On the left side of Wall Street, in front of an ordinary alley, a handsome-looking boy was walking past, holding a piece of black sesame bread in his hand. Suddenly, the bread accidentally dropped to the ground. He was greatly startled and quickly bent down to pick it up. But the bread was stained with dust, and he was hesitant, not knowing whether to pick it up or not, squatting in front of the bread in a dilemma.
The pedestrians passing by on the street were in a hurry to go to work. They just took a quick glance and didn't pay much attention.
The boy kept his head down, seemingly feeling sorry for the bread. But no one noticed that his nose was slightly twitching.
This boy was Dudian. At this moment, all his attention was focused on his sense of smell. He took a gentle, short breath, which allowed the smell to reach the olfactory cells at the top of his nose, making his senses more acute.
There were various smells on the street, but tracking the smell was like an instinct of his body, which he could master without learning. Dudian concentrated his senses on the smell emanating from the hidden chamber in the alley. Through the various smells floating over, a vague outline of the chamber immediately appeared in his mind.
"The smell of sulfur, the smell of yellow phosphorus... There are people? Three people? One of the smells has a faint fragrance. It should be a girl." Dudian was surprised. He didn't expect that there were people in the chamber at this moment. Could it be that these apprentice alchemists did experiments here every day?
Dudian thought for a moment and shifted his sense of smell to the residential house on the street above the chamber. He immediately smelled a faint, old, dusty smell inside. There was no one living there, and it seemed to have been empty for a long time.
"The alchemist chamber is under this empty house... The owner of the empty house either died a long time ago or is the owner of this alchemist chamber." Dudian thought secretly. He picked up the bread, patted the dust off it, and walked straight along the street and left. Although through the smell detection, he didn't find anyone on the upper floors of the buildings on both sides of the street, so it seemed that there was no one specifically keeping watch.
Even so, for the sake of caution, it was better to act the whole way through.
After leaving this street, he came to an adjacent street and found a small tailor shop, then went inside immediately.
A young tailor's apprentice greeted him and said politely, "Sir, what do you need?"
Dudian glanced at the finished clothes hanging in the store and didn't find the style he needed. He immediately said, "Make a set of black, loose robes for me, and also a common mask."
"A mask?" The young tailor's apprentice looked at him curiously but didn't say anything and asked, "When do you need them?"
"When can they be ready?" Dudian asked.
"They can be ready tonight."
"Okay. I'll come to pick them up at this time tomorrow."
"No problem. What kind of fabric do you need? We have linen fiber, silk satin..."
"Just a sturdy and ordinary fabric will do." Dudian asked, "How much deposit?"
The young tailor's apprentice thought for a moment and said, "If you want it to be sturdy, thick linen fiber is the best. The total cost for the two items is seven copper coins, and the deposit is half, so it's three copper coins for you."
Dudian immediately took out three copper coins and gave them to him, saying, "Make the robe a bit bigger."
"Okay." The young tailor's apprentice smiled and agreed. He took out a ruler to measure Dudian's body proportions, then wrote a note for Dudian and said, "Just come to pick it up tomorrow."
Dudian put away the note and left the tailor shop, muttering, "The next thing is the problem of the tattoo."
To sneak into that stronghold, he had to prove that he was an alchemist, and the most reliable way to prove it was to show his alchemist tattoo.
However, in this era, they were still far from mastering laser technology. Once a tattoo was made on the body, it was difficult to remove. And every time he returned from a hunt outside the Wall, his body would be checked to prevent the virus from being brought inside the Wall, so he couldn't hide the tattoo at all.
He pondered for a moment and finally decided to take a risk and give it a try.
...
...
There was an ink raw material factory in the eastern suburb. Like most factories, it was located in a remote area, close to the radiation zone.
Dudian came here. Blocked by the guards at the gate, he took out his guard medal and said, "I'm here to do business, and I'll also conduct a routine inspection of your production environment by the way."
The two guards were a bit stunned. They looked at it repeatedly before confirming that they hadn't seen it wrong. One of them immediately winked at the other and then said to Dudian, "Please wait a moment. I'll report it for you right away."
Dudian nodded and stood at the gate waiting.
After a while, the guard who had gone before came running out with a short and chubby middle-aged man. The middle-aged man looked at Dudian from a distance and was taken aback for a moment. He seemed not to expect such a young guard. Dudian looked like a newly matured child. But he quickly put on a smile and said politely, "Hello. Why didn't you say in advance if you were coming for an inspection? Isn't our place always under the management of Lord Crowe?"
Dudian waved his hand and said, "I just stopped by to take a look. I mainly want to do some business with you. Do you have gallnut ink here?"
Hearing this, the middle-aged man relaxed and asked in confusion, "Gallnut ink? The quantity of this is very small, and it has already been discontinued. Now everyone uses carbon ink."
"That's good." Dudian nodded and said, "Give me a bottle of gallnut ink raw material."
"Uh..." The middle-aged man was at a loss for words. He looked at Dudian up and down and said, "Just one bottle?"
Dudian coughed lightly and also felt a bit embarrassed. After all, this was a factory, not a store. However, it was very difficult to buy gallnut ink raw material in a store, so he could only come here.
"How much is it?" Dudian directly asked the price, not giving him a chance to refuse.
The middle-aged man was speechless in his heart but still maintained a polite attitude and said, "Why talk about money with me? Consider it a gift from me."
Seeing this, Dudian didn't stand on ceremony and said, "I'm in a hurry. I need it now."
"No problem." The middle-aged man looked at him and said, "Is this all you want? There's no... other business?"
Dudian smiled and said, "Just passing by."
The middle-aged man then relaxed, realizing that it was a false alarm. He smiled and said, "Okay. I'll have someone get it for you right away." After saying that, he turned and left. After a while, a thin young man brought Dudian a bottle of pitch-black ink.
Dudian could smell the ink inside without opening the cap. It was indeed gallnut ink. This kind of ink was used in the early days inside the Wall. Later, after people learned to use coal, they made carbon ink. This ink with a high cost gradually had fewer and fewer buyers because of its expensive price.
Dudian left with the ink, then went to a store and picked a bottle of men's perfume. He took them home and locked himself in his small room.
The smell of gallnut ink was much lighter than that of carbon ink, and carbon ink was often used by people, so its smell was more familiar. This was why Dudian went to the trouble of buying gallnut ink.
"It's a pity that there's no activated carbon here, otherwise I could completely get rid of the smell inside." Dudian thought secretly. He poured out some of the ink into a small bowl, then poured in some of the light-scented perfume he had chosen to neutralize the smell. He smelled it and felt that the smell didn't become strange, so he let out a sigh of relief. Then he took off his upper clothes, revealing his healthy wheat-colored body.
Dudian looked down at the Marks of the Demon on his chest and thought, "I don't know if those apprentice alchemists recognize these Marks of the Demon. Anyway, it's better to hide them." He immediately dipped the goose quill pen in the ink and drew along the blood-red Marks of the Demon on his chest. The cold ink fell on the Marks of the Demon, smearing this section of the blood vessel-like Marks of the Demon pitch-black.
"This dagger scar also needs to be covered up, lest it attract attention." Dudian then drew the ink along the dagger scar. The scar was vertical, while the Marks of the Demon were horizontal. After finishing drawing, Dudian found that the two strokes crossed each other, just forming a black cross.