Chapter 8

New book uploaded, begging for collection, kneeling for recommendation.

Zhu Jishi didn't feel sleepy until the late hours of the night. He returned to his room, lay on the bed in his clothes, and naturally couldn't fall asleep. He pondered his future, feeling the road ahead was bleak. He then took out his iPhone 5, which stored photos of Ye Yiren and his family back home. Zhu Jishi opened his phone and looked at these photos over and over again until the low battery signal appeared on the screen, and he reluctantly turned it off. He didn't have a solar charger, and although Ye Yiren's backpack had a charger for the iPhone 5, this era hadn't invented generators yet...

Thinking of the possibility that he might not see his family again for decades, Zhu Jishi's tears fell like a string of pearls, and he cried for half the night. By the time dawn broke, he had just managed to stop, with red eyes, and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast.

"Jason, are you okay?" The countess, dressed in a deep blue dress, looked at Zhu Jishi with red eyes and asked softly.

"Fine, fine... By the way, how is Mr. Churchill? Why haven't I seen Dr. Blumstein?" Zhu Jishi smiled awkwardly and changed the subject.

"Robert is recovering well. Early this morning, a carriage from Blenheim Palace came to take him away, and Dr. Blumstein accompanied him." The countess took out a 20-pound note and handed it to Zhu Jishi, smiling. "Robert paid 100 pounds for the consultation. Dr. Blumstein took 50 pounds, and the rest is yours."

The countess had already prepaid 30 pounds to Zhu Jishi the night before, and with this 20 pounds, the payment was settled.

"Thank you, Countess." Zhu Jishi put away the pounds and smiled gratefully at the countess.

"Call me Isabelle." The countess seemed to have a good impression of Zhu Jishi, but for a woman who had caused a duel between the fat Qiu and Will Heming, it was uncertain whether this was a blessing or a curse for Zhu Jishi.

However, keeping a beauty at arm's length was not Zhu Jishi's style. After this breakfast, he felt their relationship had become closer, and they seemed more intimate.

After breakfast, the countess's butler, an old man named Abbernathy, had already prepared the carriage. Unlike the somewhat unkempt Blumstein, this old man was very neat, with spotless clothes and neatly trimmed hair and beard. The butler was also Abbernathy. The countess's carriage was a bit old but very comfortable, with a clean interior and a faint scent of perfume. The countess, as promised, accompanied Zhu Jishi to London. The two sat opposite each other in the small carriage, chatting and laughing all the way. With the beauty by his side, Zhu Jishi seemed to temporarily forget his homesickness and felt quite content.

...

The smell of feces wafted through the carriage window, and Zhu Jishi couldn't help but lift the curtain to look outside. The street was filled with vendors and poorly dressed pedestrians, as well as ragged beggars.

On both sides of the street, vegetables, meat, fruit, old clothes, smelly boots, and all sorts of odd items were scattered everywhere. Zhu Jishi's eyes then fell on the garbage, feces, and brown, foul-smelling ditches that lined the ground.

The English cries of vendors and haggling voices echoed in his ears, making it very noisy. Looking into the distance, the sky over London, the capital of the British Empire in 1842, was gray, with no trace of blue skies or white clouds, as if shrouded in endless smog. The countless chimneys spewing smoke were faintly visible.

There were many carriages on the street, so the speed was slow, moving sluggishly. Zhu Jishi continued to observe London in 1842, which was vastly different from the London he had imagined.

He noticed many children wandering the streets, and some of the vendors were not adults. He frowned and asked the countess, "Have the children already finished school?"

The countess, Isabelle Deneuve, sighed deeply. "They are all children of the poor! Where do they have the money for school? When they are older, they will work in factories, and if the girls are pretty, they will end up in brothels. If nothing goes wrong, they will become future social scum. A few lucky ones might find a shortcut to the upper class..."

"Doesn't the government care? Shouldn't the government help them?"

Isabelle Deneuve's delicate brows furrowed as she looked at Zhu Jishi, as if sizing up an alien. "Would the Russian Tsar's government care about the lives of serfs?"

"Well... the Russian government is poor, you know." Zhu Jishi smiled awkwardly. He thought, "Isn't the Romanov dynasty reactionary? Of course, they don't care about the serfs, but isn't this British Empire supposed to be a democratic constitutional monarchy? How can it not care about the lives of the working people?"

"According to the upper echelons at the Almack's Club, taxpayers' money is not for supporting the lazy and social scum!" Isabelle Deneuve shook her head and said in a low voice, "Although the British government's annual revenue of 90 million pounds comes from taxpayers, it has nothing to do with these poor people outside. Why should it serve them?"

Zhu Jishi was stunned. "Aren't the ruling party afraid that the poor will vote for the opposition in the next election?"

"What do you mean?" This time, it was Isabelle Deneuve's turn to be stunned. "How can the poor have the right to vote? Only citizens who pay taxes above a certain limit have the right to vote. There are only about 200,000 such people in Britain, Jason... You don't even know this basic fact?"

He really didn't! Zhu Jishi had never studied history seriously, so he didn't know that Britain in 1842 was not a democratic country but a bourgeois dictatorship. The poor had no right to vote, although they were being agitated by socialists to petition and demonstrate for universal suffrage...

However, after the countess's explanation, Zhu Jishi didn't dare to inquire further about democratic constitutionalism, which was considered reactionary... or rather, not reactionary, because Marx and Engels were supporting the Chartist movement to fight for universal suffrage for British workers! In 1842, democratic constitutionalism definitely represented the universal values of social development. Otherwise, Marx and Engels would be wrong! It was only with the progress of the times that, by the 21st century, democratic constitutionalism would become a reactionary political system that could disrupt social order...

In any case, Zhu Jishi didn't dare to discuss democratic constitutionalism with the countess anymore. Instead, he occasionally lifted the curtain to look around, continuing to observe the capital of the British Empire, which seemed like a giant dumpster.

The carriage slowly moved forward and soon reached the Tower Bridge of London, but it wasn't the modern suspension bridge with two granite towers. It was a wooden bridge that looked quite old. The Tower Bridge was also very crowded, and the carriage moved slowly, almost as slow as walking. However, this allowed Zhu Jishi to admire the... scenery of the Thames. A black, foul-smelling river was far from beautiful. The banks of the Thames were lined with chimneys, and countless factories were discharging waste into the river day and night. The river was filled with masts and ships, with countless wooden sailing ships crowding the not-so-wide Thames. However, Zhu Jishi knew nothing about the history of ships and couldn't identify the types of these sailing ships; he just enjoyed the spectacle.

After crossing the Tower Bridge and reaching the south bank of the Thames, they passed through a railway, and the traffic and pedestrian flow seemed to decrease. The streets became wider and cleaner, with no street vendors. The houses on both sides of the road were more refined, and the air was not as foul. This area appeared to be the gathering place of London's middle and upper classes.

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