"This thing is worth this much?"
"The price, well, we can talk about that."
The girl narrowed her eyes into a smile. This was a trick she had learned from others in business. Narrowing her eyes to hide her inner emotions made her look like a shrewd person.
The two men in front of her were both taller and much stronger than her. Usually, she would be more cautious and rarely deal with people like this.
Eighty percent of problems in human society could be solved with dialogue. Unfortunately, Twilight Street gathered the remaining twenty percent.
"The price of this bracelet really makes my heart ache a bit." The blonde man picked up the bracelet, carefully examining its exquisite craftsmanship and detailed carvings.
"That means the boss has good taste." Pardo grinned like any cunning merchant, "This is the only one. Once you pass this village, you won't find this shop again. And there are others interested in this bracelet, you know."
"Yes, of course I have good taste to be interested in this bracelet." The blonde man wiggled his fingers, his eyes glancing at Pardo, "After all, this thing used to be in my safe."
"…"
Pardo's expression quickly changed. Just as she tried to retreat, the man next to the blonde man grabbed her arm.
"You took this thing while I was out. And for the past month, I couldn't search because of the cold weather. I thought I'd lost it to some petty thief. I didn't expect such a coincidence…"
The blonde man slowly put the bracelet into his pocket, curled his lips, and said to Pardo, "Do you know how I got this bracelet? By chopping off another idiot's hand, this thing became mine. Now, I think I can try to replicate that idiot's scream."
Pardo tilted her head and smiled, "Oh really? My partner is pointing a gun at your head from behind."
"What…"
The blonde man broke out in a cold sweat. He spun his head suddenly and saw a sharply designed handgun sticking out from behind a wall, aimed at his head.
His subordinate also tried to turn around, but the blonde man stopped him with a sharp cry, "Don't look back!"
"Ahem? Can you let go now?" Pardo smiled sweetly and retracted her hand. She had already retrieved the bracelet before putting her hand in her pocket, and the man was completely unaware.
Pardo stepped aside, "Don't look back. Go."
With no other choice, the two men slinked away under the threat of the gun.
"Phew… that scared me to death. Seriously, a person who was robbed buying something from the thief. This coincidence is too much to laugh at." Pardo wiped the fine sweat from her forehead and walked over to the handgun.
Lin sat in his wheelchair, holding the handgun motionless.
Sometimes, he would do nothing like this, just stare blankly, letting people manipulate him at will.
"By the way, who are you really? Why do you have a handgun…" Pardo was increasingly curious about Lin's identity. She had searched him and found the handgun. She didn't understand firearms, but the design alone made her feel it wasn't simple.
"Never mind. Don't think too much. Let's go home."
…
"Could you be some super-rich boss whose family has a lot of money? It's not easy to have a private residence in a place like Twilight Street. Then you were framed by someone and fell to this state."
Pardo pushed Lin's wheelchair toward the house.
She had been taking care of Lin for about a month now. She still hadn't found the key, but Pardo had gotten to know Lin somewhat.
He was a person who spent most of his time in a delusion where he couldn't perceive the outside world. He knew many people, but Pardo couldn't remember the names, and he never said his own name.
His mobility wasn't severely impaired. He could push his wheelchair anywhere with his strong arms and recognized the roads, but he saw nothing other than the structure of buildings and roads.
He suffered from a disease with purple lines all over his body. Pardo had seen similar patients at the sanatorium, but none seemed to have it as severely and extensively as Lin.
"But you probably can't recover now. I don't have money to take you to a doctor… your family doesn't seem to have money either, though that person from last time, I don't know who he is to you…"
"Clack."
Pardo suddenly stopped.
It was too quiet around them.
The silence was unlike the notorious Twilight Street.
At the exit of the small alley ahead, two people walked in and blocked their way. Pardo immediately looked back, and her blood instantly turned cold and solidified.
The blonde man, looking slightly enraged, brought three people with him, blocking their retreat.
"Oh? So this is your companion? Hahahaha…" The man pursed his lips, signaled his subordinate to hand him the knife, and slowly approached the nervous Pardo, "Do you need me to help him with some 'treatment'?"
"W-wait a minute! He has nothing to do with this! He's just an idiot!" Pardo shielded Lin behind her. She was terrified, extremely scared, but still tried not to let them get close to Lin, "You have a problem with me, don't bother him. The b-bracelet is back to you!"
"The bracelet? Won't it be mine later anyway?"
"Don't… don't come closer!"
Pardo tried to reach for the handgun in Lin's lap, but the blonde man kicked her arm, which also knocked the wheelchair with Lin in it to the ground.
Lin lay in the mud and water without consciousness, his vacant eyes looking at the murky surface.
Now, all Pardo felt was regret. Why was she so careless this time?
If it were just her, she was confident she could escape, but with Lin in tow…
The blonde man raised the small knife, sneering, and stepped on Pardo's back, then plunged the knife down—
"Snap."
"Crack."
A crisp sound of something breaking rang out, bringing silence to the surroundings for a moment.
The subordinate standing behind the man opened his mouth wide, unable to speak.
The man, who only had one leg, was covering the blonde man's mouth with one hand and squeezing the fingers of his knife-wielding hand with the other.
The sound of bone crushing just now came from the blonde man's hand.
Lin's eye was still vacant, but his left hand was accurately and forcefully covering the blonde man's mouth, preventing him from making any sound even though he was close to passing out from the pain.
His right hand exerted force again—"Crack."
The blonde man was directly knocked unconscious by the pain. When Lin let go, he incidentally took the small knife from his completely twisted and deformed fingers.
Pardo also looked at Lin, who was standing on one leg against the wall, and asked tremblingly, "Y-y-you… are you awake?"
It was then that the others reacted. The two behind Lin were the first to rush toward him with their fists.
Lin didn't look back. He tilted his head to dodge a straight punch from one of them, raised his arm, and broke the man's arm with an elbow strike. While the man was screaming, Lin grabbed the strangely twisted forearm and yanked, then delivered an uppercut that sent him flying, blood spraying from his mouth and nose all the way.
"Bang!"
The other man's punch only grazed Lin's back before Lin sidestepped and delivered a faster punch to his abdomen. The man instantly vomited even his stomach acid. Lin then ruthlessly grabbed the back of his neck and slammed his elbow down onto his spine.
"Crack." After a chilling crunching sound, the man passed out, likely to spend the rest of his life in a hospital bed.
The remaining two were even simpler. Lin, with the flexibility that belied his missing leg, easily dodged their attacks. He delivered a chop to one man's neck with the side of his hand, and finally plunged the knife into the last man's palm, pinning him to the wall.
The whole encounter took less than twenty seconds. Lin hadn't even moved a step. It was concise, cold, efficient, and even subtly elegant.
Lin's vacant eye stared at Pardo lying on the ground. He said nothing, turned around, straightened his wheelchair, and sat down.
"…"
He said absolutely nothing, gazing off into an unknown distance.
He seemed to have turned back into the senile, mentally ill man.