The day shift in the Marvel timeline finally came to an end.
“Subclavian artery, axillary artery, brachial artery—damn, why is Latin harder to read than Russian!” Jessica Jones grabbed the Anatomy atlas, which was thicker than a brick, and ruffled her messy hair until it looked like a bird’s nest.
William took off his white coat and draped it casually over the back of the chair.
“Tomorrow morning at eight, I’ll quiz you on the paths of the upper limb blood vessels.
For every mistake, I’m docking fifty dollars.”
“This is labor exploitation!” Jessica snapped her head up, the bloodshot streaks in her eyes clearly visible.
“This is preparing you so you won’t end up in court later.” William ignored her protest and turned toward the iron door deep within the clinic labeled “Medical Warehouse.”
“Lock the rolling shutter door.
You can sleep on the folding bed behind the triage desk.
Don’t touch the medicine in the glass cabinet.”
The door handle was pressed down.
A deep blue vortex silently swallowed William’s figure.
Weightlessness was accompanied by a very slight dizziness.
When he opened his eyes again, the sour stench of Hells Kitchen was replaced by the damp, musty smell of Gotham City that seemed to never go away.
The underground clinic was deathly silent.
Only the standby indicator lights of a few medical instruments flickered with a faint red glow in the darkness.
Continuous high-intensity work, combined with the physical depletion after the system infused him with combat memories, made William’s temples throb like they were being pricked by needles.
He pulled open a drawer and skillfully snapped open a glass ampoule of high-concentration glucose.
The syringe filled with clear liquid.
No disinfection, no tourniquet.
Gritting his teeth, he precisely pierced the bulging vein on the back of his hand with the needle using one hand.
The cold liquid was violently pushed into the blood vessel.
William let out a long breath, pulled out the needle, and pressed a cotton swab against the site.
He threw himself heavily onto the creaking cot in the corner, not even taking off his shoes before closing his eyes.
Gotham’s night rain arrived as expected.
Rain hammered onto the asphalt of Lake Street, splashing up muddy water.
Selina Kyle stood in the shadows diagonally across from the alley of No.
22.
Her black, waterproof, slim-fit leather suit hugged her supple body, making her look like a black cat completely blended into the night.
Finding this place didn’t take much effort.
In Gotham East District, two packs of cheap Camel cigarettes were enough to loosen any homeless person’s tongue.
“22 Lake Street…
this is it.” Selina stared at the dark alley, a cold smirk curling the corner of her mouth.
A black Ford sedan was parked at the entrance of the alley.
The windows were halfway down, and two burly men in leather jackets were snoring against their seats.
They were sentries specially arranged by the Maroni Family to curry favor with that “divine Doctor.”
Stupid as two pigs.
Selina nimbly leaped onto a nearby dumpster, avoiding the puddles on the ground.
Her Doc Martens stepped on the protruding edges of the red brick wall as she glided silently against it like a gecko, leaping directly over the roof of the Ford sedan.
She landed without a sound.
The rusty iron door was right in front of her.
Selina pulled a specially made black hairpin from her hair.
With a slight pressure of her fingers, the hairpin was bent into a strange angle.
She inserted it into the keyhole.
Closing her eyes, her fingertips felt the subtle vibrations of the lock pins.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Click.”
The smile on Selina’s lips deepened.
She pushed open the iron door and slipped inside.
The door hinge made an almost inaudible creak, which was perfectly masked by the sound of the rain outside.
It was pitch black inside the clinic.
The pungent smell of disinfectant hit her nose.
Selina’s pupils dilated rapidly in the darkness, and her excellent night vision allowed her to adapt to the environment quickly.
Triage desk.
Operating table.
Glass instrument cabinet.
Her goal was clear.
That bastard with the dark circles under his eyes had swiped her loot on the street today; that money was definitely still on him or hidden in some corner of the clinic.
Like a weightless wind, Selina moved on her tiptoes, silently creeping up to the triage desk.
Her gaze swept over the dark black trench coat draped over the back of the chair.
She reached into the trench coat pocket.
Empty.
Her gaze shifted down, locking onto the locked drawer at the bottom of the triage desk.
Selina crouched down, her fingertips just touching the hidden compartment at the bottom of the drawer.
“Snap.”
An incredibly jarring sound of metal friction suddenly exploded in the deathly silent clinic!
The hair on Selina’s body stood on end instantly, and her pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks.
A cluster of faint blue flames lit up in a corner less than three meters away from her.
The firelight flickered.
Illuminating that face with heavy dark circles and a sickly exhaustion.
William was slumped in a swivel chair next to the cot, playing with a cheap metal windproof lighter.
The flame reflected in his cold, dark eyes.
He hadn’t been asleep at all.
His Master-level Combat Instinct gave him an almost animalistic alertness.
From the moment the lock cylinder of the iron door turned, he had been watching this cat that had walked into his trap.
“Are Gotham’s thieves all this arrogant nowadays?”
William’s voice was as flat as if he were talking about tomorrow’s weather.
“Just walking into someone else’s house so boldly.”
The lighter lid closed with a’snap.’
Darkness descended once more.
But the same second the light went out, Selina moved!
In the darkness, the trajectory of the airflow underwent an extremely subtle change.
A clean and decisive palm strike tore through the silence, heading straight for the carotid sinus on the right side of William’s neck.
There was no killing intent in this move; the force was quite restrained, with a clear goal—to cut off blood flow to the brain and cause a brief physical blackout, allowing her to take the wallet without taking a life.
William remained slumped in the swivel chair, not moving an inch.
Master-level Combat Instinct took over his neural reflexes; his left hand rose, and his fingers precisely clamped onto that slender wrist.
He pulled her toward him, using her own momentum against her.
Selina lost her balance and lunged forward.
Reacting instantly, she braced her left hand against the armrest of the swivel chair, used her flexible waist to generate power, and drove her right knee toward William’s chest.
She still didn’t aim to kill, avoiding lethal spots like the solar plexus and the windpipe.
William pressed his right arm down, blocking the knee strike.
Bone met flesh with a dull thud.
He stood up in one motion, twisting her wrist to apply a grappling lock.
Selina winced in pain but didn’t back down.
Using the twisting force, her body performed a roll in mid-air that defied human mechanics, her legs snapping like scissors toward William’s neck.
William advanced instead of retreating, raising his left arm to wedge it between Selina’s legs, forcibly breaking the fulcrum of the chokehold.
Simultaneously, his right hand formed a fist, and with a burst of Inch Power, he struck the nerve on the inner side of Selina’s thigh.
Selina’s legs went weak, and her offensive completely collapsed.
William hooked her with his momentum, flipping her onto the nearby stainless steel multi-functional operating table.
Before she could roll over, a large, calloused hand gripped the back of her neck, pinning her firmly to the table.
His other hand pulled her arms behind her back, grabbed a medical tourniquet, quickly wrapped it twice, and tied a dead knot.
The entire exchange lasted less than five seconds.
William freed a hand and flipped the switch on the wall.
The German-imported Shadowless lamp overhead clicked on.
A column of pale light shone down vertically, illuminating the operating table in vivid detail.
The strong light was blinding.
Selina turned her head, squinting to adjust.
With her chin against the stiff bedsheet and her hands bound, she was unable to move, looking exactly like a fish on a cutting board waiting to be slaughtered.
William pulled the swivel chair over and sat back down.
“Good moves.
Too bad you chose the wrong opponent.” He casually picked up a clipboard from the desk, flipped to a blank page, and tapped the desk with a pen.
“Name.”
“Don’t think you can get anything out of me, you bastard!” Selina gritted her teeth, her legs thrashing in the air as she tried to kick over the nearby instrument cart.
William raised his foot and stepped on the toes of her Doc Martens, pressing down firmly.
“Save your energy.
If you had been holding a knife just now, or if your attack had landed on my Adam’s apple, your trachea would have been sliced open by now, and you’d be lying in a medical waste bin.” William’s tone was flat, stating an objective fact.
“I believe in reciprocity.
Since you held back, I’m sparing your life.”
Selina stopped her futile struggling.
Her chest heaved as she turned her head to stare at the man sitting in the shadows.
The dark circles under his eyes were particularly striking at the edge of the Shadowless lamp’s light, exuding a sense of world-weariness from chronic sleep deprivation.
“Give me back Benjamin’s wallet.”
“Correction: I picked that up from Benjamin, then you tried to take it from my pocket, and finally, I took it back.” William toyed with the ballpoint pen in his hand.
“In Gotham’s underworld, if your skills are inferior, you accept defeat.
Barging into someone else’s territory to rob them openly breaks the rules.”
“That was my prey first!”
“Then why don’t you go to the Gotham City Police Department and report me?
You…
thief!”
William’s mocking expression left Selina speechless.
William’s gaze swept over her faded black slim-fit leather suit.
The material was good, but the edges were heavily worn.
This woman had an extremely high talent for stealth, yet she was living quite miserably.
“I’ll ask one more time, what is your name?” William asked again.
Selina shut her mouth, adopting a stance of non-violent non-cooperation.
William wasn’t annoyed.
He fished a pair of Medical surgical scissors from his white coat pocket, slipped his index finger and thumb through the rings, and opened and closed them, producing a crisp metallic clicking sound.
“If you don’t talk…
dozens of people go missing in Gotham East District every day; one more won’t make a difference.
My underground clinic just happens to need a cadaver to practice on.
Where should I start the dissection?” The cold tip of the scissors pressed against the back collar of Selina’s leather suit, sliding down her spine.
The hair on Selina’s body stood on end.
She wasn’t afraid of being beaten, but rumors of such twisted Doctors carving up living people were common in the East District.
“Selina!
Selina Kyle!” she blurted out, her voice rising an octave.