novelraw Chapter 638: The Young Man in the Old District
Chapter 638: The Young Man in the Old District
Chapter 638: The Young Man in the Old District
Eric’s alarm clock rang at five in the morning.
He rolled over, habitually reached out to slap the old mechanical alarm clock on the bedside table, then lay in bed for two more minutes before reluctantly getting up when the second alarm sounded.
The sky outside the window was a hazy gray, making it impossible to tell whether it was morning mist or black smoke from factory chimneys.
Mornings in Mist Capital were always like this—the sun was never clearly visible.
He lived on the third floor of this old apartment building, in a single room less than ten square meters in size.
A bed, a table, and a wardrobe made up all his possessions.
The window faced the narrow stone-slab road downstairs, which was always damp—whether from rainwater or wastewater discharged from some factory, no one could say. Eric spent ten minutes washing up and getting dressed, then fished two paper bills out of the iron can on the table and stuffed them into his pocket.
The bakery downstairs sold day-old bread every morning at half price. It was hard enough to kill a man, but soaking it in hot water made it barely enough to fill the stomach.
As he walked down the stairs, he habitually glanced out the window. Then he froze.
For so many years, the street view that had remained unchanged—and had even made him feel it would never change—had finally changed.
Across the street, three doors down, stood an old house that had been empty for at least seventeen or eighteen years.
Large patches of plaster had fallen from the exterior walls, exposing blackened bricks. Two windows on the second floor were broken and boarded up with wooden planks. The paint on the main door was so mottled it looked like it had a skin disease.
Eric had seen this house since childhood, and no one had ever lived in it. The neighbors all said the place was haunted.
Of course, in this world, “haunted” was not a metaphor.
For this reason, ever since the previous owner died violently, no one had rented the house again.
But now, the door of that house was open.
It was not the kind of “open” caused by being pried or blown by the wind. After all, anything of even slight value inside the rundown house had long been taken away. The door had been opened neatly and properly.
A wooden sign hung on the doorframe with several neatly carved characters that were legible but not particularly elegant.
Eric narrowed his eyes and, with his slightly nearsighted vision, made out the words:
“Used Bookstore.”
Eric raised an eyebrow.
A used bookstore.
In Mist Capital, in the most chaotic and poorest old district of the city, someone had opened a used bookstore?
He was not part of the underworld, but having grown up in a place like this, he understood the necessary things.
In this context, a “used bookstore” was like a “general store,” “pawnshop,” or “repair shop”—nine times out of ten, it was a front for something else.
What this “used bookstore” sold was most likely not books, but other things.
Things like prohibited gene drugs, Strange materials from the black market, or even underground Spirit Medium brokerage services.
However, compared to those dangerous shops, the most common in such situations were still black clinics.
Unlicensed doctors, or those who called themselves doctors, used such shops as cover to treat people who dared not go to regular hospitals. Most patients were small-time figures from the black market, fleeing Spirit Mediums, or simply poor bottom-level residents who could not afford regular hospital fees. The quality of treatment depended entirely on luck. Deaths were common, and bodies were simply dumped into the sewers beneath Mist Capital, never to be found.
But he had woken up rather late this morning, so Eric only glanced once before hurrying off to work. It was not until evening, when he returned from the factory dragging his exhausted body, that Eric looked at the sky and couldn’t help cursing the fat pig of a supervisor several times in a low voice.
Factory work grew busier by the day, but pay did not increase. Quitting time grew later and later.
If not for the existence of the Night, that fat pig would definitely make everyone work until midnight.
Cursing nonstop in his heart, Eric climbed the stairs and subconsciously glanced at the used bookstore again.
Unlike this morning, the shop now looked much “cleaner.” The broken windows and peeling walls had been patched, and the main door had been repainted.
Eric hesitated at the stairwell entrance.
In the end, he could not suppress his curiosity. He walked down the stairs, crossed the damp stone-slab road, and stopped in front of the house. Inside the door was a small room of about twenty square meters.
Several rows of wooden bookshelves stood against the walls, sparsely holding some old books with severely worn spines that clearly showed their age. In the center of the room was a table with an oil lamp and a stack of newspapers beside it.
Behind the table was a rocking chair.
A person lay in the rocking chair.
A young man who looked about the same age as Eric, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six.
He had ordinary looks, dark hair, light gray eyes, and wore a faded dark coat. On his feet were old leather boots with some mud on them. He held a book in his hands and was lazily flipping through it.
When he saw Eric standing at the doorway, he raised his head and revealed a calm expression that was neither particularly warm nor cold.
“Please come in. Feel free to browse,” he said.
His voice was not loud and carried a casual, indifferent tone.
Eric walked into the shop and pretended to browse the bookshelves.
The books were real… which was somewhat beyond his expectations.
The pages of the old books were yellowed and brittle, with printed rather than handwritten text.
The content appeared to be literature, history, geography, and the like—not the “code books” or “cipher manuals” he had imagined. Yet this only made Eric more certain that it was a black clinic.
A real used bookstore would not open in a place like this.
This broken street and alley were full of factory workers, dock laborers, and bottom-level idlers without stable jobs.
Who had spare money to buy books?
Who would even read?
The only reason Eric himself could read was because his mother had worked as a clerk in a textile factory before her death and had taught him some.
In fact, eighty percent of the people around him could not even write their own names properly.
Opening a used bookstore in a place like this was no different from opening a fishing supply shop in the desert.
Therefore, it had to be a black clinic. The bookshelves and old books were merely camouflage.
Eric thought this with great certainty.
Still, it was not a bad thing. If he ever got injured in the future, he could seek treatment nearby. It was better than running to a black clinic on another street.
His gaze secretly swept every corner of the room, trying to find a door leading elsewhere.
Then he noticed an inconspicuous wooden door behind the bookshelves, with a faint light leaking through the crack.
“What’s behind that?” Eric pointed at the door, trying to sound casual.
The young man in the rocking chair glanced at him, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.
The smile was neither deep nor shallow, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“Storage room,” he said. “Where I keep old books. It’s a bit damp and not suitable for receiving guests.”
Eric nodded and did not press further.
Whether it was a storage room or a clinic, it had nothing to do with him.
He was not here for medical treatment, nor to cause trouble. He was purely curious.
“You live here alone?” Eric asked.
“Mhm.”
“This house has been empty for many years. The landlord finally agreed to rent it out?”
The young man put down the book in his hand and picked up the teacup on the table to take a sip of water.
His movements were slow, as if he was never in a hurry about anything.
Such a temperament felt out of place in this old district.
“The landlord is a good person,” he said. “The price is fair.”
Eric nodded again, unsure what else to say.
He stood in front of the bookshelf, casually pulled out a book, flipped through two pages, and could not absorb a single word.
He stuffed the book back, turned around, and realized he no longer had any reason to stay.
“Well… I’ll be going then,” he said.
“Take care,” the young man did not try to keep him. He did not even show any intention of standing up, merely raising his hand slightly in farewell.
Eric walked out the door and stood on the damp stone-slab road. He looked back at the wooden sign that read “Used Bookstore.”
For some reason, he had a very strange feeling.
The young man looked completely ordinary. His speech was ordinary, and his clothes were ordinary, yet there was an indescribable… sense of dissonance.
It was like a black stone mixed into a pile of coal. The color was similar, the shape was similar, but when you picked it up and weighed it, the weight was wrong.
Eric shook his head, throwing off the feeling.
It was probably just his imagination.
Living in the old district for so long, one had to learn to restrain their curiosity.
He walked along the stone-slab road back to his apartment building, climbed to the third floor, pushed open the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
The room was very quiet.
The fog outside the window was as thick as always. In the distance, factory chimneys drew several thick black lines across the gray-white sky.
The bakery owner’s wife was shouting downstairs. Next door, a child was crying with a sharp, piercing voice.
Eric sat on the edge of the bed, his mind somehow drifting back to the image of that young man.
That person was about the same age as him and had already opened a shop.
Although it was a “used bookstore” that was clearly a front for something else, it was still a shop.
He had his own business and his own income. He did not have to wake up at five-thirty every morning to go to the factory, stand for twelve hours beside roaring machines, and return home so exhausted he did not even want to eat before collapsing into sleep.
And what about himself?
Eric lowered his head and looked at his hands.
His fingers were short and thick, his palms full of calluses, and his nail crevices were filled with stubborn machine oil stains that could not be washed away.
He was twenty-six years old this year and had worked in the maintenance workshop of this textile factory for eight years.
His hands had been crushed by machines three times and two fingers had been broken. Although they had been reattached, they still ached on rainy days.
He recalled what his mother had said when he was young.
“Eric, you must study. Only by studying can you leave this place.”
When his mother said this, she was still alive and working as a clerk in the textile factory.
She could read and do accounts, making her somewhat educated in that factory.
Every night she would teach Eric to read, writing stroke by stroke on the back of waste paper. The light of the kerosene lamp cast their shadows onto the mottled wall.
Later, she died.
A machine in the factory malfunctioned. Her arm was caught in the rollers. By the time she was sent to the hospital, it was already too late.
Eric had been thirteen years old then.
He never studied again.
Now he was twenty-six.
He had worked in the factory for eight years and saved a small amount of money. It was not much, but not nothing.
If he wanted to learn something… for example, medicine?
Eric was startled by his own thought.
Medicine? Him? A factory maintenance worker?
But that young man running the used bookstore did not look like someone who had attended university either.
Besides, how many of those “doctors” running black clinics in the old district actually had licenses?
Most were people who had apprenticed under some old doctor for a few years, learned a bit of superficial knowledge, and then dared to treat patients.
If lucky, they cured a few patients and their reputation spread.
If unlucky, they killed a few and simply changed locations and names to start over.
If he could learn some basic medical knowledge, could he also open such a shop?
Eric leaned against the headboard and stared at the crack in the ceiling that stretched from the corner to the window, seriously considering the question.
He did not know whether that young man was a real doctor or a fake one.
But he knew there had never been any kind of clinic on that street before.
The nearest regular hospital was at the edge of the old district. It took fifty minutes by public bus, and the registration fee was ridiculously expensive. Even a month’s wages for an ordinary worker might not be enough for one visit.
If he could open a cheap clinic in the old district, even a black clinic, there would surely be plenty of people willing to come.
Eric turned over and buried his face in the pillow, taking a deep breath.
The pillow carried a faint smell of machine oil that could not be washed away no matter what.
Save money first, he thought.
Once he saved enough, he would find an old doctor willing to take an apprentice, study for two years, and then…
Then decide.
Outside the window, Mist Capital’s sky remained forever gray, hiding both the sun and tomorrow.
But at least he now had a direction.
Inside the used bookstore, Jie Ming watched the young man’s departing back, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.
It was an ordinary young man.
His body was not particularly strong, but he had no obvious illnesses. His eyes were not particularly sharp, but not dull either.
He looked like nothing more than an ordinary person struggling to survive at the bottom of this city.
However, in Jie Ming’s vision, the other party’s soul was excessively radiant compared to others.
“Born with high perception… In this world, it’s hard to say whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
Jie Ming withdrew his gaze, picked up the newspaper on the table, and lay back down in the rocking chair.
His identity had already been properly arranged.
Four days ago, based on the information from those four bandits’ minds, he had found several underground broker strongholds in the old district.
Those brokers specialized in fake identities, fake documents, and black market dealings.
With enough money, they could arrange anything.
To be honest, Jie Ming was not particularly skilled in soul-type spells. When it came to souls, he was better at direct modification.
Still, handling it had not been too troublesome.
Jie Ming had simply engaged in a “friendly exchange.” In the face of absolute strength disparity, smart people always chose cooperation. He had obtained a complete set of legitimate identity documents from one broker.
Name, age, address, birth certificate, tax records… all the information was woven seamlessly and could withstand any routine inspection. From another broker, he had obtained a sizable sum of cash.
The “voluntary donations” from those four people, plus the “active sponsorship” from the brokers, was enough for him to settle down in this city for a long time.
Then he rented this house.
The location was excellent.
On the edge of the old district, with narrow streets, dense housing, and high population mobility.
Most of the neighbors were factory workers and dock laborers who left early and returned late, rarely paying attention to others’ business.
Moreover, the house had been empty for many years. The landlord only wanted to rent it out and had not even asked for much of a deposit.
He opened this “used bookstore” on the first floor.
The second floor was where he lived.
As for the basement…
Jie Ming stood up, pushed open the wooden door behind the bookshelves, and walked down a narrow staircase.
The basement was not large, but it was sufficient.
The outermost area was a small clinic room.
There was an examination bed, a medicine cabinet, and a set of simple surgical instruments.
The medicine cabinet contained common drugs from this plane: anti-inflammatory medicine, painkillers, anesthetics…
Most were bought from the black market; a small portion had been personally compounded by Jie Ming.
His medical knowledge far surpassed the level of “doctors” in this world.
The anatomy, biology, and pharmacology of the wizard world, combined with the pill refinement arts, meridian theory, and essence-qi-spirit theories of the cultivation world.
Together, these made his medical ability knowledge crush any specialist in a regular hospital.
Being a black-market doctor was more than enough.
Deeper into the clinic room was a seemingly ordinary brick wall.
Jie Ming walked straight toward it. The apparently seamless brick wall rippled like water.
Inside was a separately partitioned area—his temporary laboratory.
It was still quite rudimentary for now.
There was a wide stone workbench and a few basic research instruments taken from his inner world: an elemental microscope, energy detector, and rune engraving tools.
In the corner were piled materials bought from the local market—glassware, chemical reagents, and some Strange “specimens.” Those “specimens” were ones he had casually collected on the way to Mist Capital.
Several Hazard Grade Strange fragments—not enough to form complete individuals, but sufficient for preliminary law structure analysis.
Jie Ming walked to the workbench, picked up a Strange fragment sealed in resin, and examined it carefully under the light.
The dark gray fragment shimmered with an oily sheen under the light. Its surface had fine, irregular patterns.
At a microscopic level, these patterns presented an extremely complex structure—neither the orderly arrangement of crystals nor the random distribution of organic matter, but something in between.
Jie Ming put down the fragment and sat in the chair.
The past few days of probing had given him a preliminary understanding of the Strange ecosystem in this plane.
During the day, he could slightly expand his spiritual power for exploration. As long as the intensity was not too high, it would not attract anything.
The sensitivity of this world’s Stranges to spiritual power was far lower than he had expected for the Night’s activity patterns.
But after dusk, it was different.
Jie Ming raised his head and glanced at the small ventilation window in the basement.
The window was at ground level. Through the blurry glass, he could see the sky outside darkening.
Dusk had arrived.
On the distant horizon, the last trace of gray-white light was being swallowed by the deep gray surging from the sea.
Mist Capital’s dusk had no common fiery sunset clouds, only a seamless transition from day to night.
The gray sky slowly turned into a deeper gray, then into black.
Street lamps began to light up.
Orange-yellow light flickered inside glass covers, casting blurry halos in the thick fog.
The number of pedestrians decreased rapidly.
The workers, vendors, and housewives who had been everywhere on the streets during the day were driven by some invisible force before dusk, hurrying back to their respective homes.
Doors and windows were shut tight, curtains drawn. Light leaked from the gaps of every house.
Electric lights, oil lamps, candlelight—various kinds of light seeped from every window and door crack, intertwining in the thick fog into a mottled pattern of light and shadow.
No one wanted to be exposed in a lightless environment at night.
Jie Ming withdrew his spiritual power.
The low-intensity, gentle probing suitable for daytime was no longer appropriate at night.
The Night’s coverage of this plane was comprehensive. He was unsure whether spiritual power scanning would be interpreted by the Night as some kind of “attack” or “provocation.”
Before fully understanding the boundary of the Night’s rules, the safest approach was to do nothing.
He stood up, tidied the items on the workbench, then left the basement and returned to the used bookstore on the first floor.
The oil lamp in the bookstore was still lit.
Jie Ming turned the wick down a little, making the light softer but still enough to cover the entire room.
He walked to the door, closed the wooden door, and bolted it.
Then he returned to the rocking chair and picked up the newspaper again.
The front page featured news about the expansion of Mist Capital’s harbor, accompanied by a blurry black-and-white photo showing piles of steel and indistinct figures of workers.
Jie Ming glanced at the headline, then shifted his gaze to a small, inconspicuous corner of the newspaper, which carried several short local news items.
“Another disappearance occurred last night on Third Street in the old district. A middle-aged male resident went out at night and has not returned…”
“The Port Authority reminds all night-shift workers to strictly follow lighting safety regulations. No vessels are allowed to moor without lights…”
“The Official Spirit Medium Association announces that it will hold a free public lecture on ‘Common Strange Protection Knowledge’ at the Mist Capital Exhibition Center next month. All citizens are welcome to attend…”
Jie Ming folded the newspaper and placed it on the table.
The flame of the oil lamp flickered gently in the breeze, casting his shadow onto the mottled wall.
Outside the window, the fog grew thicker. The light from the street lamps was scattered by the mist into blurry orange-yellow halos, like a drop of pigment on a vast gray canvas.
In the distance, the whistle of a ship sounded in the night sky—low and long, like some unknown beast howling in the darkness.
Jie Ming closed his eyes and slowly rocked in the chair.
The wooden boards emitted faint creaking sounds that mixed with the wind outside the window, the distant whistles, and the occasional footsteps on the stone-slab road below, forming a unique rhythm belonging to the nights of Mist Capital.