Petticoat Lane

Oliver was startled and struggled violently. He pulled out a small razor blade with his other hand and stabbed at the "decent man's" hand that was gripping his wrist. But the "decent man" was surprisingly agile; his other hand flashed out and caught Oliver's hand holding the razor blade. The two of them held hands, and from a distance, it looked like an older brother teaching a younger brother to waltz.

Oliver immediately followed the technique Fagin had taught him, raising his knee to strike the "decent man's" groin. The "decent man" was clearly prepared; he slightly shifted his body to avoid the impact. However, Oliver's real move wasn't the knee strike—that was just a feint. He stomped his foot down, landing hard on the "decent man's" toes.

The "respectable man" clearly hadn't expected such a blow. He roared and, with a burst of strength, threw Oliver away. Oliver slammed hard onto the cobblestones, his whole body aching. He struggled to his feet, supporting himself with his hands, scrambling to his feet like a carpenter unfurling a folding ruler.

And that "respectable man" was no longer respectable at this moment. He was hopping on one foot, holding the other foot with both hands, and squealing like a pig that had been stabbed.

Oliver struggled to his feet and, while the "decent man" was still yelling, took off running. He ran out of the alley in a few steps and then bumped into a policeman in black, making the policeman stumble.

"You bastard!" the fat policeman roared, grabbing his baton and slamming it down on Oliver's face, who had also been knocked to the ground.

Based on years of experience, Oliver knew that at this point, begging, crying, or resisting would be useless. The only way was to cover his head with his hands, curl up into a ball, protect his vulnerable and easily injured parts as much as possible, and then see when the policeman got tired.

The policeman roared and kicked Oliver, who was already in a ready-to-be-beaten position, first, then swung his baton diagonally at Oliver's hands as he covered his head. (In fact, Oliver's standard beating posture, in a way, only infuriated the policeman. In his eyes, anyone who could so skillfully assume such a posture was a bad seed, a thief at heart!)

Oliver's right hand swelled up immediately after being hit by the policeman's baton. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and remained silent, waiting for the rain of baton drops to fall.

But strangely, the baton didn't come down. A hand grabbed the policeman's hand, and a voice rang in his ear, but Oliver couldn't understand what the voice was saying.

Oliver opened his eyes and saw the "decent man" standing in front of him, holding a finger straight up to the fat policeman's nose, cursing at the policeman in a language he couldn't understand.

The policeman didn't understand a word the man who had stopped him was saying, but that didn't stop him from seeing that the man was wearing the finest woolen clothes and that his shirt was made of high-end silk. So, even though the policeman couldn't understand what the man was shouting at him, it didn't stop him from taking a step back with a look of fear and quickly apologizing to the man.

Even if he's just a foreigner speaking a language no one can understand, the clothes he's wearing clearly indicate he's a wealthy foreigner. Doesn't anyone who's wealthy, whether Britain or foreign, deserve the respect of a lowly policeman? You see, a wealthy foreigner would certainly know many wealthy Britain people, and wealthy Britain people... need I say more?

"Sir..." the overweight policeman stammered, "... I'm sorry... maybe I offended you... but... I'm sorry... I didn't understand... what you were saying..."

At this moment, this "respectable man" realized that all his angry words, such as "How dare you trample on human rights without any reason," "What's your badge number? I'm going to report you to the disciplinary committee," and "The Ministry of Police and the Ministry of Truth would never allow such a situation to occur," were utter nonsense, because he was no longer in France, but in Britain.

"You're bullying a little kid, sir, I'm ashamed of you." So he switched to English and said this to the policeman. Then he turned around and found that Oliver was gone. Oliver had taken advantage of the respectable man's outburst at the policeman to run away.

"Sir, that kid looks like a petty thief, really, I assure you, only a kind person like you would be fooled by his appearance. I assure you, that kid is a petty thief..." the fat policeman quickly said.

Taking advantage of the moment when the "decent man" was cursing the police, Oliver scrambled to his feet, turned, and fled into the alley he had just run out of. He ran a few steps down the alley and then stopped. He saw a book lying right where he had stomped on the "decent man's" foot.

That was the book that "respectable man" was reading; it fell here during their struggle.

Oliver picked up the book. He knew that books were worth a lot of money. Besides, Fagin loved to read. He often saw Fagin reading alone in his spare time, or grabbing other people and teaching them to recognize some of the simplest words.

Oliver stuffed the book into his clothes and then ran down the alley to the other end.

Shortly after Oliver ran away, the "respectable man," Mr. Jacques Gallen, the second secretary of the France Britain, also ended his entanglement with the England police. He adopted an attitude that everyone in the world except Rome —no, France —was barbaric, and gave the policeman a severe dressing-down before turning back into the alley he had just been in to find his book.

The book is missing.

But Mr. Jacob Golen wasn't too disappointed. The book wasn't cheap, but compared to the salary the Ministry of Truth paid him, it was nothing. Besides, as an expense for official business, the book was reimbursable. Of course, the reimbursement process was a bit long; often you had to wait a very long time. But in any case, generally speaking, you'd definitely receive the reimbursement by Christmas at the latest. (These kinds of reimbursements are often something accountants like to pile up and process all at the end of the year.)

Oliver walked through the alley and into another street, and after a while, he arrived at Petticoat Lane. This is one of London's oldest and busiest streets. In the Tudor era, it was a place where pigs were slaughtered and butchered. Later, with the rise of the textile industry, it became a market for various textiles, hence the name.

However, this old street is too narrow to accommodate so many shops, and it is too close to the residential area of the factory workers, so the security is not good. After all, most of the workers are poor, and poor people often don't care much about their methods when they engage in illegal activities.

You see, here, a girl might become a prime target for the London police for half a loaf of bread (of course, the police aren't targeting them because their behavior is immoral, but because they dare not pay taxes to His Majesty the King's government), and men might just stab someone in the stomach for a potato; and many of the children here, as that fat policeman said, are thieves from a young age.

Here, all three problems of this century are present: poverty degrades men, hunger corrupts women, and darkness weakens children.

The wealthy merchants were all kind-hearted people. They couldn't bear to see the poor suffer. So, they moved the market to a place where they couldn't see the poor anymore, leaving only the name "Petticoat Lane".

Today, Petticoat Lane is one of the dirtiest, most chaotic, and most unsafe and disorderly places in London. Even the police rarely venture into such areas. And these kinds of areas, in any country and in any era, share a common name—slums.

There are virtually no police in the slums because there are no respectable people there who need police protection. Police generally don't come here, and even if they do, it's always a large, heavily armed group. But it's not a truly chaotic place; it has its own order, just like Gotham has its own order.

Fagin was the embodiment of order in Petticoat Lane. If you were to ask both the London Police Department and the residents of Petticoat Lane about Fagin, you would hear things that would make you think they were two completely different people.

According to the London Police Department, Fagin was like a monster straight out of a horror story parents used to frighten their children. He would silently break into people's homes, tie up the kind-hearted men and women, and then, threatening them with a knife, chop off their little daughter's fingers one by one to force them to hand over the safe's combination. Or he would stuff those upholding justice, as well as former thieves who had repented and turned over a new leaf, into bags and throw them into the Thames River.

But in the eyes of the residents of Petticoat Lane, Fagin was the greatest good man. He was almost the embodiment of Santa Claus, even better than Santa Claus. Because Santa Claus only serves everyone for one night, while Fagin always lends a helping hand when people are in their most difficult and needy times.

However, even among the people of Petticoat Lane, few knew where to find Fagin.

Oliver was one of the few people who knew where to find Fagin.