Charlotte Baker stepped into the government office, wearing a composed smile and greeting everyone he met with a gentle hello.

　　Every person who passed before his eyes appeared rather vague; the original owner of this body had invested too few memory pixels in the faces of most colleagues, making it impossible for him to recognize any of them.

　　Just as we can usually recognize most acquaintances on sight, but when alone, we can’t actually picture the faces of most of them—this is a small flaw in human memory.

　　He made his way to the office from memory. Sharing the office with Charlotte Baker were more than twenty clerks. Although it wasn’t a private workspace, it was already much better than working out in the main hall like some colleagues.

　　He had just pushed open the door when a stern middle-aged woman called out, “Mr. Baker, you will have a special assignment in the coming days.”

　　Charlotte smiled slightly, searching his memory to piece together the speaker’s image.

　　This middle-aged lady was his direct superior, Mrs. Aldegonde, a strict and dignified senior government official.

　　“Understood, Mrs. Aldegonde. I will do my utmost to complete this assignment.”

　　Mrs. Aldegonde was slightly surprised; she had expected Charlotte Baker to refuse, as this task was extremely troublesome and almost no one was willing to take it on.

　　However, since Charlotte had already agreed, she didn’t press further and said coolly, “Take this identification to Kilmainham Prison. Someone there will arrange your next task.”

　　“This is one écu, as a subsidy for your temporary assignment.”

　　Charlotte smiled faintly, accepting the envelope from Mrs. Aldegonde while searching his memory, quickly recalling what he knew about imperial currency.

　　The empire had three currency units: écu, florin, and stin.

　　One écu equaled ten florins, and one florin equaled one hundred stins.

　　Écu meant “shield” in the imperial language. There were one-écu and five-écu denominations, both minted in gold and highly valuable. Nowadays, only the wealthy and great nobles kept large amounts of écus at home; they had become collectibles, rarely circulating in the market, and almost no one would spend them.

　　The florin was originally a unit of weight for currency, equivalent to a pound of silver. Under the third emperor, it was minted as silver coins, called “old florins” by the people. The fourth emperor issued paper money of equal value, called “new florins,” in denominations of one, five, ten, twenty, and fifty. After the switch to paper, silver florins, like écus, rarely appeared in circulation and had effectively withdrawn from the market. One florin was roughly equivalent to the purchasing power of 1,800 to 1,900 RMB.

　　Stins came in denominations of one, five, ten, twenty, and fifty. No paper stins were ever issued; they were now the only coins still widely circulating.

　　One écu was already a very generous extra payment for a side job, roughly equal to Charlotte’s salary for a month and a half.

　　That’s right, as a first-class clerk of the empire, Charlotte was a high earner with a weekly salary of one florin and seventy stins, and even had the ability to take annual vacations.

　　Except for the fact that, due to his short tenure, he hadn’t saved much and couldn’t buy a home—only rent—he was considered a rising star among the empire’s youth.

　　This was also why, at social gatherings, girls would sometimes touch his thigh—Charlotte Baker was a very eligible imperial gentleman with a bright future ahead.

　　Mrs. Aldegonde was a serious person of few words; after giving her instructions, she returned to her desk.

　　Charlotte turned and left the office, exited the government building, and casually hailed a public carriage on the street. The coachman waited for Charlotte to board before setting the horses trotting again.

　　Sitting in the carriage, Charlotte experienced the jolting of this ancient mode of transport while opening the envelope, pulling out a ten-florin banknote and a formal official letter of introduction.

　　The empire had never issued écu banknotes of any denomination—there were no one-écu or five-écu notes; écus existed only as gold coins.

　　For all these reasons, the empire had a custom that puzzled transmigrators: people habitually called a ten-florin banknote “one écu”!

　　Charlotte put the ten-florin note into his wallet, tucked the letter of introduction into his coat pocket, crumpled the envelope into a ball, and casually tossed it out of the carriage, landing it perfectly in a trash bin at a street corner—an impressive shot.

　　His Imperial Majesty Julius, the sixth emperor, was a natural clean freak. Unable to tolerate the rampant sewage and randomly piled garbage in the city, he promoted the installation of trash bins as a municipal project. As it turned out, even emperors have things they can’t accomplish; the project was never fully successful and was only retained in the Valdevoise district.

　　Valdevoise was the district where the imperial palace, the central government office, the nine great temples, and the four most famous universities were located.

　　These noble lords also enjoyed a clean living environment.

　　As for the other districts—let the wind take care of them.

Chapter 3 The Empire’s First Rose

　　Kilmainham Prison was in the Marne district, separated from Valdevoise by two other districts.