Chapter 225: Selection

On a hill southeast of the Honest Market District, there is a quarry that is still in operation.

After Lu Mian came out of the Breeze Dance Hall, he searched all the way for suitable homeless people and finally arrived here.

At this time, the sky was near evening, and the gas street lamps spread all over the streets and alleys were lit one after another by lamplighters. By comparison, the quarry, which had ended a day of busyness, fell into darkness, unable to see any firelight.

In the ground part of the quarry, there were several plaster furnaces. Around them, quite a few homeless people were lying scattered.

Lu Mian concentrated his spirit and focused his attention, observing their fortune one by one.

Finally, he found a target that met his needs.

That was a male homeless person leaning against a plaster furnace. His shirt, trousers, and short jacket were all tattered, stained dark brown by soil. His cheeks were sunken, thin to the point of being out of shape, and his hair and beard were messy and long, almost connecting into one piece.

He half-closed his eyes, his breathing was weak, giving people a feeling that he might die at any time.

And according to the fortune Lu Mian just observed, this homeless person was indeed approaching the end of his life and would pass away within the next two or three days.

He walked in front of the other party, squatted down, took out the gas obtained from the pervert Hedesy, which Fors named occult smelling salts, unscrewed the lid, and brought it toward the target's nose.

—He and Fors had already distributed the "relics" of Lentas. The anesthetic and the 212 Fer-gold belonged to him, and the rest belonged to Fors.

*Achoo! *

The homeless person sneezed twice and opened his eyes.

He looked weakly at Lu Mian, who was wearing blue worker overalls and a dark duckbill cap, and asked with confusion:

"Who, who are you, what, what do you want to do?"

Lu Mian answered calmly:

"I'm a worker passing by. I feel like you're about to die, so I came up to confirm."

The homeless person didn't feel that Lu Mian's explanation had any problems, because in the Intis Republic, after discovering a corpse that died outside, whether reporting to government departments or the two major churches, one could get a certain bonus so that relevant personnel could purify it in time or send the corpse to be burned into ashes.

That bonus wasn't much, about 1 Fer-gold, but for the lower-class people, extra income, no matter how small, was a surprise.

The beard on the homeless person's face trembled, as if trying to squeeze out a smile:

"Your guess is correct. I also feel like I'm about to die. You should come and see me more in the next two days, so as not to have the bonus snatched away by others."

Perhaps it was the stimulation of the occult smelling salts, or perhaps the topic of death made the homeless person appear briefly excited. His speech was no longer intermittent, and his logic became clear.

"Do you still have family?" Lu Mian, who was squatting in front of the homeless person, put away the occult smelling salts and asked as if casually.

The homeless person was silent for a few seconds and shook his head slowly:

"No more, no more.

"If you like my clothes, after I die, just take them."

"Did your family all pass away?" Lu Mian asked about this matter.

The beard on the homeless person's face shook with the movement of his muscles, and his voice revealed pain that couldn't be hidden:

"Dead, they are all dead. My parents didn't live past forty-five. My brother died in that war a few years ago. My sister died of illness. Her child became a child laborer, became hunchbacked at ten, and died of exhaustion in a textile factory..."

The homeless person didn't seem to be answering Lu Mian's question, but rather reminiscing about the past before death. He rambled on:

"I was originally a quarry worker. Everyone praised me for having great strength. Later, a gentleman felt I was very diligent and could endure hardship, so he taught me how to set detonators and how to blast loose stones. My salary became higher, my life started to get better. I had a wife who could also endure hardship, and had three lovely children, but in the end, only one survived. That was my little angel, my daughter.

"That year when everyone protested against the price of grain, my body suddenly collapsed, and I had a serious illness.

"My wife and my daughter spent a lot of money and owed a large debt, finally curing me, but I also lost my job. We were forced by people who lent us usury every day. My little angel was forcibly taken away by them. My wife and I looked for her like crazy. After a few weeks, we saw her corpse. She couldn't bear the torture of those men and ended her life.

"My wife wanted to go to the police but was beaten to death by them. I don't know where she was thrown. I was also beaten into a coma, but I didn't die and lived until today..."

Lu Mian listened quietly and asked in a low voice:

"Do you have any wishes?"

The homeless person laughed "Haha":

"Wishes?

"My biggest wish is that when I had that illness, I should have died within a few days."

Lu Mian was silent for a moment and said:

"You don't want revenge?"

The homeless person said with a dazed look:

"Those people who lent us usury were killed by other gangs. Now there are other groups of people lending usury."

He finally remembered Lu Mian's question just now and said in a floating voice:

"If I die right now, I think, I want to eat one more meat pie. I remember those years, every weekend, my wife would buy meat herself, add flaxseed and vinegar, and make it into meat sauce, sandwiching it into a flour cake. My daughter loved to eat it, and I liked it very much..."

Lu Mian nodded, stood up, and walked toward the street below the hill.

About three-quarters of an hour passed, and he returned to the plaster furnace with a Rouen meat pie emitting a rich fragrance.

The homeless person seemed to be about to fall into a coma again. Lu Mian used the occult smelling salts to wake him up again.

The homeless person sneezed a few times, looked straight, and took the Rouen meat pie, biting it quickly. Even his beard was stained with a layer of oil.

After eating a small half, he gasped and asked with a smile:

"Young man, what exactly do you want to do?"

"I will give you a knife later. It might cause you to die tonight." Lu Mian said plainly.

The homeless person laughed and asked weakly:

"Aren't you afraid of the police?

"I'm not afraid of death. I should have died long ago. Do you know? Every winter, I sleep in the plaster furnace here. The warmth it leaves behind after running for a day makes people comfortable and lasts until the sun is about to rise. But the gas remaining inside is poisonous, which might let me die in a beautiful dream. I have been waiting but haven't waited."

Lu Mian smiled:

"I think those police won't care how a homeless person died, as long as it isn't obviously murdered."

The homeless person didn't speak again, ate all the remaining Rouen meat pie, and burped.

After ten seconds, he adjusted his sitting posture and said:

"You can start."

Lu Mian pulled out the "Fallen Mercury," which had strange and layered patterns, and pricked the back of the homeless person's hand with it.

A little blood overflowed, staining the tip of the knife.

At the same time, Lu Mian saw the illusory river of mercury again.

The purpose of him looking for a dying homeless person was to exchange for a more practical destiny!

This isn't to say that the destiny of "encountering the Montsouris ghost" isn't powerful. On the contrary, it can achieve certain death or even the death of the whole family for many humans, and its persistence is very strong. But the problem is that it requires a not-short time to take effect—exchanging destiny can often be completed in a few minutes, but when the Montsouris ghost will go to find the target is purely random. Maybe ten or twenty minutes later, it will launch an attack, or maybe it will take three or four months.

In other words, the destiny of "encountering the Montsouris ghost" isn't suitable for raids or encounter battles.

And, with the experience and lessons brought by Margot's death, the target of his hunt this time, "Black Scorpion" Luo Jie, will inevitably guard against similar things. Once he is pricked by "Fallen Mercury" and doesn't die directly, he will likely ask "Madame Moon" for help. Lu Mian isn't sure if that lady who truly possesses divinity has a way to defend against the Montsouris ghost. If she can, then his action will be a complete failure.

Based on this consideration, he planned to exchange the destiny of "encountering the Montsouris ghost" in advance and choose a destiny that can play a role in raids and assassinations, striving to make "Black Scorpion" Luo Jie die on the spot without being able to ask for help.

Between his thoughts, Lu Mian "saw" one picture after another:

That was the homeless person sleeping in the plaster furnace, the homeless person beaten into a coma, the homeless person who had just fainted once recently, the homeless person who collapsed completely in spirit before his daughter's corpse, the homeless person sharing homemade meat pie with his wife and daughter, the homeless person carefully measuring and constantly checking and finally placing the explosives...

Lu Mian didn't try to pick the destiny that the homeless person was bound to die in two or three days. That was too heavy and couldn't be pried by "Fallen Mercury." Even with the "Luck Transfer Technique," it was impossible to transfer such a destiny.

The only way Lu Mian could think of was to use the "Substitution Technique," find a death row prisoner to replace the homeless person, live as his identity for a period of time, and then complete the ritual after obtaining the recognition of the people around him, using the death row prisoner's death to replace the homeless person's death. But this requires two or three weeks or even longer to prepare, which is completely too late.

Lu Mian, who had quite a bit of experience, distinguished slightly and chose the destiny of the homeless person fainting recently due to his body collapsing.

It broke away from the mercury-colored long river, condensed into a liquid bead, seeped into the blade of "Fallen Mercury," and in contrast, the destiny of "encountering the Montsouris ghost" transferred to that homeless person at the very beginning.

Lu Mian withdrew the silver-black strange short knife. It was clean, not stained with half a drop of blood, and the wound on the back of the homeless person's hand was very shallow, as if it would scab over before long.

"That's it?" the homeless person asked with confusion.

He had already prepared to be killed on the spot.

"Yes." Lu Mian stood up and left the hill.

Late at night, the homeless person who had shrunk into the plaster furnace suddenly twitched a few times and suffocated to death.

…………

Opposite 126 Market Avenue.

Lu Mian, who had returned here, leaned against a shadow without gas street lamps and looked toward the target building.

Beside him, Fors, wearing a black robe and hood, walked out of the darkness.

"How is it?" Lu Mian turned his head and asked without surprise.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 226 =====