novelraw Chapter 643: After-Sales Service, Gifted Book, and the Approaching Turmoil
Chapter 643: After-Sales Service, Gifted Book, and the Approaching Turmoil
Chapter 643: After-Sales Service, Gifted Book, and the Approaching Turmoil
Jie Ming returned to the old district with a slight sense of regret.
The gazes following him earlier had tailed him for three streets, through two intersections, and past a gas lamp tower before suddenly vanishing at the corner of Seventh Street. Jie Ming did not turn around, but his spiritual power captured the reason.
The two people who had resolved the “trouble” for him were old acquaintances—the pair who had been on duty at the Spirit Medium Association recently.
They emerged from a dark alley, their movements clean and efficient, without any unnecessary noise.
The people who had intended to ambush Jie Ming did not even have time to fight back. There were only a few extremely brief muffled sounds, and then the sticky gazes clinging to his back snapped off one by one.
However, those unfortunate individuals did not die. It seemed they had been taken away.
Jie Ming’s passive perception could distinguish between the disappearance and relocation of life signs.
After dealing with the last person, the two from the Spirit Medium Association did not approach Jie Ming or make any extra movements.
He could feel their gazes linger on his back for a moment. After confirming he was unharmed and the trouble had been cleared, they retreated into the dark alley and disappeared into Mist Capital’s thick fog. To be honest, he felt a bit of regret in his heart.
He had already prepared to gain new experimental subjects.
Those people following behind him carried dangerous intentions and wanted to treat him as a fat sheep.
Such materials delivered to his doorstep, if handled properly, could both resolve the trouble and provide new samples for research.
He had even run through several action plans in his mind: how much force to use, to what extent to control it, so as not to cause too much commotion or attract the attention of the Spirit Medium Association.
In the end, those two from the Spirit Medium Association had intervened halfway.
Moreover, their methods had been overly efficient.
The two had acted before the other party made a move, rather than waiting for them to act before stopping and cleaning up.
Thus, Jie Ming could only reluctantly abandon these soon-to-be-acquired experimental subjects.
Jie Ming’s footsteps did not pause at all. He walked as if completely unaware of everything, calmly proceeding along the old district’s stone-slab road and pushing open the wooden door of the used bookstore.
The door hinge emitted its familiar creak.
The oil lamp was still lit, its flame flickering gently in the breeze, exactly the same as when he had left several hours earlier.
Eric, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“This kid…”
Jie Ming’s spiritual power immediately discovered what Eric was doing. He shook his head helplessly.
He sat down in the rocking chair. The creak of the wooden boards was particularly clear in the quiet room.
“However… the Spirit Medium Association is unexpectedly persistent and responsible in maintaining order. No wonder they have managed to keep human society in this world intact despite the ravages of so many Stranges.”
This level of responsibility was not faked, nor was it for show.
Jie Ming leaned back in the rocking chair and swayed gently.
He was not angry, just slightly disappointed.
However, those “experimental subjects” had only been a spur-of-the-moment idea. If they were gone, they were gone. He was not short of research materials.
Moreover, he would most likely have to deal with those two from the Spirit Medium Association in the future. Since they had already noticed him, maintaining appropriate low-key behavior and restraint was necessary.
So he pretended not to see and regretfully gave up those soon-to-be-acquired “experimental subjects.”
It could be considered a form of courtesy.
“Boss? You’re back?”
Eric’s voice came from the direction of the stairs.
Jie Ming turned his head and saw the young man walking down from the second floor.
He held a roll of black electrical wire in his hands. His face showed a mixture of exhaustion and satisfaction after a full day of work.
“The electricians came. I just had them finish running the wires,” Eric pointed at the new wiring in the corner where the ceiling met the wall. “They used exposed wiring and didn’t chisel randomly into the walls. I told them this is an old house and the walls aren’t sturdy. Chiseling would cause trouble. So they ran the wires along the corners and covered them with conduits. It looks pretty good.”
Jie Ming looked up.
The black conduits were neatly arranged along the junction of the ceiling and walls. The corners used elbow joints, and the connections were wrapped securely with tape. It was indeed done quite meticulously.
“They installed two light bulbs—one at the entrance and one above the bookshelves.” Eric walked to the door and pulled the dangling switch cord. “Take a look.”
The light bulbs lit up.
The white light was much brighter than the oil lamp’s orange-yellow glow. The entire room was instantly illuminated brightly.
The spines of the old books on the shelves showed their various colors under the light. Corners of the floor that the oil lamp had never reached before became clearly visible.
“How is it?” Eric asked.
“Not bad.”
Jie Ming nodded. He stood up from the rocking chair, took several silver coins from his pocket, and handed them over.
“However, I didn’t expect you to do the work yourself… Consider this payment for watching the shop today as well.”
Eric glanced at the silver coins but did not take them.
“Can I…” He hesitated. “Ask for something else instead?”
Jie Ming looked at him.
Eric scratched his head, a somewhat embarrassed expression on his face. “I don’t mean I don’t want the money. It’s just… you’re a… doctor, right? Do you have any medical books or something? The basic kind that I can understand. I want… to study a bit.”
His voice grew quieter toward the end, as if he were talking about something shameful.
Jie Ming was silent for a moment.
“Wait here.” He turned and walked toward the small door behind the bookshelves.
Eric knew that behind it should be Jie Ming’s black clinic, so he did not ask further.
Jie Ming entered the small room and closed the door.
He stood in the center of the room and extended his hand.
Under the control of alchemy, his spiritual power began to surge, condensing at his fingertips into a manipulation force precise down to the particle level.
He casually placed his hand on an empty wooden box nearby. Using moisture in the air and various elements within the wooden box, he rapidly synthesized paper and ink.
This process was as natural to Jie Ming as breathing. He could precisely control the arrangement of every molecule almost by instinct.
Sheets of paper materialized beneath his palm, stacking page by page to form thickness.
Then came the cover—deep brown hard cardboard with a fine texture.
Next was the binding—stitched, sturdy yet flexible.
Finally, the text…
Ink rapidly formed on the paper, line by line, page by page. The characters were clear and the layout neat.
In the blink of an eye, a book appeared in Jie Ming’s hands.
Jie Ming flipped through the book in his hands to confirm the content was correct.
This book had been compiled based on the medical knowledge of this world.
He had extracted a large amount of basic knowledge from the minds of those black-market brokers and bandits, then integrated it with the public information he had gathered in Mist Capital over the past few days to create a systematic, from-zero medical introductory textbook.
The content covered human anatomy, physiology and pathology, diagnosis and treatment of common diseases, and some basic first aid techniques.
Jie Ming had also deliberately controlled the content so that nothing exceeded the existing medical standards of this world.
With his current medical level, these basic materials, after his organization, were enough for a person with no formal education to self-study and master the foundational knowledge required to become a qualified doctor.
He had originally wanted to title the book Basic Guide Even Monkeys Can Use to Become Doctors, but after thinking about it, he felt the title might be too discouraging for the young man and regretfully abandoned the idea.
Holding the book, Jie Ming walked out of the small room and handed it to Eric.
“What is this?” Eric took the book and looked down at the cover.
There was no title on the cover, only a simple symbol: an open palm.
Unlike the Spirit Medium Association’s emblem, this palm had no eye—only five spread fingers.
“The medical book you wanted,” Jie Ming said. “I specially picked a basic one. If you study it properly, you should be able to understand it.”
Eric’s hand trembled. He subconsciously wiped his other hand hard on his clothes before carefully taking the book again. He opened the first page.
His fingers were shaking slightly. He turned the pages very gently and slowly, as if afraid of damaging something precious.
Eric’s gaze quickly swept across the text and illustrations. His lips parted slightly, closed, then parted again.
“This… is for me?” His voice sounded somewhat dazed.
Jie Ming did not answer the obvious question.
He walked back to the rocking chair and sat down, picked up the newspaper on the table, and turned to the unread page.
Eric stood under the white light of the bulb, holding the book and flipping through it page by page.
His eyes grew brighter and brighter, his breathing more and more rapid. By the end, his eyes had even turned slightly red.
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, closed the book, and hugged it tightly to his chest.
“Boss,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
“Mhm.”
“Thank you.”
Jie Ming turned a page of the newspaper without looking up. “The payment for watching the shop is covered by this book.”
Eric was stunned for a moment, then smiled.
He hugged the book, turned toward the door, took two steps, then stopped and looked back at Jie Ming.
Jie Ming was still in the same posture, lying in the rocking chair with the newspaper in his hands and no expression on his face, as if reading some unimportant news.
“I’ll be going then,” Eric said.
“Mhm.”
The wooden door closed.
Eric’s footsteps gradually faded along the stone-slab road before disappearing into the night of Mist Capital.
Jie Ming put down the newspaper and glanced at the light bulb on the ceiling.
The white light shone steadily, without flickering or noise.
He reached out and pulled the switch cord.
With a click, the bulb went out. The room returned to the soft orange-yellow glow of the oil lamp.
Jie Ming leaned back in the rocking chair and closed his eyes.
Overall, today’s harvest had not been small.
Various Strange-related materials—the black stone slab, Strange fragments, research manuscripts, sealing containers…
Combined with that completely sealed Strange, it was already enough for him to conduct preliminary research.
Especially that silver-white metal box and the Spirit Medium Association’s sealing technology. If he could thoroughly study it, it would greatly aid his research on Stranges themselves.
Jie Ming opened his eyes, took out the metal box from his inner world, and placed it on his lap.
His fingers brushed across the box’s surface, sensing that extremely faint energy fluctuation.
The fluctuation was very weak—so weak that people in this world might need specialized instruments to detect it. But to him, every detail of that fluctuation was as clear as lines etched on glass.
The material of the sealing container, the structure of the runes, the method of energy locking, the principle of suppressing the Strange’s activity…
These things would require time to analyze.
He stored the box back into his inner world and closed his eyes again.
But another matter was still turning in his mind.
Those people following behind him… Among the people who had treated him as a fat sheep after the auction ended, he had noticed one thing. Among all the trackers, one person was missing.
It was the cold, shadowy figure who had sat in the corner during the final bidding at the auction.
Jie Ming could confirm that when he left the exhibition center, that person had indeed shown dangerous intent.
That gaze was not ordinary greed or curiosity, but clear, genuine killing intent.
Jie Ming had seen this kind of gaze too many times on the battlefield to mistake it.
Yet among those preparing to hunt him, that person was not present.
The gazes he had sensed came from several other people—familiar faces from the auction. A few had even made eye contact with him while he was bidding.
They wanted his money, the items he had won, and that sealed Strange.
Their intentions were direct, simple, and easy to understand.
But that shadow was not among them.
That person had clearly shown sufficiently intense killing intent yet had not acted.
He had not even appeared in the hunting group.
Either he had given up, or he had changed his plan.
But that genuine killing intent was not fake. The most likely reason for him to give up, after thinking it over, was the people from the Spirit Medium Association.
It was not that he had seen the two take action, but that he had known in advance that Association members would intervene.
So he had given up.
If that was the case, it meant this shadow was very familiar with the Spirit Medium Association’s operational patterns.
Familiar enough to predict that the Association would protect buyers after the auction.
Such a person was not an ordinary black-market merchant or desperado.
Jie Ming’s fingers tapped lightly on the armrest of the rocking chair twice.
“It seems this city is about to become lively…”
Jie Ming was not surprised by the approaching turmoil in this city.
When he had chosen Mist Capital, one of the reasons was that the fluctuations of fate here were quite intense.
This was the convenience of fate-type knowledge.
Jie Ming did not need to go around searching for anything.
He only needed to wait quietly in this city. Whatever was meant to come would come.
The oil lamp’s flame flickered gently in the breeze, casting his shadow onto the mottled wall.
Jie Ming lay in the rocking chair, swaying slowly.
The wooden boards emitted faint creaking sounds that mixed with the wind outside the window, the distant whistles, and the faint, indistinct Strange murmurs coming from countless corners of the city, forming a unique nighttime rhythm belonging to Mist Capital.
He closed his eyes, a faint, almost imperceptible smile on his lips.
Waiting was the best course of action.