The scene outside the door caught Bres completely off guard.
“Um… Miss? Are you all right?” he asked tentatively.
No response.
Bres grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her over, laying her face-up on the ground.
She was a black-haired girl who looked to be only in her teens. Her eyes were tightly shut, her face devoid of color, like a delicate porcelain doll. Only the faint rise and fall of her chest proved she was still alive.
His gaze moved downward.
The girl’s hand was pressed tightly against her abdomen. The raincoat draped over her made the bloodstains less obvious, but the clothes underneath were already stained a deep crimson, with blood slowly seeping out.
Bres’s mind began to race.
Where did this girl come from?
Why did she collapse in front of my door?
Was she someone I knew before?
Bres racked his brain for any acquaintances from the past few decades, but unfortunately, he had no recollection of her at all.
Could she be a member of a street gang or a girl from a dancehall?
But she was clean and neat, and her appearance was more fitting for a student or some family’s young lady.
Looking at the girl who was barely breathing, Bres fell into distress.
In the Lower City District, helping a complete stranger was always dangerous.
Who knew if you might inadvertently offend someone and end up riddled with bullets by an assassin emerging from an alley on some night?
Mind your own business was the universal rule here.
And his years of experience living here were telling him to stay out of it.
He lowered his head.
Rainwater trickled from the corner of the girl’s eye.
He roughly rubbed his hair.
“Damn, the clinic is just on the next street over…”
No matter how many years passed, he still hadn’t improved in some aspects.
He carefully lifted the girl and rushed into the rain.
“Hope this isn’t a wasted trip… Why is she so heavy?”
The girl’s body was unexpectedly heavy.
After running for several minutes through a torrential downpour rare even for this area, Bres arrived at the back alley of the next street.
A flickering neon sign became a rare landmark in the storm.
Seeing that the sign was lit, he felt a little relieved: at least the person inside was still awake.
Passing the sign that read “Evelyn’s Clinic,” he descended the rain-soaked steps one by one and arrived at a basement door, still holding the girl.
Realizing he couldn’t free his hands, he kicked hard at the door.
A faint but firm thud sounded in the rain.
Thud, thud, thud.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Just as Bres was considering whether to switch to his other, not-yet-swollen foot to kick the door, it finally opened.
A woman in white with short blue hair and dark circles under her eyes appeared.
She had a cigarette dangling from her mouth and looked quite impatient.
“Bres? What are you bothering me for in this crappy weather—Holy shit.”
Without even minding the cigarette that fell to the ground, she just gaped at the girl in Bres’s arms.
“Let me ask you first, you’re not kidnapping, are you?”
“Less bullshit, Evelyn. Save her first, talk later.”
Without wasting more time, Bres pushed past Evelyn and squeezed into the room, limping as he ran toward the operating table.
“Hope the cops don’t come knocking on my door for this…”
With a sigh, the woman called Evelyn followed close behind.
Bres sat bored on the sofa in front of the operating room.
The light that read “In Surgery” had been on for hours without turning off.
Most of his anxiety had been worn away.
For now, he didn’t have to worry about the girl’s life being in danger.
Bres trusted Evelyn’s medical skills.
Even though as a doctor she indulged in smoking and drinking and always looked half-asleep, she was still the top underground doctor in the Lower City District.
It had been that way since the day Bres first met her.
But an operation taking this long was rare for her, Bres thought.
Sitting here idly was also a waste of time.
Bres looked at the black-haired woman on a magazine placed against the wall and couldn’t help but think of the girl lying in the operating room.
That girl had a gunshot wound.
It clearly wasn’t something as simple as being harassed by some common street thug.
On the way bringing the girl to the clinic, he had secretly observed her.
The exposed parts of her arms and legs had no obvious implants or tattoos, so she shouldn’t be directly involved in street conflicts.
So he should continue speculating based on appearance?
That pretty face was a rare sight in a place like this stinking gutter.
Could she be from a family in the Upper City District?
Or even further, some lord’s daughter inside The Dome?
Bres felt he had found the key.
Yes, this was the Lower City District, infamous for its poor security and chaos.
For a girl who looked like a young lady to appear on the streets in the dead of night, there was only one possibility.
Kidnapping.
Evelyn might have been half right.
It was likely that some gang had kidnapped her for ransom, and she had managed to escape.
They were probably furious.
Those amateurs had shot her during the chase, and finally, wounded, she had no choice but to knock on a door for help.
He thought this was a very reasonable deduction.
That meant he should be careful of retaliation from the gang tracing her here?
But they would have no leads.
The rain had washed away all physical traces, and the shoddy surveillance cameras on this street would cut out whenever the weather turned bad.
At most, they would just stare blankly at dark screens.
Wait, maybe he should think from a better angle.
What if she really was some family’s young lady?
Then her parents would surely be offering a heavy reward to find and rescue her.
If he could return her safe and sound—well, it seemed he couldn’t do that now, but at least with all her limbs intact, right?
Then he could tell her about his heroic rescue, and she would put in a good word with her parents.
His rent for this month—no, for this whole year—would be covered.
It might even be possible that the reward could buy the place he was living in now.
Just as Bres was immersed in these beautiful fantasies of the future, grinning stupidly at the air, with a crackling sound of electric current, the light indicating the operation was in progress went out.
With a clatter, a weary-looking Evelyn pulled open the operating room door and stepped out.
Bres quickly went over to her.
“How is she?”
Evelyn gave Bres a deep look, and then gave her answer.
Bang!
“Ugh!”
It was a clean, precise punch, right on the mark.
Wrong contents; same as previous chapter
it is fixed