

Leprosy Lane, which is next to the Smoky Lake, is harassed by pirates from time to time.

Due to the rapid development in recent years, Yanan City has long faced the problem of insufficient police force, and the industrial area cannot guarantee safety, let alone the lawless area on the edge of the city.

It is difficult for Yanan City to collect taxes on Leprosy Lane. Coupled with the low quality of the residents here, the contribution is the lowest-end labor force and illegal service industry.

The pirate infestation that will come at any time further increases the difficulty of management.

Over time, Yanan City simply abandoned Leprosy Lane and only stationed a small number of police officers, using it as a "buffer zone" against pirates.

When the pirates came, the police withdrew and let them loot.

Pirates will not take root in Leprosy Lane, they know that once they land, they will die soon.

The pirates left after plundering, and the police came back and continued to use this place as a frontier against pirates.

After a set of procedures, the only ones who suffered were the residents of Leprosy Alley.

Their lives were shattered and Leprosy Lane was in chaos.

Over the past few decades, a large number of crimes have occurred in Leprosy Lane, and all kinds of people from all walks of life have gathered here.

Leprosy Alley not only has all kinds of drug addicts, but also hides most of the criminals wanted by the police in Yanan City.

Casinos, poppy halls, corner buildings, barefoot medical halls, restaurants for poachers, most underground gangs, private scientific laboratories that are not allowed by imperial law...

In Leprosy Alley, there are everything that ordinary people can imagine, and there are also everything that ordinary people can't imagine.

Leprosy Lane is so notorious that every new Asian immigrant who just came to the empire was repeatedly told by the older generation of immigrants:
You must not go to Leprosy Lane.There is an "enclave" completely abandoned by the Yanan Municipality.

What surprised Chen Yan the most was that the most people in Leprosy Alley were the corner girls who were almost everywhere—those poor women, their number almost exceeded three-quarters of the total number of people in Leprosy Alley.

Most of their clients are workers living here in the industrial area, gang members who have some spare money but don't know how to spend it, and anyone who can afford it.

They have the saddest jobs and still have to make ends meet.

Even if you are sick, there is no extra money for medical treatment.

(End of this chapter)