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

"Goodness."

He clicked his tongue inwardly.

"What a rare find!"

Under normal circumstances, anything that can increase the progress of the copper plague to single digits in one go is definitely extraordinary.

The next second, he lifted the young man off the ground with one hand. The man's feet left shallow scratches on the slippery pebbles.

"Boy."

Ivan leaned close to his ear, his sunny and cheerful tone carrying a cold, hard edge.

"Tell me the doctor's name and address."

He paused for a moment, giving the other person time to process it.

"Don't worry. I'm not a police officer, nor am I part of the security team. I'm going to cooperate with him."

As he spoke, he took a small ten-cent coin from the dollar and forty cents he had just received and stuffed it into the young man's pocket.

"This is your reward."

The young man's eyelids twitched the moment the ten-cent coin fell into his pocket.

This is my money!

You used my money to reward me!?

Chapter 86: Father's essence and mother's blood, cannot be discarded! (3/5)

Feeling that the other person was dangling him in mid-air like a kitten with just one hand, the young man almost wet his pants.

What gang rules, what confidentiality agreements with fingerprints when joining...

I'm about to die in this ditch, why should I care about anything else?

The young man immediately spoke up: "Nyo Clinic!"

"Nyo Clinic?"

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

He recognized the name; it wasn't far from here, just across the stone-paved street from the dock area. The one with the white enamel sign with black lettering.

His father had injured his shoulder while working at the dock and went there for treatment.

I've heard that the medical skills there are quite good, and the prices are correspondingly high.

What happens next is unknown.

"Who's at the Niyo Clinic?"

Ivan followed up with a sentence.

The young man quickly spoke up.

"Mrs. Cammy."

Ivan frowned: "Mrs. Cammy? What about Dr. Cammy from before?"

He remembered clearly that the attending physician at that clinic was a middle-aged man named Kemi, with a black beard, heavy eye bags, and wearing a pair of round glasses with gold rims.

The young man obediently replied, "Dr. Cammy died two years ago. For the past two years, Mrs. Cammy has been seeing patients."

He licked his chapped lower lip, and something that was hard to tell whether it was fear or fascination surfaced in his eyes.

"Mrs. Cammy is very beautiful. Business at the clinic is even better than before."

Upon hearing this, Ivan loosened his grip.

The young man's knees slumped back onto the cobblestone ground, splashing a small, dirty droplet of water into a puddle the size of a fist.

Ivan waved his hand: "Get lost."

The young man felt as if he had been granted a pardon and was about to move back.

"Oh, right."

Evan spoke again: "If you want to take revenge on me, you can come find me on Guding Street anytime."

He paused for a moment, then slowly grinned, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth in the shadows of the alley.

"Next time you come, it would be best to bring two people with more severe symptoms and higher infectivity, otherwise it's pointless."

Those words were like a bucket of ice water poured on the back of the young man's neck.

His legs went weak, and his corduroy pants, already soaked with sweat, developed a dark wet stain at the crotch, with heat and the smell of urine rising into the cold air.

It involves both sweat and urine.

Then he scrambled and crawled, frantically dashing into the crowd at the end of the street.

Having settled this matter, Evan pressed his felt hat down over his head and slowly strolled out of the alley.

As he passed the skinny orange cat by the wall, he squatted down and touched its relatively dry ears.

"I'll get you another bag of mice later."

The cat meowed once, lazily rubbed its head back against his knuckles, and then burrowed back behind the pile of overturned barrels.

Back on the familiar Guding Street.

The two rows of blackened red brick townhouses on either side have old posters from years ago still clinging to the cracks in the walls.

The old Italian man pushing his cart on the street corner was still ringing his little brass bell. At noon, the bread and coffee in the cart had been replaced by hot chestnuts and roasted sweet potatoes, and the aroma of caramel mixed with the smell of charcoal wafted across half the street.

Across the street, the blacksmith's chimney billowed thick, bluish-gray smoke, and the clanging of hammering anvils echoed throughout the room.

The dockworkers coming and going wore coarse cloth coats draped over their shoulders, their boots making a dull echo on the stone slabs.

Everything felt incredibly familiar, and I felt completely safe.

This time, Ivan didn't dare take a deep breath and quickly stepped across the curb.

"You've struck it rich, Arkham! That suit looks really impressive!"

Across the street, Uncle Aobuli, the blacksmith, straightened up from his furnace, his face, streaked with smoke, beaming with a smile. His loud voice was so loud that even the Jewish woman selling pickled vegetables next door peeked out to take a look.

Ivan laughed and said, "I was lucky enough to be a rich kid's lackey for a few days."

The eyes of the neighbors all turned to look at them. The man in canvas overalls and the woman in a worn cotton skirt all had the same thing in their eyes.

Envy, awe, and a touch of inexplicable distance.

They still remember how he treated the Gus gang like underlings a few days ago.

Good afternoon, Arkham!

"This outfit costs at least $30! It looks really cool!"

Everyone who walked towards him greeted him with a smile.

This scene seemed like a completely different world from the gaunt young man who had been wearing a faded old jacket and hurrying across the street corner with his head down just two weeks ago.

The moment he took out his keys to open the door, Ivan subtly activated his Demon Hunter Vision.

The door frame, the floor, and the table edge showed no faint traces of unfamiliarity.

No one has sneaked in these past few days.

He felt relieved and bolted the door shut.

The familiar smell of old wooden floors and kerosene stove in the apartment finally eased the tension in his shoulders that had been building for days.

He first untied the bow tie from his collar, then slowly took off his suit jacket from his shoulders, hung it on the peeling paint wooden clothes rack on the wall, and walked into the bathroom shirtless.

In the mirror, the gray-green patina on his left chest reflected a deep, dark stain.

Ivan took a deep breath.

Tear!

A chilling sound, like taut leather being ripped apart.

A large piece of copper rust, still attached to the skin and flesh, and the nipple of his left breast, was torn off his chest.

"It hurts."

He gritted his teeth, and a fine layer of sweat instantly appeared on his forehead, trickling down his cheeks.

A dozen seconds later, the entire piece of copper rust was completely peeled off, and it was as thick as a palm.

Despite the horrific wound that revealed the outline of his lungs and the beating of his heart, Evan didn't bleed a single drop.

All the blood seemed to be wrapped in some kind of viscous glue, congealing at the edge of the wound, quietly piling up there, refusing to flow out at all.

Immediately afterward, under his gaze, the semi-congealed flesh began to rapidly fill the gap.

Muscle fibers re-interweave and heal at a visible rate. Rough scabs cover the wound from the edges towards the center.

"Is this the true value of 292.5% blood quality?"

For the first time, Evan experienced firsthand the power of the [Blood Quality] trait.

No bleeding. Not a single drop of nutrition is wasted.

His blood now doesn't seem like a liquid anymore; it's more like jelly that's been frozen in a freezer for half an hour.

He turned the large piece of copper rust that had been torn off over and examined it carefully.

Within that layer of grayish-green rust texture, one can actually see the muscle texture, the layers of fat, and even the direction of capillaries.

The whole thing doesn't look like a scab from a disease, but rather like a human anatomy artifact cast in bronze by a highly skilled craftsman.

Upon seeing this thing, Ivan's first thought was...

"The father's essence and the mother's blood are inseparable."

The next second, he shoved the thing into his mouth and bit down hard with his bronze-colored teeth.

when!

A crisp metallic clang.

Evan was stunned; he couldn't bite it.