I'm a proper student; I only take nine kinds of potions every day.

Page 120

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a thin razor blade slowly reaching towards the inner pocket containing his ID and cash, its movement practiced and clean.

Ivan instantly identified the owner of the hand. It was a thin, short man wearing a worn-out grey newsboy cap, the brim pulled low, his chin resting on his neck.

"Thieves, robberies, kidnappings—these three are an unavoidable part of the modern lifestyle!"

He clicked his tongue inwardly.

"Unfortunately, I can choose not to eat beef today."

Ivan's hand snapped back with a speed that left others completely unable to react.

quack!

A sharp crack was followed by a piercing scream, startling all the passengers in the carriage into turning their heads.

The short man in the newsboy cap turned deathly pale instantly, and let out a scream like a small animal whose tail had been pinched off.

Strangely, the surrounding passengers did not seem surprised; they simply tightened their shoulders and quietly squeezed to the sides, even the female worker's vegetable basket made room for her.

"Let me go! I'm calling the police! I demand you pay me back!"

The short man trembled all over, struggling while biting his lower lip tightly.

Ivan gently pinched the other's broken finger with his thumb and forefinger.

The two finger bones are now only connected by a layer of skin. Every time the other person struggles, the bone fragments rub against the flesh, causing him to spasm in pain.

Ivan wore a bright, sunny smile.

"Friend, you're being too loud."

His voice was as calm as if he were greeting a neighbor.

"You damaged my ears. It's not fair that you don't compensate me, is it?"

The surrounding passengers were stunned, their eyes turning quite strange.

A middle-aged worker wearing canvas overalls with dark gray cuffs moved half a step closer and lowered his voice.

"Child, you'd better be careful."

"He's a member of the Poison Blade Gang. And... those guys are a real pain to mess with."

After the worker finished speaking, he subconsciously rubbed a dark red old scar on his hand.

Clearly, quite a few people in this carriage have suffered at the hands of these scoundrels.

"I'm riddled with infectious diseases. If you offend me, you'd better not get away with it!"

Just then, the short man suddenly lunged forward, bringing his entire face close and biting down on the side of Evan's hand, his expression ferocious.

The veins on his neck bulged, and even his shoulders twitched in waves as he exerted force with his mouth.

As he chewed, saliva seeped out from between his teeth, the sour and foul smell mixed with the smell of tobacco seeping into Evan's nose.

When Evan saw this, he laughed instead.

Isn't this the same trick I used to poison Priscilla's female assistant back then?

Ding ding ding.

The tram arrives.

Ivan didn't argue with him, letting the other bite his hand and drag him off the tram like a disobedient puppy.

Passengers readily made way for each other, as if granted a pardon, and no one wanted to look at the incident a second time.

After getting off the bus, he turned into the alley leading to Guding Street.

The alley was narrow and damp. Overturned wooden buckets and puddles of dark liquid, whether rainwater or swill, were piled up at the base of the wall. Several old newspapers, stuck to the wall by the wind, had the words "Strike" and "Rising Coal Prices" printed on the front page.

The previously skinny, green-eyed orange cat poked its head out from the garbage heap. It seemed to remember that Evan had given it a bag of choking mice. It meowed and squatted there without moving.

The little guy was still biting hard. His incisors rubbed against Evan's skin, making a very faint sizzling sound.

Ivan spoke with a smile.

Are you tired?

"How about we take a break?"

Hearing this almost mocking tone, coupled with the hard, unyielding texture in his mouth, the short man finally fell silent, reluctantly gave in, and knelt down on the damp cobblestone ground with a thud.

"Big brother! Spare me!"

His forehead was almost touching the ground, and his crooked newsboy cap had fallen into a puddle beside him, soaking up the dirty water.

He knew he'd run into a tough opponent today.

This trick usually works every time.

Thanks to his numerous ailments, he escaped countless purges from gangsters, dockworkers, and police.

But this time he really messed up.

The feeling of that bite he just took wasn't like a human hand at all; it was more like a hard wooden board wrapped in tire lining.

This hand clearly carries human body heat, and you can even see the capillaries under the skin, yet the skin is ridiculously thick and incredibly tough.

No matter how hard he tried to cut with his incisors, he couldn't cut even a single thread.

In the end, the muscles on both sides of his jaw were so sore they were about to cramp, and he could taste the bitterness of his own saliva under his tongue.

Evan looked down at the face beneath the newsboy cap. He appeared to be in his early twenties, with ordinary features and a fine, newly sprouted stubble on his chin.

Judging from his accent, he seems to be of Italian descent.

"The Poison Blade Gang, so it turns out it's just infectious diseases and razor blades?"

Evan flicked the drool off his hand. His sunny, cheerful tone, like that of a sunflower, sounded eerie against the backdrop of this dark alley.

The young man hurriedly used his still-intact hand to turn the linings of both pockets inside out, shaking them until they jingled.

"Brother, I only have this dollar and forty cents on me. I'll give it all to you! Please spare me!"

Evan took the loose change, counting the denominations in his palm as he casually asked a question.

What illnesses do you have?

The young man lowered his head and said in a muffled voice, "Vulgaris. Leprosy. Blood poisoning."

He used the old street-street terminology.

The proper names are gonorrhea, leprosy, and septicemia.

After listening, Ivan raised an eyebrow.

"You seem to know quite a lot about this."

He held the dollar and forty cents between his fingers and asked again.

Aren't you afraid of infecting others?

The young man used his unbroken hand to grip the wrist of the other man with the missing finger, biting his lower lip and lowering his voice even further.

"No...it's not contagious."

Ivan squinted.

That doesn't sound right.

This petty thug, who's got all these filthy diseases, used to practically wear "I'm contagious" on his forehead to scare people. And now this guy's actually vouching for him, saying he's not contagious?

He crouched down and met the other person's gaze. The distance between them was no more than a fist's width, and there was a suffocating silence in his eyes.

"Who gave you these diseases?"

Why are you so sure it's not contagious?

The young man's face turned pale instantly, making the festering red patches on his neck and the spots on his cheeks even more glaring.

"The doctor...the doctor said so."

Ivan became interested: "Which doctor?"

The young man stammered.

"I...I don't know my name."

Ivan squinted, not in a hurry to ask further questions.

He raised his hand, pinched a drop of blood that had seeped from the other person's severed finger with his fingertip, brought it to his nose to smell it, and then put it into his mouth without hesitation.

The moment the taste of blood spread on the tip of my tongue, a series of notifications appeared on the control panel.

Yersinia pestis was detected.

Staphylococcus aureus was detected.

[Streptococcus pyogenes was detected.]

[Neisseria gonorrhoeae detected.]

[Dark matrix fungus detected.]

"Hmm? Dark Mother Fungus?"

Evan looked at the last line and his brows furrowed sharply.

Although he didn't know a lot about viruses and bacteria, he recognized them by their scientific names.

What the hell is the Dark Mother Fungus?

Immediately afterwards, the next set of prompts followed.

[Copper plague has consumed Yersinia pestis. Progress +0.002%.]