The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

Although the Embarcadero is under the control of the French Empire, the control area around it belongs to the Kingdom of England. The buildings here are also a large number of red brick apartments with the architectural style of the Kingdom of England, and most of the men walking here are Dressed in English-style tuxedos and top hats, the women wore tulle skirts of folded lace with herringbone braces.

After entering the control city of the Kingdom of England, Leo felt an inexplicable sense of intimacy. This was the emotional memory left in his body from his predecessor. Leo was not disgusted with this, but let go of the suppression of this feeling , Let yourself carefully experience this unprecedented feeling.

For biochemical people, the word hometown is definitely not a good word, because returning to hometown means repairing or even remaking. Many biochemical people simply equate hometown with death, even if they don't understand death at all. what is it.

However, at this moment, Leo felt the nostalgia for his hometown from the remaining emotions of his predecessor, which also made him understand why the ordinary soldiers who had acted with him before had such a look on their faces when they received instructions to go home. expression.

Compared with the almost curfew-like night streets of the French Empire, the urban area managed by the Kingdom of England is much more lively, because pubs can be seen everywhere in this urban area. Except for some grocery stores for daily necessities, every street is full of taverns. A large number of off-duty company employees and dock workers come to the taverns on the street to relax at this time, and various cheerful and messy music comes from the taverns. , making the street very noisy.

In addition, in the urban areas managed by the Kingdom of England, there is hardly a horse-drawn carriage, and the public rail steam cars are all driving back and forth on the streets.

Moreover, the public steam cars in the Kingdom of England are not only twice as large as ordinary steam cars, but even raised to one floor so that they can take more passengers. As for whether such enlargement and heightening will cause any safety hazards These are not considered by the bosses of the bus company. What they think of is to get more passengers on board and earn more money.

After walking for a certain distance on the street, Leo picked a steam rail car that wasn't crowded by many people, boarded it, and sat in the back seat. Because all the rail cars are around the city, he can take any steam rail car to reach the Embarcadero.

The rail car was moving very slowly, and the thick smoke constantly sprayed from the front steam engine head easily wrapped the rear compartment in it. The dust and ashes in the steam are isolated, but at least this can give people a sense of safety.

It is also because of the steam and smoke that the streets of the Kingdom of England seem to be in the clouds. Everyone walks through the fog that can't be seen, and there are quarrels, shouts, music and steam locomotive warning signs everywhere. Brass bells.

When approaching the port terminal, because of the sea breeze, the steam and smoke gradually dissipated, and the passengers in the car also took off their masks one after another. As the car drove to the road on the edge of the city, the driver blew the whistle thoughtfully to remind the passengers in the car. At this time, the passengers also looked at the sea view outside the window and the pier under the cliff.

The outer sea wharf at the other end of the city needs to berth a large number of sea cargo ships for a long time, so the wharf is built wide, long, and big, all of which are exactly the same, and most of the land on the wharf is given by large warehouses for loading goods. Covering, looking at the past, there is really no special scenery to see.

However, the inland wharf managed by the French Empire, because most of the ships docked here are small and medium-sized ships driving in the inland river, the dock does not need to be built too large, and the cargo ships only occupy all the ships here. A small part, most of the rest are private cruise ships and imperial warships, so the dock styles here will be built separately according to the different docked ships, and these docks of various shapes have become one of the scenery here.

In addition, there are very few freight warehouses on the inland wharf. Most of the cargo ships from the land stop here for a while, and then drive along the edge of Vinaya Island to the open sea wharf on the other side to unload. Large areas of land that should have been used to build warehouses have now all been turned into luxurious casinos and entertainment venues.

At the beginning, the high-level officials of the French Empire debated for a long time about the purpose of this pier. Most people believed that it should be built as a military pier, specially used to dock warships, and to contain the other who is also the controller of Venaya Port. Two enemy countries, but the Marquis de Lo, who was finally appointed as the governor, resisted all opinions and came up with a new plan to build this pier into a carnival city.

Facts have proved that this plan is very successful. In less than a year, this pier has become one of the tourist attractions in the Velen Continent. Every month, a large number of tourists come here to gamble and play. For these tourists, the Governor's Palace transferred several retired warships from the French Navy, transformed them into large cruise ships, and set up special routes to receive tourists from all over the Vinen continent.

When Leo got off the car, a group of hawkers immediately gathered around to sell souvenirs of Venaya Port. Obviously, these smart hawkers could tell at a glance that those people were tourists who had just come to Vinaya Port. A resident of Vinaya.

Leo asked the peddlers around: "I want to find a boat, it's a private cruise ship, the owner of the boat is a distinguished noble from the Farland Empire, and his boat should leave tonight. Can anyone help me?" If I find it, I will reward one hundred Venaya coins."

These peddlers were immediately attracted by Leo's proposal. Although one hundred Venaya coins is not a lot to Leo, it is also the profit of these peddlers for ten days and a half months. They naturally want to get this reward gold. It's just that most of them don't know the situation of the pier, and they don't know what kind of ship Leo is looking for, so they can only sigh at the bounty.

Some of the peddlers have used crooked brains, but they can see that Leo is not easy to mess with, and it is not worthwhile to pay themselves for a hundred Venaya coins, so those crooked brains were suppressed by themselves as soon as they appeared.

"I know." At this moment, a shoe-shine kid carrying a shoebox squeezed in from the crowd, raised his hand high, and said to Leo.

"Take me there, the one hundred Venaya coins are yours." Leo didn't doubt whether the child would lie. In his opinion, even if the child lied, it didn't matter. The other party would definitely know about the local snakes in the pier area. As long as you find the local snake and ask, you can also get the information you want.

"One hundred is not enough, I want two hundred." The child could see that the vendors around him didn't know the information Leo wanted, so he sat on the ground and raised the price.

"Yes." Leo agreed to the price without haggling.

"Follow me." Under the envious eyes of everyone, the child led Leo down the steps to the pier area below, then passed through a shop selling souvenirs, passed two casinos, and came near the pier.

Afterwards, the child asked Leo to wait for a while. He climbed to a lookout booth next to the road, scanned the ships docked on the pier, and quickly found the target.

After getting down from the watchtower, he led Leo towards the only west side, a high-end pier that specialized in personal cruise ships, near the military pier of the French Empire, and ran over, but when he was about to approach the pier, he was stopped by the security of the pier Come down and don't allow them to come any closer.

For this reason, the child took Leo up to the second floor of a fishing tackle shop next to the road, then pointed to a white sailboat docked on the pier without any steam machinery, and said, "That's it, the boat you're looking for That's the one."

"Who is the owner of that ship?" Leo looked at the ship and asked in a deep voice.

The child was a little dissatisfied that Leo didn't give the reward immediately, and there was a little worry in his eyes. It seemed that he was worried that he would not get the bounty he deserved.

Although he was a little worried, he still told what he knew.

It turned out that the information about this exquisite white sailing boat was overheard by the child from the conversation of the shoeshine guests, who were the managers of the pier.

The white sailboat belonged to the private ship of the Minister of Finance of the Emperor of France. The son of the Minister of Finance drove this ship to Venaya Port. The ship will leave the port in one hour and sail back to the inland. In addition to the information about the ship, the child provided a very important piece of information, that is, the relationship between the son of the finance minister and the son of the governor is very bad, almost to the point of incompatibility.

"Not bad! The news you provided is very good." After listening to it, Leo reached out and touched the child's head, then wrote a cash check for 300 Venaya coins and handed it to the child.

Seeing that there was an extra one hundred vinaya coins, the child was overjoyed immediately. He took the wooden box and ran downstairs, but halfway through, as if thinking of something, he went back upstairs and looked at Leo. Asked: "Sir, would you like to know where the son of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now?"

"Have you seen the son of the Minister of Finance?" Leo asked.

The child nodded and said, "Not long ago, the son of the Minister of Finance was sitting at Little Tom's booth polishing shoes, and I was beside him."

Leo asked again: "How do you know that it is the son of the Minister of Finance?"

The child shrugged his shoulders and said pretending to be old-fashioned: "If you don't know those rich nobles in our business, it's okay. You must know that the competition in our business is fierce. If you don't pay attention, customers will be snatched away." .”

Leo smiled, thought for a while, and asked in a deep voice: "Since you know the son of the Minister of Finance, have you seen a cat ornament on him?"

The child shook his head and said, "I didn't see the cat ornament, but there is always a black cat beside him."

"Black cat." Hearing this answer, Leo smiled, and gave another cash check of 100 Venaya coins to the child, then signaled the child to leave, and reminded the child not to Tell others about his spying on the Chancellor's son.

The child who got another one hundred Venaya coins ran downstairs happily, and after running for a certain distance, he stopped again, as if he was thinking about something, and then he said in surprise: "Yes! I You can sell this news to that noble lord, and he should give you a lot of rewards."

Thinking of this, the child took big strides and ran towards the pier on the other side. It took more than ten minutes to run to a cargo pier, and quickly came under a cargo ship.

At this time, the security guard on the cargo ship stopped the child and said, "Get lost, little mouse, is this where you should come?"

"I have important information to sell to Sir Richard Weston." The child shouted immediately.

Naturally, the security guard didn't believe that a shoe shiner on the pier would know any important information, so he prepared to drive the child away.

"Wait!" At this moment, a noble young man dressed gorgeously and with a black cat on his shoulder stepped down from the cargo ship, came to the child, and said, "Do you have any important information to sell to me?"

"Very important information." Seeing his target being attracted, the child smiled and said, "However, I want to know how much you are going to pay for this information?"

Richard Weston smiled, didn't care about the child's offensive behavior at all, and said: "What a greedy brat! However, I like your greed very much. As long as your information is really useful to me, I will come out." A hundred gold flannels as a bounty."

The child was immediately attracted by the huge bounty of one hundred gold flannels, and told Leo's story without thinking too much.

Hearing the child's words, Richard Weston did not renege on the debt, and directly ordered the servant beside him to take out a gold ticket of one hundred gold francs and handed it to the child. After thinking for a while, he immediately returned to the cargo ship.

"Your Excellency, why are you back?" The owner of the cargo ship was counting the cargo on board, and when he saw Richard Weston returning to the ship, he couldn't help being stunned.

Richard Weston said: "Don't you want to see my father? You set off immediately and leave Venaya Port, and I will introduce you to my father, and I can even speak for you guest."

Hearing Richard Weston's words, the owner of the ship couldn't help being stunned. At first, he thought that Richard Weston was playing tricks on him. After all, he had tried his best to convince the other party just now, but after turning around No matter how you look at it, it will make people feel weird.

However, after thinking about it, he remembered Richard Weston's character and credit in the aristocratic circle of the French Empire, and he couldn't help thinking that this matter might really have a turning point.

Although leaving Vinaya Port now would cause the owner of the ship to lose a sum of goods, but thinking that if he could negotiate the deal with the Minister of Finance, let alone a sum of goods, it doesn't matter if he lost all his wealth.

Thinking of this, the owner of the boat immediately made a decision and prepared to order the boat to sail.

But Richard Weston raised his hand to stop the ship owner's order, and then smiled wryly, saying, "It's too late, it's already too late!"