Every single word regarding budget appropriations had been made ironclad by those old foxes.

There was no such thing as "default approval."

There was no such thing as "automatic passage."

All clauses pointed to the same conclusion—"Subject to the approval of the City Council."

Moretti’s power was built upon millions of words of dense legal text.

It was a fortress.

With no cracks to be found.

「Six in the morning.」

Leo closed the final volume: *Detailed Regulations for Public Works Approvals*.

The SNAP of the pages closing was particularly jarring in the silent office.

He collapsed into his chair, sliding back and letting his head fall against the headrest.

Day was breaking, and the morning light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the messy pile of documents on his desk.

Dust motes danced in the beams of light.

Leo stared at the ceiling, his eyes vacant.

"It doesn’t exist."

His voice was dry.

"That law doesn’t exist at all. It was just my imagination."

He had buried his head in stacks of books all night, only to find he’d just been banging his head against a thick wall.

"How does it feel?" Roosevelt asked.

"Like an idiot," Leo replied. "I thought I’d discovered a new continent, but it turns out I just hit an iceberg."

"That’s perfectly normal," Roosevelt said. "Pittsburgh’s charter was amended after the Great Depression. The old-guard politicians plugged every possible loophole to prevent another powerful mayor from rising. They’re smarter than you think."

Leo sat up straight and rubbed his stiff face.

"So, this is a dead end? My only option is to go begging to Moretti?"

"Not necessarily."

"I know a way to break the stalemate." Roosevelt’s voice was laced with temptation. "Do you want me to just tell you?"

The office fell silent.

It was a huge temptation.

Leo knew that if he just nodded, Roosevelt would immediately offer a perfect solution to solve his current predicament, just as he had during every previous crisis.

He could spare himself the agony of thinking, the frustration of hitting a wall.

Leo’s fingers tapped lightly on the desk.

He looked out the window at the slowly awakening city.

After a few seconds, Leo gritted his teeth and stubbornly shook his head.

"No."

Leo refused.

"If I’m going to sit in this position and still need you to spoon-feed me the answers, then I don’t deserve this chair."

"I am the Mayor of Pittsburgh."

Leo stood up, walked to the restroom, and splashed his face fiercely with cold water.

The icy water shocked him back to his senses.

He stared at the young man in the mirror, his face beaded with water, and his eyes grew fierce again.

’I’ll find it myself.’

Leo left the Mayor’s Office and went out into the street.

He had spent the entire night in that suffocating office, poring over thousands of pages of municipal code, only to end up with bloodshot eyes and a muddled brain.

He needed to clear his head. He needed a cup of coffee.

He walked along the sidewalk on Grant Street, clutching the collar of his overcoat tightly to ward off the chill of the early spring wind.

Those damned legal clauses were still spinning in his head like a carousel.

’Subject to the approval of the City Council.’

’The Finance Committee holds final review authority.’

’Individual budget adjustments may not exceed five percent.’

These clauses were like ropes, tying him down completely.

Leo walked with his head down, his steps mechanical, completely oblivious to the condition of the pavement beneath his feet.

Suddenly, his right foot found nothing but air.

It was a depression where a paving stone was missing, revealing loose dirt and gravel underneath.

Leo’s body lurched, losing its balance, and he started to topple to the right.

A sharp pain shot up from his ankle.

Just as he was about to fall onto the hard concrete, a large, rough, and powerful hand grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"Hey! Watch where you’re going, young man!"

An old voice rang out beside him.

Leo, still shaken, found his footing, his ankle throbbing with a piercing pain.

The one holding him up was an old man in a sanitation worker’s uniform, holding a broom and looking at him with a reproachful expression.

"Thanks... Thank you," Leo said, hissing in a sharp breath as he rubbed his ankle.

"This damn road."

The old man let go of him and jabbed at the hole fiercely with his broom.

The hole was about ten centimeters deep, hidden between two upturned slabs of concrete. You wouldn’t even notice it if you weren’t looking carefully.

The old man pointed at the hole and said, "Three months ago, this was just a crack. Two months ago, it became a small pit. I called the city hotline back then. I told them it was dangerous here, with people coming and going. Sooner or later, someone was going to get hurt."

"But nobody listened. They said it wasn’t on the emergency repair list and told me to fill out a form and wait to hear back."

"Then last month, my wife came to bring me lunch, and right here, in this very spot, she stepped right into it."

The old man’s voice was filled with anger.

"Right where I sweep every day, in the very place I’d reported countless times, she fell and broke her leg. Now she has to use a crutch."

"These damn bureaucrats! We’ve complained a hundred times—called them, wrote letters—and nobody pays any attention."

The old man spat on the ground.

"All they know is how to sit in that big building, drink coffee, and collect our taxes, but they can’t even fill a pothole."

"The government these days... they just don’t want to take responsibility."

Leo was about to offer a few words of agreement and then continue on his way to get coffee.

But the old man’s last sentence struck him like a bolt of lightning, piercing through his muddled thoughts.