On his first night patrol, Wu Ming remained quite alert, his gaze grave and cautious.
But after they had walked for a while, Shi Zhenbang smiled and said to him, "Little Wu, it's your first night patrol, so there's no need to be so on guard. Though all sorts of chicken thieves and dog robbers emerge in the city after dark, we actually encounter very few of them."
Wu Ming fell thoughtful after hearing this.
Indeed,
Jingye City was simply too vast. With at least several hundred thousand households and over a million common folk, the Cautious Punishment Division's manpower was fundamentally incapable of patrolling everywhere. Moreover, even those thieves and bandits active at night would usually hide at once or flee outright upon spotting the Night Patrolmen of the Cautious Punishment Division from afar. It was rare for them to actually fight the Night Patrolmen.
The Cautious Punishment Division's night patrols served more as a deterrent, intimidating the petty scoundrels within the city and reducing such vile nighttime crimes as theft, armed robbery, rape, and abduction. After all, though the Cautious Punishment Division lacked the manpower to patrol the entire city frequently, as long as someone was patrolling at night, many bandits would not dare act too wildly.
That night, when Chen's Apothecary had been attacked, the attackers had also waited until they had avoided the Cautious Punishment Division's patrols before making their move.
They continued their patrol.
Only within a few lofty-walled estates were lights faintly visible in the city. The homes of ordinary people had mostly extinguished their lamps and gone to rest. When they reached North Street in the northern part of the city, they finally saw another stretch blazing with lights.
"Big! Big! Big!!"
Bursts of clamorous shouting came from the gambling house.
Across from