Maybe he can instigate a major engineering accident?
Ed closed his eyes attentively, and a bright yellow fish-eye vision gradually appeared in front of his eyes.
The gear set made a few crisp sounds, and the appendages folded and stretched. He swung the one-eyed spider toward the rough metal pipe and penetrated into the gloomy heart of the factory...
At this moment, George could no longer hear the subtle noise, and was absorbed in the beating in the dust and pool of blood.
It roared, venting the nameless anger bestowed upon him by the full moon. The sharp claws kept swinging towards Quinn's green eyes as dark as the forest, vowing to smash those eyes together with the exquisite head.
The situation took a turn for the worse. Warm blood flowed down her cheeks, condensing and drying up in the cold night air. Quinn could only protect his face with his elbows, struggling to defend against the old werewolf's desperate counterattack.
Blood mixed with flesh splattered everywhere, and the wounds on her arms revealed hideous white bones, which was dizzying.
Suddenly, the steel structure above creaked with a death groan. Wherever he looked, the huge steel platform collapsed and fell down like a city wall, and the sky collapsed in an instant.
George was also aware of the drastic changes happening in front of him. He raised his red eyes in horror, trying to figure out what happened.
Bah!
A flash of cold light flashed, and the tendons of the wrists were like broken branches, and they collapsed weakly on one side.
Quinn took advantage of the opponent's moment of hesitation, drew out the butterfly blade and cut off its wrist, kicked off his legs on the giant wolf's shins, and used the reaction force to slide back.
Then, destruction fell from the sky.
After the dust that rose several meters high settled, old George was seen buried under the rubble, with a row of steel fences passing through his lungs, plated with dark red stripes.
The blood-stained facial muscles twisted and collapsed, and the air blowing from the outside blurred its eyes, turning them into a transparent blank that was almost like glass——
He became the frail old man again.
Quinn stood up in embarrassment, the hair on his forehead was soaked in blood and hung down heavily. She slowly lowered the belt, and Ed was finally free in mid-air.
"How's it going? The wound on your body doesn't matter, right? Do you want to stop the bleeding first..." Ed patted the dust on his body and asked.
He knew that the self-healing ability of lycanthropy patients was far beyond that of ordinary people, but looking at the bone-deep wound on her arm, he couldn't help but express concern.
Quinn ignored him, turned around and walked straight to the dying George. She grabbed his thin and pale hair and looked into the old man's eyes.
There seemed to be a shadow in her eyes. Those eyes are cold, dangerous and suffocating - like the barren and biting ice fields; the vacuum of the universe; the looming reflection of the guillotine's blade:
"Delores - who is that? Why do you call me that name?!" she asked in an almost growling tone.
Blood gushed out from the old man's mouth. The old man groaned for a moment, but did not speak. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were twisted painfully.
Quinn stabbed the blade into her chest and spun it, stimulating George's confused mind to stay awake. The old man was forced to moan hoarsely:
"Child, don't do this..."
"What, are you scared?"
She pulled out her folding knife, held it behind her back, and pressed the tip of the blade against his eyeball.
"Yes, I'm afraid..." He vomited out a mouthful of internal organ fragments, with sad kindness in his eyes:
"Every kill brings us closer to madness... Dear little Dolores..."
"I'm really sorry if my failure makes your fate even heavier..."
The blade stopped at the pupil, trembling slightly, as if it didn't know where to go.
The large-caliber revolver was pressed against George's temple, and his voice whispered like a poem: "Beasts that have tasted blood will grow sharper claws, and will thirst for blood more unscrupulously... "
"And everything else... no longer makes sense."
boom!
Trigger pulled. The bullet entered from one side and exited from the other side.
A sigh of relief squeezed out of Old George's throat, and his head drooped, never to be raised again.
At the end of the muzzle, a young and familiar black-haired male face was reflected.
"I hoped to have another chance to sit in your bookstore, Mr. George." Ed said, putting down his gun-holding arm.
"What have you done?" Quinn took back the folding knife as if it were a lifetime ago, and grabbed Ed's collar with both hands.
"This makes no sense, Quinn, you're just torturing a dying old man."
Ed's eyes were as calm as water. He held the barrel of the gun in his backhand and handed the gun back to her.
Quinn's green eyes gradually changed from crazy to sad. She let go of her hand holding Ed's collar, silently took the pistol, and walked towards the exit wordlessly.
The one-eyed spider poked out its bright yellow eye from the pipe and crawled back into Ed's hand.
Ed put the one-eyed spider back into his waist pocket and looked hesitantly at George, who was hanging on the ground like a withered vine. Suddenly, he seemed to remember something, put his hand into George's coat pocket, and sure enough found his lighter.
Then, he dragged the bundle of sacks over and placed the old man's most cherished books in his arms, making him look more like he was having a dream——
A long and peaceful dream of eternity.
Under the dim light of the stars and moon, the two of them walked out of the factory gate exhausted. The cold, rat-grey sky in the suburbs seemed about to rain, as it always did in Silvermist City.
A white oak tree stands on a hill not far away, its pale roots rising from countless rock cracks and mud cracks. The fiery red maple leaves appear eerie purple-red in the night, weaving into a shadow that the moonlight cannot reach.
"Sit here for a while." Quinn, who was silent along the way, suggested with her finger stretched out, "I'm tired and want to smoke a cigarette."
She leaned her head against the tree trunk and sat down, turning the injured half of her face sideways, and took out the crushed cigarette carton. With a click, he lit the match and lowered his head to light the cigarette in his mouth.
"Does your wound really not matter?"
"Get used to it. It will heal by the morning." She flicked her hand and put out the match.
"Where are the others? I thought there would be support." Ed asked knowingly, looking up at the sky.
"There is no support. This is my personal matter and I don't need anyone else."
"So you came to him alone and challenged him?" He took off his hat and sighed, "You're really crazy."
"Who knows? There may be casualties. I don't like others to die for me." She exhaled a burst of smoke and suddenly looked at Ed seriously:
"I have to thank you, Ed."
"Ah, thank me for what?"
Ed couldn't figure out for a while whether it was because he helped her out of the factory accident or because he fired the shot for her.
"I'm not sure if I have the courage to kill him myself. Looking at him is like looking at myself."
"You're welcome..." He smiled and asked seriously:
“What does it feel like to be crazy?”
She looked up at the lush green leaves in the sky and thought for a long time. She didn't speak until the cigarette almost burned her fingers:
"Madness... is like drowning. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink, until the last breath of air disappears and you fall into the depths of darkness."
As he spoke, Quinn was burned by the burnt cigarette and dropped the cigarette butt. Then she laughed to herself, took out another cigarette from the cigarette box, and took out the cigarette card inside——
"Damn, why is it this old man again?" Quinn cursed disdainfully and wanted to crush the cards.
"Which one?"
Ed leaned over curiously. This kind of card was originally designed to protect cigarettes in cartons. Later, manufacturers came up with a new way to print famous figures and places of interest on it.
As a result, this kind of cigarette card became very popular in the market as soon as it was launched, and the complete card sets and rare cards are very expensive. The most famous of these were the East Coast Trading Company's "Blue Star" brand cigarettes, which were said to contain rare cards made of silver and gold foil.
Upon seeing this, Quinn handed the card to Ed, with a faint smell of tobacco still on it.
The figure on this card has no appearance, and is wrapped in a ragged gray robe. Only smiling lips and a long snow-white beard are exposed, which makes him look like a wise man.
The shape of the entire card reminded Ed of the character card in his hand, but he knew he would never be able to read it. The names and titles of the characters are also printed above:
"Founding Scholar" Johannitz van der Wyk.
"I heard that this old man is an all-rounder: he knows everything from secret writing, swordsmanship, mysticism, alchemy, and even machinery manufacturing."
As Quinn spoke, he tried to light the match. The match was soaked in blood and difficult to burn:
"People have only read the books he wrote, but no one has ever seen what he looked like. They only heard that he liked to wander around in a tattered gray robe, so they painted him like this."
After trying three or four matches in a row, Quinn couldn't successfully strike a match.
Just when she was getting impatient, Ed stretched out his hand, still holding the lit lighter:
"Here, you're welcome."
Quinn glanced at him hesitantly, holding a cigarette and gently leaning her face towards him.
By the firelight, Ed carefully observed Quinn's profile for the first time: her face was almost as young as his own, and her canine teeth were looming when her lips parted slightly.
Those deep emerald green eyes always held a misty and painful gaze when she calmed down, like a desolate, endless and shadowy dark green coniferous forest.
But luckily, she wasn't always this calm.
"To be honest, you are more useful than I thought." She extended her palm, "Welcome to join us, kid."
Ed also stretched out her hand, her palm was much softer than expected: "Can you give me this card?"
"Sure, you like collecting cards?"
"Uh... that's right," he blinked vaguely:
"I have other uses."
