"Birmingham's fog is the smoke exhaled by the Peaky Blinders."
Inside the castle at a manor somewhere on the outskirts of Birmingham, England, eleven-year-old Altair stood by the window of his room on the second floor, gazing at the faint mist hanging in the sky as he murmured the words under his breath.
There was a kind of maturity on his face that did not belong to a child his age.
This was the eleventh year since he had transmigrated here.
His name was Altair Thomas Shelby, and his great-grandfather was none other than the legendary Tommy Shelby, the greatest leader the Peaky Blinders had ever known.
Tommy's given name had also been Thomas. Altair's middle name had been chosen in his memory. Of course, it also carried the hopes the entire Shelby family had placed upon him.
They wanted this young Shelby to make something of himself, just as Tommy once had.
Ever since Tommy's death, the Peaky Blinders had begun to show signs of decline. Later, the Shelby family itself had fractured, turning on one another and eventually falling apart. Altair's grandfather, Tommy's youngest son, returned to Birmingham with a small group of followers and inherited two pubs and a manor.
The blood of the Shelbys had never been the sort to stay quiet. Cruel gangsters were what they were at their core, not businessmen content to sit behind a counter and manage a proper enterprise.
Using what remained of the Shelby family's old influence, Altair's grandfather founded the Little Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, recruited more than a hundred members, and built up no small reputation.
Altair's father, Freddy, was even more capable. After taking over the Shelby family, he fought hard and fearlessly, and for a time he ruled the entire Birmingham underworld. Unfortunately, Freddy was a little too reckless in the way he did things. In the end, he provoked rebellion from his own men and drew heavy pressure from the authorities.
Now Freddy had been thrown into prison. Even so, from behind bars he was still able to control the situation outside.
Though Birmingham's underworld was crowded with gangs now, most of them still feared Freddy and still respected the Shelby name.
The Little Peaky Blinders remained one of the strongest forces in Birmingham. They controlled the two busiest blocks in the city center, ran all kinds of shops, and operated the gray businesses hidden beneath the bright surface of legitimate trade.
The Shelby family's legitimate holdings were also enormous. They owned five pubs in Birmingham, two restaurants, a large shopping center, several factories on the outskirts, and a massive winery covering one hundred and twenty hectares.
And that did not even include the manor the Shelby family currently lived in, or the garden castle they had invested in on the outskirts of London.
But in the eyes of Freddy and the other members of the Shelby family, the Shelbys of today still could not compare with the family in Tommy's era.
The wealth they possessed now had come from industrial growth and economic development. There was nothing especially glorious about that.
In Tommy's time, the Shelby family had stood at the peak of status and prestige. Their name had thundered across all of England. The Peaky Blinders had been the most influential gang in the country, famous even beyond its borders.
And so every Shelby took reviving the family as their personal duty.
Among them, Freddy's only son, Altair, carried the greatest weight of expectation.
"The Peaky Blinders… Tommy Shelby…"
Altair stood silently beneath the starlight beyond the glass.
Even as a transmigrator, he could still feel that immense pressure bearing down on him.
In his previous life, he had not been some useless fool, but the education he had received had absolutely nothing to do with reviving a mafia family.
Fortunately, with the experience and knowledge from his former life, Altair was always able to display insight and composure far beyond his years. That alone was already enough to pleasantly surprise the family members who had pinned their hopes on him.
"If only I could control that power, the pressure wouldn't feel this heavy."
Altair let out a quiet sigh.
There was a powerful force inside his body.
But he could not control it well. It seemed to appear only when his emotions surged.
Just like three years ago, when he had been attacked while having dinner with his mother at a restaurant.
The bullet had originally been meant for him, but his mother had thrown herself in front of it.
Altair did not know what had happened to him then. All he remembered was seeing the mother of this life collapse into a pool of blood, and some strange power suddenly erupted from within him.
The glasses and plates around him exploded into fragments, then whistled through the air toward the gunmen.
Those gunmen died beneath a storm of shattered glass.
But Altair's mother left him too.
He had kept trying to gain control over that power, but unfortunately he had made no progress. He felt sure it was the special gift that had come with his transmigration, he just had no idea how to use it.
Perhaps it was also because he was still too young.
As Altair's thoughts wandered, he suddenly heard a rustling, fluttering sound outside the window, as if something were tapping against the glass.
A trace of caution flashed through his eyes. He pulled a pistol from the drawer.
"Who's there?"
Altair called out.
He was certain that it was not the wind.
But he was on the second floor of the castle. What kind of person could climb all the way up here just to knock on his window?
"Hoo, hoo!"
To Altair's surprise, a strange cry came clearly from outside, and a look of astonishment crossed his face.
That sounded like an owl.
He kept his guard up. Turning sideways and sheltering himself behind the wall, he yanked the curtain open in one sharp motion.
Sure enough, outside the window, a grayish-brown owl was flapping against the glass.
There was also a letter clamped in its beak.
"Could this be some trick from one of the gangs? Or someone else in the family..."
Altair still had not realized what was happening, but from the owl's manner, it seemed to want to come inside. He examined it carefully. It did not look like it was carrying a bomb. After a moment's thought, he opened the window.
"Hoo, hoo!"
The owl gave a low cry and flew into the room. It circled once through the air, then landed on Altair's desk.
As for the letter, it floated lightly down through midair and landed, almost magically, in Altair's hand.
There was no stamp on the envelope.
Written across it in a line of strange emerald-green ink were the words:
Mr. Altair Thomas Shelby
First Room on the Left, Second Floor, Central Castle
Shelby Manor, Outskirts of Birmingham
West Midlands, England