"Stop staring."
Yang Ming tossed the empty coffee packet into the trash can beside his feet. "Tell me about yourself. Name, age, previous jobs. Any history of drug use or criminal record?"
He picked up his own cup of coffee and blew away the steam rising from its surface.
"This may be an unlicensed clinic, but I don't take in troublemaking junkies. If you steal my anesthetics when the cravings hit, I'll personally smash your fingers one by one."
The girl immediately sat up straight, her back stiff as a witness being questioned in court.
"Twenty," she said rapidly, afraid Yang Ming might change his mind.
"I've worked as a bartender and a dockworker. Sometimes I help the neighbors collect debts or find missing pets. I never touch drugs, not even marijuana. Never been to prison. My record's clean."
She paused, apparently weighing her next words.
"I'm good in a fight. If some idiot patient causes trouble in the clinic, I can throw them through the door and into the dumpster across the street. And my mouth's practically welded shut. Unless you're asking me questions, I can keep it under ten sentences a day."
Her sales pitch hit Yang Ming's requirements dead on. Tough, tight-lipped, and trouble-free. She was practically the perfect worker bee, tailor-made for this unlicensed clinic.
Yang Ming nodded in satisfaction. He had just brought the paper cup to his lips, ready to moisten his throat with a sip of cheap coffee and settle her start date.
"My name's Jessica Jones."
The girl gave her name evenly.
"Pfft-cough, cough!"
The brown liquid Yang Ming had yet to swallow sprayed from his mouth, stripping him of all dignity.
A few drops of warm coffee splashed onto Jessica's battered leather jacket, but most landed on the front of Yang Ming's white coat, faded from repeated washing.
He coughed violently, his windpipe aching from the coffee going down the wrong way. But he couldn't spare a thought for the stains on his clothes. Instead, he stared wide-eyed at the somewhat worn-down young woman before him.
Jessica Jones.
Yang Ming knew all too well what that name meant in the Marvel Universe.
The future superhero with boundless strength, who could lift cars and smash people with them; a core member of the Defenders; a perpetually hard-drinking, foul-mouthed private investigator with a vicious temper.
And now that future superhero was sitting in his unlicensed clinic, pitching herself as "good in a fight" for a monthly salary of five thousand dollars.
Yang Ming's enormous reaction startled Jessica. Her shoulders instinctively drew back, and her brows knotted tightly.
What's going on? Isn't this boss overreacting a little?
She frantically searched her memory for the trouble she'd caused on the streets lately. Did this guy find out about the three ribs I broke last week when that creep groped me at the bar?
Or did the story about me hanging that deadbeat gambler upside down from a rooftop while collecting a debt for the grocery store owner get me blacklisted in Hell's Kitchen?
That shouldn't be possible. I've always been discreet. I never show my superhuman strength in public.
Jessica's palms began to sweat. This five-thousand-dollar-a-month job meant too much to her. Trish's tuition depended on that money. She couldn't afford to screw this up.
"Boss, are you okay?" Jessica asked tentatively, her tone cautious. "Is there... something wrong with my name? Or do you know me?"
Yang Ming pulled out a few cheap, rough paper napkins and haphazardly wiped the coffee from his chin and clothes. His mind was working at breakneck speed.
Know you? That's an understatement.
If he were merely hiring a mutant girl with a little extra strength as a bodyguard, Yang Ming wouldn't have minded.
But this was Jessica Jones.
In her personal timeline, there was one nightmare she could never escape: Kilgrave, the "Purple Man."
That psychopath could completely control other people's minds by releasing chemical pheromones. Once he gave an order, anyone under his control would obey without reservation, even if it meant murder or suicide.
In the original story, Jessica had spent a long time under the Purple Man's control, suffering utterly inhuman psychological torment and even being forced to become his instrument of murder.
Yang Ming's medical skills were indeed godlike now, and the master-level combat skills he'd just integrated could let him dominate the streets. But he wielded a scalpel. He wasn't one of the X-Men with psychic immunity.
If he hired Jessica, he was guaranteed to get dragged into the Purple Man's main storyline sooner or later.
If that psychopath in a purple suit came knocking and told him, "Cut out your heart and let me see it," the stable life he'd painstakingly built between Marvel and DC would suffer a devastating blow.
In this world crawling with monsters, making money in peace was the way to go. Getting involved with a mind-controlling villain was just asking for an early grave.
Reason frantically sounded the alarm in Yang Ming's head.
I have to refuse. Get this walking trouble magnet out of the clinic right now.
Yang Ming drew a deep breath and tossed the crumpled, dirty napkins neatly into the trash can.
He composed his expression, preparing to send this formidable guest packing with some clichéd but effective excuse, such as "We don't hire women here" or "I don't think you're a good fit for our clinic's corporate culture."
Just as he opened his mouth, with the first syllable about to form in his throat-
A string of faint blue characters visible only to him popped up without warning at the edge of his vision. A crisp mechanical notification sounded in his mind, forcibly stopping his words.
[Long-term teaching mission triggered: A healer's legacy.] [Mission requirements: Formally employ Jessica Jones and teach her a complete foundation of medical knowledge and emergency care. Enable her to independently perform preparatory procedures for routine surgery.] [Mission reward: One Piece world-Three Types of Haki (beginner) integration seed.]
Yang Ming froze.
For the first half-second, Yang Ming had been mentally cursing the Purple Man and eighteen generations of his ancestors, wherever that bastard happened to be wandering, while furiously condemning the system for shoving a ticking time bomb into his clinic.
In the next half-second, when his gaze swept over the words "Three Types of Haki," uncontrollable greed and fervor erupted deep in his eyes.
The Three Types of Haki from the One Piece world. Armament Haki, Observation Haki, and Conqueror's Haki.
In the Marvel Universe, where superheroes filled the skies and aliens demolished New York at the drop of a hat, medical skills could, at best, keep him fed and help him build connections with a few gangs. But against truly overwhelming powers that played by no rules, a scalpel couldn't cut through the armor of an alien warship.
The master-level combat skills the system had previously granted him gave him confidence that he could protect himself. But they were ultimately confined to the physical limits of the human body.
Haki was different.
Armament Haki could bring a qualitative leap in his offense and defense. A scalpel coated in Armament Haki could slice through even bulletproof steel plating. Observation Haki was practically divine: sensing danger in advance, predicting attack trajectories, and even detecting hostility and emotional fluctuations in the people around him. As for Conqueror's Haki... that was an oppressive force acting directly on the mind.
Once he developed Conqueror's Haki, what would a mere Purple Man who controlled brains through chemical pheromones amount to? If that bastard dared appear before him, one blast of Conqueror's Haki would leave the psychopath foaming at the mouth and collapsing on the spot.
Risk and reward were always proportional.
For a Haki seed that could grant him genuine superhuman combat power, never mind Jessica Jones-even if Thanos's daughter came looking for work, Yang Ming would dare plant her in a chair and have her sign an employment contract.
To Jessica, however, the shifting expressions on Yang Ming's face looked like a sign of extreme dissatisfaction with her.
The girl clenched her back teeth, her fingers unconsciously picking at a hole in her jeans. Five thousand dollars was waving goodbye to her, and Trish's tuition for her posture and movement classes was about to go up in smoke.
"Boss." Jessica stood, a rare note of pleading in her voice.
"I know I don't have experience. But I learn fast. I can do all the dirty work and heavy lifting. Even if someone points a gun at your head, I can guarantee they won't get the safety off. Give me a chance. You can cut my pay in half during probation."
Yang Ming looked at the future hero forced to bow her head to make ends meet. His lips spread into the smile of a consummate capitalist.
"No probation needed."
Yang Ming dug a blank employee registration form out of a drawer and pushed it to the edge of the desk along with a ballpoint pen. "Five thousand dollars, not a cent less. But I already told you the rules. Follow orders, ask less, do more. Fill it out, Jessica."
Jessica froze for a full two seconds, then snatched the paper toward her, grabbed the pen, and hurriedly scrawled her name, afraid Yang Ming might change his mind the next second.
"When do I start?" she asked eagerly, tossing down the pen.
"Now."