Chapter 342

Chapter 342: Morris’s Trick for Getting Approved.

When Duncan and Alice went to the cemetery together, Morris and Vanna were not idle either. Early in the morning, they went to the citizen Help Center in the southern part of the Upper City to carry out something Duncan had asked them to do.

They had to find a stable and legal place to stay in the city-state of Frostholm and, if possible, one or two identities they could use openly.

After all, they might be active in this city-state for a long time. They could not live like cultists, hiding and running every day.

Since the informants Tyrian had left in the city were no longer reliable, Morris decided to figure out a solution himself.

Frostholm’s citizen Help Center was a huge domed building. Two long side wings stretched out from the main body. It was called a citizen Help Center, but in truth the building also received visitors entering the city-state and handled a huge amount of third?party agency work. Almost everything could be done here, from registering house rentals and sales, to issuing temporary passes, to hiring short-term maids, gardeners, and laundry workers. The long side wings were packed with all kinds of registration windows and offices, and the giant domed hall was always noisy and crowded. In this, it was very different from Pland.

As soon as they stepped into the great dome, a wave of heat hit them. Frostholm’s special high?pressure heating system drove away the winter chill, and bright electric lights hung high under the dome, lighting the whole building.

The place had only been open for a short while, but many people had already poured in. citizens looking for short?term work or registering property rentals and sales moved between countless windows and counters. The roar of voices mixed with the constant “click” and “hiss” from air?driven tube lines starting up again and again. Vanna clearly was not used to this kind of environment. She carefully avoided the streams of people around her and muttered softly to Morris: “In Pland, you don’t put job counters and housing counters in the same building.”

“You have to think about the cost of heating big buildings, and how long it takes to refit a heat?pump exchange station,” Morris shook his head and said, “Most of this city’s basic public facilities were left over from Frostholm’s Queen era. But that glorious age is over. After the Great Uprising, Frostholm barely recovered seventy or eighty percent of its strength with the Boiling Gold industry. Starting from scratch to replace all the underground pipe systems and steam?power networks the Queen left behind is not a simple job.”

“So they just keep making do like this?” Vanna’s eyes went wide. “These are half?century?old antiques!”

“What else can they do?” Morris sighed. “On one side there is the city’s decline. On the other side there is population pressure. Then there was the collapse of the sea cliffs back then, which cut down the livable area. Facilities from fifty years ago may be a bit cramped by now, but they barely still work. Since they still work, they keep using them. This isn’t only Frostholm’s problem. Many old industrial city?states are like this. Lively cities like Pland are the minority.”

Vanna fell silent.

This was not a field she was good at thinking about.

While they talked, Morris had already found the location of the migrant registration counter on the dizzying map of lines above the hall. He and the tall Vanna threaded their way through the crowd and finally reached a relatively quiet counter.

A long wooden counter stood against the wall, divided into several sections by iron bars. Behind each section sat a clerk in a gray?blue uniform. Their faces were as stiff as the iron bars beside them, and it was clear they planned to keep that expression until the end of the workday.

“We need a residence permit, and we also want to find a short?term rental,” Morris said as he came to one of the sections. He sat down on a squeaky iron chair and spoke to the sallow?faced middle?aged man inside: “We landed today.”

“Which pier?” The middle?aged clerk with the sallow face lifted his eyelids and glanced at the old man opposite him. When he noticed that a one?meter?ninety lady was standing behind the old man, he froze for a second, but he quickly went back to an official tone: “Show me the pier certificate and your tickets.”

Vanna frowned and looked down at Morris.

Morris’s face stayed calm. He spread his hands and said: “We lost them. Maybe we dropped them when we left the pier, and that ship has already left.”

The clerk in the section stopped what he was doing at once. He looked up, his poker face tinged with displeasure: “That won’t do. We must have the certificate. Go back to the pier and get it reissued.”

“But I have something else,” Morris said. As he spoke, he reached into his coat and took out a folded document and a small booklet with a dark red cover, which he passed over. “They should work as legal identification.”

The clerk waved his hand on reflex: “No pier certificate, no deal. Nothing else can—”

He saw the mark on the small booklet and stopped talking. Then he reached out, opened the folded document, and ran his eyes over it.

His poker?face expression changed at once.

“An academic transit pass issued by the Truth Academy and the Boundless Sea Navigation Council,” Morris said, “allowing the holder to stay and visit in all city?states under the protection of the True Gods. During the stay, the local city?state university under the Truth Academy serves as the guarantor.” He then pointed at the red booklet. “This is my credential. A dual certificate in degree and theology from the Truth Academy. My rank is Professor.”

The sallow?faced middle?aged clerk stared in a daze for a moment, then slowly lifted his head, looking a little lost: “Uh… good morning, Professor Morris… It’s a pleasure to meet you. Of course your identity is legal…”

Relief showed on Morris’s face.

But the clerk paused again. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then stiffened up and said: “But… I still need to know which ship you came on. That’s… the rule.”

Morris’s newly relaxed expression turned a bit awkward. Next to him, Vanna rubbed the bridge of her nose and quietly turned her head away.

Morris sighed and looked at the middle?aged clerk in front of him, who was clearly nervous yet still staring straight at him.

“You already know which ship I came on,” he said with a sigh. A faint light flickered in his eyes. “Issue the certificate.”

The clerk froze. His eyes seemed to go blank for a second. Then he lowered his head and started working the clicking Punch?Card Machine. He fed the punched card into the pneumatic tube line container beside the counter.

A moment later, along with hisses and clicks from inside the pipes, a card returned from some approval office deep in the building and dropped back into the counter unit.

The clerk slid the punched card into a small reader, checked the receipt number and anti?forgery code, and then finally began to fill out the contents of the certificate form. Without raising his head, he said: “All I can do here is issue this certificate. You need to take it to the west wing, to window A?12. They should have short?term rentals that match your request there.”

“Thank you,” Morris said as he took the finished document. He paused, then added quietly: “I’m sorry.”

With that, he and Vanna hurried away from the counter and walked toward the next window.

“This is the first time I’ve done something like that,” after they had walked a short distance, the old gentleman lowered his voice and said, “I really wanted to handle it through normal paperwork…”

“We came here on a ghost ship that has no place in this world. You know normal procedures will never solve that problem,” Vanna also spoke softly. There seemed to be a bit of laughter in her tone. “Desperate times, desperate measures.”

“…What do you think the odds are that Mr. Duncan gets a legal ship registration certificate for the Vanished?” Morris asked.

“What do you think?” Vanna replied.

“…All right,” Morris sighed and looked at the certificate in his hand. “Let’s just hope Heidi never finds out about this. Next time we run into something like this, I’d rather forge a fake ticket first.”

Vanna watched the sighing Morris with a half?smile. Ever since she was little, this was the first time she had seen such a troubled look on the face of this old scholar, who was always known for being “rigorous in study and strict with the rules.” It actually seemed… quite interesting.

At the same time, Agatha had just finished a field investigation and had not yet made it back to the great Cathedral when she received an urgent report from a subordinate, sent from Cemetery No. 3.

Sitting in the steam car, Agatha looked at the letter that had just been handed to her. Her eyes slowly went blank.

It was a denunciation letter—from that indescribable visitor.

She had just left, and right after that, this letter had been delivered to the cemetery.

Should she sigh over this near miss, or over that visitor’s strange behavior?

She put away the letter, her mind racing.

Unease spread in her heart. One matter suddenly felt urgent.

“Turn. Go to East Harbor.”

The subordinate driving in front was a bit surprised and asked: “We’re not going back to the Cathedral first?”

“Plans have changed. East Harbor first,” Agatha said firmly. “I have a bad feeling… Something may be trying to land while it has the chance.”

The driver was completely confused, but the habit of obeying orders made him press down his doubts at once.

At the next intersection, the black steam car slowed and turned, then sped toward the Harbor district in the eastern part of the city?state.