"Let's not talk about it, let's eat," Baku grinned, gnawing on the piece of black bread with a loud crunch.
Levi thought for a moment, broke his sandwich in half, and handed half back to him.
This time, Baku didn't say much.
He also broke off a piece of black bread and returned it, then carefully held the half sandwich with meat and egg. He squinted and sniffed it before taking small bites.
Then, like an old smoker blowing smoke rings, he exhaled through his nose in pure comfort, humming contentedly.
The skin on his cheeks smoothed out, looking completely rejuvenated.
This made Levi hungry just watching him.
Then he took the remaining half of the sandwich and took a big bite—
'Fuck, the ham has gone bad!'
'Even Cho'Gath would get the runs from eating this!'
Levi silently cursed the unscrupulous old woman, but he still finished it without leaving a single crumb.
"Baku, I'm heading out first." He stood up, dusted off his pants, and wanted to head home.
But Levi didn't get to leave.
Not because Baku asked him to stay.
But because as soon as he stood up, he bumped into a fat man with a wicked smirk on his face.
This fat man had a layer of blubber rarely seen on Zaunites, yet he sported a very Zaun-style punk green mohawk.
It was well known that no matter how flamboyant the apprentices' hairstyles were back in Zaun, once they arrived in Piltover, they would consciously or unconsciously change to ordinary short hair to blend into the environment.
Yet this fat man deliberately kept his edgy Zaunite green hair. His thick arms, thicker than pig legs, bore popular Zaunite tattoos, though the design was quite special—a menacing mechanical iron fist.
His getup, of course, wasn't meant to make his fellow Zaunites feel a sense of kinship. It was meant to instill fear.
"Y-You..." Baku shrank back in fear the moment he saw the fat man's face, not daring to speak loudly. "Boss Aubrey, w-why are you here?"
The fat man, Aubrey, was the younger brother of Avery "Iron Fist", the leader of the Iron Fist Gang, the largest Zaunite gang in Piltover. Among the circles of these Zaunite apprentices, the two brothers were already notorious, known far and wide as two living grim reapers.
Levi naturally recognized him too.
Because the loan shark debt the original owner of his body owed was borrowed from this very fat man.
"Levi, what a coincidence," the fat man Aubrey chuckled wickedly. "I came looking for you yesterday but couldn't find you. I thought you had already fled back to Zaun!"
"Looks like you haven't run away yet... What, do you have the money to pay up now?"
He pressed down on Levi's shoulder from above, making the air instantly tense.
"Boss Aubrey," Baku gathered his courage, trying hard to ease the tension from the side. "For such a small amount of money, why bother coming in person? Levi, he..."
"Piss off! Do you have the right to speak here?!"
Baku quickly shut his mouth and timidly retreated to the side.
Seeing this scene, the surrounding apprentices spontaneously backed away into a large circle, watching, but not daring to get too close.
"Levi." Then the fat man Aubrey sneered at him. "The deadline I gave you has long passed. Tell me, do you have the money to pay now?"
Of course he didn't have the money.
Levi subconsciously gripped the coin pouch in his pocket, which contained his salary for the next month. This money was barely enough to cover rent.
As for the loan shark debt he borrowed from Aubrey, the interest had compounded over and over again, snowballing to the point where he couldn't pay it off even if he worked his whole life.
"Can you give me a few more days of grace?" Levi asked helplessly.
The starting conditions left to him by the original owner were simply on hell difficulty. He had many ideas to make money, but the heavy hammer of reality kept smashing down one after another, not even giving him a sliver of time to earn anything.
"Are you joking? There's no way I'm giving you an extension!"
"Since you don't have the money to pay, then... heh heh."
What could a penniless man possibly sell for money?
There were actually quite a lot of things to sell.
And Aubrey and the Iron Fist Gang behind him always had various channels to turn a living person into cash, whether whole or taken apart.
This was why the Zaunite apprentices feared these fellow townsmen the most.
"Levi, oh Levi," Aubrey sneered. "Paying back debts is a matter of course."
"You wouldn't want your sister to be unable to finish university in Piltover, would you?"
"Try touching my sister and see what happens!" Levi's eyes instantly turned cold.
"Who the fuck would want your sister! There are plenty of Zaunite girls out there selling themselves, how much could she possibly be worth! Nowadays, you can walk down a single street in Piltover and pass by four or five Zaunite brothels. They haven't fetched a good price in a long time!"
"On the contrary, you—"
Aubrey looked Levi up and down like he was inspecting merchandise.
"You're a rare commodity, kid. You've got a lot of potential to be groomed."
Levi remained silent.
"How about it? I advise you to just obediently do it."
"The rich women in Piltover these days are all horny as hell, and there are very few good goods willing to do this line of work. Not only are the selling prices absurdly high, but they even have to fucking queue up for appointments."
Aubrey actually enthusiastically analyzed the blue ocean market and studied the industry ecology with Levi.
"Let me package and train you a bit. Not only will you be able to pay off this debt, but you'll also get to sleep with those high and mighty madames and ladies every day."
"You know House Medarda, right? Even they come to order services... If you work hard under me and serve them well, who knows, you might even become a Noxian 'noble lord' in the future."
Levi still remained silent.
"What, you're still not willing?"
That fat face instantly darkened again.
But Levi still didn't answer. He just looked at the fat Aubrey, glanced around, and then asked:
"Did you come alone?"
"Yeah," Aubrey answered subconsciously. "Why?"
"Nothing, just..."
Levi grabbed that half piece of black bread that was as hard as tank armor and smashed it right onto his head:
"Motherfucker!"
Across the street, at Ivern's house.
Seraphine walked to the window in a daze and pulled open the curtains as if possessed.
Outside the window was a wide road, and across the road was a bunch of smoky breakfast stalls, along with a group of Zaunite apprentices squatting or standing, busy eating their morning meal.
"That melody was over there..."
"Sigh, why can't I hear it again?"
Seraphine still couldn't control her abilities. The voice she could hear just a moment ago suddenly became inaudible again.
Normally, this would be a relief for her.
But this time, unable to hear that soul melody, she felt like a fish out of water, so anxious she could barely breathe.
"I've never heard that melody before!"
Seraphine clung to the window, sighing in frustration.
She stared hard across the street, as if trying to find that fascinating person whose soul could sing among those ant-like workers.
"Alright, alright," Mr. Ivern, who had been watching in confusion, finally stepped forward and patted his daughter's shoulder. "Seraphine, come back and eat."
"Stop looking, what's there to see... It's just a bunch of apprentices. If you want to see them, I'll have them line up for you to look at later!"
"No, that's different!"
Seraphine, however, looked out the window with unusual stubbornness.
"There's a guy among them whose soul can sing."
"It's a melody I've never heard before... an absolutely brilliant melody!"
"Sigh..." Mr. and Mrs. Ivern exchanged a glance and shook their heads helplessly.
Their precious daughter was acting up with those annoying artist quirks again.
"Isn't it just a song..."
"What kind of good melody could a Zaunite possibly compose!"
"But Dad, aren't you and Mom from Zaun too?" Seraphine pouted. "I count as half a Zaunite, and don't I understand music?"
"Nonsense!" Mr. Ivern replied firmly. "Nini, you are not some half-Zaunite. You were born in Piltover and have absolutely nothing to do with that wretched place Zaun!"
"Your mother and I went through untold hardships to have you born here, just so you wouldn't be dragged down for most of your life by the title of 'Zaunite' like we were!"
"I..." Seraphine felt something was wrong.
But it didn't seem worth thinking about.
Compared to discussing these pointless things, she was much more concerned about that melody she had only heard fragments of.
Unfortunately, she still couldn't freely control when her abilities activated.
Now that she wanted to hear it, she couldn't.
She could only look.
But what could she see by looking?
She could only see a group of greasy, scruffy workers, and the commotion they were watching?
As she watched, Seraphine unknowingly gave up on her seemingly hopeless search and started watching the commotion as well:
It was two men surrounded by a crowd.
One was a fat man with a green mohawk, and the other was a young man with black hair and black eyes, wearing work clothes.
"Is he one of our workers too?"
Seraphine looked at her father with some curiosity.
Mr. Ivern followed her gaze and vaguely made out the faces of the two men. Especially after recognizing the fat man's identity, his expression instantly became somewhat troubled.
However, he still answered his daughter very gently, "Yes, that's a worker from our factory."
"What's his name?"
"Levi," Ivern answered subconsciously.
Then he suddenly realized something was wrong. "Wait... Nini, why are you asking for his name?"
"I just wanted to ask..."
Seraphine rested her cheek on one hand, idly swinging her lower leg by the window.
"Levi, is it? Dad, can I meet this person later?"
"I feel like looking at him would give me more inspiration when composing love songs."
Ivern remained speechless.
The good boss's face instantly changed color.
"No! You cannot meet him!"
"Why? Isn't he our worker?"
"He used to be."
"Now he's fired."
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