Chapter 630: The Young Man in the Old City District

Eric's alarm clock rang at five in the morning.

He turned over, habitually reached out to pat the old mechanical alarm clock on the bedside table, and then lay on the bed for two minutes, waiting until the second alarm rang before climbing up reluctantly.

The sky outside the window was gray, indistinguishable whether it was the thin fog of the early morning or the black smoke spat out by factory chimneys.

The morning in Fog City is always like this, never able to see where the sun is.

He lived on the third floor of this old apartment building, in a single room of less than ten square meters.

A bed, a table, a wardrobe, that was all his belongings.

The window faced the narrow stone slab road downstairs, the road surface was always wet, not knowing whether it was rainwater or waste water discharged from some factory.

Eric spent ten minutes washing and dressing, then touched two paper bills from the iron can on the table and tucked them into his pocket.

The bakery downstairs sold overnight bread every morning, the price was half cheaper, hard enough to kill someone, but it was barely enough to fill his stomach when soaked in hot water.

When he walked down the stairs, he habitually glanced out the window.

Then he was stunned.

Because, the street scene that had remained unchanged for so many years, and even made him trance into thinking it would never change, had changed.

Across the street downstairs, three house numbers away, there was a dilapidated house that had been empty for at least seventeen or eighteen years.

More than half of the gray plaster on the outer wall had fallen off, revealing the blackened bricks and stones inside; two windows on the second floor were broken, nailed shut with wooden boards, and the paint on the front door was mottled like it had a skin disease.

Eric had watched this house from childhood to adulthood, and had never seen anyone live in it; the neighbors all said the house was haunted.

Of course, in this world, "haunted" is not a metaphor.

Also because of this reason, since the previous owner of this house died an unnatural death, no one had ever rented it again.

But now, the door of that house was open.

Of course, it wasn't the kind of "open" that had been pried open or blown open by the wind, after all, anything with a little value inside that broken house had long been moved away.

The door had been opened neatly.

A wooden sign hung on the door frame, and a few characters were carved on the wooden sign, the handwriting was neat but not beautiful.

Eric squinted for a while before he could identify the handwriting on it with his slightly astigmatic eyes:

"Old Bookstore".

Eric raised an eyebrow.

Old Bookstore.

In Fog City, in this most chaotic and poorest old city district of the city, someone opened an old bookstore?

Although he was not a person on the road, children who grew up in this kind of place understood what they should understand.

"Old Bookstore" in this context, like "Grocery Store," "Pawnshop," "Repair Shop," was nine times out of ten a business that hung a sheep's head but sold dog meat.

What this "Old Bookstore" sold was probably not books, but other things.

Like prohibited gene drugs, anomaly materials flowing out of the black market, or underground Psychic intermediary services, etc.

However, compared to those dangerous shops, the most common situation in this case was still a black clinic.

Those unlicensed doctors... or people who called themselves doctors, under the cover of this kind of shop, saw patients for those who didn't dare to go to regular hospitals.

Most of the patients were small characters in the black market, fugitive Psychics, or bottom-level residents who were simply too poor to pay the fees of regular hospitals.

Whether the medical skills were good or bad depended entirely on luck; dying was a common occurrence, and throwing the corpse into the sewer below Fog City was something no one could find.

However, he woke up relatively late this morning, so Eric just glanced at it and didn't pay attention, instead rushing to work.

Until evening, dragging his exhausted body, Eric, who had just returned from the factory, cursed the manager who was as fat as a pig several times while looking at the sky.

The work in the factory was getting busier day by day, but the remuneration didn't increase, and the time to get off work was getting later day by day.

If it weren't for the existence of night anomalies, that fat pig would definitely have let everyone work until late at night.

While constantly cursing in his heart, Eric, who was climbing the stairs, habitually saw that old bookstore again.

Unlike this morning, this shop now looked much "cleaner," the broken windows and wall skin had been repaired, and the front door had been repainted.

Eric hesitated at the stairwell.

Eric still couldn't hold back his curiosity, walked down the stairs, crossed the wet stone slab road, and stopped at the door of that house.

Inside the door was a small room, about twenty square meters.

Several rows of wooden bookshelves were placed against the wall, and some old books were sparsely placed on the bookshelves; the spines of the books were severely worn, and it could be seen that they had been around for some years.

There was a table in the center of the room, an oil lamp on the table, and a stack of newspapers beside the oil lamp.

There was a rocking chair behind the table.

A person was lying on the rocking chair.

A young man, looking about the same age as Eric, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six.

Ordinary appearance, dark hair, light gray eyes, wearing a faded dark coat, and a pair of old leather boots with some mud on his feet.

He was holding a book in his hand, flipping through it lazily.

He saw Eric standing at the door, raised his head, and revealed a calm expression that could neither be called enthusiastic nor cold.

"Please come in, feel free to look around." He said.

The voice was not loud, carrying a kind of indifferent casualness.

Eric walked into the shop and turned around the bookshelf in a pretentious manner.

The books were real... this point was beyond his expectation.

The pages of those old books were yellow and brittle, the handwriting was printed, not handwritten.

The content also looked like things about literature, history, geography, etc., not the "secret code books" or "password books" he imagined.

But this instead made Eric more convinced that it was a black clinic.

A real old bookstore wouldn't open in this kind of place.

Everyone living in this kind of broken street and rotten alley was factory workers, dock coolies, and those bottom-level idlers who didn't even have stable jobs.

Who had spare money to buy books?

Who would read books?

The reason why Eric himself knew characters was because his mother had been a clerk in a textile factory before she died and had taught him some.

In fact, 80% of the people around him couldn't even write their own names clearly.

Opening an old bookstore in this kind of place, what was the difference from opening a fishing boat shop in the desert?

So it must be a black clinic; the bookshelves and old books were just a disguise.

Eric thought very firmly.

However, it wasn't a bad thing; if he suffered any injury in the future, he could also seek medical treatment nearby, which was better than running to a black clinic on another street.

His gaze secretly swept through every corner of the room, trying to find a door leading elsewhere.

Then he noticed a wooden door that didn't stand out behind the bookshelf, and a little faint light leaked out from the door crack.

"What's behind that?" Eric pointed to that door, his tone trying to sound casual.

The young man on the rocking chair glanced at him, and the corners of his mouth bent slightly.

That smile was neither deep nor shallow, making people unable to see what he was thinking.

"Storeroom." He said. "A place to pile old books. A bit damp, not very suitable for entertaining guests."

Eric nodded and didn't pursue the question.

Whether it was a storeroom or a clinic, it had nothing to do with him.

He wasn't here to seek medical treatment, nor was he here to find trouble; he was purely curious.

"You live here alone?" Eric asked.

"Hmm."

"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 very slow, as if he wasn't in a hurry to do anything.

Such temperament was out of place in this old city district.

"The landlord is a good person." He said. "The price is fair."

Eric nodded again, not knowing what to say.

He stood in front of the bookshelf, pulled out a book at random, flipped through two pages, and couldn't read a single word.

He stuffed the book back, turned around, and found that he had no reason to continue staying here.

"Then... I'm leaving." He said.

"Take care." The young man didn't try to keep him, didn't even have the intention to stand up, just raised his hand slightly, counting as a farewell.

Eric walked out of that door, stood on the wet stone slab road, and looked back at the wooden sign of "Old Bookstore."

I don't know why, but he had a very strange feeling.

That young man looked ordinary, spoke ordinarily, dressed ordinarily, but there was a kind of indescribable... discordance.

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

Lei Ke shook his head, shaking off that feeling.

It was probably just his imagination.

Having lived in the Old Town for so long, one had to learn to restrain their curiosity.

He walked along the flagstone 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 usual, and the factory chimneys in the distance drew several thick, heavy black lines against the grey-white sky.

From downstairs came the shouting of the bakery proprietress, and the child from the family next door was crying, the sound sharp and piercing.

Lei Ke sat on the edge of the bed, his mind inexplicably turning to the appearance of that young man from earlier.

That person was about his age and already owned a shop.

Although it was a "second-hand bookstore" that hung a sheep's head but sold dog meat, it was still a shop.

He had his own business, his own income, and didn't have to crawl out of bed at 5:30 every morning to go to the factory, stand next to roaring machines for twelve hours, and come home so tired he didn't even want to eat, just collapsing to sleep.

And what about himself?

Lei Ke looked down at his hands.

His fingers were thick and short, his palms were full of calluses, and the black stains of machine oil were embedded in his fingernails, impossible to wash off.

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 he had broken two fingers; although they had been reattached, they still ached when it was cloudy or rainy.

His hands had been crushed by machines three times, and he had broken two fingers; although they had been reattached, they still ached when it was cloudy or rainy.

He remembered what his mother had said when he was a child.

"Lei Ke, 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 at the textile factory.

She could read and do accounts; in that factory, she was considered a cultured person.

Every night, she would teach Lei Ke to read, writing stroke by stroke on the back of waste paper, the light of the kerosene lamp casting their shadows onto the mottled wall.

Later, she died.

The factory machine malfunctioned, her arm was pulled into the roller, and by the time she was sent to the hospital, it was already too late.

Lei Ke was thirteen at the time.

He never studied again.

Now he was twenty-six.

He had worked in the factory for eight years and saved up a small sum of money—not much, but not nothing either.

If he wanted to learn something... for example, medicine?

Lei Ke was startled by this thought of his own.

Medicine? Him? A factory maintenance worker?

But that young man who opened the second-hand bookstore didn't look like someone who had been to university either.

Besides, how many of those "doctors" running underground clinics in the Old Town actually had licenses?

Most of them had just been apprentices to some old doctor for a few years, learned a little bit of the trade, and dared to come out to treat people.

If they were lucky and cured a few patients, their reputation would spread.

If they were unlucky and treated a few people to death, they would just change locations and names and start all over again.

If he could learn some basic medical knowledge, could he also open a shop like that?

Lei Ke leaned against the head of the bed, looking at the crack on the ceiling that extended from the corner of the wall to the window, and began to think about this question seriously.

He didn't know if that young man was a real doctor or a fake one.

But he knew that there had never been any form of clinic on that street.

The nearest regular hospital was on the edge of the Old Town, a fifty-minute ride by public bus, and the registration fee was ridiculously expensive; an ordinary worker's monthly wage might not even be enough for one visit.

If he could open a clinic in the Old Town with cheap fees, even if it were an underground clinic, there would certainly be no shortage of people willing to come.

Lei Ke turned over, buried his face in the pillow, and took a deep breath.

There was a faint smell of machine oil on the pillow that wouldn't wash away no matter what.

Save money first.

He thought.

Once he had saved enough money, find an old doctor willing to take on an apprentice, study for two years, and then...

Then he would see.

Outside the window, the sky of the Fog City was always grey and hazy; one couldn't see where the sun was, nor could one see where tomorrow lay.

But at least he had a direction now.

In the second-hand bookstore, Gao Jie Ming watched the back of the young man as he left, the corners of his mouth curving slightly.

That was an ordinary young man.

His body wasn't strong, but he had no obvious illnesses; his eyes weren't sharp, but he wasn't dull either.

He looked like just an ordinary person struggling to survive at the bottom of this city.

However, in Gao Jie Ming's field of vision, the other party's soul was excessively dazzling compared to others.

"Born with high perception... I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing in this world."

Gao Jie Ming withdrew his gaze, picked up the newspaper on the table, and lay back down on the rocking chair.

His identity had been arranged properly.

Four days ago, based on the information in the minds of those four bandits, he had found the strongholds of several underground intermediaries in the Old Town.

Those intermediaries specialized in fake identities, fake documents, and black-market transactions.

They had connections everywhere; as long as there was money, they could handle anything.

To be honest, Gao Jie Ming wasn't very skilled in soul-type wizardry; when it came to souls, he was better at directly performing modifications.

However, dealing with them wasn't too troublesome either.

Gao Jie Ming just had a "friendly exchange" with them; in the face of an absolute gap in strength, smart people always choose to cooperate.

Gao Jie Ming obtained a full set of legal identity documents from one of the intermediaries.

Name, age, address, birth certificate, tax records... all the information was woven seamlessly and could withstand any routine inspection.

He also obtained a considerable amount of cash from another intermediary.

What those four people "voluntarily donated," plus what the intermediaries "actively sponsored," was enough for him to settle down in this city for a long time.

Then he rented this house.

The location was very good.

On the edge of the Old Town, the streets were narrow, the houses were dense, and the population mobility was high.

The surrounding neighbors were mostly factory workers and dock laborers, leaving early and returning late, rarely paying attention to other people's business.

Moreover, this house had been empty for many years, and the landlord just wanted to rent it out, not even asking for much of a deposit.

The first floor was opened as this "second-hand bookstore."

The second floor was where he lived.

And the basement...

Gao Jie Ming stood up, pushed open the wooden door behind the bookshelf, and walked down a narrow staircase.

The basement wasn't large, but it was enough.

The outermost part was a small clinic room.

An examination bed, a medicine cabinet, and a set of simple surgical instruments.

The medicine cabinet contained some drugs common to this plane: anti-inflammatory drugs, painkillers, anesthetics...

His medical knowledge far exceeded the level of "doctors" in this world.

Anatomy, biology, and pharmacology from the Wizarding World; alchemy, meridian studies, and the theory of essence, energy, and spirit from the Cultivation World.

Combining these things together made his medical capabilities sufficient to crush any expert from a regular hospital.

Being an underground doctor was more than enough.

Further inside the clinic was a brick wall that looked unremarkable.

Gao Jie Ming walked straight toward it, and the seemingly seamless brick wall rippled like water.

Inside was a separately partitioned area; this was his temporary research laboratory.

It was still very rudimentary at the moment.

A large stone workbench and several basic research pieces of equipment taken from his internal cave: an elemental microscope, an energy detector, and rune engraving tools.

Piled in the corner were some materials bought from the local market: glassware, chemical reagents, and some eerie "specimens."

Those "specimens" were things he had collected along the way to the Fog City.

Several dangerous-tier eerie fragments, not enough to form a complete individual, but enough for him to conduct preliminary analysis of their law structures.

Gao Jie Ming walked to the workbench, picked up an eerie fragment sealed in resin, and examined it carefully under the light.

The dark grey fragment shimmered slightly with an oily sheen under the light, its surface covered in fine, irregular patterns.

At a microscopic level, these patterns presented an extremely complex structure, neither like the orderly arrangement of crystals nor like the random distribution of organic matter, but rather something in between.

Gao Jie Ming put down the fragment and sat down in the chair.

The probing of the past few days had given him a preliminary understanding of the eerie ecology of this plane.

During the day, he could slightly expand his spiritual sense to investigate; as long as the intensity wasn't too high, it wouldn't attract anything.

The sensitivity of the eerie in this world to spiritual sense was far lower than his expectations for the activity patterns of the eerie at night.

But after dusk, it was different.

Gao Jie Ming looked up and glanced at the small air vent in the basement.

The air vent was at ground level, and through the blurry glass, one could see the sky outside turning dark.

It was dusk.

On the horizon in the distance, the last trace of grey-white light was being swallowed by the dark grey surging in from the sea.

The dusk of the Fog City had no common fire-red clouds, only a seamless transition from day to night.

The grey sky slowly turned a deeper grey, then turned black.

The streetlights on the streets began to light up.

The orange-yellow light flickered inside the glass covers, casting a circle of blurry halos in the thick fog.

The number of pedestrians was decreasing rapidly.

Those workers, peddlers, and housewives who could be seen everywhere on the streets during the day, as if driven by some invisible force before dusk arrived, hurried back to their respective homes.

Doors and windows were shut tight, curtains were drawn, and light seeped out from the gaps of every house.

The light of electric lamps, the light of oil lamps, the light of candles—all kinds of light seeped out from every window and every door crack, weaving into a mottled pattern of light and shadow in the thick fog.

No one was willing to be exposed to an environment without light at night.

Gao Jie Ming withdrew his spiritual sense.

The low-intensity, gentle probing of the day was no longer suitable for the night.

The coverage of the night eerie over this plane was all-encompassing, and he wasn't sure if a spiritual scan would be interpreted by the night eerie as some kind of "attack" or "provocation."

Before completely figuring out the rules and boundaries of the night eerie, the safest course of action was to do nothing.

He stood up, tidied up the things on the workbench, then walked out of the basement and returned to the second-hand bookstore on the first floor.

The oil lamp in the bookstore was still lit.

Gao Jie Ming turned the wick down a little, making the light soft but 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 of the newspaper was a piece of news about the expansion of the Fog City port, accompanied by a blurry black-and-white photo showing mountains of steel and the blurry figures of workers.

Gao Jie Ming glanced at the headline, then moved his gaze to the corner of the newspaper, where there was a small, inconspicuous area publishing several short local news items.

"Another disappearance occurred last night on the Third Street of the Old Town; a middle-aged male resident has not returned after going out at night..."

"The Port Authority reminds all night-shift personnel to strictly follow lighting safety protocols; no ship is allowed to dock without lighting..."

"The Official Psychic Association announces that it will hold a public lecture on 'Eerie Protection Common Sense' at the Fog City Exhibition Center next month; citizens are welcome to attend for free..."

Gao 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.

The fog outside the window was getting thicker, and the light of the streetlamps was scattered by the fog into a blurry orange-yellow halo, as if someone had dropped a drop of paint on a huge grey 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.

Gao Jie Ming closed his eyes and rocked slowly in the rocking chair.

The wooden boards made a slight creaking sound, mixing with the sound of the wind outside the window, the ship's whistle in the distance, and the occasional footsteps on the flagstone road downstairs, forming a unique rhythm belonging to the night in the Fog City.