Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 713 Are night watchmen more terrifying than urban management officers?

The so-called Urban Management Department actually stands for "Urban Security and Street Sanitation Management Department". This is a department that does not exist in other cities and can only be found in the city of Lenwitting. Its main responsibility is to assist the city police in maintaining neighborhood security and ensuring the safety and cleanliness of street public facilities. Specifically, it does miscellaneous work, including but not limited to checking household registration, checking floating population, maintaining public tap water pipes and fire hydrants, and even cleaning city sewers.

In addition, they have another important responsibility, which has led to the reputation of the urban management department being hated by everyone, that is, to ensure that the main roads in the city blocks are unobstructed. Based on the provisions of the "Lenweiting Business Law" promulgated in the 1950s, all commercial transactions outside the market area designated by the municipal government are illegal. Among them, financial transactions such as stocks and securities must be conducted in the financial center of Levi Avenue, meat, grains, flowers and handicrafts must be traded in the garden market, fish, seafood and fabrics must be traded at the dock or port market, real estate transactions such as land, houses and forests must be conducted at the city hall, and bulk commodities such as carriages, ships, steam machinery, etc. must be traded at the notary center.

All transactions conducted in these designated places, without exception, require payment of a handling fee linked to the number of transactions. Even in the cheapest Garden Market, the handling fee for every ten transactions can be as high as half a shilling. It is euphemistically called market management fee, but in fact it is a disguised increase in commercial taxes.

It is said that the original purpose of this regulation was to ensure that all kinds of trading activities in the city of Lunweiting were carried out in an orderly manner, and at the same time limit the business scope of street vendors, hawking children and mobile vendors - after all, it is the capital of the kingdom, the city of thousands of cities that everyone in the Sigiriya continent knows, how can it be full of vendors occupying the road like other cities? Farmers and company employees pushed and shoved, horse carts and donkey carts collided, and horse manure and sewage were everywhere, which was not good for the city appearance, and the bigwigs above would not be happy to see it, so it was better to rectify it.

However, after the promulgation of this regulation, it triggered dissatisfaction and protests from the public. They could not accept that they had to pay extra fees for no reason while doing business as usual, and they called it a "shit regulation" and refused to implement this unreasonable regulation. Therefore, until now, the streets and alleys of Lonwittin are still filled with the hawking and shouting of street vendors, openly mocking the existence of this regulation.

The authorities had no choice but to set up this so-called "Urban Security and Street Sanitation Management Department" to enforce the regulations and promised that all the fees collected would be used for the construction and maintenance of urban public facilities (it is said that this was the result of the joint intervention of the church, but the authenticity is unknown). Despite this, the public still refused to buy it, and mocked the law enforcement officers in dark blue uniforms as "blue dogs" and called their actions of cracking down on illegal street vendors "coming to shoot birds", alluding to the homeless people in the Middle Ages who were expelled from the city walls due to moral corruption and could only shoot birds to fill their stomachs.

As the poorest, most chaotic, and most poorly managed neighborhood in the entire capital, the Qixingpan District has always been the focus of the city management department, and the small vendors here have already had their own experience in how to deal with this monsoon-like cleaning operation. So, when Sister Livia ran back panting and told them that "the urban management is here", Olvera heard a warning shout from the noisy crowd: "Those blue dogs are here to shoot birds again!!!"

The originally bustling street suddenly became quiet for a moment, as if all the sounds were taken away. The next moment, the crowd dispersed, and the momentum was as unstoppable as a flood that had been released from the sluice gates: the street vendors selling cooked food neatly threw the boiler, coal and unsold food onto the tricycle cart, turned around and pushed the cart away; the old woman who spread out an old linen cloth in the corner and sold handmade products such as buttons, thumbtacks, hairpins and cotton ropes only needed to lift the four corners of the cloth and tie a knot, and then she could easily carry all the goods away; as for the boys and girls who carried a basket and hawked flowers, dry bread and boiled quail eggs at two pence each, they were even simpler, turning around and running into the dark and narrow alleys, and disappeared in the blink of an eye. If you have the leisure to stroll around the entire Qixingpan area, you may soon see them still hawking in other streets.

The entire street became empty in less than three minutes. All the vendors along the street disappeared, and pedestrians on the road ran away in a hurry for fear of being caught and blackmailed by the blue dog. Only an oil-paper bag, which was probably not taken away in time, was slowly floating away with the dust that filled the street.

Olvera, who was still standing there in a daze, was greatly shocked. She deeply felt the abundant vitality hidden in the seemingly ordinary bodies of the citizens of Lunweiting, as well as the warm emotions between the government departments and the people. These were scenes she had never seen in Rostin City, Nimsher City, or even Lotdana City.

She couldn't help wanting to recite a famous quote from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, but before she could say it, Sister Livia interrupted her thoughts and said, "Okay, let's run."

"Why, Sister Livia?" Metien asked in confusion, "We are not illegal vendors, so we don't have to be afraid of the urban management, right?"

As for the blackmail issue, the Spiritual Prayer Society is the local snake in the Seven Stars Pan area. Although it is half dead, it still has a certain influence. Do those blue dogs dare to blackmail the people of St. Annville Cross Church? "Oh, I'm not afraid of those blue dogs."

Sister Livia habitually said the nickname that was not suitable for children, then glanced at the end of the street. She found that it would take some time for the city management to arrive, so she lowered her voice and explained to them, "It's the night watchmen hiding among the blue dogs."

"Eh!?"

Night Watch? What a distant, familiar, strange, and nostalgic name. It feels like I haven't had any contact with them for a long time. I miss them. For example, Shemi was so scared that his face turned pale and he started to get into Metien's collar.

"Why would the night watchmen work together with the urban management?" Metien asked doubtfully, and at the same time pulled out the little elf that had crawled into his clothes and put it back on his head.

To this, Sister Livia's answer was so natural: "This is how the Night Watchmen act."

That's right, unlike the Scales of Order, which have clear responsibilities and are only responsible for hunting down aliens and pseudo-cultists and have their own independent organization, the Night Watch, who are responsible for the stability of the city, have a more vague scope of responsibilities. Generally speaking, they can involve various fields of the city's public departments. Therefore, they often need to cooperate with other departments to perform tasks in coordination. Influenced by this, the members of the Night Watch do not have a fixed organization, and often mix in the ranks of the city police, city defense departments, city halls, commercial tax offices, parish committees, and even street patrol police. On the surface, they look no different from ordinary law enforcement officers, but in fact they are just using this disguise to secretly investigate whether there are traces of alien or pseudo-cult activities in the jurisdiction.

As the department responsible for urban security and street public affairs, the urban management department naturally has their personnel lurking and infiltrating. Every cleaning operation by the blue dogs is actually equivalent to the daily inspection operation of the night watchmen.

"Our Prayer Society is in an awkward position in the Seven Stars. Lord Mufasa once warned us that if we encounter the actions of the Night Watchmen when we go out, it is best to retreat and not let them seize any flaws and use them as an excuse. Besides, those guys have very sensitive noses, even more than the rabid dogs of the Scales of Order. I am afraid they will see through your disguise and discover your true identity."

Sister Livia looked back at the guests, including the Traveler Fairy, the Light Fairy, the Mirror Fairy and the Blood Clan, and said helplessly, "Although I am not convinced, I still have to follow Master Mufasa's advice and avoid them first."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)