Downstream of the Eternal Flow River, at Golden Gallon Port's inland dock, several young men in uniform stood beside a newsstand.
They were the water police for this area, mainly responsible for cracking down on smuggling, maintaining dock and shipping order, and salvaging drowned stowaways.
Compared with the warlords of Tiger Province and Leopard Province, who shot refugees crossing the border, the authorities of Golden Gallon Port were relatively tolerant of illegal immigration.
For humanitarian reasons, the authorities would not deport them, but neither could they allow refugees to pour into the city unchecked.
Under normal circumstances, they would send the refugees to settlement sites in the suburbs, where they could stay temporarily, find work at the docks, or be referred to jobs. They would also be taught basic life skills and the laws they needed to know.
After leaving the settlement site, these refugees would receive a work card bearing a tax number, which served as proof of identity.
If they later obtained an ID card, that tax number would directly become their ID number.
In fact, most stowaways would take the initiative to seek them out after coming ashore, hoping to obtain legal status as soon as possible.
That was precisely why their work was relatively easy, and whenever they were not busy, they would hang around the newsstand.
At that moment, the newspaper in their hands was the latest issue of the Survivor Daily. Its front-page story was the West Sail Port massacre that had taken place a week ago.
The newspaper recorded in detail the causes and course of the incident.
It began when a laborer named Orisa worked himself to death at the docks, causing the other local free laborers to go on strike in protest.
The labor agencies controlled by the authorities pretended to