Struggle in the Steam Age

When the sun just rose the next morning, Lawrence had already packed up and walked out of St. Gutenberg Cathedral. After walking for ten minutes, he came to the door of Aunt Susan's tavern.

"Excuse me, who are you?" After knocking on the door, Aunt Susan who was standing inside felt a little strange, because she found that she didn't seem to know such a young man with white hair and blue eyes.

"I'm Lawrence, Lawrence August, that young man who lived in your attic for four years." Lawrence hurriedly explained, after all, he had changed too much in the past few days, and Aunt Susan couldn't recognize him. very normal.

"Oh, it's you!" After carefully looking at Lawrence's face, Aunt Susan finally recognized his identity. "But why did you dye your hair and eyes this color, I almost didn't recognize it just now."

"That's because something happened when I went to church." Lawrence explained vaguely, and then he asked. "By the way, where is Uncle Jack now? I have something I want to find him."

"Jack?" Aunt Susan looked at Lawrence and said worriedly. "Seriously, Lawrence. Although Jack is not an outright bad guy, I suggest you not get too close to him. After all, you have graduated from college now, and you will have a very good future in the future. Let It would damage your reputation if someone found out you were in touch with Jack."

"Well, thank you." Lawrence nodded, and then took out his licensed detective certificate. "But I have to find Jack because it's official business."

"Chartered detective? It seems that our little Lawrence is also promising." As the widow of a non-commissioned officer, Aunt Susan recognized what this certificate meant. "I'm going to get someone to call Jack right now."

Speaking of which, Aunt Susan walked to the door of the tavern and asked the child in the deli across the road to give some instructions, and the child quickly nodded and ran into the deli and disappeared.

Twenty minutes later, Lawrence, led by Jack who hurried to the tavern, walked towards the decaying factory area. Along the way, Jack enthusiastically tells Lawrence the truth about their destination.

"The place we are going to is on the edge of the Bulan River, and it is also one of the earliest textile workshop areas in this city. However, after the invention of the steam engine, those water conservancy textile factories slowly fell behind and were eliminated. Of course As a result, the entire land was put on hold and abandoned."

"Until 15 years ago, for some reason, the textile factory that had been completely abandoned suddenly caught fire one night, and then the factory building was completely burned to ruins. Fortunately, there were very few people in the factory late at night. , so no casualties were caused.”

"After the fire, the factory owner found it too expensive to rebuild the factory in this place, so he chose to build a new steam-powered textile factory elsewhere, and the workers had already gone to the new factory before that. This situation This ruin was slowly abandoned and forgotten by people, and then it naturally became a hiding place for some gangs."

"Which gangs are hiding there now?" Hearing Jack said that this is the hiding place of gangs, Lawrence immediately asked. After all, what he was most worried about in this operation was the role of gang members.

"Many, as far as I know, there are three or four gangs that use that ruin as their base." Jack scratched his hair subconsciously. "Do you have any specific information?"

"It's just—" Lawrence said, taking out a note from his pocket and looking at it. "Building No. 2 of the dormitory attached to the Barracuda Textile Factory."

"I know this." Jack showed a look of sudden realization when he heard it. "That's the headquarters of the Spindle Gang. After the textile factory closed down, the factory owner sold those dormitory buildings. At first, these dormitory buildings were used as low-rent housing to attract tenants, but later they were too far away from other factories. Slowly, no one rented it, and finally it became a base for gangs. Because of this, the names of gangs in this area are all related to the textile industry.”

"What is the specific situation of the Spindle Gang?" Lawrence asked curiously. After all, as the gang that occupied his destination, he felt that it was necessary for him to investigate this clearly.

"Not long ago, the Spindle Gang should have been the top three big gangs in this area." Jack thought for a while and said. "But I don't know exactly what's going on now because they're split and they're in a mess."

"A top three big gang is in chaos now?" Lawrence asked curiously. "What the hell happened to mess up a gang of this size."

"I don't know the specifics. After all, I only work in Ms. Susan's tavern and nearby residences." Jack shook his head gently. very normal. "But I heard that it's because their gang leader first took a big mission to unify the gear area, but suddenly got drunk and fell into the water and drowned, and then the police took him away with an unprecedented seriousness. The backbone of most of the Spindle Gang."

"After the middle and high-level leaders of the gang were almost wiped out, the whole gang split into several and began to fight for power. In addition to the squeeze from other gangs, the Spindle Gang is now in decline."

"Then it's easier to get into their headquarters?" Lawrence murmured softly. He felt that if the other party was in chaos, he should not be able to take care of himself.

"For outsiders, it's much more difficult to get in now than in the past." Jack shook his head. "Because the existing leaders of the Spindle Gang want to unify the Spindle Gang, the split factions of the Spindle Gang are busy grabbing territory nearby. As far as I know, they have been fighting every day in the past few days. Some guns will be used from time to time. Fortunately, the two of us didn't meet on the road just now."

"Who owns the building of the Spindle Gang headquarters now?" Lawrence asked the question he was most concerned about.

"No one." Jack shook his head and continued. "At the beginning, the number three of the original Spindle Gang led a group of people to occupy the place, and then another group of people made a sneak attack at night to make the building change hands. That group of people fought like this, and the building changed hands two or three times. . until a week ago maybe too many people died in the room and there were ghosts in that building."

At this point Jack shivered, as if something terrible was staring at him nearby.

"I got news that the ghost in that building didn't hurt anyone." Lawrence asked a little puzzled looking at Jack with fear written all over his face.

"Who said that?" Jack's eyes widened. "My neighbor's kid was in the Spindle Gang when I was a child. He told me that he was in that building the day the ghost came out. He saw a lot of very scary things. Two gangsters were even killed because they were confused by visions. The other party is dead."

"As for the ghosts you said didn't hurt anyone—" Jack shrugged. "You know, in this kind of ruined area, no one will count this thing unless there is a lot of trouble."

"No wonder the reward for this task is 50 points." Lawrence came to his senses immediately, after all, he learned from other people that usually only 15 to 20 points will be awarded for this kind of incident. It seems that the church also knew that the information was unreliable, so it raised the reward.

Just as Lawrence was thinking about this, Jack stopped and pointed to a dark shadow in front of him. "Look, the place you're going to is there, but I can only send you here. If I go further, if they find me, they will regard it as a provocation."