A round white sun hung in the sky, but it did not exude the slightest warmth to the ground below. The wind is howling, the frost and snow are dancing, and the ancient St. Petersburg is shrouded in a silvery white world, which looks as desolate and bleak as the city of doom. At a time when the Romanov dynasty was on the verge of decay, even its capital had lost its color under the cold winter; Only those nobles who still indulge in high happiness and spend money in luxurious villas have added a little bit of civilization to the city.

A middle-aged man wrapped in a trench coat stood at the street port, looking at the familiar scene in front of him, and his heart was surging. Seven years ago, he was forced into exile and tasted the bitterness of failure; And today, he has finally set foot on this homeland again. This time, he will return to the country with confidence, and it will not be long before the whole world will feel the strength and roar of the proletarian people!

"Mr. Ulyanov, you should remember the road to St. Petersburg, right?" A faint voice rang in his ears. The middle-aged man turned his head, looked directly at the tall figure next to him, who was also hidden in a black trench coat, and said softly, "Mr. Kuzov, please rest assured." In order to escape the tsar's lackeys, I had all the streets of St. Petersburg engraved in my mind, and the city was as easy for me as walking in my own back garden. Please come with me, my comrades have been waiting for you for a long time. ”

In the heavy snow, two figures wrapped themselves tightly in the snow-covered streets slowly walked forward, leaving a dented footprint behind them. The tall man called Kuzov was oblivious to the snowy scenery in front of him, and only silently walked side by side with the person next to him; The middle-aged man next to him swept his eyes around, constantly looking at his surroundings. Gradually. His gaze became heavy. Before that, I was excited to return to my hometown. At the moment, it was as cold as frost and snow.

In 1906, when he left the country, Russian society had been hit hard by the defeat in Manchuria, but the normal order of life was still maintained: even in January, when winter was at its peak, St. Petersburg was still bustling with people in the snow. The shops on both sides of the street opened their storefronts, displaying steaming delicatessen, intricately patterned fabrics, and all kinds of daily necessities, although the quality of workmanship was not excellent, but the quantity was still able to meet the total. The only exception was during the period of marches and strikes, when the citizens of the capital joined the revolutionary ranks against the Tsar. or close the door of the house for fear that the turmoil will affect itself; During that period, St. Petersburg was indeed in ruins, and it was not until the government calmed the situation with the army that it regained its normal vitality.

However, what is presented in front of the middle-aged man's eyes now is a lonely and almost unfamiliar scene. The once bustling and lively commercial district is now deserted like a prayer space in front of the cemetery: the entire street is filled with people walking on their hands, and everyone is walking quickly with their heads bowed. Dozens of other beggars, wrapped in colorful dirty clothes, huddled in the corners of the wall and shivering; The scrawny limbs were almost skeletons, as if they would fall down with a bang under the whipping of the cold wind in the next moment. The shops on both sides are almost locked doors, and some of them are even knee-high with snow in front of their doors and roofs, and it seems that no one has taken care of them for a long time. The windows of a few shops drifted alone in the cold wind. There were only a few commercial goods such as firewood and flour on the counter inside, and the middle-aged man stopped to look. I was stunned to find that there was no cheese and meat in the store!

"Boss, is there any recent riot in St. Petersburg?" When he walked to the window of the third store, where there were few goods, the middle-aged man could no longer hold back the shock and doubt in his heart, and said to a thin old man sitting in front of the window, "Why has Chekash Street become like this now?" ”

The old man looked vigilantly at the uninvited guest who appeared in front of his window, and said in a cold and stiff voice: "If the two guests are not here to shop, then please leave." I'm just an old man who runs a small business here to make ends meet, and I don't know anything else. ”

"Sir, we are mechanics in Kronstadt, and we have been retained by the military for more than half a year due to the needs of the war, and we have not been able to return to St. Petersburg until now." Kuzov, who had been silent before, suddenly spoke lightly, and his eyes under the trench coat seemed to stab the middle-aged man. He took out a bill with an intricate pattern from his pocket and placed it in front of the table, and said, "Please provide us with two buttered loaves of bread, for we have not eaten a single meal since we boarded the boat at the dock in the morning." ”

"Sir, this one will cost two rubles." Seeing the banknotes placed in front of the window, the guard in the eyes of the thin old man disappeared, and his words were a little softer. The tall Kuzov did not make a counteroffer, but simply put the same note in front of the window again. Seeing this, the middle-aged man next to him couldn't help but have his pupils shrink suddenly, and his brown and black eyes were full of shock and disbelief.

Before the outbreak of the Great War, the currencies of the great powers were originally on the gold standard; However, with the outbreak of war, governments began to strictly restrict the flow of their own gold and issued a large number of banknotes that could not be exchanged for huàn gold. This kind of "currency symbol", which is not directly linked to precious metals, naturally lays the bane for inflation. Although the middle-aged man had anticipated the depreciation of his country's currency during the war, he never imagined that the situation would be so bad that before the war, the monthly income of an ordinary Russian worker was no more than six roubles, and it only took more than half a year for it to rot! If this is true of St. Petersburg, the capital of the country, with a large import of foreign goods, what will the rest of the country look like? For a while, the middle-aged man's thoughts were surging sharply, and he couldn't even feel the taste of butter in his mouth.

The old man put the banknotes into the cabinet with his thin palm, sighed and said, "Since you are willing to pay, it proves that the two of you are not those secret police." In fact, with these all-pervasive guys, where will there be any uprisings and turmoil in the capital? The reason why Chekash Street has become the deserted cemetery-like situation it is now is entirely because everyone's business can no longer be done! ”

"What the hell is going on?" The middle-aged man stopped chewing on the bread and asked in a heavy tone.

In the cold wind, the old man lowered his voice and said in words that could only be heard by the three of them: "You have been isolated on Kronstadt Island for more than half a year, and it is normal not to know the situation here. In fact, in the first few months of the war, although there was no news of victory at the front, and rumors of a crushing defeat of various armies circulated in the city, prices in the market were barely maintained at a level that we could accept. From time to time, businessmen who hoarded goods were detected, and the activities of the underground black market could only be hidden in the shadows. However, since October, this situation has been completely reversed in just one month. ”

"Since October, flour, vegetables, meat and poultry, oil and salt, cloth, coal, cotton and other daily necessities seem to have been sucked away by an invisible black hole. We were forced to buy at a previously unimaginably high price and then sell at a higher price; What is even more frightening is that this round of price increases has not stopped at all! A large number of operators could not withstand the sharp rise in raw material prices and went out of business, replaced by almost open trading on the underground black market; This situation is already obvious, and it must be someone who is hoarding daily necessities on a large scale, which is why the current situation of almost collapse of prices. Speaking of this, the old man's eyes showed a look of resentment and sadness, and he said, "And even in this case, we will still be exploited by those secret police!" If it weren't for the fact that I had a wheat field on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, the storefront here would not have been able to hold up until now. ”

"Secret police...... The middle-aged man muttered this profession silently, his eyes flickering, and he did not say anything again. For him, this group was all too familiar: in order to suppress opposition and maintain its autocratic rule, Russia had a "Ministry of Public Safety and Order" that had always belonged to the Tsar when Alexander III came to the throne, and has flourished in the hands of Tsar Nicholas II today. Not only have they planted a large number of whistleblowers in various trade unions and groups in the country, but they have also monitored countless individuals from all walks of life. And because of its unsupervised nature of being only responsible to the Ministry of Security and the Tsar, this force has become a scorpion that the whole of Russia is afraid of: once it is targeted by these people, it can only be a situation where I am a fish and a man!

Just as his thoughts were turning, the middle-aged man suddenly heard a noisy voice from afar, like a scream, and like an angry roar. The old man in front of him suddenly changed his complexion, and said urgently: "They are here!" Stay out of the way, I'm closing the store too! Before the words fell, the old man slammed the window shut without saying anything, and the middle-aged man could even hear the sound of the internal lock. Only then did the middle-aged man realize that the door of the store was tightly closed, and it seemed that he was ready to meet this moment at any time!

"Damn, we're out of luck!" The middle-aged man let out a low roar, turned and ran away in the other direction; The tall Kuzov didn't say a word, just followed closely behind the middle-aged man. Only then did he realize that the person in front of him knew the terrain of St. Petersburg well: in a few twists and turns, the two of them hid in the corner of a garbage-strewn alley. (To be continued......)

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