Becoming a god starts with one certificate becoming eternal.

The night wind in the silent alley carried a damp chill, like the old scent blowing from the bottom of a deep well.

When Ye Xiao came out of the martial arts school, it was already completely dark.

Today, I practiced stance training and boxing to an extreme degree. My legs and feet are sore, and the area between my thumb and forefinger has split open and closed repeatedly. There are no visible injuries on the surface, but it feels like cold air is blowing into my bones, leaving me feeling hollow and disoriented.

It can still hold on.

But if we keep going like this, it will eventually break down.

The desire to obtain the medicine grew stronger.

Before leaving the museum, he asked He Lin about the locations of several pharmacies in the lower city.

Instead of going straight back to the Silent Alley, he went around it along the street.

The first lantern was so bright it was blinding; the shopkeeper didn't even bother to lift his eyelids: "No note, no sale."

The second shop's signboard was faded and worn. The shopkeeper swept him up from head to toe and scoffed, "Outer sect student? Want to buy aphrodisiacs? Come back with a cop."

Ye Xiao raised the price to double.

The other party only replied with three words: "Not in compliance with regulations."

He wandered through two more alleys and visited three more pharmacies, all to the same conclusion. Just as he was about to give up, he spotted a half-dead oil lamp in a secluded corner of an alley.

Under the lamp was an inconspicuous pharmacy, the door half-closed, and the inside was very damp.

An elderly man sat behind the counter, his eyelids drooping, but his gaze was not dull.

Ye Xiao stated his purpose directly.

The old man raised his eyes slightly: "Want to buy abortion pills? And you don't have any tickets?"

Ye Xiao nodded.

The old man chuckled, but his laughter was tinged with coldness: "Then let's take the unorthodox route. We have third-rate medicine, and even second-rate medicine isn't unheard of..."

"How much?" Ye Xiao asked.

The old man held up five fingers, speaking slowly and deliberately: "Five times the market price. Money in hand, medicine yours. But remember, after you walk out this door, I won't recognize this business."

Ye Xiao remained silent.

He might be able to manage if he doubled his money, but even doubling it might not be enough.

Five times... not even a thought is needed.

"If you can't afford it, don't ask." The old man sneered. "In this place, life is worthless, but medicine is."

The oil lamp flickered on the counter, and Ye Xiao turned and left.

The door behind me slammed shut with a crisp "creak," as if sealing off the last possible path.

……

On his way back to the alley, Ye Xiao was lost in thought.

I can't afford third-rate medicine.

He had tried some low-grade herbal medicines, which at best prevented people from collapsing immediately... far from being usable as fuel.

The dampness and ashes of the alleyway pressed down on people's noses, and their vision seemed to be sullied.

In the distance, in the direction of the North Furnace, flames still flickered; that was the most dazzling light in this alley at night.

Ye Xiao walked along the broken wall, his footsteps making little noise on the damp ground.

Just then...

Suddenly, a sound of breaking bones came from ahead, followed by a short, piercing scream.

Ye Xiao stopped in his tracks.

The exhaustion felt like it had been sliced ​​open, and I suddenly felt calm.

He hugged the wall, walked around a low wall that had collapsed halfway, and looked down into the alley through the cracks in the eaves.

The firelight flickered over there.

A torch was stuck at the end of the alley, illuminating the muddy water and turning it yellow.

A thug from the Green Owl Gang grabbed a boy who looked about twelve years old and dragged him on the ground like a tattered sack.

The boy was as thin as firewood, and there was a trail of blood where he had been dragged.

The thug cursed and kicked the boy in the back of the knee: "Last month, a family was bailing out of their lodgings, and I beat them so badly they couldn't get up. This month it's your turn... You really think I'm a pushover? If I don't loosen your muscles, you won't know how worthless you are!"

Click.

The sound of bones breaking was excessively clear.

The boy's legs were bent at an angle that shouldn't have happened, and he fell headfirst into the mud, only broken gasps coming from his throat.

A woman in her early twenties was cornered against the wall, her face ashen and her hands trembling uncontrollably.

The thug pulled a crumpled contract from his pocket and slapped it across her face.

"sign."

He grabbed her hair and forced her to her knees: "Sign it. This month's rent will be considered payment in lieu of your life. Come with me tomorrow morning. Otherwise, none of you will have a good day today."

The woman's lips were pale: "Give me a few more days... just a few more days, and I can make up for the lost money... please."

"Fill your head, my foot!" the thug sneered. "The rules weren't set by you guys."

He pressed down hard with his foot, stomping half of the boy's body into the mud.

"Please stop hitting me!" the woman cried.

"If you don't sign, your brother will never be able to get out of bed again."

The thug bent down and picked up a stick. This time, instead of aiming at the leg, he raised his hand and aimed at the boy's shoulder blade.

The firelight reflected off the stick, stretching its arc into a grotesque shape.

As Ye Xiao watched that scene, another similar scene suddenly flashed through his mind...

It was the same night in the Silent Alley, the same person was dragged to the ground and beaten, and the same reason was money in the alley.

That night, he could only clench his fists, not even having the right to take half a step forward.

The stick was about to fall.

The next moment, Ye Xiao's feet sank slightly, and his figure emerged from the darkness.

Snapped.

A very soft sound.

The stick veered off course in mid-air, as if it had been whipped away by something, crashing into the wall and then falling into the mud.

The hoodlum was stunned for a moment before belatedly realizing what had happened.

My wrist was being gripped.

In the darkness, the hand gripped his wrist firmly with an incredibly strong grip, rendering him completely immobile.

"who……"

The word had barely been uttered when it was abruptly cut off.

Ye Xiao stood behind him, half of his face obscured by the night fog, revealing only a pair of cold, expressionless eyes.

There was no anger or fluctuation in his gaze, only a very simple judgment:

This person shouldn't be kept around.

Ye Xiao tightened his grip.

"Click."

With a short, sharp crack, the wrist bone shattered instantly. The thug's entire arm went limp and fell limply, as if all the tendons had been pulled out.

He gasped in pain, his knees buckled instinctively, and a scream was about to burst from his throat...

Ye Xiao's palm was already on his hand, covering his mouth and forcibly silencing him.

The thug's eyes bulged, his breath flared wildly under his palm, and his body struggled like a madman.

Before he could break free a second time, Ye Xiao grabbed the back of his neck with his other hand and, taking advantage of his downward momentum, pressed down and twisted it sharply.

"Crack."

Like breaking a wet piece of firewood.

The thug's body stiffened, then went limp and crashed into the mud.

The light in his eyes faded quickly, leaving not even a complete sound.

The boy not far away had already fainted from the pain.

The woman was still kneeling on the ground, her hands bracing against the muddy water, her shoulders trembling uncontrollably.

Her vision was blurred by tears, and she could only see a shadow outside the firelight...

Thin and straight, like a cold iron standing in the night.

She tried to look up to see clearly, but the shadow had already dragged the body back into the darkness, eventually being swallowed up by the fog little by little.

"……Thanks."

The woman managed to squeeze out two words in a hoarse voice. She tried to see Ye Xiao clearly but couldn't. In the blink of an eye, the place was empty.

The torch was almost burned out, leaving only a faint red glow.

The contract was crumpled in her hand and fell into the mud, the writing blurred by water.

Someone in the distance was startled awake by the noise and peeked out.

Without a word, the woman picked up her younger brother and dragged her legs toward the door, her mind replaying the shadow from just now... but she couldn't quite grasp the details.

It was as if all of that was just a fleeting illusion in the night fog.

……

At the other end of the alley, Ye Xiao dragged the corpse into deeper shadows, avoiding the angles illuminated by the torches.

There is a hidden ditch deep in the alley, where sewage, dead cats, dead dogs, and occasionally other things are dumped.

He pushed the body down.

The water splashed up with a soft murmur, but quickly returned to calm.

The night wind blew up from the ditch, carrying dampness and a faint smell of blood, but was quickly covered by the fog.

Ye Xiao looked down at his palm.

His knuckles didn't shake, and his breathing was steady.

Compared to the night he killed Zhang Tu, he was not only stronger, but also more skilled.

They understood even more clearly that in a place like Silent Alley, the dead would be swallowed up by the fog and the dark ditches if they didn't make a sound.

These lowest-level scoundrels might disappear for three days and no one would even ask about them.

Ye Xiao withdrew his gaze and turned to walk out of the alley.

Reason told him not to make a move.

But in that instant, he suddenly realized... if he already had the ability, yet chose to turn away at this moment,

Then he is no different from the foot that steps on the child.

There is no light at night and the fog is heavier.

Ye Xiao's figure was quickly swallowed by the darkness, leaving only a patch of wet mud to prove that someone had been there.