13 Minke Street

Mr. Hofen lay on the ground with Karen standing in front of him.

At this point, if Karen wished, he could send Mr. Hofen to the afterlife early.

Because Mr. Hofen’s expression and words earlier had put great pressure on him.

After transmigrating into this world, he already lacked a sense of security. So far, he was still living relying on this new identity. Once he lost this layer of protection, his life would slide into unknown territory.

Moreover, there was more than just the conventional meaning of ‘life’ here. There were obviously other factors beyond Karen’s knowledge.

If it was just running away from home, Karen wouldn’t feel so much pressure. What he feared was that it wouldn’t be as simple as just being kicked out of the house. It couldn’t be that simple!

The fear and unease felt by medieval witches, Karen could relate to that now.

Stepping forward and bending down, Karen reached out his hand. With just a little more squeeze of the neck, or holding up Mr. Hofen’s head, pretending to wake him while knocking his head against the tiles again to add the final blow.

Then, this sudden whirlpool of crisis could dissipate before swallowing him whole.

So, to do it or not? 

Having such thoughts wasn’t strange at all. Even the most ordinary, normal and gentle people would have such sudden fits of rage and evil thoughts arising in life.

But in the end, Karen just stood there, unmoving.

Not until Mina came downstairs and started calling people, not until Aunt Mary came up from the basement, not until Paul also ran over to pick up Mr. Hofen, did Karen come to his senses from Aunt Mary’s shouts. He stepped forward to help hold Mr. Hofen and got on the Inmerales family’s hearse. 

Paul started the car and Karen stayed in the ‘backseat’ with Mr. Hofen.

This branded modified car called ‘Nutshell’ was originally an extended version of a regular sedan. The passenger seat had long been removed, leaving more space, enough to hold a coffin.

Mr. Hofen lay there motionless. He was lucky. Ambulances were not common in this era. He now had a car that could take him straight to the nearest hospital.

What was even luckier was… even if he didn’t make it, he had a car to take him back, a dedicated one.

And given his relationship with Grandpa, the funeral could even be discounted. The only one suffering would be Aunt Mary.

“Heh…” 

Karen suddenly laughed and rubbed his face lightly.

Just then, the golden retriever that had gotten on the car with its owner came over to Mr. Hofen and licked his fingers.

After rubbing against its owner for a while, it slowly walked over to Karen.

Karen reached out his hand. It didn’t dodge him, letting Karen stroke its head.

Seemingly enjoying the stroking, it simply lay down on Karen’s lap. When Karen stopped petting it, it nudged Karen’s hand with its nose, signaling to continue.

“Sigh…”

Karen looked at Mr. Hofen lying there again and couldn’t help sighing.

Leaning back against the car wall, after ruffling the dog’s head a couple times….

“Whatever.”

…

The car drove to the hospital and Mr. Hofen was taken to the emergency room. 

Paul was busy going back and forth, handling the paperwork.

Karen sat on a bench by the flower garden holding the golden retriever.

After about half an hour, Paul came jogging over with a smile. “Young Master Karen, the doctor said although Mr. Hofen is still unconscious, he is now out of danger.”

Karen breathed a long sigh of relief, feeling slightly relieved but also a little disappointed. This old guy was really tough. With so much blood… he actually pulled through.

“The bill has been charged to your home,” Paul added.

The Inmerales ran a funeral home, so they had very good relations with nearby hospitals.

So good that Aunt Winnie, who was in charge of the family’s accounts, could even have a list of critically ill patients in the hospital recently.

Sometimes even when you were still being treated, Uncle Mason would already be waiting in the parking lot, smoking.

Wherever there was profit, there would inevitably be connections.

With these relations, handling some paperwork was of course very quick.

“Does he need someone to keep him company?” Karen asked.

“Um… we can hire a caregiver.”

“Then hire one.”

“Okay, Young Master, I’ll arrange it.”

“Right, Paul, do you have cigarettes?”

“I do… Young Master, do you want some?”

“Yeah.”

Paul took out the half pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed it to Karen along with a lighter.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll go get a nurse first.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Karen put a cigarette in his mouth. Smoking bans weren’t strict in this period. Even in the hospital yard, Karen saw many people with cigarettes in their mouths, and passing nurses didn’t scold them.

Lighting it up and taking a puff, his brain sent out a warning again about the invasion of toxins, and his body also reacted to reject it. The nauseating sensation came on immediately. But Karen ignored it.

He felt as stupid as smoking.

Old smokers forced themselves to tolerate the discomfort and learned a harmful habit that would constantly damage their bodies.

As for himself, he actually let Mr. Hofen be sent to the hospital and out of danger, and just sat and watched himself slipping into the unknown abyss step by step.

He was reflecting on himself, but not intensely. 

He also regretted, but likewise, not intensely.

He felt stupid. Well, this feeling was extremely intense.

“Phew…”

Leaning back on the bench and holding the burning cigarette, suddenly, a shadow appeared in front of Karen. He was startled to find the cigarette between his fingers taken away.

“You… Grandpa?”

It was Diss standing in front of Karen.

Diss was still wearing the clothes he went out in, but Karen noticed obvious stains on his trouser legs. The hand holding his cigarette also seemed to have black marks?

Mud?

Diss threw the cigarette on the ground and asked, “When did you learn this?”

“I…” Karen hesitated. Just now, he actually had the impulse to tell Grandpa the truth, because after that strange dream today, Mr. Hofen’s questioning of him and other things, he sensed an unusual connections.

One should know, Grandpa Diss and Mr. Hofen were old friends.

It wasn’t that he was worried Mr. Hofen would tell Grandpa something after waking up. Rather, compared to a retired philosophy professor who just loved fortune-telling or metaphysics, Grandpa who also ran a funeral home and moonlighted as a priest seemed to be… no, should be the most mysterious one.

What Mr. Hofen knew, would Grandpa be completely unaware?

So, resistance earned severity, but frankness leniency? 

But looking at Grandpa’s face, Karen’s ‘truth’ circled back after reaching his throat, and he said instead, “Uncle Mason taught me.”

Upon hearing this, Diss’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Mr. Hofen is inside. The doctor said he’s out of danger,” Karen reported.

Diss nodded and asked, “Mary told me what happened. Were you scared?”

“No… Um… Yes, I was scared.”

Karen’s reply was a little incoherent, but he felt it wasn’t his own fault.

“I’ll go see him. Wait here.”

“Okay, Grandpa.”

Diss went inside. After about ten minutes, Diss and Paul came back out together. Karen also got up and followed them to the parking lot.

“When did you learn to drive?” Diss asked Paul.

“Not long ago. I learned a lot after watching a lot,” Paul answered somewhat shyly. 

“Got a license?”

“Yes, I got one,” Paul immediately replied.

“From next month, your salary will be increased by one thousand Lubi every month.”

“Thank you, Mr. Diss, thank you, Mr. Diss.” 

Paul and Ron were extremely contrasting in personality. Ron liked drinking and playing cards. Today after finishing the basement work, he rushed off work right away to go hang out at some small bar. Paul on the other hand stayed behind to wipe down the cars.  

“Go home.” Diss glanced at Karen and repeated, “Go home.”

Still it was Paul driving, with Karen and Diss sitting in the back. With no seats, the two sat facing each other on the mats.

“Do we need to notify Mr. Hofen’s family, grandpa?”

“No need. His children have long cut ties with him already, and are not in Luojia City either. Come back to check on him again in a few days.”

“Ok, grandpa.”

After the brief exchange, Karen saw Diss stretch out his hand and roll up his sleeve. 

What shocked Karen was that one third of grandpa’s left hand was black and charred, as if it had rolled around in burning coals.

“Pliers,” Diss said.

“Hm?” Karen was startled for a second, then immediately realized. He moved forward to open the black box next to grandpa. Inside was a set of small surgical tools, as well as some things clearly not for normal everyday use. 

For example, a few bottles of strange colored liquids, crystalline beads, iron plates of strange shapes, a leather whip made of unknown material… The most eye-catching was an empty sword hilt with openings in the middle.

The left and right sides of the hilt each had an exquisite carving. The left was a twisted skull, the right was a benevolent saint. 

Although the hilt was missing a blade, Karen was still careful to avoid it when grabbing the tools, as if an invisible blade could lop his fingers off.

Karen passed the pliers to Grandpa.  

Grandpa took the pliers with his right hand, grasped a corner of the charred skin with it, and slowly tore it open.

Although the car was moving, Karen could still clearly hear a thin, crisp sound, like paper being torn. 

The golden retriever next to them stared wide-eyed, curled up and shivering in the corner.

Ignoring everyone else, Grandpa used the pliers to tear off two pieces of charred skin himself and said:

“Tweezers.”

“Oh, okay.” Karen held out the tweezers.

But Grandpa didn’t take them. Instead, he put his hand in front of Karen and handed over the pliers with his right hand.

In Karen’s memory, this had never happened before.

However, after pursing his lips, Karen still took the pliers in his right hand and the tweezers in his left. He first used the tweezers to pull out a gap in the charred skin, and then used the pliers to pull it off whole.

Under the charred skin was red, tender flesh, oozing with blood.

Through it all, Diss never once shouted in pain; his expression didn’t even twitch once.

When all the charred skin was cleaned off, Diss’ left arm looked like it had just been boiled.

“Done,” Karen said.

“Mm,” Diss reached out and popped open a bottle of purple liquid, pouring its entire contents onto his left arm.

“Hiss…” Karen sucked in a breath.

Because he saw white smoke start to rise from Diss’s left arm, accompanied by the sizzling sound of hot oil in a pan.

After a long while, Diss let out a long exhale, and pulled his sleeve back down.

Karen asked with concern, “Don’t you need to bandage it?”

Diss shook his head.

Karen didn’t say anything more and continued sitting properly. 

The car stopped then. They were home.

Karen led Mr. Hofen’s golden retriever off the car. Paul parked the car at the curb by the front gate.

“Mr. Diss, young master Karen, I’ll head back first. Tomorrow I’ll come early to set up the mourning.”

“Ok,” Diss nodded.

Happy with his raise, Paul hurried home.

Karen on the other hand, stayed by the front gate without rushing in, because Diss didn’t go in.

Two people and a dog. 

Just standing there by the front gate.

On the third floor balcony, Poe stood up, cat eyes staring intently at them.

Oddly, it was as if the background music of a stage play had suddenly switched genres.

So abrupt, yet so clear.

Karen felt his lips start to tremble, his breathing growing urgent.

The golden retriever he was holding looked up at Karen in confusion, because it noticed the leash in Karen’s hand was shaking… The reason for that was the person holding the leash was trembling.

Humans have a sixth sense.

It can be told by the wind, the sun, or even the flowers and plants around the fence.

Karen didn’t know if a person’s sixth sense would be enhanced after dying once and then being resurrected. In fact, he didn’t have the heart to think about such things now.

He felt like he was an egg that had just been taken out of a chicken coop, and was being constantly tossed and played with by a mischievous child.

Run?

Karen turned his neck as much as he could and looked to the side. There was the road, where he could run as fast as he could…

Then Karen started twisting his neck in the other direction again, but halfway through he involuntarily lowered his head.

After lowering his head,

He saw his own pant legs,

He saw grandpa’s left arm,

He saw even more clearly Grandpa’s left hand holding that sword hilt he had clearly put back into the black box.

In that moment, Karen felt tears welling up in his eyes, his nose turning sour, and the muscles in his face twitching slightly.

Before him, it was no longer the Inmerales’ villa on 13 Minke Street.

Instead it was a ground, going down layer by layer.

He was standing in the center of a high platform. Next to him was the gallows prepared just for him.

“Karen.” 

Diss’s voice sounded like thunder in his ears.

“Grand…pa…”

Karen’s teeth were chattering.

Contrastingly though, his heart was extremely calm. There was a rift between his mind and body.

“Karen, where is this place?”

Karen opened and closed his mouth.

In the corner of his eye, Karen noticed Grandpa’s left arm already raised, circling around to his back.

At this critical moment, Karen straightened his back and suddenly shouted in a hoarse and deep voice… almost roaring:

“Home!”