What was London like during the 19th century?
In the 19th century, throughout the entire world, the British Isles was the place that best depicted the unique, decadent beauty of the Steam Age.
In this period, the Industrial Revolution was just beginning the process of adapting society to new ideas of high productivity. Trains chugged through the magnificent district of Whitechapel, swept through the newly-paved streets, bid farewell to the dark and dirty slums, and entered a land of industry and steam-powered gears.
This was the scene of the 19th century depicted by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…”
The famous Sherlock Holmes series took place in the same context. Against a backdrop of intense change, an artist’s creative potential could be infinitely magnified.
The Night Watchman stood atop the tall spire of a tower. His black leather shoes tread on a flowing mass of shadows.
On his slender hands were a pair of half-finger gloves. He lazily held a black umbrella, clasping his index finger around the handle.
The silvery white moon rose behind him, outlining his silhouette with pale, foreboding light.
The thin gold chain of a pocket watch dangled from a hidden pocket in his vest, jingling and tinkling in the evening breeze, fluttering in the wind with the hem of his trench coat.
His dark gray hair was tangled beneath a top hat. The Night Watchman slightly narrowed his scarlet eyes, just like a demon from a Western myth who’d escaped from hell to plague the earth.
The harbinger bird landed on his shoulder and lifted a claw to scratch at its feathers. The plague mask on its face was striking.
“London…”
Zong Yan squinted his eyes and stared into the distance. Everywhere he could see, towering chimneys rose up beneath the cover of night, ceaselessly spewing their industrial exhaust into the air.
Capitalists in this period didn’t understand the devastating harm these fumes would cause London in the future. The only thing in their eyes were piles of gold coins, so they drove child workers into their factories and harvested cheap productivity with moldy black bread.
Zong Yan caught a glimpse of his current appearance from a reflection on the brass beak of the harbinger bird’s mask.
Although the temperament and aura were quite different, the face was the same as his own.
This meant Zong Yan’s previous guesses were correct.
He’d cycled through the Sun God and the King of Clouds, and now he’d arrived on the set of the Night Watchman. According to this logic, if you excluded the Cloud of the Wind persona card, which he’d lost when he synthesized Yun Zhong Jun, the next one was probably the Astrologer.
And then, after the Astrologer, it might really be the Lord of the Universe.
Zong Yan’s eyes were unreadable. He stared at the empty, night-cloaked streets beneath his feet and suddenly felt a strange sense of peace.
He’d thought about it long ago. It didn’t matter where the path ended. He wouldn’t run away.
A few years ago, after Zong Yan went through the metal box that Grandma Zong hid from him under the bed, he’d stopped asking certain questions.
Why had his parents abandoned him? Did he do something wrong?
Grandma Zong hadn’t deliberately hidden Zong Yan’s identity. She even went to the proper authorities to register him, but after so many years, no one came to find him.
In the first semester of his sophomore year of high school, Zong Yan used to prop his head in his hand and fantasize that someday his biological parents would float down from the sky arm in arm, and ask him with a worried face if he’d been well all these years, then explain why they’d abandoned him.
Later, as he got more used to being alone, he understood there was no such thing as accidental abandonment in the adult world. They’d given him up for a reason. Zong Yan stopped expecting anything. Anyway, he was used to being on his own now, carefree and unattached. If his parents suddenly appeared, it might even be awkward to live under someone else’s roof.
Then, after Zong Yan entered the occult world, he met several evil gods, and all of them swore that Zong Yan was Azathoth’s stream of consciousness. At first Zong Yan followed the first rule in Miskatonic University’s student code: never believe what an evil god tells you. He turned a deaf ear to the speculation and never took it to heart.
But now he’d really obtained the power of the Dreamlands, and Zong Yan couldn’t help but have serious doubts about his identity.
He might genuinely be one of Azathoth’s streams of consciousness, but he didn’t know what that meant or how the Lord of the Universe operated. Wasn’t it a little hard to believe that Azathoth would let an upstart stream of consciousness take control of the entire Dreamlands?
It never crossed his mind that the most remarkable thing about him was managing to hook up with the Lord of the Gate.
In any case, Zong Yan wasn’t the type of person who retreated in the face of danger. Besides, he was genuinely curious about his true identity.
If there was some way to discover the truth about himself, as long as it wasn’t a path that led to certain death, Zong Yan was willing to embrace it.
Besides…
The Night Watchman lowered his head, took the Silver Key from his neck and wrapped the chain around his right wrist, allowing the key to drop into the palm of his hand.
Love really was a magical emotion.
It seemed to give him unlimited courage to stride forward, to dash past everything to return to his lover’s side.
The Night Watchman lifted his black umbrella and suddenly leaped down from the high tower.
The shadows obeyed his commands, swarming around him like evil spirits, generating ghastly spikes down the side of the wall. But when the soles of the Night Watchman’s shoes met the spikes, they suddenly flattened, supporting his weight and letting him smoothly make his way from high in the air down to the ground.
Woooo—
A fierce wind blew all around him. The tip of his umbrella struck the brick wall, dragging out a dazzling line of sparks.
The top-hatted aristocrat of the fog traversed the shadow-filled city like an evil spirit, stepping across an urban forest of buildings.
The bird of death spread its dark wings and followed, letting out a hoarse and horrible cry from time to time.
‘His Highness has returned!’
‘His Highness the Night Watchman is back!’
The number of dead bones buried in this city was countless. The ghosts that loomed against the night sky were pale and brilliant, like magnificent, silvery fireworks.
He stood at the top of a tower at the junction of London’s East End and West End. In the 19th century, the East End was flooded with foreign immigrants. It was the poorest, dirtiest slum in all of London, filled with people from the lower classes, street prostitutes, and skinny child laborers. It was so dark and dismal that its streets hardly saw sunlight year round.
Opposite the East End was the West End, recognized as a wealthy area of London. Here there were theaters large and small, with an incessant stream of horse-drawn carriages passing by. Gentlemen wore top hats and pocket watches with walking sticks in their hands, and ladies in long, elaborate dresses attended the lavish balls of the social season.
With the key in his hand, Zong Yan was ready to find his exit while engaging in an exciting parkour session in the dark. But as he was running and jumping, the ghosts suddenly began to shout at him and he almost lost his footing.
The back of his neck tingled with cold. He didn’t dare to stop, so he continued dashing forward.
But the voices called to him with great eagerness as well as deep respect.
‘Your Highness, Your Highness! Near Whitechapel on the east side, that demon killer appeared again, the one who likes to cut open people’s stomachs and pull out their intestines!’
‘Your Highness! You have to get justice for Mary Ann! It’s true she was in the flesh trade, but she never hurt a soul or stole from anyone. Such treatment of a lady is outrageous/’
‘Yes, yes! The Ripper claims to be a Satanist and said he wants to open the gates of hell and summon the legions of Satan. Just a few days ago he succeeded in summoning a demon of roaring flame. That killer is bold and arrogant. He isn’t afraid of you at all.’
Zong Yan felt a pang of desperation.
It turned out, somewhat ironically, that the Night Watchman was a naïve braveheart who liked to uphold justice. Right now there were so many ghosts following him that he didn’t dare to turn around.
Come on, you’re wearing a black suit and a gray trench coat, carrying a black umbrella. You have long gray hair and red rabbit eyes, the aristocrat of the foggy streets. And not only do you manipulate shadows and the harbinger bird of death, you can also speak to the dead.
Why does this look so much like a standard villain ah!
When Zong Yan switched from Yun Zhong Jun into the Night Watchman, he was mentally prepared to find himself at a murder scene. He never imagined this guy was actually a defender of justice. Just amazing.
And what the hell was going on with this world? Not only was there a Night Watchman roaming the streets, Satan the Devil was hanging around too? Were all these beings classified as Elder Gods? With so many non-humans jumbled up together, was the human race in this world going to be okay? No wonder the Night Watchman had such incredible villain specs yet righteously embarked on the path of protecting helpless ghosts. This was a young man with vision!
Last but not least, those things you guys are talking about, I mentally can’t handle it, okay!!
Zong Yan wasn’t great at history, but he’d certainly heard of the infamous Jack the Ripper from the 19th century! The ghosts’ chattering discussion made it easy to identify his target. It was him, it was him, it was him!
Zong Yan felt like he was too young for all this. Maybe he could hammer Elder Gods and fistfight Great Old Ones and engage in a CP with an Outer God, but he was still afraid of ghosts! Very afraid!
Fortunately, the Silver Key seemed to detect Zong Yan’s panic. Its temperature was growing hotter.
Zong Yan quickly followed the guidance of the key, parkoured across the city, and fled to the entrance of a church on the other side of town. He dug the toes of his shoes into the plain white granite wall and sprinted up the building.
At the top of the tower, a huge brass bell stood in silence.
Then, at its center, a brilliant, multi-colored gap in space split open. Zong Yan recognized it immediately.
“Brother, I really can’t handle this, so I’m going to leave Jack the Ripper to you. I’m going to save the world.”
Zong Yan muttered to himself, tossed the black umbrella aside, and ducked inside the crack.
A moment later, the scene around him abruptly changed.
Cold white light poured down from the ceiling of the classroom.
Clatter—
The black-haired teen in a school uniform propped up his head. With slack eyes he watched a black pen roll off his desk and hit the floor.
The black text on the white test paper was blindingly clear.
【201X National Unified Examination for Admission to Higher Education Institutions (Jiangsu Version)】
—
The author has something to say:
The Jiangsu exam is a nightmare for a lot of people _(:з」∠)_
Zong Yan: I know the essay topics for the college entrance exam in advance! Tsinghua, I’m on my way! Oh yeah!
TL Notes:
A Tale of Two Cities – An 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel is set between 1775-1793. Although written in the 19th century, it’s set in the 18th century
Mary Ann – 玛丽娜 – May be a reference to Mary Ann Nichols, the first canonical victim of Jack the Ripper
demon of roaring flame – 烈焰恶魔 – fiery/roaring flame evil devil/demon/monster
CP – couple, pairing, relationship
Jiangsu – 江苏 – One of the most economically developed provinces in China, the third smallest but most densely populated. Its capital is Nanjing, and it borders Shanghai to the south
Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:
Whitechapel – 白教堂
Dickens – 狄更斯
A Tale of Two Cities – 双城记
Sherlock Holmes, Holmes – 福尔摩斯
His Highness – 殿下 – diànxià
Mary Ann – 玛丽娜 – Mǎlìnà
[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]
What was London like during the 19th century?
In the 19th century, throughout the entire world, the British Isles was the place that best depicted the unique, decadent beauty of the Steam Age.
In this period, the Industrial Revolution was just beginning the process of adapting society to new ideas of high productivity. Trains chugged through the magnificent district of Whitechapel, swept through the newly-paved streets, bid farewell to the dark and dirty slums, and entered a land of industry and steam-powered gears.
This was the scene of the 19th century depicted by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…”
The famous Sherlock Holmes series took place in the same context. Against a backdrop of intense change, an artist’s creative potential could be infinitely magnified.
The Night Watchman stood atop the tall spire of a tower. His black leather shoes tread on a flowing mass of shadows.
On his slender hands were a pair of half-finger gloves. He lazily held a black umbrella, clasping his index finger around the handle.
The silvery white moon rose behind him, outlining his silhouette with pale, foreboding light.
The thin gold chain of a pocket watch dangled from a hidden pocket in his vest, jingling and tinkling in the evening breeze, fluttering in the wind with the hem of his trench coat.
His dark gray hair was tangled beneath a top hat. The Night Watchman slightly narrowed his scarlet eyes, just like a demon from a Western myth who’d escaped from hell to plague the earth.
The harbinger bird landed on his shoulder and lifted a claw to scratch at its feathers. The plague mask on its face was striking.
“London…”
Zong Yan squinted his eyes and stared into the distance. Everywhere he could see, towering chimneys rose up beneath the cover of night, ceaselessly spewing their industrial exhaust into the air.
Capitalists in this period didn’t understand the devastating harm these fumes would cause London in the future. The only thing in their eyes were piles of gold coins, so they drove child workers into their factories and harvested cheap productivity with moldy black bread.
Zong Yan caught a glimpse of his current appearance from a reflection on the brass beak of the harbinger bird’s mask.
Although the temperament and aura were quite different, the face was the same as his own.
This meant Zong Yan’s previous guesses were correct.
He’d cycled through the Sun God and the King of Clouds, and now he’d arrived on the set of the Night Watchman. According to this logic, if you excluded the Cloud of the Wind persona card, which he’d lost when he synthesized Yun Zhong Jun, the next one was probably the Astrologer.
And then, after the Astrologer, it might really be the Lord of the Universe.
Zong Yan’s eyes were unreadable. He stared at the empty, night-cloaked streets beneath his feet and suddenly felt a strange sense of peace.
He’d thought about it long ago. It didn’t matter where the path ended. He wouldn’t run away.
A few years ago, after Zong Yan went through the metal box that Grandma Zong hid from him under the bed, he’d stopped asking certain questions.
Why had his parents abandoned him? Did he do something wrong?
Grandma Zong hadn’t deliberately hidden Zong Yan’s identity. She even went to the proper authorities to register him, but after so many years, no one came to find him.
In the first semester of his sophomore year of high school, Zong Yan used to prop his head in his hand and fantasize that someday his biological parents would float down from the sky arm in arm, and ask him with a worried face if he’d been well all these years, then explain why they’d abandoned him.
Later, as he got more used to being alone, he understood there was no such thing as accidental abandonment in the adult world. They’d given him up for a reason. Zong Yan stopped expecting anything. Anyway, he was used to being on his own now, carefree and unattached. If his parents suddenly appeared, it might even be awkward to live under someone else’s roof.
Then, after Zong Yan entered the occult world, he met several evil gods, and all of them swore that Zong Yan was Azathoth’s stream of consciousness. At first Zong Yan followed the first rule in Miskatonic University’s student code: never believe what an evil god tells you. He turned a deaf ear to the speculation and never took it to heart.
But now he’d really obtained the power of the Dreamlands, and Zong Yan couldn’t help but have serious doubts about his identity.
He might genuinely be one of Azathoth’s streams of consciousness, but he didn’t know what that meant or how the Lord of the Universe operated. Wasn’t it a little hard to believe that Azathoth would let an upstart stream of consciousness take control of the entire Dreamlands?
It never crossed his mind that the most remarkable thing about him was managing to hook up with the Lord of the Gate.
In any case, Zong Yan wasn’t the type of person who retreated in the face of danger. Besides, he was genuinely curious about his true identity.
If there was some way to discover the truth about himself, as long as it wasn’t a path that led to certain death, Zong Yan was willing to embrace it.
Besides…
The Night Watchman lowered his head, took the Silver Key from his neck and wrapped the chain around his right wrist, allowing the key to drop into the palm of his hand.
Love really was a magical emotion.
It seemed to give him unlimited courage to stride forward, to dash past everything to return to his lover’s side.
The Night Watchman lifted his black umbrella and suddenly leaped down from the high tower.
The shadows obeyed his commands, swarming around him like evil spirits, generating ghastly spikes down the side of the wall. But when the soles of the Night Watchman’s shoes met the spikes, they suddenly flattened, supporting his weight and letting him smoothly make his way from high in the air down to the ground.
Woooo—
A fierce wind blew all around him. The tip of his umbrella struck the brick wall, dragging out a dazzling line of sparks.
The top-hatted aristocrat of the fog traversed the shadow-filled city like an evil spirit, stepping across an urban forest of buildings.
The bird of death spread its dark wings and followed, letting out a hoarse and horrible cry from time to time.
‘His Highness has returned!’
‘His Highness the Night Watchman is back!’
The number of dead bones buried in this city was countless. The ghosts that loomed against the night sky were pale and brilliant, like magnificent, silvery fireworks.
He stood at the top of a tower at the junction of London’s East End and West End. In the 19th century, the East End was flooded with foreign immigrants. It was the poorest, dirtiest slum in all of London, filled with people from the lower classes, street prostitutes, and skinny child laborers. It was so dark and dismal that its streets hardly saw sunlight year round.
Opposite the East End was the West End, recognized as a wealthy area of London. Here there were theaters large and small, with an incessant stream of horse-drawn carriages passing by. Gentlemen wore top hats and pocket watches with walking sticks in their hands, and ladies in long, elaborate dresses attended the lavish balls of the social season.
With the key in his hand, Zong Yan was ready to find his exit while engaging in an exciting parkour session in the dark. But as he was running and jumping, the ghosts suddenly began to shout at him and he almost lost his footing.
The back of his neck tingled with cold. He didn’t dare to stop, so he continued dashing forward.
But the voices called to him with great eagerness as well as deep respect.
‘Your Highness, Your Highness! Near Whitechapel on the east side, that demon killer appeared again, the one who likes to cut open people’s stomachs and pull out their intestines!’
‘Your Highness! You have to get justice for Mary Ann! It’s true she was in the flesh trade, but she never hurt a soul or stole from anyone. Such treatment of a lady is outrageous/’
‘Yes, yes! The Ripper claims to be a Satanist and said he wants to open the gates of hell and summon the legions of Satan. Just a few days ago he succeeded in summoning a demon of roaring flame. That killer is bold and arrogant. He isn’t afraid of you at all.’
Zong Yan felt a pang of desperation.
It turned out, somewhat ironically, that the Night Watchman was a naïve braveheart who liked to uphold justice. Right now there were so many ghosts following him that he didn’t dare to turn around.
Come on, you’re wearing a black suit and a gray trench coat, carrying a black umbrella. You have long gray hair and red rabbit eyes, the aristocrat of the foggy streets. And not only do you manipulate shadows and the harbinger bird of death, you can also speak to the dead.
Why does this look so much like a standard villain ah!
When Zong Yan switched from Yun Zhong Jun into the Night Watchman, he was mentally prepared to find himself at a murder scene. He never imagined this guy was actually a defender of justice. Just amazing.
And what the hell was going on with this world? Not only was there a Night Watchman roaming the streets, Satan the Devil was hanging around too? Were all these beings classified as Elder Gods? With so many non-humans jumbled up together, was the human race in this world going to be okay? No wonder the Night Watchman had such incredible villain specs yet righteously embarked on the path of protecting helpless ghosts. This was a young man with vision!
Last but not least, those things you guys are talking about, I mentally can’t handle it, okay!!
Zong Yan wasn’t great at history, but he’d certainly heard of the infamous Jack the Ripper from the 19th century! The ghosts’ chattering discussion made it easy to identify his target. It was him, it was him, it was him!
Zong Yan felt like he was too young for all this. Maybe he could hammer Elder Gods and fistfight Great Old Ones and engage in a CP with an Outer God, but he was still afraid of ghosts! Very afraid!
Fortunately, the Silver Key seemed to detect Zong Yan’s panic. Its temperature was growing hotter.
Zong Yan quickly followed the guidance of the key, parkoured across the city, and fled to the entrance of a church on the other side of town. He dug the toes of his shoes into the plain white granite wall and sprinted up the building.
At the top of the tower, a huge brass bell stood in silence.
Then, at its center, a brilliant, multi-colored gap in space split open. Zong Yan recognized it immediately.
“Brother, I really can’t handle this, so I’m going to leave Jack the Ripper to you. I’m going to save the world.”
Zong Yan muttered to himself, tossed the black umbrella aside, and ducked inside the crack.
A moment later, the scene around him abruptly changed.
Cold white light poured down from the ceiling of the classroom.
Clatter—
The black-haired teen in a school uniform propped up his head. With slack eyes he watched a black pen roll off his desk and hit the floor.
The black text on the white test paper was blindingly clear.
【201X National Unified Examination for Admission to Higher Education Institutions (Jiangsu Version)】
—
The author has something to say:
The Jiangsu exam is a nightmare for a lot of people _(:з」∠)_
Zong Yan: I know the essay topics for the college entrance exam in advance! Tsinghua, I’m on my way! Oh yeah!
TL Notes:
A Tale of Two Cities – An 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel is set between 1775-1793. Although written in the 19th century, it’s set in the 18th century
Mary Ann – 玛丽娜 – May be a reference to Mary Ann Nichols, the first canonical victim of Jack the Ripper
demon of roaring flame – 烈焰恶魔 – fiery/roaring flame evil devil/demon/monster
CP – couple, pairing, relationship
Jiangsu – 江苏 – One of the most economically developed provinces in China, the third smallest but most densely populated. Its capital is Nanjing, and it borders Shanghai to the south
Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:
Whitechapel – 白教堂
Dickens – 狄更斯
A Tale of Two Cities – 双城记
Sherlock Holmes, Holmes – 福尔摩斯
His Highness – 殿下 – diànxià
Mary Ann – 玛丽娜 – Mǎlìnà
[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]
