Compared with other people in the legion, the female slaves seemed a little worried about going back to their hometowns. After passin the border, the smiles on their faces were diminishing. They gathered in groups and chatted quietly. It was not an honorable experience to be enslaved. They could not hide that fact they were slaves, since their family and friends had seen them being taken away by the Shansa Empire’s soldiers. No one knew what their future would be. People might welcome them or back or make fun of and looked down upon them.
Anfey seemed to have similar feelings to female slaves. He unconsciously wanted to avoid Saul. Anything he had tried to hide from Saul had been exposed. How would Saul see him? In fact, Anfey had decided to secretly go to Violet City this time. This must have to do with his timidity. He was like a test taker who subconsciously wanted to know his grades as late as possible, since he was not so sure about the answers he wrote.
Black Eleven was pretty powerful in White Mountain City and Blackwater City. He was amazingly powerful in this place. He was incredibly efficient when he ran errands for Anfey. Black Eleven had planned everything well before Anfey could even think of it. A wagon with eight horses, an official approval to leave at night, 6-inch-high files with everything Anfey wanted to know, including the Violet City geography after the war, backgrounds and updates of royal families in different sizes, and even the profiles and religions of civilians.
As day broke, the Violet City gate opened. A wagon that had been waiting outside of the city for a while finally slowly drove into Violet City. No one had slept, but all four of them were not regular people, so they did not look sleepy.
"Anfey, do we go directly to your earl’s court?" Suzanna asked as she looked around the city in curiosity.
"No, Madam, I have sent people to let the mayor know that you are coming. He will wait for us at the Botanical Gardens," Apa said with a smile. Maybe because he had not forgotten that he had offended Suzanna, or because Suzanna was already a senior swordswoman and could possibly become a master swordswoman, he was very polite to her.
"Botanical Gardens?" Anfey asked.
"It is the name of a hotel. It also has the most beautiful garden in Violet City." Apa thought for a second and said, "Right now we still have enough time. Why don’t we drive around the city for a while? This way, master and your wife could know Violet City better. Some things can’t be found in the official files."
"Is Violet City large?" Anfey asked in a low voice.
"Not small, master. Look at this map." Apa pointed at the map. "If you walk along the main streets, you would not finish walking all of them until noon."
Anfey looked at the map carefully. There were six main streets, three horizontally and three vertically. Each main street crossed the whole city. If it would take a half day to walk through the main streets, Anfey could figure out the scale of Violet City.
"Such a large city is all mine now?" Anfey asked with a suspicious tone. He did not get too excited when he learned that Yolanthe rewarded him Violet City. When he walked into Violet City today, he was clearly intrigued. Looking through the crack in his window, Anfey saw the street was so long that it seemed to have no end. Anfey thought to himself, "Is this big city all mine?"
Anfey normally had good vision for life, but he was still just a person who owned a condo in the other world. The law said the condo owner only had the property title for seventy years. No one could argue with the law. Anfey was really shocked to see such a big city actually belonged to him.
Anfey had to admit Yolanthe was somebody. People who received Yolanthe’s rewards usually were very happy. Only giving out plenty of rewards could make his followers feel grateful and want to work for the country and him. Anfey could not help thinking of the time of Chu-Han rebellion. Xiang Yu had to give out nobility titles to reward his followers. He had rubbed the seal so much that the edges of the seal got rounded, but he still could not decide what kind of rewards he would give out. He was brave like Robin Hood. He shed tears for soldiers, and killed many enemies on the battlefield. He only had military power, but lacked leadership qualities and a generous personality. If he just wanted to be a general, being stingy did not seem to be a problem. However, he wanted to be an emperor. In the end, people betrayed him one after another.
Anfey was shocked by Yolanthe’s rewards. He did admire him as well.
"Yes, Master," Apa smiled.
"It will belong to me forever?" Anfey asked.
"Well… Master, your nobility title could not be inherited," Apa answered.
Anfey’s excitement was cut in half. This was no better than a seventy-year property title. He was over twenty years old now. Could he live longer than 100 years?
"If you serve our country with distinction, our king is always generous with rewards," Apa added.
"What kind of power do I have in Violet City?" Anfey asked.
Apa explained to Anfey in detail. As the owner of Violet City, he had great powers. He could appoint anyone to be the mayor. He could even be the mayor himself. He could change any rules, but had to follow the laws of Maho Empire. If a city owner killed a person on the street, he could not get away from it according to law. After Yolanthe took over the throne, he spent over ten years demolishing the inheritance system and the impunity in royal families with various tactics and bloody fights. It was like lighting up a candle in dark for a corrupted country. Of course, when royals committed crimes, they would have less serious punishments. A king had to take the royal family’s benefits into consideration to avoid any conflict with them. What he did was solely to try to constrain royal families and stop them from committing too many crimes.
Compared with other policy changes he made, the only benefit of this policy change was to help Yolanthe win people’s support. If anyone dared to talk bad about Yolanthe, no matter who he was, he could be beaten to death by an angry mob. Compared with other kings, its benefits were more obvious. Both Ellisen Empire and Shansa Empire were not politically stable. Shansa Empire only sent a Griffin Aerial Unit to the battle this time because there were riots by a large group of civilians and slaves. The conflicts among different social classes in Maho Empire started to get better. No matter which world, or what time, civilians were usually simple. As long as they had food and could survive, they would not risk their lives to riot.
Seeing Apa’s emphasis on strictly following the laws, Anfey was laughing inside. Anfey was able to see further than regular people. Big royal families used to have the authority to make laws, which caused different bills to pass in different cities. Take stealing as example: some thieves could be sentenced to death in some cities, their hands could be cut off in other cities, or taken to jail but also bailed out in other cities. On the one hand, standardizing the laws in different cities could make the country more transparent and prevent royals from harming others. On the other hand, it also foresaw the development of centralization of authority.
Anfey had an idea how strictly laws were enforced. Looking at it from an evil point of view, the criminals were fine if they were not caught. Anfey was an assassin in the other world. He had killed many people, even though he believed those people deserved it. However, he did kill people. From a hypercritical point of view, there were too many loopholes in the law. The lawyers would be unemployed and starving if there were no loopholes in the law. Anfey killed the grandson of Philip and over a dozen of others, but he was considered an honorable person in Maho Empire. Even Maho Empire would argue that Anfey was just killing in self defense, but how could it make sense if he killed more than a dozen of people.
If Yolanthe got to know he tried hard to subdue Philip and removed all the charges against Anfey, Anfey was still so critical about the laws in Maho Empire, Yolanthe probably would become incensed and curse Anfey and his whole family.
While Apa was explaining details to Anfey, he had driven the wagon from the northern wall to the southern wall in Violet City. Anfey looked out of the window to look at the sun. He suddenly asked, "Apa, if I am guessing right, the color of blood red should mean taking action, right?"
"Yes." Apa nodded.
"Are you an assassin?" Anfey asked.
"Hmmm…yes," Apa answered.
"You do not look like an assassin," Anfey said.
"Master, what do you mean by that?" Apa did not get Anfey’s comment.
"You covered yourself very well. I could not tell what you do for a living by just talking to you." Although Anfey was smiling, he sneered inside. "What do I mean? I meant you talk too much," Anfey thought to himself.
"Master, you must be joking." Apa shook his head with a smile. "I would have died a long time ago if people could tell what I do for a living."
"Black Eleven, the main part of your job is to seek information, right?" Anfey asked.
"Yes," Black Eleven answered.
"I think you guys should switch jobs. One could really talk and look like a person seeking out information, while the other one always has a poker face and looks like an assassin."
"Me? When did I have a poker face? No, you have a poker face!" Black Eleven rebutted angrily.
"When I just met you, you wore a black cloth on your face. Luckily, I am not a chicken, otherwise I would have been scared to death," Anfey said.
"Had we not just met? I did not know you." Black Eleven felt a little awkward and tried to explain. "And, I have a scar on my face. I could be identified easily because of it."
"You give very short answers too. Look at Apa, he knows how to talk. You should learn from him," Anfey said.
"Ok, ok. I will change, ok?" Black Eleven said with a helpless tone.
Apa smiled in response to Anfey’s compliments. Anfey praised him for the talking skills, which in turn made feel uneasy to continue talking.