Five years later......

Fog Cage City.

Today's Fog Cage City is not the same as it was ten years ago.

The crowds in the streets are still bustling, the artisans are still doing business, and the cries of selling are still endless......

But there are no 'craftsmen' who roam the streets, and in their place are police patrolling everywhere.

The arena in the center of the city is still bustling, but this time it is not a competitive event, but a public announcement.

"I'm Andrew Brandon, dear friends. I'm grateful that everyone nominated me as a mayoral candidate again, but unfortunately I've decided to retire...... Today is my last day as mayor and the last time I will address you here......"

A fat man of at least three hundred pounds was giving a speech to the citizens on the high platform of the Fog Cage City Arena.

"As you can see, it's really not easy to climb this high platform now...... It's also dangerous - I'm not sure when this platform will crush me, I can already hear it creaking...... So, goodbye, dear friends. ”

This fat man, named Andrew, is an old acquaintance of Leon.

The owner of the Fog Cage City Arena.

Four years earlier, in March 360 of the Pender calendar, Andrew had been elected as his spokesman by the merchants and citizens of Mist Cage City, and had entered into a friendly negotiation with King Vidis.

The process of the negotiations is unknown, but the outcome is known to all - since then, King Vidis has left the city of Mistcage, and Andrew has become the first 'mayor' elected by the people on the continent of Pande.

It wasn't long before King Vidis declared that the Neopander Empire was his suzerain, and with the support of Emperor Leon the Great, he took the Second and Eighth Legions of the Peacekeepers to his hometown of Van Skerry.

In the autumn of 360 Pander, Klose, the commander of the Second Legion, returned to Mist Cage with his troops and announced the death of Queen Agnus of Van Skerry, and Vidis became the new King of Van Skerry.

Vidis and Count Aydin did not return to the Pander continent, they stayed in their homeland.

After this, there was a stir in the territory of Fieldsway for a while, and there were some minor riots.

The unrest subsided after only a month after being suppressed by the peacekeepers, and Fieldsway was divided into three separate city-states.

Fog Cage City, Xiaoxiao Bay, Fengyu Port.

Merchants and pirates, native aristocrats of the West Coast, smugglers and slave traders – three groups of people, three forces.

Most of the pirates have left Fogcage City with Vidis, and the merchants represented by Andrew have implemented autonomy in the area around Fogcage City, and announced that they will no longer retain large-scale private armies, and will fully obey the policies of the Neopander Empire, becoming a direct county of the Neopander Empire.

The nobles of Roaring Bay declared their independence and illegally established a state, the Knights of Dawn, with the Knights of Dawn as the main body. Subsequently, they launched a 'holy war', decriminalizing the New Pander Empire and the believers of the God of Wealth as heretics. However, this unwise behavior was soon suppressed......

The smugglers and slave traders who controlled the area approached Ramon, hoping to cooperate with Ramon and use Ramon's influence to keep Fengyu Port as an independent city-state like Singal.

The end result was that Fieldsway, divided into three separate city-states, became the three counties of the New Pander Empire.

With the strong support of Leon and Andrew's efforts, the city quickly recovered, and became the most prosperous city on the West Coast again.

The port of Fengyu was taken over by Ramon and sold to Leon for one dinar, and Ramon had made a big business selling the city, but the price was unbelievably cheap.

And on the other side of Roaring Bay, the paladin Roland personally led the army and uprooted this illegal 'Knights of the Dawn Country' - from Roland leading his troops to the complete surrender of Roaring Bay, it took only a month, destroying all the way, and there was really nothing to say about the 20,000 troops surrounding 2,000 people......

The New Knights of the Dawn and the Knights of the Dusk also completed a real merger in a brief war, and the Knights of the Dawn were restored to their original form.

After the complete surrender of the 'Knights' State, Roland personally built a sculpture complex in Roaring Bay that is the same as the Long River City Square.

Although Roland still believes in the goddess of justice, he has clearly understood that it is the ultimate justice to let people live and work in peace.

It doesn't matter what god you believe in or what denomination you belong to.

The important thing is to bow down to the people and lead people to a happier life.

Just like the three queens are doing.

As the mayor of Fogcage City, Andrew is well aware of what the three queens, Amy, Wendelph and Alina, have done in the past few years.

Or rather, everything Leon did.

After all, he himself had only been following Li Ang's policy for the past few years and had not done anything extra, but the Fog Cage City had become prosperous and stable again, and it was much more neat and orderly than before.

Even Buckley's maritime merchants exclaimed, 'It's only been a few years, I've never seen such a stable and prosperous big city in Buckley, and there is not even a beggar.'

In fact, those uninformed Buckley people don't know what prosperity is.

Only those with more than 300,000 inhabitants in Changhe City are called big cities, and there are at least ten of them in the Pande Continent like the 'remote small cities' like Fog Cage City.

After finishing his final speech and struggling to climb down from the podium in the Fog Cage City Square, Andrew got into a delicate and ornate carriage.

This is the 'Alice' brand four-wheeled carriage, which Leon gave to him on behalf of Alice.

After all, Andrew was Alice's 'adoptive father' until she was three years old.

In the carriage sat Andrew's son, an eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy.

However, the child has a well-proportioned body and a handsome face, and it seems that he has not inherited Andrew's obesity gene.

The child's name is Ryan, which is very similar to Leon's name, and he looks three points similar, which is why Andrew took a lot of care about the dying Leon back then - when Andrew met Leon, Ryan was born not long ago, and Andrew wanted to accumulate some virtue for his child who was born in middle age.

"Father, you're only fifty years old, why are you retiring?"

Ryan reached out and closed the car door for his overly fat father, looking out the window at the crowd still waving to Andrew: "People love you, they all say you're doing a great job!" ”

"Haha...... In fact, being the mayor of Fog Cage City is really a simple job, as long as you don't break the law, everyone can do it...... Ahem, Bieber, hurry up and drive, it's not good for the citizens to hear this......"

Andrew wiped the sweat from his face, urged the 'driver' to hurry away, and then waved goodbye to the window.

The groom, known as Bieber, left the square in his carriage and headed for the main road leading to the city of the River.

The citizens really loved Fat Andrew, and even when the carriage left the square, people still waved at the carriage behind them, until the carriage was completely out of sight, and the crowd in Fogcage City gradually quieted down.

To the southeast of Fog Cage City, a new smooth road has been built, with a road width of more than ten meters, leading to Lion City.

Ryan hasn't forgotten his own question: "Father, is it really easy to be mayor?" If it's easy, why did you retire after only one term? ”

"Of course, being mayor is not easy, but being the first mayor of Fogcage City is very simple...... As long as you keep your duty and have a bottom line, it's okay. I don't think Bieber will be worse than me......"

Andrew leaned comfortably on the sofa in the carriage and explained, "As for why I retired after only one term...... I know what I can do, and the next term will not be so simple - His Majesty Li Ang has set economic growth and people's living index growth indicators for each city. ”

"Ha, boss, I'm not an official, I'll only be a mercenary...... Or be a coachman. ”

Bieber turned back from the front seat and said that the compartment window was not closed, and it seemed that he had heard Andrew's words.

"I don't quite understand...... Why is it easy to do the first and hard to do next? Is His Majesty Li Ang deliberately harming officials and lords in various places again? ”

Ryan was still a little puzzled.

"He's not cheating on the officials...... Kid, don't listen to fools who don't know the truth. This is only because, everything I, the mayor, have done according to His Majesty Leon's orders - in fact, I didn't do anything, and the city of fog cage was developed by His Majesty Leon to become what it is today. But the future development depends on the ability of the mayor and city officials, and I don't have the ability to turn a stone into gold, of course, I have to abdicate decently to make way for the virtuous. ”

Andrew patiently explained: "Moreover, we don't lack anything now, His Majesty Li Ang also left me a large villa in Long River City, of course I want to live a leisurely retirement life...... By the way, accompany you to complete your studies at Pander College. ”

"But I've always heard that His Majesty Leon likes to trap officials and nobles...... People say that he is just a lucky man who makes people jealous, but they all admit that he is a good emperor, and they all praise him and scold him, which I don't understand......"

Ryan said with a frown.

"He scolded him because his three wives were really jealous, and he really wasn't the kind of pure good guy...... Praise him because he has really made people's lives rich over the years - it's not a contradiction, kid ......"

Andrew replied with a pout, probably remembering something from the past.

"Not pure goodness? Ha ha...... Boss, you could have called His Majesty Leon a scoundrel, a lucky one who was pampered by the three goddesses—he didn't mind anyone saying that, anyway. ”

Bieber looked back in the front row and smiled.

"Hahaha, don't say it so obviously...... At the very least, respect the merits of Emperor Leon, or Lane will be misunderstood. ”

Andrew laughed too.

"Ryan, while it's true that we all think that His Majesty Leon is a villain, it's only because we're all jealous of him. In fact, His Majesty Li Ang is indeed a respectable emperor - it only took him five years to make the vast majority of people in the entire continent fed and clothed, which the gods could not do. I was also one of those who had been blessed by him, and five years ago I was just an alcoholic who had lost everything, and I just wanted to get myself drunk to death. But now, I have no food and clothing, a decent job, a new family, and life is getting better. ”

Bieber nodded and stopped laughing, and said to Ryan very seriously.

This inconspicuous-looking coachman is actually an officer sent by the Long River Legion to protect Andrew - the Long River Legion is a legion developed by the Long River Express, and since the Long River Express became a 'state-owned enterprise' under the Ministry of Transportation of the New Pande Empire, the Long River Army has become the largest security force in the New Pande Empire.

"Uncle Bieber, were you poor before?"

Ryan looked at Bieber with more confusion in his eyes.

He was a carefree child from an early age, and Andrew never let him suffer.

But he knew what poverty was, and he remembered what the people of Fogcage City were like five years ago, even though he was only six years old at the time.

"I wasn't just poor before...... Ha, I used to be a member of the Drunkard Troupe, have you ever heard of the Drunkard Troupe? ”

Bieber smiled and pulled out a wine bottle and sniffed it, but didn't drink it.

Don't drink while driving, this is the decree of the new Pande Empire, and violating the decree will be forced to re-education through labor - the wide roads connecting the major cities, most of which are built by lawbreakers.

There is a label on the bottle, which is a bull's head with a broken horn, and the label reads 'Drunkard Wine', and a short story about the experience of a member of the Drunkard Regiment in small print.

"I know the drunkard group, and my father also likes the drunkard group, and there is a story about the drunkard group on every bottle, which is very interesting. Well, I've collected thirty-five tags with different stories, and Lord Alarik's experience was wonderful. ”

Ryan had heard of the drunkard because it was really famous - it was now the most famous ale brand in the continent, and it was even exported to Buckley and Amara.

Five years ago, Alaric was supported by Queen Wendy to build a winery with some of his brothers who had not joined the Legion.

But in the beginning, Alaric faced a lot of difficulties – just like every start-up, it was difficult to sell the product.

But then, Amy helped Alaric register the trademark 'Drunkard', and Alina offered Alaric a way to write a memoir of his own adventures and that of his brothers, adapt them into short stories, and then find a printing house to print them as wine labels.

Since then, every bottle Alaric has sold has had a story on its label, as long as it wasn't the same batch produced at the same time.

Many people will collect alcoholic liquor labels like Ryan, and even some people who don't drink will pay attention to alcoholic liquor in order to read stories.

By now, the little stories on the bottle have extended from the members of the drunkard group to other people, such as the experiences of Klose or Lesley, who are also alcoholics.

Last year, Alaric began collecting stories from drunkards across the continent.

Today, Alaric is a well-known tycoon and philanthropist, and with more than 6,000 employees, he has built a winery in the town of Kwyn, the largest in the continent, which is not the largest; In addition, about half of the winery's employees are people with disabilities.

"Look, Ryan, that's why all men are jealous of His Majesty Leon - the three queens, Amy, Wendy, and Alina, can make anyone rich, even the drunks who can't do anything but drink can make a fortune at their behest! And they're so beautiful...... They are true goddesses......"

Bieber shook the bottle at Ryan.

Although Ryan was only eleven years old, he seemed to understand: "In this way, His Majesty Leon is lucky to have the help of the three goddesses, so he has today's ......"

Andrew smiled and shook his head: "Haha, there are more than three, Alice is also a real goddess." But, child, don't you notice why all the goddesses are wives or mounts of His Majesty Leon? Why not someone else, but His Majesty Leon? ”

"Hmm...... Did he get lucky? Handsome? Will please girls? Or...... He's great in some way? ”

Ryan laughed wickedly as he spoke.

"Which bastard did you learn this from...... Child, this is because whoever His Majesty Leon wants to be a goddess will become a goddess, including horses...... Like I said, no matter who becomes the mayor of the fog cage city, as long as he doesn't break the law in the past few years, he can do as well as me, even if he lets a horse become the mayor. ”

Andrew didn't laugh this time, and neither did Bieber, who was driving in front.

Ryan was stunned and nodded as if he didn't understand: "I probably understand." ”