The City of Marronligar

"Malenliga is a noble, beautiful, and wealthy free city. There are no slaves here, only free people who take their destiny into their own hands." This is the text in the earliest version of the official history of the city-state revised 200 years ago.

Of course, this is not a deliberate black humor made by historians.As early as the first town hall meeting after the city was founded, Marenliga explicitly banned the slave trade and did not allow slavery, which is very different from other commercial city-states.

Intriguingly, the reason for doing this is not only to ensure moral "free time", but also another motivation: slaves only need to be bought out once, instead of continuously providing remuneration.Once the opening is opened, profit-oriented businessmen will inevitably introduce a large number of slaves, which will pose a great threat to free people in the labor market.

——Miscellaneous Notes of Yinwan Tower · City-state Government and City Hall Meeting

"The bounty hunters and the scribes are obviously in the same group."

Louis is shaken by an inadvertent revelation from a gang member.

Louis has no nostalgia for the corrupt bounty hunter association, but this does not mean that he will abandon his identity as a "bounty hunter".exactly the opposite.The more he sees the process of the association's philosophy going to disintegration, the more he is obsessed with the spiritual origin of the bounty hunter.

The judgment of right and wrong may not apply to everyone, but now it seems that the broker nicknamed "The Scribe" has committed many evil deeds and paid the price of his life for it.A drug dealer who treats a living person as a commodity, whose behavior even makes the underground gang feel contemptuous.

Bounty hunters should also face serious charges if they collaborate with such people.

Therefore, Louis asked eagerly: "What did you say? This person has contacts with bounty hunters?"

The outspoken gangster didn't speak because he had just been stopped by an older cadre.

Someone cursed in a low voice: "Let's get out as soon as possible, we don't welcome bounty hunters here."

"We are not with other bounty hunters, and we don't know this scribe." Adrian argued for Louis and himself. "As I said just now, we have no intention of interfering in the affairs of the Black Fang Gang. We are just entrusted by others to investigate some things."

Louis winked and signaled Adrian to leave the conversation to himself.He expected that the one-armed Glenn was the only one who could manage things, and only he had room for dialogue: "You are the leader of the Black Fang Gang, and there are some things I have to tell you directly."

Glenn carefully observed the two uninvited guests, as if evaluating whether there was a need for further communication.

In order to gain the trust of the other party, Louis directly reported his family name. Anyway, his identity is not a secret in Maren Riga: "I am Louis Cormac. I have left the Bounty Hunters Association and have nothing to do with other colleagues. I have nothing to do with you guys. There is no interest in killing people.”

Hearing Louis' name, Glenn's expression changed immediately, and he looked a little respectful: "You are Cormac?"

Adrian, who stood by and watched the changes, noticed this detail, and he began to think about the reasons for the change in attitude of One-armed Glenn.

Prior to this, Louis and the Black Fang Gang should have never dealt with each other.But judging from Glenn's reaction, he seems to have heard about Louis and has a fairly positive impression.

Louis said that he is not seen by other bounty hunters, but ordinary citizens will maintain basic respect for him.One-armed Glenn probably cannot be counted as an "ordinary citizen", but this respect also has a unique weight.

The change in the attitude of the leader has affected other gang members as well.They looked at each other, although they might not understand the reason, but at least they didn't use vulgar words to urge Louis and Adrian to leave.

One-armed Glenn asked his subordinates to evade temporarily: "You go outside to watch the wind first, we have to talk about some important things."

When the last gang member walked out of the scribe's house and closed the door behind him, the house became quiet again, leaving only Louis, Adrian, Glenn the one-armed, and the gradually freezing corpse.

"My subordinates were rude to you just now. Let me say sorry for them first." Glenn nodded slightly to Louis and Adrian, and his sincerity was not damaged by the hoarse voice.

Louis shook his head: "No, I can understand their anger."

One-armed Glenn looked at Louis and smiled wryly, "If they knew that you saved the slave ship six years ago, they wouldn't have such an attitude."

—The slave ship six years ago?

Adrian keenly caught the key words in Glenn's words.Louis didn't mention this to him, but judging from the timing, the slave ship might have something to do with Louis being expelled from the association.

Sure enough, Louis glanced at Adrian calmly, as if observing his reaction.

Glenn sat down on the edge of the sofa, and continued: "The noisiest child seems to have caused you trouble. He was also on the slave ship. It is said that he was sold to human traffickers by his family, so he did not choose to return after liberating the ship. home, but stayed in the harbor area, and we took him in."

Louis sighed: "He's not very old now, is he? I'm afraid he was less than ten years old six years ago."

One-armed Glenn nodded helplessly: "If you hadn't stopped the plot in time, the child might be sold to some noble family as a child prostitute, and his life would be over."

Slaves and the slave trade are crimes that Marenlica cannot tolerate. In principle, slave ships are not even allowed to enter the port. Therefore, such ships have to bypass Marenlica and look for other cities on the peninsula as transit points.But judging from the dialogue between Glenn and Louis, such a crime once existed here, and the scribe who is still dead in the living room is a link in this chain of crimes.

There is another point that arouses Adrian's interest: Louis once rescued a slave ship, but the rescued may not be able to recognize the decadent bounty hunter in front of him.

Louis pretended to be relaxed and smiled, and said to Glenn: "I didn't expect you to have such deep sympathy for slaves-the freeman tradition of Maren Riga is deeply rooted, and self-interest has always prevailed."

"It's normal, because I was also a slave before fleeing to Maren Riga." The one-armed Glenn raised his remaining right hand, revealing the marks on his forearm that had been burned by the branding iron. "So, as long as someone violates this bottom line, the only thing waiting for him is death. The Black Fang Gang will have revenge, and we will not regret this revenge."

In this way, the position of the Black Fang Gang is very clear.

The scribe is dead, and the trail to Tobacco Bliss appears to have been discontinued.But Adrian was sure that the Black Fang Gang would at least know more than himself.

Louis asked the question almost straight to the point: "Your people said that the bounty hunter and the scribe are together. What's going on?"

Glenn didn't answer right away because he was concerned about Louis' status as a bounty hunter.

"Master Cormac himself is also being targeted by the association. We may not be friends with the Black Fang Gang, but we are definitely not enemies. You can trust us on this." Adrian tried to convince the other party.

Glenn pondered for a long time, then asked Louis: "What is the purpose of you finding the scribe? As I said just now, it is also revenge?"

Louis glanced at Adrian: "Yes."

"What is the reason for your hatred?" Glenn was obviously skeptical of the "selling commercial secrets" rhetoric. "There are only a few of us here now, so there is no need to lie."

Adrian took a deep breath, and finally chose to tell the truth: "It's because of the bliss tobacco in his hand."

Glenn was silent for a moment, then shook his head: "I'm not surprised that you guys came here for this matter."

"You really know something." Glenn's words confirmed Adrian's guess.

"The scribe is just an agent of some wealthy businessmen. He rented an abandoned shipyard from us and transformed it into a workshop for the production of Bliss Tobacco." Glenn stared at the fading fireplace, with an intriguing expression on his face. "Yes, the shipyard is on our property, but it's not the Black Fangs who look after it, he employs someone else; we turn a blind eye to the existence of the workshop."

Louis observed Glenn's expression, inferring the authenticity of what the other party said: "Now the scribe is dead."

"Yeah." Glenn frankly spread out his remaining hand—he really didn't regret killing this man, and the rest of the Black Fang Gang must have the same attitude.

Although it is inconvenient to say it directly, Adrian does not object to the execution emotionally.

Lewis pinpoints exactly what went wrong: "But the workshop is still in the hands of its masters."

Glenn nodded in affirmation of Louis' statement: "Before this, they have been sending scribes to contact us. The tobacco workshop will pay the gang a certain amount of money every month, so that we can keep an eye on the situation around us, and the guards of the workshop are In addition, the bounty hunters hired, these 'bodyguards' also have a commission. As for the prohibited goods and money, we have never touched it."

"I didn't expect bounty hunters to get involved in such a transaction." Louis was very annoyed.Although it cannot be concluded that this is the individual behavior of bounty hunters, or is instigated by the association, the degeneration of this industry is an indisputable fact.

One-armed Glenn, the leader of the gang, feels deeply about this: "People will change, and so will the groups of people."

But Louis quickly got rid of the hesitant negative emotions, at least on the surface: "Since the scribe who communicated with you has been killed, how will the Black Fang Gang plan to explain to the people in the workshop? They may Pursue this."

Glenn's position is firm: "They are the ones who should give an account."

He stood up, walked to the corpse of the scribe, and looked down at the blood-soaked icy body with cold eyes: "They owe us to send such a scum to the harbor area and allow him to commit such a crime."

Adrian thought about it and said, "The Bliss Tobacco Factory itself violated the laws of Maulliga, but you don't seem to care much about it."

"What I care about is 'our' rules and morals." Glenn emphasized. "Their banned drugs did not harm the interests of the gang, but the girl abducted by the scribe is our relative."

The meaning of the one-armed Glenn is obvious: the underground gangs in the harbor area have a set of "laws" that are different from the city-state's orthodoxy, and everything starts from actual interests rather than the city's public interests.And at the moment when the scribe's evil deeds were exposed, the cooperative relationship between the workshop and the Black Fang Gang had collapsed.

Now that the two sides are tearing apart because of things other than banned drugs, Louis judges that the opportunity for himself and Adrian to act has come.

He cleared his throat and looked at Glenn calmly: "I guess, you already know what we want to do."

Adrian stood beside Louis, his heart was already agitated, but his expression remained calm: "I'm afraid this matter requires the acquiescence of the Black Fang Gang."

Glenn's attitude is very frank.He responded head-on to Louis' eyes, and said word by word: "Do you want to destroy the workshop? I have no problem, and those people have nothing to do with the Black Fang Gang. If you are determined to take action, I can let my men Standing on the sidelines can even open the way for you. Fuck the spirit of the contract, you don’t need to reason with the trafficker’s boss. But you must agree to one condition.”

Louis had already prepared: "What conditions?" If Glenn wanted money, just let the Feishi Mansion spend the money.

"Keep bounty hunters out of the underground gangs of Harborside," Glenn said. "Because of greed, they extended their tentacles to our territory, profited from the forbidden drug workshop, and condoned the behavior of the scribes. Don't forget the slave ship incident six years ago. Although you upheld justice, there were also many Bounty hunters were involved in capturing slaves."

One-Armed Glenn clearly has a bitter heart about slavery.

He saw Louis's status as "Honorary President", but he didn't know the status quo of being excluded and targeted.Adrian was worried about this: it was easy to agree, but Louis had offended the association and other colleagues more than once, and this time, he might not be able to fulfill the conditions proposed by Glenn.

But before Adrian reminded Louis to "consider more", Louis had already responded: "Okay, I promise you."

"Wait a minute, master—"

Glenn was also surprised by Louis's straightforward attitude.He raised his eyebrows, and there was a trace of doubt in his eyes: "Could you agree too readily?"

Louis pressed Adrian's hand, and replied calmly: "I've done something like this before, and it was quite successful." He turned to Adrian and smiled reassuringly. "As we said before, take the safest approach, and I will be responsible for grasping this degree."

When they finished talking with One-armed Glenn and walked out of the private house of the scribe, Louis and Adrian saw the members of the Black Fang Gang again.Seeing that noisy boy again, Adrian couldn't help feeling more sympathetic.

Glenn provided Louis with the location of the old shipyard where the workshop was located, including the light and dark posts around the workshop, the number of bodyguards hired to guard the workshop, and promised to let his men cooperate with his actions: "I will not let them directly In the face of those dangerous people, it is still possible to watch out for you and draw the attention of the workshop guards."

"Thank you so much." Adrian thanked Glenn.

Glenn looked up and down the young man who had been with Louis all the time, always felt that there was a subtle sense of disobedience in him, and his words and deeds carried a temperament that was out of tune with the market, unlike ordinary bounty hunter apprentices.

This made Glenn have a bold association: "You are actually the young master of some noble family."

Adrian was taken aback for a moment.He and Louis exchanged glances, shook his head again, and replied, "No, I'm just a student of Master Cormac."

The author has something to say: Tears For Remembrance-Великая Война (from the documentary "The Great Patriotic War")