63: Chapter 1 A New Beginning

As the steam train pulled into Backlund station, Lu Li looked through the window at the dense crowd on the platform, and only one thought crossed his mind—the smog in this city was at least three times worse than in Tingen.

The carriage was filled with the mixed scent of coal smoke and cheap tobacco. Lu Li took his suitcase down from the luggage rack, feeling the slight warmth of the jiaowei Sealed Artifact box through the leather lining.

The snake emblem pendant was tucked into his inner pocket, the brooch fragment was sealed separately in a lead evidence bag, and the fragment of the worm of time pulsed rhythmically deep within his fanny pack.

Having all his belongings on him was a terrible feeling. Back in his past life, when reading novels, he had always thought it was cool for the protagonist to wander the world carrying all their possessions, but now that it was his turn, he only felt that his fanny pack was too heavy.

The scene outside the station was much more impressive than in Tingen. Four-story masonry buildings lined neat streets, gas streetlamps were twice as dense as in Tingen, and several of the latest steam locomotives were waiting for passengers by the roadside.

The drivers wore uniform black vests, and the horses' manes were groomed to a glossy shine—Backlund, the City of Cities, the heart of the Loen Kingdom.

In his past life, Lu Li had seen countless illustrations of this city online, but seeing it with his own eyes now, his first reaction was: the fog was much thicker than in the pictures. Moreover, the smell of coal smoke in the air felt as if someone had hung a wet blanket soaked in industrial exhaust fumes in the sky.

The Fate Anchor had emitted a continuous low-frequency hum as soon as they entered the city limits. It wasn't a warning, but a dense perception—the density of Beyonders in the vicinity was at least an order of magnitude higher than in Tingen.

Just in the station square, he sensed the spirituality fluctuations of at least three low-Sequence Beyonders. Among them, a middle-aged gentleman who had just stepped out of a carriage opposite him carried clear characteristics of the "Spectator" Pathway, with a soft and stable spiritual luster, at least Sequence 8 or higher.

The waters in Backlund were much deeper than in Tingen. Here, a Sequence 7 Beyonder might just be a peripheral member of some small secret organization.

Lu Li hailed a rental carriage. The driver was a gaunt man in his fifties with snuff powder on his mustache, who immediately asked where he was going in a Backlund accent.

"East Borough."

"Where in the East Borough?"

"Any cheap alley will do."

The driver looked Lu Li up and down. His trench coat was an old style bought in Tingen, the corners of his suitcase were worn white, and his whole appearance spelled one word—poor.

He had probably seen plenty of young people coming to Backlund from out of town to make a living, so he didn't ask any questions and cracked his whip against the horse's back.

As the carriage passed through Kings Avenue, Lu Li observed the city's street layout through the window.

The buildings in Backlund were more than a story taller than those in Tingen, with three or four-story brick and wood apartment buildings everywhere. The shop windows along the street displayed various goods—from new steam engine parts to silk scarves imported from Intis, everything was available.

A newsboy by the roadside held up the day's "Backlund Daily" and shouted, with the front-page headline reading "The King Approves the Construction of a New East Borough Drainage System, Project Expected to Start Next Year."

Lu Li thought to himself that when construction started next year, the bosses of the Underground Commercial Street in the East Borough would probably have to pay another protection fee.

After the carriage turned into the East Borough, the streetscape visibly deteriorated. The paint on the brick walls peeled off in large patches, the gas streetlamps were spaced further and further apart, and several lamp shades were obviously broken and hadn't been replaced for a long time.

In an alley, a few barefoot children were rummaging through a pile of trash for scrap metal to sell, while a one-legged old Sailor sat in a corner weaving a basket out of a torn fishing net.

This was the other side of Backlund—the East Borough, the lowest slum in the city, a settlement for dock workers and unemployed Textile Factory workers. It was also the most ideal place to hide.

When reading the original work in his past life, he had been deeply impressed by Mingde Street, where Klein lived after adopting the alias Sherlock Moriarty.

Mingde Street was at least an area close to the middle class, with clean tap water and hot water supplied twice a week. Although Klein was poor, he still had some money from his Tarot card divination and mission bonuses.

However, although Lu Li also had mission bonuses in Tingen, it wasn't enough just to buy materials for advancement, and all Old Neil could help him secure was a proof of resignation and a few letters of recommendation. The cash in his pocket was probably enough to rent the cheapest single room in the East Borough for a month, and then he would have to find a way to support himself through commissions from the underground market.

Thinking of this, Lu Li silently cursed again in his heart.

Where were the transmigrator's perks? Where was the cheat code? The Fate Anchor could only passively sense danger and opportunities; it couldn't be eaten as a meal.

The fragment of the worm of time was a good thing, but its main function was resonance and tracking, so it couldn't be sold on the black market for money. The jiaowei was valuable—a Grade 3 Sealed Artifact, which could sell for at least several hundred gold pounds on the black market—but it was his core token for advancing to Sequence 8: Prometheus, and also one of the keys to opening the Antigonus Ruins. Selling the jiaowei was equivalent to selling his own life.

Therefore, the immediate priority now was to find a cheap place to live, settle down, and then figure out the Beyonder underground market in the East Borough as soon as possible.

By the time Klein crawled out of the grave and arrived in Backlund under the alias Sherlock, Lu Li had to have already established a foothold at the bottom of this city.

The Landlady was a chubby local Backlund woman who spoke as fast as if she were singing. She showed Lu Li the smallest single room at the end of the third floor—an iron bed, a wobbly table, a chair with a missing backrest, and a window facing the back alley, where he could hear the sound of stray cats rummaging through trash cans downstairs. The weekly rent was two shillings, there was a shared kitchen on the first floor, and the bathroom provided hot water twice a week.

"Is there anything cheaper?"

"This is the lowest price in this alley." She looked Lu Li up and down. "Young man, where are you from?"

"Tingen."

"Tingen? Didn't there be an earthquake there last month? I heard a lot of people died."

"Yes. That's why I moved here."

She didn't press further. In the East Borough, everyone had a past they didn't want to be asked about.

Lu Li handed her two weeks' rent, received a copper key in exchange, shoved his suitcase under the bed, and took out only the "outline of loens modern history" to place on the table. Then he locked the doors and windows—the window lock was broken, so Lu Li could only tie the window handle to a table leg with a piece of rope, so that at least it couldn't be pushed open from the outside.

Back in his past life when reading novels, he had always felt these life details were too trivial, but now that it was his turn, he realized that the first step to survival was fixing the window.

Lu Li sat on the edge of the bed and listed the things he needed to do in his mind.

First, familiarize himself with the environment—the street layout of the East Borough, the entrances and exits of the underground market, and the patrol routes of the Nighthawks and Mandated Punishers.

Second, restore contact—Abraham's shop was still deep in Water Pump Street, and the materials in the storage locker still needed to be confirmed.

Third, Sequence advancement—the potion formula for the Sequence 7: Swindler was only missing the final ritual ingredient; he needed to complete a sufficiently significant act of deception in Backlund.

Fourth, the jiaowei and the token—there was less than a month until the next full moon, and before then, he had to find out who the client really was.

There was one more thing not on the list, but it was equally important.

Klein.

He had arrived in Backlund a few days earlier than Klein. According to the original timeline, he should be arriving in Backlund soon.

When he arrived in Backlund, he would adopt the alias Sherlock Moriarty, rent an apartment on Mingde Street, and hang up a private detective's sign.

He would establish the Tarot Club, meet Audrey and Alger, and begin his long journey as the "Fool." And he only needed to hide himself in the background of Backlund's lower class within these few days. By the time Klein arrived, he would be nothing more than one of the thousands of nameless tenants in the East Borough.

Over the next few days, Lu Li began to familiarize himself with the East Borough. The East Borough of Backlund was more than ten times larger than the slums of Tingen, extending from the Dock District north to the southern edge of the commercial district.

The residents here were mostly dock workers, Textile Factory workers, street vendors, and homeless people who couldn't find work.

Lu Li bought a loaf of black bread for breakfast at a bakery, one penny a loaf, cheaper than in Tingen but hard enough to be used as a weapon. When he took the first bite, Lu Li almost chipped a tooth, and he fell into deep contemplation while staring at the piece of black bread in his hand. In the transmigrator novels he had read in his past life, the protagonist could always quickly accumulate wealth after transmigrating, eating and drinking well.

What about him? He was using the residual spiritual flames of a Prometheus to heat up cold water to soak his bread. There were no toasters, no microwaves, not even instant noodles. This was the world of mystery.

The entrance to the Underground Commercial Street was hidden in the back alley of an old bookstore on Water Pump Street. The bookstore's storefront was extremely small, and the copper sign hanging on the lintel was rusted green, barely allowing one to make out the letters "Old Eye."

When Lu Li pushed the door open and entered, Old Eye was sitting behind the counter flipping through an old ledger. Seeing Lu Li, he looked up and examined him through bottle-bottom-thick copper-rimmed glasses.

"You're back? How long are you staying this time?"

"Long term. The cheapest alley in the East Borough, two shillings a week."

"That is truly cheap." He closed the ledger. "The matter you asked me to inquire about last time, there's a lead."

He placed a thin, old booklet on the table and pushed it over. "The complete distribution map of shops in the Backlund Underground Commercial Street, marking the main business categories and Sequence Pathways of the bosses for each fixed shop. The temporary stalls of purchasing intermediaries, shops specializing in materials for the Marauder Pathway, and several second-hand dealers who can accept private commissions are all on it. It's free—consider it a returning customer discount for buying that imitation notebook last time."

Lu Li took the atlas and flipped through it. The markings were very detailed; the location, business hours, and the approximate Sequence range of the boss for each shop were written in pencil next to them.

"What about that purchasing intermediary?"

"Abraham is still in his old spot. But that batch of Deceiver hyoid bone powder he cleared out last time hasn't been restocked yet. I heard his business hasn't been good since the client suspended purchases, and he's only taken a few scattered commissions in the past few weeks."

Lu Li put the atlas into his pocket and took out the fragment of the worm of time from his inner pocket, placing it on the counter.

"There's one more thing—the jiaowei is in my hands. The entry conditions for the Antigonus Ruins require a full moon night and the snake emblem token. The client left the token with me and pointed the repayment condition to the ruins, which means he wants me to go there. But I don't want to go alone. In Backlund, are there any Beyonders with similar experiences I can refer to?"

Old Eye took off his glasses and slowly wiped the lenses with the corner of his clothes. He was silent for a long time before putting the glasses back on the bridge of his nose.

"You are asking a question I have avoided for twenty years." He closed the ledger and set it aside, pulled a pipe from under the counter, and put it in his mouth without lighting it. "The jiaowei is the key, the snake emblem token is your credential, and the Antigonus Ruins is the repayment location. These three things point to an old debt that has dragged on for too long. Before you go to the ruins, you must at least figure out one thing—what exactly are the materials the client left for you in the storage locker?"

"Advancement materials for a Sequence 7: Swindler. I have been preparing the main materials myself, and most of the auxiliary materials were already collected in Tingen, only missing the final ritual ingredient."

"Then him giving you the materials now is equivalent to helping you complete the final piece of the puzzle for advancing to Sequence 7. He isn't helping you; he is ensuring you have enough strength to walk to the entrance of the ruins alive." Old Eye took the unlit pipe out of his mouth and gently tapped the counter with the pipe stem.

"There is less than a month until the next full moon."