Evan leaned against the cabinet, gasping for breath. Crumbs of brown sugar clung to the corners of his mouth and chin.
"What are you doing?"
An impatient female voice came from behind him, carrying a heavy nasal tone and the mixed smell of cheap perfume and tobacco.
Evan raised his head.
A woman stood in the kitchen doorway. One hand lifted the floral curtain, while the other held a cigarette.
She wore a cheap nightgown with a neckline plunging to her breastbone. The fabric was so thin that the outline of the dark slip beneath showed through.
Her makeup was heavy and garish, but her eyeliner had already smudged, leaving two black trails at the corners of her eyes.
The rouge on her lips was also uneven and patchy, as if someone had rubbed it off.
She tilted her head and looked at Evan, who sat in a disheveled heap on the floor. There was no concern in her eyes, only undisguised disgust and spite.
Smoke drifted from between her lips, coated with inferior lipstick, and lazily curled in the dim light of the Kerosene Lamp.
Evan braced himself against the cabinet and stood, brushing the dust from his trousers. "Didn't I say you can't smoke in my house?"
The woman sneered and flicked her ash onto the floor. "And I told you not to interfere with my business tonight."
She took a step forward, the hem of her nightgown brushing the doorframe. Her tone carried a deliberately vicious edge.
"The way you were running around just now scared my customer so badly he went soft. The fact that I haven't made you pay me back already means I'm being kind."
Evan's expression turned cold.
But he did nothing.
He knew all too well that, in his body's current condition, he might not even be able to beat this woman.
Mary. A painfully common name.
An Irish immigrant, with an accent as thick as if she were speaking around a mouthful of wet peat.
Her Profession was Prostitute, and her workplace was the rented room next door.
When Evan had been utterly destitute, he had considered finding a tenant to ease the pressure.
He posted a handwritten rental notice on the bulletin board at the general store.
Then the harbinger of misfortune came knocking.
The person who brought Mary to view the place was a short, stocky man named Zack, the thug in charge of collecting protection money for the Gus Gang in this neighborhood.
A distorted snake was tattooed around his neck, and he liked to spin a switchblade between his fingers while he talked.
He stood in the doorway, grinning as he patted Evan on the shoulder. The force nearly made Evan stagger, and he said:
"This is my friend. She'll be living here from now on. Two U.S. Dollars a week, and we'll waive the deposit."
Evan had no right to refuse.
In this neighborhood, the Gus Gang's word was law—ten thousand times more effective than City Hall ordinances.
For the first few weeks, the rent had arrived fairly punctually.
Two dollars. Every Monday evening, Mary would toss the money onto the table and leave without looking back.
But later, as Evan's body grew weaker by the day and his complexion grew grayer, the woman began refusing to pay.
First she delayed a day, then two. Later, she simply stopped mentioning it altogether.
Evan could clearly sense what the woman was waiting for.
She was waiting for him to die.
Once he breathed his last, the apartment could be transferred into her name through the Gus Gang's channels.
In this neighborhood, no one would speak up for the home left behind by a dead, impoverished student—not even a fly.
It was also around two weeks ago that Mary had grown increasingly brazen.
She brought all kinds of men back with her. In the dead of night, the thumping of bed boards against the wall and their crude laughter and curses came from next door.
She smoked in the living room, flicking ash everywhere.
She drank, then tossed the empty bottles into the hallway. Once, Evan had gotten up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and nearly broken his neck tripping over one.
Evan was furious.
But fury was worthless in the face of absolute weakness.
He silently rose from the floor, lowered his head, and muttered, "Sorry."
Then he put the tin can back in the cabinet, turned around, and left the kitchen.
First, I'll pretend it's sugar and get one over on her.
In his current condition, he probably couldn't even beat this woman, let alone Zack and the Gus Gang behind her.
He needed time. He needed to build up his strength.
Mary sneered behind him but said nothing more.
The floral curtain swayed twice as she turned. Then the sound of a faucet being opened came from the kitchen, mixed with her tuneless humming of an Irish folk song amid the rushing water.
Evan silently crossed the hallway and returned to the master bedroom where his parents had once lived.
The room was small. An iron-frame double bed took up most of the space, leaving only enough room for a table and a chair.
A picture frame still hung on the wall. One corner of its glass was broken, and the yellowed family portrait inside showed three faces blurred by the light of the Kerosene Lamp.
He sat back down on the wooden chair, which let out its familiar creak beneath his weight.
"It looks like dealing with this wretched woman is the most urgent matter now."
Evan's eyes glimmered in the darkness with a cold, heavy light.
He temporarily set the thought aside and turned his gaze back to the remaining medicine bottles on the table.
After dealing with the side effects of the Night Demon Potion, he still had two things waiting for him.
Both were leftovers from his previous drug trials.
The medicine came from a project at Bolton Children's Hospital.
The contract stated that its purpose was to "treat epilepsy, Insomnia, and anxiety symptoms." When Evan signed, the young doctor wearing Wire-Rimmed Glasses had even smiled and said, "The side effects are very mild. Don't worry."
But after taking it, Evan felt as though someone had poured molten Lead into his brain.
Drowsiness, dizziness, unsteady steps—twice, he had nearly tumbled down the stairs.
After taking it continuously for two weeks, more serious symptoms appeared. His memory began to deteriorate; whatever the professor said in class vanished from his mind the moment he turned away.
His reactions became sluggish. When someone called his name, they had to repeat it two or three times before he came back to himself.
His mood remained depressed, as if a damp, cold gray cloth had been draped over his brain, leaving him unable to summon the energy to do anything.
"This thing mainly affects the mind. Let's give it a try."
Evan pinched two pale-yellow tablets, tossed them into his mouth, and dry-swallowed them with the saliva remaining there.
The tablets caught in his throat and scraped it. He tilted his head back and swallowed hard twice before forcing them down.
[You took unfinished Phenobarbital. Effect duration: 8 hours.] [Effect: Within 4 hours, sedation and improved sleep quality.] [Would you like to reverse the side effects?]
"Reverse."
[You reversed the side effects of unfinished Phenobarbital.] [Your memory has improved. Permanent Spirit +0.001.] [Your reaction speed has improved. Permanent Spirit +0.001.] [For 4 hours after sufficient sleep, your concentration increases by 300%.]
"Sure enough, ordinary medicine and Magic Potion attribute increases aren't even on the same level."
Evan sighed, and immediately felt his eyelids grow heavy.
The drug took effect faster than expected.
He did not know whether it was because of the Panel, but the two Phenobarbital tablets had been catalyzed by the Magic Potion.
Evan immediately felt his eyelids growing heavy. A gentle yet irresistible drowsiness spread from the back of his head, washing over the edges of his consciousness like a rising tide.
The drowsiness was like a gigantic palm, pressing him downward without giving him a choice.
He rose from the chair, swayed twice, then turned and fell toward the old iron-frame double bed.
He clumsily dragged the old, pill-covered blanket over himself. It carried an odor of camphor and mildew that washing could never remove.
The moment his head hit the pillow, his consciousness was as if someone had pulled the main breaker.
Darkness.
Complete, absolute darkness without a single dream.
No one knew how much time had passed.
Evan suddenly opened his eyes.
Dawn had not yet arrived.
The last faint yellow glow of the streetlights seeped through the gap in the curtains.
But his eyes were extraordinarily clear, and his pupils rapidly adjusted their focus in the darkness.
He felt full of energy.
A genuine alertness seeped from between his bones.
His brain was as if someone had rinsed it with ice water. Every neural synapse was firing efficiently.
Even counting the twenty-nine years of Evan's life on Earth, it had been an extremely long time since he had slept so well.
It felt like naturally waking on the first morning of summer vacation as a child, sunlight shining on his face while the entire world was new.
"Chickens—?"
He abruptly sat up in bed, and the springs let out a bizarre squeal.
A cheap brass mantel clock sat on the bedside table. Its numbers were barely visible in the darkness.
The hour hand pointed to three, and the minute hand pointed to twelve.
Exactly three in the morning.
"I slept for... four hours?"
"But why do I feel so refreshed, as comfortable as if I've received an infusion of enlightenment?"
"Could it be that all four hours were deep sleep?"
He sat on the edge of the bed with his bare feet on the cold wooden floor, sensing every signal coming from this body.
His heartbeat was steady, and his breathing smooth. His limbs were still thin and weak, but the feeling that he might fall apart at any moment had eased considerably.
At three in the morning, Bolton City had finally gone quiet.
The November weather had driven away many of the things that made summer so noisy.
The gang members had returned to their dens, and the vagrants had sunk into drunken sleep somewhere in a corner.
It was as if someone had pressed the mute button on the entire world.
Yet in that silence, Evan discovered that he could hear sounds he had never noticed before.
By the base of the wall, a rat's claws scratched at the dirt. The faint rasping sounded like someone polishing something with sandpaper.
In the living room, the wooden frame of the canvas sofa contracted slightly in the nighttime temperature change, occasionally giving off a crisp little crack.
Outside the window, an empty tin can was pushed by the wind across the cobblestones, rolling farther and farther away with a clatter until it struck something and stopped.
Every sound was rendered in the finest detail, as if someone had turned the volume knob in his ears up two notches.
More importantly, there was the increase in concentration.
Evan realized this, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
Then he looked at the status Panel overlaid on his retina.
[Mercury Pill: Digesting. Syphilis rash slowly receding. 2 hours remaining.] [Phenobarbital: Active. Concentration increased by 300%. 4 hours remaining.] [Night Demon Potion: Digesting. Physique +0.2. 8 hours remaining.] [Side-effect reversal complete!]