Lucky Coin

Post Office Work

The seventh branch of the post office where the father and son worked was located at 97 Berny Street. It was a four-story building made of red bricks, with a courtyard in the front, surrounded by a high wall. The only entrance was a large black iron gate. At the moment, the gate was wide open, and people were trickling in for work—most of them kids around La Pei’s age, all of them postmen.

As soon as they entered the building, La Pei and his father separated. His father's office was upstairs, while La Pei went to the main hall to collect the mailbags. The hall was already packed with people, making it noisy. Everyone was chatting while checking their mailbags, talking about the assassination that had taken place the day before.

“You went with your dad to greet the king’s envoy yesterday, right? You must have seen it all!” one young postman asked La Pei.

Immediately, everyone’s attention shifted to him. After all, the stories they’d heard were all second-hand, third-hand, or even more exaggerated versions, already distorted.

“What’s there to say? The assassin disguised himself as part of the band, and the envoy was stabbed to death before he even got off the carriage. The guards were useless, they couldn’t do anything about the assassin, and they ended up hurting more innocent people than anything else,” La Pei replied flatly, without any embellishment. In the past, if he’d had such an opportunity to be the center of attention, he would’ve bragged about it endlessly. But now, he wasn’t interested at all.

“I heard a lot of people died,” another postman asked quietly.

“That’s true,” La Pei nodded. “The assassin killed about thirty people while escaping, but the number of people killed by the guards’ mistakes was several times that. The assassin initially tried to flee into the crowd, and the guards’ musketeers opened fire directly, killing at least twenty innocent people. Then, two of the guards' mages stepped in, and two fireballs exploded in the crowd, killing another fifty or sixty people—many of them couldn’t even be pieced back together. But the assassin was fine. He must’ve thought the crowd was slowing him down, so he jumped onto the rooftops. The two mages followed him up there. The rest of the fight took place on the rooftops. A lot of buildings were destroyed, and the collapsing houses and flying debris killed even more people, with countless injuries.”

La Pei made no attempt to hide his disdain for the city guards. Thinking back on it, he still felt a lingering fear. Luckily, the assassin had fled toward the docks. If he had come their way, both he and his father might have been killed.

“Didn’t they say the assassin was invincible, that he killed everyone on an entire street and forced his way out?” Someone still seemed skeptical.

“If he was that powerful, why didn’t he kill the mayor and the officials at City Hall? Or at least take them hostage,” La Pei sneered.

That shut the skeptic up immediately.

La Pei chuckled coldly again. “The king’s envoy was assassinated. The bigwigs at City Hall have to give an explanation. The more people that died in Taron, the bigger the losses, the more impressive the assassin seems. That makes it easier to brush off responsibility. After all, it wasn’t the bigwigs who died, or their relatives.”

La Pei wasn’t normally this sharp, nor capable of making such remarks. He didn’t know why, but at that moment, his mind was crystal clear, able to see through the real truth hidden behind yesterday’s tragedy.

The hall fell into an uneasy silence. Many of the younger postmen felt a chill run through them. After all, they were still young, unprepared for the harshness and cruelty of the world.

La Pei didn’t bother with his companions. He walked over to a long shelf on one side of the room. It was divided into many square compartments, each one stuffed with letters.

The compartments were organized by street and district. La Pei pulled out the letters from several of them and stuffed them into his mailbag. The so-called mailbag was a large shoulder bag made of canvas, with many compartments inside. Letters for different districts were placed in separate compartments, so they wouldn’t get mixed up during delivery. In addition to letters, there were also some packages, though fortunately, not too many.

Like the other postmen, La Pei carried his mailbag back to the table and found a seat. He began sorting through the letters, arranging them by house number so he wouldn’t have to walk unnecessary routes, while also removing any letters that didn’t belong to him. This was the first task every postman had to do each day.

Just as he was about to finish sorting, La Pei suddenly heard one of the younger postmen cry out in horror, “It’s that crazy guy’s stuff again!”

La Pei didn’t even need to look to know what was going on.

The package was definitely for 23 Jeffrey Street, the house of a madman who lived there. The man claimed to be a wizard and spent all day conducting bizarre experiments, which frequently resulted in explosions, fires, and thick clouds of smoke. The police and fire brigade were regular visitors to his home.

La Pei had seen the madman before. From the first glance, he knew the man wasn’t normal. His hair was a tangled mess, as if a firecracker had gone off in it, and his forehead was bulging. His eyes were sunken, sometimes vacant, sometimes flashing with wild energy. His chin was covered in sparse, scruffy whiskers. His clothes, well, they looked like rags, and he even wore two different socks with slippers on his feet.

At the time, La Pei had been grateful that this particular street wasn’t part of his route.

Delivering mail to that madman was definitely a tough job. You might get dragged into one of his experiments—having a vial or two of your blood drawn was a common occurrence, and being forced to drink some unknown potion would be considered lucky. In the three years La Pei had worked at this postal branch, seven or eight postmen had been assigned to deliver to that guy, and now it seemed this one wouldn’t last long either.

In the past, La Pei never cared about these things. With his father around, such unpleasant tasks would never fall on his shoulders. He felt sympathy for those unlucky enough to be assigned, but he wasn’t foolish enough to volunteer to take their place. But this time, La Pei was tempted.

Last night, La Pei had already chosen his path: swordsmanship and magic.

The former was easy enough—all he needed was a sword. But the latter was much more difficult. A mage needed at least a wand, not to mention various spellcasting materials. Some of these materials needed to be processed, which required special equipment, and all of this cost money. It was impossible for someone poor to become a mage.

La Pei had originally planned to wait until he had mastered swordsmanship, then earn money to fund his study of magic. But at that moment, a new idea came to him—perhaps he could convince the madman to let him borrow his tools and materials. La Pei quickly made up his mind.

The young postman, after finishing sorting the mail, walked out of the post office with a large canvas mailbag slung over his shoulder, looking dejected. Just as he reached the alley beside the post office, someone suddenly pulled him inside.

“What are you doing?” the young postman shouted, only to realize it was Lape when he saw him. Suspicion immediately arose. Among the group of postmen, Lape was considered someone with backing. Although he had never bullied anyone, they still remained cautious around him.

“I’ll deliver the package to 23 Geoffrey Street for you,” Lape said directly.

“What do you want in return?” the young postman asked, his face full of wariness.

Lape was momentarily taken aback, but quickly understood. People like the young postman never believed in “selfless help” or “kind gestures”; they only believed that any goodwill had a hidden agenda.

Lape’s mind worked quickly, and he soon came up with a fitting excuse. He opened his mailbag and pointed to the packages inside, saying, “You deliver all of these for me.”

The young postman believed him. They all hated delivering packages. Unlike letters, which could just be slipped into a mailbox, packages had to be handed directly to the recipient, requiring a signature, which then had to be returned and filed.

“Alright,” the young postman agreed without hesitation.

To be honest, he’d rather walk several extra streets than deal with that madman. Just a few days ago, he had a whole vial of blood drawn by him, and before that, he’d been forced to drink some potions. Those potions not only tasted awful but also made him vomit, suffer diarrhea, and caused his whole body to swell up. If it weren’t so hard to find a job, he would have quit long ago.