1836: I Became a Literary Giant in Great Britain

Actually, the original Great Britain wasn't this inhuman.

As early as 1601, England enacted the Elizabethan Poor Act, also known as the "Old Poor Act".

Under this law, the government collects a poverty tax to provide relief to the poor.

Relief is provided according to the ability to work. Healthy poor people are forced to work, while the elderly, the weak, the sick, the disabled, and children can receive relief or placement outside of hospitals. At the same time, vagrancy and begging are prohibited.

Although this law has many drawbacks in its implementation, it at least has some semblance of humanity.

Just two years earlier, in 1834, the old Poor Law was abolished and replaced by the new Poor Law.

If the core of the old Poor Law was to provide relief to the poor, the core of the new Poor Law was to punish the poor.

Yes, you heard right. In the eyes of the rulers at the time, the poor were poor because they were lazy or morally corrupt.

How can we help them? Wouldn't it be better to use that money for something else? We should punish them severely so there will be fewer poor people!

Thus, the workhouse became a complete hell for the poor. If there was enough to eat, no one would choose to go to the workhouse.

Just then, Michelle heard a conversation.

"Please, sir, my child has a fever, he's dying..." a woman pleaded with the gatekeeper.

"Fever? If you have a fever, you should go to the hospital. What are you doing at the workhouse?" the overseer replied impatiently.

"We have no money... Please, just give him a sip of hot water..."

"Get out of here! This isn't a charity hall!"

Before he could finish speaking, the foreman's thick arm gave him a sudden shove.

The woman screamed, her already weak body staggering backward, about to fall onto the cold mud with the child in her arms.

Just then, a hand reached out from the side and firmly supported the woman's arm.

It was Michelle.

He rushed over almost instinctively.

"Who the hell are you? Mind your own business!"

When the overseer saw someone coming to manage things, he became furious and pointed his short stick at Michelle.

Michelle ignored him and instead glanced at the flushed, breathing baby in the woman's arms.

He reached out and touched the baby's forehead.

It was obvious that the fever was very high, and his heart sank.

Michelle turned her head, glared at the still-cursing foreman, and said, "What kind of man are you to lay a hand on a woman holding a child?"

The foreman was intimidated by his height of over 1.8 meters and his decent coat, and when he glanced at Dickens standing next to him, his arrogance immediately subsided.

He was still muttering something obscene when he sullenly retreated behind the door.

"Thank you, sir, thank you..." The woman, still shaken, repeatedly thanked him while holding her child.

Looking at the feverish child in her arms, Michelle's heart softened.

He took all the change out of his pocket and stuffed it into the woman's hand.

"Take the child to see a doctor, if you can still find one."

The woman froze, looking down at the change in her hand, almost unable to believe her eyes.

However, these small change were like a spark falling into a powder keg.

The poor people who had been huddled outside the door with blank stares suddenly had their eyes light up with envy and greed the moment they saw the copper coins.

"Sir! Please have mercy! My child is starving to death!"

"Please give me some! I beg you, sir!"

"I haven't eaten for three days!"

With a "boom," the crowd came to life.

Like sharks smelling blood, they swarmed towards Michel from all directions. Thin, filthy hands reached for him, grabbing his clothes and pulling at his arms. He was overwhelmed by cries of pitiful pleas and desperate accusations.

Holy crap, I was careless, I didn't flash!

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! I have no money left!"

Michel was startled by the situation. He tried to back away, but found himself completely surrounded.

Just as he was about to be swallowed up by the crowd, a strong hand grabbed his wrist.

"Go! Go quickly!"

It's Dickens!

He grabbed Michelle and, like a rugby player, shoved his way through the crowd, carving a path through them.

The two practically ran away from the workhouse, only escaping the frantic pursuit when they turned into a deeper alley.

Michelle leaned against the wall, panting heavily, her heart pounding.

Only then did he have the mind to look at himself.

"My clothes! My only decent coat!"

Michel's only decent-looking coat was ripped open, leaving a large hole in his chest, exposing his white muscles to the cold wind.

If this scene had background music, it would definitely be "Snowflakes are falling~ The north wind is howling~"

"Haha, Michelle, you look like a homeless person now."

Dickens couldn't help but burst into laughter when he saw Michel's predicament.

After a long while, the two of them gradually calmed down.

"Now you understand?" Dickens said solemnly.

"I was in an even worse state than you. I almost didn't make it out."

"It wasn't until later that I understood: your kindness won't solve any problems here, it will only cause more chaos and fighting."

Michelle remained silent.

He was speechless; the scene he had just witnessed had almost made him feel like he was about to speedrun through the game.

"But the child is innocent," he said softly, less to refute Dickens than to convince himself.

"We can't just do nothing because of this, can we?"

Dickens did not answer, but only sighed deeply. That sigh contained so much helplessness and sorrow.

Michelle's mind was in turmoil, but one idea gradually became clear.

"I'm thinking..." he said, as if to himself, yet also as if to Dickens.

"To expose these crimes and let people see this hellish scene, it may not necessarily be necessary to write those bloody crime stories."

"Yes, the child is innocent... We could easily write about a child, an incredibly pure and innocent child. He did nothing wrong, he was just unfortunate to be born here."

"However, after experiencing all sorts of misfortunes, even when the whole world was full of malice towards him, he still retained kindness and integrity in his heart."

"Imagine, when readers see such an angelic child struggling in this hell, suffering hardships he shouldn't have to endure... won't their hatred for the system that caused all this, for those indifferent bureaucrats and nobles, be stronger and more unforgettable than reading a hundred stories of murder and arson?"

Michelle was stunned as soon as she said it.

Oh my god...

Isn't this just repeating the core creative ideas of "Oliver Twist" to the author himself?

He looked up, wanting to see Dickens' reaction.

The great writer was completely still.

That usually lively and expressive face seemed frozen in place. Those bright blue eyes were wide open, yet seemed unfocused, piercing through Michel and gazing into the depths of the thick fog of the London night.

Everything around Dickens disappeared in his eyes.

The overseers' shouts, the cries of the poor, the prosperity of the West End, the stench of the East End... and Michel's words just now... all of this coalesced into a thin, lonely, yet stubborn figure.

a child.

A child in the workhouse, holding an empty bowl, timidly said, "Sir, I want a little more."

A "click" sound.

It was as if something shattered and then reformed in Dickens's mind.

The bewilderment and solemnity on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an almost fanatical passion for creation!

That's the kind of expression that only comes when the muse descends upon the creator!

Dickens suddenly turned around.

"I have to go back! Now! Immediately! Right now!"

As if being chased by something, he rushed back the way he came without looking back and disappeared into the thick night in the blink of an eye.

Only one sentence lingered in the air.

Such moments of muse arrival are not uncommon in literary history.

"Years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would recall that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

This significant beginning in literary history occurred in July 1965, when the idea flashed into Márquez's mind while he was driving to Mexico for vacation. He immediately turned back home, canceled his vacation, and began writing the very next day.

That's how this classic came to be.

"Hey, wait for me!"

Michelle stood there alone, looking into the distance with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

But he knew that tonight, a literary legend was about to begin ahead of schedule.

So, does that mean the January issue of Bentley's Journal simultaneously published "A Study in Scarlet" and "Oliver Twist"?

Absolutely amazing quality! Everyone, this is incredible! We've got this invincible!

Who else is in this lineup?

Michelle almost popped the champagne at halftime.

But... how do we feed him?

It was only then that Michel sadly realized that without Dickens, he had no sense of direction at all...