A cleaner's job could be easy, or it could be exhausting.
They had to keep the entire street free of dirt, rubbish, and snowdrifts. Besides cleaning, they had to get up before dawn to earn extra money.
Fortunately, the Golden Palace had issued a new law—though they said it wasn't a law, but a regulation.
The "regulation" required them to be good citizens: no petty theft, keep things tidy, no brawling, and mind their hygiene.
The days when those bastards relieved themselves in alleys and street corners were gone.
But how could anyone stop spitting or blowing their nose? Then word spread that someone who had broken the rules had been eaten by a passing evil dragon. After that, they would rather swallow their snot or wipe it on their clothes than spit on the ground.
Life seemed more troublesome, but nobody complained. With spitting and public defecation banned, they no longer had to avoid alleys full of disgusting yellow-brown icicles and black, congealed filth. With brawling banned, they no longer had to worry about gangsters harassing them. Keeping clean in the dead of winter was a trial, but soon their scalps stopped itching, the red spots on their bodies disappeared, and their children stopped getting sick.
Most importantly, they were free of crushing taxes.
Before, they had paid taxes to a Grand Lord they had never met, who claimed to be their master. They had paid taxes to their lord, bribed officials, and endured extortion by gangsters. Of every silver coin they worked so hard to earn, layer upon layer of exploitation left them with less than ten copper coins.
Now the poor not only paid no taxes, but also received help getting through the winter.
Who still cared whether the Blue Dragon was an evil dragon? Even if