Carmen rushed to the newspaper office early in the morning.

The Holy City is the place where thought and opinion are most active, and it has a plethora of newspapers, fierce competition, and of course a mix of good and bad, from orthodox church newspapers to gossip news.

The Voice of the Righteous, which Carmen employed, is one of the most influential newspapers in the Holy City in the middle of the range lately.

Just three years ago, the newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy. barely survived because of a vivid and interesting serialization by Sean, and stood firm because of the sensation of another serialization related to Sean.

That's why Carmen was able to get here with Sean's letter of introduction and was hired by the newspaper as a trainee reporter.

Now, he has made some good name for himself, which has given him a firm foothold in the newspaper, and he is highly regarded by Mr. Brown, the president and editor-in-chief, and has made a name for himself in the Holy City press.

However, after a merchant claiming to be from Saint-Nouvi broke into his apartment and had an in-depth conversation with him, Carmen suddenly became more active, appearing frequently at certain salon meetings.

After a brief morning meeting, Carmen did not leave the room. Mr. Brown, the president and editor-in-chief of the newspaper and the owner of the newspaper, kindly asked:

"Carmen, is there any big news?"

The president is always kind to the journalists who perform well, just like the boss of any other commercial company is to his capable subordinates, because this will bring reading and attention to his newspaper, which determines the influence of a newspaper, and of course ultimately brings a considerable income.

If a newspaper is not read, it is not as useful as a blank piece of paper.

"Mr. Brown, there is no big news, and I want to come across the so-called big news every day. "However, I have received information that police stations in the holy city and various parts of Gyeonggi have recently received reports from residents who claim that their children are missing. ”

"Is there anything strange about that? People in the Holy City disappear unexpectedly every day, including child trafficking, of course. At least half of the reason for this is to be found in the parents who have a difficult life, and their parents put too much energy and time into making a living and neglect to take care of them.

In other impoverished areas of the province, many of the children are sold to traffickers by their impoverished biological parents, some of whom have bad habits such as gambling, alcoholism and even opium smoking.

Poor children are the children who may become slaves in a mine and never see the light of day, or they may be broken by the leaders of the begging syndicate and become tools for selling misery in order to arouse the sympathy of passers-by. ”

"Mr. Brown, you are very correct in your assertions, and your eyes are very sharp, and you can see many ugly social phenomena. Carmen first complimented, and then added, "But in the missing cases I am concerned about, these missing people are all born into some company employees and small merchant families, although most of these families are not very wealthy, but they are incomparable to those ordinary people, at least they can afford to hire nannies, not to mention that some of the missing people's families are very wealthy." As far as I know, 20 such children have gone missing in three years in Al-Quds Al-Sharif alone, but these numbers are very inconspicuous when compared to the total number of missing persons.

After all, in the sewers of the Holy City, nameless corpses are found almost every day. ”

"You're saying that traffickers are targeting a specific class? That's kind of interesting. Brown mused, "Why is that?"

Carmen shook her head, "Because it's so weird, I think it's necessary to investigate." ”

Brown nodded: "I allow you to investigate, but be safe." Gangsters don't care if you're a journalist or not. Carmen, as a veteran journalist, let me tell you, I'd rather offend the Prime Minister than the villains, because they have no bottom line. ”

With permission, Carmen immediately left the newspaper office, jumped into a public carriage, and went to the docks.

What he did not explain to the president was that at least 10 of the 20 missing children had parents who had been reported by neighbors or relatives because they had "not been in time" to report to the police.

This is so suspicious.

When a child runs away from home for willful or other reasons, or suspects that he has been abducted, the parents must be so anxious that they want to mobilize the whole city to help find them.

Of course, the existence of individual wonders is not excluded.

But the existence of at least ten pairs of strange creatures is too suspicious. These families are located in different police areas inside and outside the city, making them less noticeable.

In the docklands, passing by his uncle LeBron's employment agency, Carmen made a point of coming down to take a look.

LeBron's headhunting business has now entered a period of stability, he has made a name for himself, and people come to try his luck every day. But LeBron's price is getting lower and lower, and those high-quality talents who are willing to go to the south can go, and you can't dig up those who don't want to go.

Sean gave LeBron, he still has more than half of the money he hasn't spent, just like fishing, he can't always overfish in one place, so he sent all his employees out to some remote industrial cities to poach people, and he himself is resident in the Holy City.

After listening to Carmen's origin, LeBron unexpectedly provided a clue:

"There's a nice designer at Evans Shipyard, the guy whose surname is Hill, and I've been in contact with him through others. He was in the prime of life, he had a college degree, and his ancestors were shipbuilders, the kind of man I needed, so I wanted to poach him and offer him twice the salary he earned, but he refused, even though he was now only paid half the salary.

Dear nephew, you know, now these companies that build ordinary merchant ships are essentially out of production, unless there is an order from the Navy. Both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary say that there is no recovery in the shipbuilding industry in the short term. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would cut taxes on the shipbuilding industry, but this tax cut is meaningless, it does not produce at all, so where do you need to pay taxes?"

In Carmen's view, in less than three months, his uncle has become less "provincial", such as the tone and demeanor of his speech, as if he knows astronomy and geography, and cares about national affairs and palace secrets in the middle.

"Why is that?" asked Carmen.

"Because his son is missing, he is only two and a half years old. "This is their only son, and the couple is so grief-stricken that they vow to find their son." So he would never leave the Holy City, he had been waiting for news from the police station, for which he even spent all his savings to hire a private detective. ”

The ship designer, surnamed Hill, was not on Carmen's interview list, so Carmen changed his plans on the fly.

Considering that it was now normal working hours, Carmen went straight to the Evans shipyard.

Approaching the ferry terminal, Carmen saw a large group of soldiers and patrolmen blocking the way, and a squadron of Guards cavalry escorting a member of the royal family past him.

"A Xia warship has arrived in the Holy City!"

"His Royal Highness Philip is on the orders of His Majesty, go to meet him!"

"The empire has given the brave naval officers and men of the Xia people a high-standard treatment!"

Some citizens shouted loudly that this was the only foreign ship that had managed to reach the Holy City in the past five months, and that the Europa people were eager to work with foreign countries, especially the maritime power, Xia Kingdom, to resist the ravages of the fish demons.

Carmen was also curious, and followed the citizens and various small traders towards the docks.

Of course, as a journalist, his curiosity was also part of the job, and it was clear that the press in the Holy City had not been informed about it beforehand.

A warship of the Xia Navy was docked at the pier, a three-story giant ship that, judging from the firing port, had at least 120 guns of various calibers.

Even if it were a friendly visit, such a foreign warship with strong firepower would not be allowed to penetrate deep into the interior.

This represents an official gesture of the Europa Empire.

It's just that this warship looks a little too miserable:

The mainmast was missing, the port side was clearly patched at the waterline, and it looked like there had been a terrible fire on board.

At least thirty wounded were carried off the ship on stretchers, and the surviving crew members screamed as if they were the rest of the world, and the total number was less than half of the normal number.

It is conceivable what kind of hardships these Xia Navy officers and soldiers experienced at sea.

His Royal Highness Philip had his whole guard dismount and salute with guns to welcome the lucky ones. Without any other red tape, His Royal Highness Philip arranged for the Xia people to leave the dock immediately and stay in one of the best hotels in the city.

This is big news, Carmen can imagine, and tomorrow the front pages of the newspapers will be full of news about this Xia warship.

Leave the dock and walk east along the Ossela River for more than twenty minutes, and there is an inlet where the Evans Shipyard is.

The shipyard is one of the more than a dozen shipbuilding companies in the Holy City, and it has been busy with orders in the good years of commercial prosperity.

But now, as Carmen imagined, there were no busy workers in the sprawling shipyard.

The shipyard owners thought that Carmen had come to interview him, and warmly welcomed Carmen's arrival, because the shipyard owners wanted to attract the attention and sympathy of the government through the reporter's voice, but the ministers could only express some inconsequential opinions.

Carmen cleverly didn't show his real intentions, and he patiently spent a full hour on the overzealous boss, and then offered to ask the engineer with the surname Hill some professional technical questions.

"Well, that's a nice guy, his grandfather and father have worked here all their lives, and he himself has almost grown up here, and I think he'll be happy to be of your service. "The owner, although surprised, went to find Hill in person.

Hill is Chinese New Year's Eve, he actually married very early, but he and his wife only had a child the year before.

But the disappearance of his child was a major blow to him, which made him look at least ten years older, and even had gray hair prematurely because of too much anxiety and sadness.

Carmen made an excuse to take the others away, and then made his intentions known, to Hill's surprise:

"My wife lost her baby after leaving a dental office. Little George's baby teeth grew too fast. ”