Starting from the entrance of Misty Town, the city of fog passes through a total of 97 streets, spanning 28 kilometers horizontally to the west and 70 kilometers longitudinally downward, ending at the town of Yakou in the northern part of the Ganges city-state. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe city's center of gravity is concentrated in the factory area between 29th and 63rd streets, where nearly two-thirds of the 700,000 total population lives.

So, the further down Lisa and Alex goes, the more they feel the vibrancy of the city. Not only did they see the rumored "bank", but they also passed by parks, schools, department stores, police stations, and even a team of dwarven police officers in dark uniforms patrolling on bicycles.

Alex had never seen a public garden that was open to all people, nor had he heard of a school where there was no tuition, and where rich and poor could be admitted (as told him by a passing dwarf passerby), or of a so-called police station. No, not only did he not see it, he would not even think about it.

The further he went, the more confused he became. Among the dwarves and gnomes I saw along the way, there was not a single obvious noble, rich or lord, nor a single poor man or beggar—in every other city in the north, there were laborers who had been abandoned by the foreman because they had been injured and had become beggars, and who had survived on the handouts of passing merchants.

Alex had heard that there were no nobles or kings on the Knights Continent, but he had seen the knights from the north, and knew that there were inevitably poor people and rich people with fine clothes, but the city was completely different right now.

Here, as far as the eye can see, every dwarf or dwarf is like a working class, and they treat each other as equals, with neither commanding nor subservient inferiors.

However, what puzzled Alex the most was that in such a city without nobility, commerce was extremely developed, and any inconspicuous small shop was doing thriving.

You know, as a merchant, Alex has never dealt with nobles, and there is not a single commoner among the customers of the Medici Chamber of Commerce.

As a result, there is a strong contrast and conflict between what he sees and hears in front of him and Alex's inherent concepts. So much so that his expression became more and more solemn, and even his steps became heavy.

For some reason, he suddenly remembered what his father had said about the way to balance, and the sight of Fog City gave him a strange thought: this city was perhaps more in line with his father's ideas than any other place in Middle-earth.

Here, there are no absolute rich, no absolute poor, everyone is working, but everyone (Alex can only understand the dwarf's emotions) seems so happy, as if life is full of hope.

"Is there something wrong?" Lisa asked lightly as she saw his expression change repeatedly.

"Miss Lisa," Alex said after a moment's deliberation, "do you feel that there is something uplifting about this city? I mean...... It's as if everyone here is enjoying life, not living in the middle of a day. ”

Lisa seemed to be a little touched, her expression was slightly stunned, and then she smiled coldly, and said, "What's so strange about this, these little guys are all born optimists." ”

"You're right. Alex smiled wryly and nodded, but he didn't necessarily agree with Lisa.

The two of them paced slowly along the sidewalk that was a cut above the store, occasionally squeezing into the elevator with a group of dwarven gnomes to the next level of the street.

When they heard the rumbling sound of water and saw the fog on the street, the sign next to the street already read "17th Street".

Coming out of the elevator on the 18th Street of Foggy City, just a few steps away, the front of me suddenly opened up, and the fog seemed to be held behind by an invisible net.

Alex couldn't help but snort, and glanced back, only to see that he could no longer see a few meters behind him, but the entire street in front of him was as clear as usual.

"It's a condensation circle. Lisa glanced at Alex with some disdain and walked on to herself.

And such a magic array?Alex secretly praised the magic in his heart, and continued to follow Lisa at his feet.

The sound of water in his ears is getting louder and louder, like the sound of a waterfall, and it is a little different, what is the difference, Alex can't say, but the curiosity in his heart is getting heavier and heavier.

He guessed that Lisa was just like him, as her steps were getting faster and faster.

Starting from the 20th Street of Fog City, the street scene is significantly different from before, and there are more restaurants and restaurants on the roadside, and from time to time you can still see dwarf workers wearing hard hats and cotton gloves under their armpits.

Further down the 23rd Street, the street suddenly became wider, and on the inner side of the cliff, there were rows of trucks parked, beside which were neatly stacked wooden boxes. Each box was more than a meter square, and I didn't know what it contained.

In the midst of his doubts, Alex's eyes suddenly lit up. Just a few dozen meters away, an ordinary human teenager was resting on the steps on the side of the road.

He glanced sideways at Lisa, who raised his eyebrows and said, "Go and ask." ”

When Alex heard this, he walked towards the young man, came to the other party, and asked politely, "Little brother, are you also a worker in the Fog City factory?"

He asked because the boy also had a rattan hard hat and a pair of gray-and-white cotton gloves beside him.

"No, no, I'm a student in the College of Engineering, and I came to the bearing factory for an internship during the winter vacation. The young man was about sixteen or seventeen years old, and his childish face had a kind of simplicity peculiar to a peasant child, and he raised his eyes to look at Alex, and saw that the other party was wearing a delicate brocade cardigan robe, and a pair of deerskin boots, and his demeanor was elegant and magnificent, and he was obviously a top nobleman, so he quickly stood up and asked, "May I ask who you ......are?"

"Oh, we're guests of Duke Vane and want to visit the Fog City Factory. Alex smiled. Ever since he entered Fog City, he had been a little unaccustomed to it, and it was only when he met this boy and saw the nervousness and respect he showed that he found a sense of familiarity.

"You're a guest of the dean," the young man grinned and said with some frustration, "It's really unfortunate that I'm on a day shift today, and I'm going to change the guard in half an hour." ”

"It's okay, since you're going to the factory, we're just on the way. Alex said with a smile.

"That's great, I can take you to the bearing factory, and I think the director of the Ziktan factory will welcome you." The boy couldn't wait to lead Alex to the other side of the street, not forgetting to turn back and nod to Lisa shyly and respectfully.

"By the way," Alex asked, pointing to the neatly stacked wooden boxes in the storeyard next to the sidewalk, "what are these?

"No, no, they're all machine parts, and I've heard that they're going to be shipped to the south of the empire to form a textile factory. There was a pride in the boy's expression, as if the parts were from his hands.

"Oh......" Alex nodded as he remembered the weaving machines he had seen in Coennas, and couldn't help but sigh with emotion, "It's a lot of work to pack all kinds of parts into identical wooden boxes." ”

"The dean said that this is called standardized packaging, which is conducive to mechanized handling," the young man explained with a smile, then pointed to a small car in the distance and said, "Well, it's like that." ”

Alex followed the young man's eyes, and saw a strange iron cart about one meter wide, driving in front of a row of wooden boxes, and the two long iron teeth protruding from the front of the iron cart accurately pierced into the hole reserved under the wooden box, and when all the iron teeth were inserted, they suddenly lifted up again, and lifted the two wooden boxes stacked up and down.

The iron cart took hold of the wooden box, drove to a wagon, and slipped it into the open side of the carriage, and after a few moments the two iron teeth withdrew from under the wooden box, and the iron car drove away from the wagon.

The sight of forklifts moving goods, which was commonplace at the Fog City factory, stunned Alex. He really couldn't imagine that there was such an ingenious way of moving goods in the world.