I'm a proper student; I only take nine kinds of potions every day.

Why does life fall asleep?

"Because tonight, I will join the hunt..."

Evan mumbled something instinctively, still half-asleep.

He opened his eyes, his eyeballs were so dry and painful, and his eyelashes were stuck together with eye discharge, which took a lot of effort to separate.

The flame of the kerosene lamp had dwindled to a tiny speck, flickering weakly inside the glass shade.

The dim light barely illuminated the four walls, which were covered with old newspapers.

Some of the edges had curled up, revealing the moldy mortar underneath.

A fragment of the Burton Evening Post hangs diagonally above the headboard.

The front-page headline was only half there: "...gas explosion..." The rest of the text was swallowed up by stains.

The old gray curtains were drawn tightly shut, and the scattered mold spots on the fabric looked like some kind of poorly printed pattern.

A wisp of damp, cold air from November seeped in through the gaps in the window frame.

The night outside is not quiet.

In the distance came the intermittent groans of a homeless man and the barking of stray dogs.

Further away, a burst of gang members' howls erupted from an alley, mixed with the cracking sound of shattering glass, followed by a raucous jerk of laughter.

"Where is this?"

As soon as Evan tried to stand up, a violent wave of dizziness exploded from the back of his head.

He had to slump back into the chair, his back slamming against the back with a dry creak.

He was very tired.

That kind of exhaustion can't be solved by just taking a nap.

His bones ached, his muscles were weak, and even his breathing was rapid and labored, each rise and fall of his chest consuming his last remaining strength.

"Even if you take off seven times tonight, you shouldn't be this weak..."

Ivan murmured something hoarsely and lowered his head.

A pair of thin forearms, the outline of which was clearly visible, were exposed in the dim light of a kerosene lamp.

His skin was so pale it was almost transparent, covered with a dense mass of dark red spots, some of which had merged into patches with an ominous coppery red edge.

There were several needle marks on the elbow, and the surrounding skin was bruised.

Memories flooded back like a tide.

"Damn! I just transmigrated and already have secondary syphilis?"

This is a parallel world similar to the pre-World War I era.

The year is 1910 in the Gregorian calendar.

The United States of the New World has been rooted in this land for over a century and is currently experiencing a dazzling period of growth.

Every few days, the newspapers would publish news about a new invention.

Electricity, internal combustion engines, automobiles, wireless telegraphy—new things sprouted from the soil like mushrooms after the rain.

The westward expansion is drawing to a close.

Steam and electricity converge above the factory roof.

Science and ignorance are locked in a protracted struggle on opposite sides of the same street.

Steel mills, textile mills, and canneries sprang up at an astonishing pace. Capital, like a hungry beast, devoured coal and human blood, and spat out gold.

The New World was teeming with life, and all things were flourishing.

The nations of the Old World, meanwhile, harbored a burning resentment, baring their teeth at each other, waiting for a trigger to ignite their conflict.

Ivan Ludwig Arkham is nineteen years old and a student.

Thirty years ago, my grandfather's generation moved their entire family from Arkham, a town in Essex County known for its simple and honest people, to Bolton.

As for why he left, his family never mentioned it, and Evan never had a chance to ask.

The parents used the death benefits left by their grandparents who died in the line of duty to buy this cheap apartment in the south of the city.

The house has two and a half rooms, the walls are peeling, there is no electricity, and the water pipes are prone to freezing and bursting in winter.

But at least there's a door that can be closed and your own bathroom.

This meant they didn't have to share a tenement building with the Irish immigrants in the dock area who couldn't speak the language and were prone to violence.

Dozens of people shared one toilet, and the corridor was always filled with the smell of boiled cabbage and cheap gin.

Six months ago, everything changed.

His parents committed suicide on their way home from working overtime one day.

There was no suicide note, no warning signs, and no reasonable explanation.

The police said it was "an impulsive act caused by a mental breakdown," the case was filed, and no one followed up on it.

Evan went to the police station twice to ask, and the second time the officer on duty didn't even look up at him, but just tapped the table with his pencil.

"Kid, go home and don't get yourself into trouble."

The life that was just getting by collapsed overnight.

Ivan's meager savings were only enough to last him six months.

He lived frugally, his breakfast consisting of a two-cent cup of black coffee and leftover bread from the previous day.

Lunch was often skipped, and dinner consisted of a bowl of mixed bean soup for five cents. If you were lucky, you could occasionally find a small piece of fatty meat in the soup.

Two months ago, Ip, with an outstanding academic record, was admitted to the prestigious private university in Bolton: Wise Man University.

He fulfilled his parents' last wish.

But the tuition is a whopping $120 per semester!

One hundred and twenty US dollars.

A skilled worker with a university degree can earn two months' wages without eating or drinking.

So, Evan sold his blood for the first time in his life.

Two hundred milliliters, for two dollars.

The blood draw was done at a small clinic near the dock area that had a sign that read "Medical Research Institute".

The lime powder on the wall was falling off in a flurry, the rubber tubing was yellowed and hardened, and black mud was embedded in the nurse's fingernails.

He lay on a narrow bed covered with an oilcloth, watching his blood flow through a tube into a brown glass bottle, silently calculating how many days' worth of mixed bean soup those two dollars would buy.

The money is still not enough.

Through a friend's introduction, Evan took on two drug trial jobs.

The rules are simple: take the medicine on time every day for seven consecutive days, record your body's reactions, and you'll receive ten dollars after seven days.

No one told him what he was eating; the contract only stated "Clinical Observation of Nutritional Supplements," using Latin abbreviations he didn't quite understand.

Ten dollars.

This number made Ivan's heart skip a beat.

A dockworker can only earn this much after working himself to the bone for a whole week.

Afterwards, he signed a financial aid agreement for impoverished students through the student affairs office of Wise University.

The terms and conditions were written in dense text, but the core content was only one sentence: In cooperation with the experimental projects of the professors designated by the University of Wise men, the annual tuition fee would be reduced from one hundred and twenty dollars to forty dollars.

Forty dollars.

He gritted his teeth and scraped together the tuition for the first semester.

And so, Evan finally stepped into the gates of the university he had always dreamed of, becoming a freshman in the Chemistry Department.

His plan was clear: study chemistry as an undergraduate to build a solid foundation, and then apply to medical school.

On the day he graduates, he will put on a clean white coat and open a clinic in a respectable neighborhood.

A bronze plaque hangs at the entrance, engraved with "Dr. Evan L. Arkham".

"And what's the price?" Ivan gave a bitter laugh, his lips cracked and his smile aching from the corners of his mouth.

Frequent blood selling left his body as weak as a repeatedly used filter paper.

The unclean needles from that shady clinic caused him to contract syphilis.

Various experimental drugs of dubious origin turned his organs into a complete mess.

I feel dizzy and lightheaded every day, have no appetite, and my limbs are so weak that I need to pant for ages just to unscrew a bottle cap.

Three days ago in PE class, Evan fell while running, and the cuff of his shirt was torn open.

The shocking red marks on his forearm were now visible to everyone.

The stadium was silent for about two seconds.

Then came whispers, then undisguised snickers, and then someone shouted something that triggered a burst of laughter.

Ivan didn't hear the exact words, but he saw the expressions on every face.

He recognized that expression; it was the kind of look people make when they see rats in the sewers.

He returned to his apartment, sat in this chair, and grew angrier and angrier, until a string that had been stretched for too long snapped.

That's how the previous tenant explained it.

"What a disastrous start."

Ivan leaned back in his chair, the old, loose wood groaning under his weight.

He moved his fingers, each joint feeling stiff, sluggish, and slightly sore, like rusty hinges.

"Luckily, I have a cheat code."

A translucent panel appeared in his field of vision, like fluorescent writing branded onto the inner side of his retina:

[Kowloon Panel loading complete]

Occupation: None

Position: None

【Characteristics: None】

[Body Condition: 0.5] (The normal adult baseline value is 1. It affects physical fitness, strength, speed, immunity, and resistance to impact.)

[Mental Strength: 0.6] (The normal adult baseline value is 1. It affects willpower, memory, thinking and calculation ability, reaction speed, and resistance to pollution.)

[Insight: 0] (The normal adult baseline value is 0. This affects the ability to perceive and control the extraordinary and mysterious.)

[Talent: Power of Nine Dragons]

[Power of Nine Dragons: You can reverse the negative effects of up to 9 drugs simultaneously.]

"These attributes are truly appalling." Ivan sighed, his breath carrying a metallic taste.

"But this power of nine dragons is quite interesting, hehe."

As the panel finished loading, he noticed a status bar appearing in the lower right corner of his field of vision.

It's like a prescription list posted behind the counter in a pharmacy, except this list is full of bad news:

Syphilis: 46%

[Pneumonia: 12%]

Anemia: 65%

Liver damage: 41%

[Peptic ulcers: 12%]

[Brain nerve damage: 17%]

"How the hell have you managed to survive until today?"

Ivan stared at the string of numbers and couldn't help but curse out loud.

This body was like a dilapidated building on the verge of collapse, with every supporting pillar cracked, only held up by the youthful strength of an eighteen-year-old.

"No, I absolutely can't die right after I just transmigrated here."

"I must survive, hehe..."

His gaze fell on the table.

On the brown wooden table, covered with knife marks and burn marks, a pile of medicine bottles lay haphazardly.

Most of the bottles didn't even have labels. Some contained blue-gray mud balls, while others were open tin cans filled with a dark paste that emitted a pungent metallic smell.

There was also a small bottle of milky white liquid, sealed with wax, with a blurry mark pressed onto the wax surface.

Some of these were medicines for treating syphilis that he secretly bought from a pharmacy in Chengnan after school yesterday.

Some were free gifts given to us during previous drug trials, which were said to be "for conditioning the body".