Helping Out

At an abandoned factory on the outskirts.

Through the car window, Yang Bo eyed the abandoned steel pipes and all the discarded equipment around him greedily.

"Blade, does nobody want these abandoned pipes and equipment anymore?"

The car drove into a workshop. This was Blade and Whistler's safe house, though the vampires had found it easily enough.

"I'm not sure, but I've been here all this time, and nobody's ever come to clear this stuff away!"

Blade opened the car door, got out, and walked toward an old man with graying hair.

"I'm back!"

Whistler glanced at the car and saw Yang Bo and Karen getting out. His feelings were written plainly across his face, as if someone owed him eight million dollars.

"Erik, why have you brought strangers here again?"

Blade stripped off his various pieces of equipment and sat in a nearby chair. His thirst for blood had begun eating away at his reason again. Hearing Whistler's question, he said bluntly, "He's the guy I told you about yesterday!"

"If it hadn't been for him today, I wouldn't have gotten out so easily!"

Seeing Blade sit down, Whistler went over and bound his hands, then opened a metal case beside him. Inside, a row of red serum vials lay neatly arranged.

Yang Bo had been inspecting the battered equipment around him, but when he saw Blade tied to the chair, he walked over.

"Blade, why don't you buy blood bags? You know blood is the source of your power. If you drank it, you'd be much stronger than you are now!"

"Humans don't drink blood!"

Yang Bo merely shrugged and said casually, "Humans don't drink blood, but they do eat maoxuewang!"

"Maoxuewang?"

Blade paused. It was his first time hearing the term, and he had no idea what it meant.

"Maoxuewang is a dish made primarily with duck blood. Spicy, numbing, savory, and fragrant-that's what it's known for!"

"In theory, you could use human blood too. Most people just wouldn't be able to stomach it!"

The sudden mention of maoxuewang made Yang Bo smack his lips a couple of times. After eating bread every day for the past two or three days, he was desperate for something with flavor.

No, once I've dealt with these vampires, I have to go to Chinatown for a proper meal!

This time, Blade was truly stunned. He had never imagined there really were dishes made from blood. Though blood sausage was also well known abroad, it was still something of a niche food, and he knew nothing about it.

More importantly, vampires in Marvel needed certain special components in human blood that animal blood did not contain.

"Then I'll have to try it when I have time!"

Although animal blood was useless to them, it probably still tasted decent to vampires.

Yang Bo took out a bucket of milk and was about to say something, but Whistler had already prepared the injector and plunged it into Blade's neck.

"The serum's getting less and less effective..."

The implication was that once the serum stopped working, Blade would have to rely on sheer willpower to resist his thirst for blood. Almost nobody had ever succeeded, though. Otherwise, vampires would not have run so rampant. The instant desire shattered their reason, the person who had been bitten was already dead. What survived was nothing more than a monster ruled by its urges.

Veins bulged across Blade's face as he sat in the chair, growling quietly in pain as though he were at death's door. Watching from the side, Yang Bo's heart pounded with dread. Luckily, he had been drained dry back then. Otherwise, pain like this would surely have broken him.

While Blade struggled in agony, Whistler casually tossed the injector onto the table, took out a cigarette, and put it between his lips.

He glanced at Yang Bo and offered him one.

Yang Bo stepped forward, took a cigarette, and pulled out a lighter to light Whistler's. Then the two began puffing away.

"You're all right!"

Yang Bo smiled. "You're all right too. By the way, is any of this old equipment around here still useful? If not, can I take a little scrap metal?"

That was right. Just a little!

He would stop whenever the furnace burned out.

Unaware of what Yang Bo was thinking, Whistler said casually, "None of this stuff belongs to me. If you need it, help yourself!"

That's exactly what I wanted to hear!

Yang Bo was just about to take his Pickaxe and help Blade and Whistler tidy up their chaotic surroundings when Blade recovered from the serum's effects, his bare upper body slick with sweat.

He undid the restraints around his wrists himself, stood up, and rolled his wrists. Looking at Yang Bo, he asked, "What do you want all this scrap metal for? And did you just take out a metal bucket?"

"In my hands, this stuff is no scrap metal!"

Yang Bo grinned at Blade, then took the milk out of his backpack again and explained, "This is a bucket of milk, but it has a special ability!"

As he spoke, he turned the bucket upside down.

"Look! Magical milk that doesn't spill even when you turn it upside down!"

Blade: "..."

Whistler: "..."

Fortunately, Karen had started studying vampire blood as soon as they returned. Otherwise, there would have been one more speechless person there.

"You really have no sense of humor!"

"This milk can clear every status effect. Blade, have you ever played video games? Hmm... forget I asked. One look at you tells me your favorite way to unwind is hacking up vampires!"

"I wanted to let you try it just now and see whether it worked on you, but your partner was way too quick with his hands!"

Faced with an item governed by conceptual rules like this, neither Blade nor even the experienced and knowledgeable Whistler beside him understood what Yang Bo meant by clearing every status effect.

Both men looked puzzled. Blade's expression in particular reminded Yang Bo of an image of a Black man that had circulated widely online.

Seeing their reactions, Yang Bo offered an analogy. He pointed at Karen, who was utterly absorbed in her research, and said, "Take her, for example. After being bitten by a vampire, she's turning into one. But in my eyes, she's just poisoned right now-a strange kind of poison. Once she drinks this bucket of milk, it can remove the poison effect immediately!"

"Can I take a look?"

Honestly, Whistler did not believe the milk could do any of that. Yang Bo handed him the bucket, and only after taking it and examining it up close did Whistler realize that it seemed to be pieced together from countless tiny square blocks...

He walked over to a microscope, intending to take a sample for study. But no matter what method he tried, he could not get even a drop of milk out. Even when he reached his hand inside, he could not touch the milk.

Watching Whistler fall completely silent at the lab bench, Blade could not help asking, "Can this thing turn me from a half-vampire into a human?"

Sincerity was the ultimate trump card. Yang Bo shook his head and answered without hiding anything. "You are a half-vampire, so the milk won't work on that. But it should work on your thirst for blood. I'm not sure exactly what would happen, though. I was just about to use you as a guinea pig to test it!"