Chapter 361: Disease God

Lu Mian looked over and found that it was Franca, wearing a lady's shirt, tapping on the glass.

He opened the window and asked with amusement,

"Why not use the front door?"

"Don't you often climb through windows too?" Franca jumped into the room easily, followed by Jenna.

Jenna observed for a moment and pointed to Lu Mian's left palm.

"Are you injured?"

Why was it wrapped in bandages?

Lu Mian laughed.

"I went to the fourth floor of the catacombs, encountered a monster suspected to be an evil spirit, had a big fight with it, and suffered a minor injury."

"Really? The fourth floor of the catacombs..." Franca looked at Lu Mian's left palm and asked suspiciously.

"If you believe it, it's true; if you don't, it's false." Lu Mian smiled.

Franca had some realization and didn't ask further.

"I think there's some truth and some falsehood..." Jenna muttered in a low voice.

Lu Mian ignored her and turned to ask,

"Did you encounter something too?"

"Yes." Franca told their encounter in detail and took out the key made of brass, saying eagerly, "Do you want to divine which door it can open? The person who can offer a 50,000 Felkin reward must have a huge fortune!"

Lu Mian sneered.

"You really love to experiment."

"Such an evil thing should of course be left to the 'Purifiers' to investigate, and this also involves the problem of some monks of the 'God of Steam and Machinery' church sliding into the abyss. You wouldn't want to explore that secret cave in the Deep Valley Quarry yourself, would you?"

"Seriously, I'm a bit tempted." Franca laughed sheepishly. "Extending life through machinery and giving life to machinery are both areas I'm very interested in. Of course, my reason prevents me from exploring."

Jenna didn't speak; it was obvious that she had already discussed this issue with Franca on the way.

After venting her delusions, Franca agreed that Jenna should find an opportunity to hand the key over to the 'Purifiers' and report their encounter.

She then looked at Jenna.

"I plan to go to Spring Street, what about you?"

Jenna had an idea long ago and said to Lu Mian,

"Didn't you ask me to find out where that factory owner lives? I've already tracked him and gathered a lot of intelligence. We can go find those families waiting for compensation now and guide them to go ask for it together."

"It's not that I asked, it's that you wanted to yourself." Lu Mian responded with a smile.

Franca said "Uh", and finally went to Spring Street according to the plan she had already stated.

…………

Botanical Garden District, the intersection of Pasteur Street and Evelyn Street.

Each building carried many components that didn't originally belong to it, just like building blocks randomly put together by a child, giving people a sense of a forest area that was growing wildly and tottering.

Jenna pointed to a woman squatting by the street washing laundry.

"Mrs. Morgana, her husband also died in that accident a few years ago."

Mrs. Morgana was wearing a gray-white, worn-out long dress with many patches, her face already had obvious wrinkles, and her apparent age was over fifty.

"You handle this one." After Lu Mian burned the 'Bottle of Fiction' with fire, the potion had digested a bit more, so he wasn't that urgent.

Jenna looked silently at Mrs. Morgana, who had a thin face and high cheekbones, and said after a few seconds,

"Actually, I really don't like her."

"Why?" Lu Mian felt a bit curious.

Jenna let out a breath and said,

"She is very vicious, the kind of person who, if she isn't doing well herself, hopes her neighbors will also have bad luck. She will do some very hateful things, even if that won't bring her any profit."

"You know, my mother was a theater actress, had learned some literacy, and once found a job as a tutor for a middle-class family. That was decent and had good pay. But when Mrs. Morgana found out, she specifically followed my mother, found that family, and told the servant who went out to handle things that my mother was a part-time streetwalker, a dissolute person, and would seduce the male employer. Not long after, my mother was fired and later could only work as a cleaning lady, dishwasher, and chemical factory worker."

"Mrs. Morgana herself didn't know the words and didn't get that job because of it, but she was still very happy."

"Jealousy, one of the original sins of humanity." Lu Mian nodded lightly. "Why didn't you take revenge on her?"

"It's been a long time." Jenna laughed in a low voice. "Besides, living in this kind of place, there will always be similar things. That is to say, when my father died, my brother was already a big guy and his body was relatively strong, otherwise my family would have been even more miserable. If you were a widow with a daughter moving here, someone would come to your door the next day to scold you, saying her husband looked at you a few times, while neighbors would pretend to be kind and introduce you to her male relatives."

"If you don't agree, that relative of hers will sit at your door drinking, one day, two days, every day like that, and the police won't care about this kind of thing, and you can't find anyone else to help. When the day comes when he really gets drunk and gets bold, what will happen doesn't need me to say, right?"

"Sometimes, the police will arrest him, but arrest one, and a second, a third will come, and it might even anger his relatives, smashing your windows every night, piling feces at your door, and finding older children to beat your daughter."

"This is still not the most miserable; the most miserable is being targeted by a gang."

"To survive in this kind of place, either the family has several adult men, or you have to have that kind of toughness that says 'I won't let you have a good time even if I die', and show it. Fortunately, when the lease ended, my mother immediately moved to the other end of this street, and the surrounding environment became much better."

Jenna said it in great detail, as if she had seen it many times with her own eyes.

Lu Mian had lived a more miserable life than Jenna, but he really hadn't experienced similar things. The conflicts and clashes between wanderers were more naked; either be beaten into submission, beat others into submission, or wander on the edge like a stray dog, waiting to pick up a little bit of what others left behind. When he arrived at Cordu Village and had his sister, a Beyonder, to protect him, he could safely and boldly play pranks, while others in the village were mainly bullied by the parish priest's family.

He looked at Jenna, who was lost in the past, and asked thoughtfully,

"Didn't you say that the people around you were all trying hard to live?"

"Damn, this doesn't contradict their badness." Jenna cursed and pointed her chin at the woman washing laundry not far away. "Just like Mrs. Morgana, she works three part-time jobs a day, just so her son can have a chance to move out of this place. Heh, you might not believe it, but she, who deliberately slandered my mother, would occasionally give a piece of bread to me when I was hungry waiting for my mother to come home."

Lu Mian followed and glanced at Mrs. Morgana.

"People like this are very easy to incite."

"Yes." Jenna nodded lightly and walked over.

She changed her state from just now and shouted at the woman washing laundry while cursing,

"Mrs. Morgana, do you know? That damn Alphonse betrayed us!"

"That piece of shit always says 'wait a bit more, wait a bit more', saying that since the court has already ruled, old Edmond will definitely pay, but that son of a bitch plans to run away and doesn't want to give us a single Kopek!"

"That boar Alphonse must have already quietly received his share, that's why he says that!"

Mrs. Morgana stood up with a swoosh, water droplets dripping continuously from her rough fingers.

She asked with a somewhat distorted expression,

"Really? I'm going to fight that boar to the death!"

Jenna also had a face full of hatred.

"We can't control him now, old Edmond is going to run away!"

"Let's hurry and block him, I know where his family lives!"

Lu Mian listened from five or six meters away as Jenna incited the compensation-waiters living nearby, his gaze casually scanning the surroundings, finding that it was about the same as the chaotic street, with vendors, children, women, and a small number of men mixed together, blocking most of the road. Ordinary carriages passing through here occasionally would choose to take a detour after observing for a few seconds.

Among them, there was a relatively special middle-aged man who could be spotted at a glance.

He was wearing a linen shirt that wasn't too old and dark trousers, his face was kept relatively clean, and his hair was combed neatly, completely different from the surrounding vendors and residents.

At this time, this man was talking to several women holding long baguettes.

He took out a stack of banknotes that was neither thick nor thin and counted them one by one there.

"195, 200... look, is there 200 Felkin?"

"If you don't believe it, you can count it yourselves."

—The smallest denomination of paper money is 5 Felkin.

Those women had never received so much cash and counted it tremblingly once, confirming it was 200 Felkin.

The man took back the banknotes and counted them again.

"195, 200, 205... look, as long as you sincerely chant the god's name, every time you count the banknotes, there will be one more!"

The magic trick is not bad... Is this a swindler? Lu Mian's inner anger and hostility soared as soon as he saw a swindler, thinking of Monit and the 'Unique' dance hall.

Those women counted again and found there were indeed 41 banknotes, one more than just now, 5 Felkin more!

Seeing this, the middle-aged man said solemnly,

"My Lord is the ruler of all diseases. As long as you believe in Him, you will never get sick again. Even if you really get sick, you will get better quickly."

"Getting sick is the punishment of the Disease God. As long as you believe in the Disease God well and worship Him piously, He will leave..."

Hearing this, Lu Mian narrowed his eyes and walked over directly.

He pulled out his revolver, reversed the gun, and smashed it hard toward the middle-aged man's head.

Bang!

The middle-aged man instinctively squatted down, covering his head, unable to even scream.

Bright red blood had already begun to overflow from between his fingers.

Amidst the blank and fearful gazes of the people around, Lu Mian squatted down, shook the gun barrel, and said to the middle-aged man with a smile,

"Come, let me see how the Disease God cures you."

The middle-aged man shouted in shock, fear, and anger,

"Disease God, hiss, the Disease God will punish you!"

Lu Mian picked up the banknotes he had dropped on the ground and handed them to him.

"If you can't count out 100,000 Felkin more for me today, don't think about leaving."

After saying that, he raised his revolver again and smashed it onto the man's side face with a bang, causing blood foam to fly, the face to cave in, and teeth to break out.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 362 =====