Ryan's mouth twitched slightly.
Those people in the basement even deducted kerosene costs from his wages, but he still accepted the money.
As the cold coins settled into his palm, Ryan felt a genuine sense of survival for the first time.
He held six shillings and five pence in his hand. Though he still had a mountain of debt, at least he wouldn't starve tonight.
Today was Tuesday.
October 21, 1891.
The weather was beginning to turn cold.
Many poor neighborhoods in the East End had already started burning cheap coal ahead of schedule, filling the air with choking smoke.
Night always came quickly in the East End.
Especially after October, the streets grew as dark as midnight just after six o'clock.
The air was cold, and a damp fog crept in slowly from the end of the street.
The gas lamps dissolved into blurry spheres of yellow light in the mist.
Ryan pulled his collar up and walked down the familiar street toward St. Blaise Street.
Nights in the East End were never quiet; the distant din of taverns drifted through the air.
The sound of carriage wheels rolling through puddles mingled with the occasional cough from the alleys.
The streets were teeming with people: baked potato stalls, prostitutes soliciting at alley entrances, drunken dockworkers, and young newsboys running with bundles of newspapers under their arms.
Occasionally, police officers in black uniforms would patrol the streets, batons in hand.
London was never a clean city, especially the East End.
It was packed with too many people—dockworkers, immigrants, vagrants, widows, swindlers, thieves, and factory girls.
Anyone who couldn't survive elsewhere eventually drifted here.
Ryan walked slowly along the street. His chest still felt incredibly tight; with every breath, his lungs felt as though they were stuffed with wet cotton.
He knew he had to buy medicine. His predecessor had been taking a cheap cough syrup.
Its primary ingredient was actually laudanum. It wasn't uncommon in London and could be bought directly from any pharmacy.
Many poor people drank it for coughs, insomnia, and lung diseases.
It was cheap and undeniably effective—at least it allowed one to fall asleep at night.
Following his memory, Ryan crossed two streets and stopped in front of a small pharmacy.
The shop was small, its wooden sign peeling, and a row of brown medicine bottles sat behind the glass window.
A sign hung at the door:
【Harvey's Pharmacy】
Ryan remembered this place.
His predecessor used to come here often.
During his poorest times, he had even bought medicine on credit here twice.
He pushed the door open, and the bell above it chimed softly.
It was slightly warmer inside the pharmacy than out on the street.
The air was a mix of alcohol, herbs, and soap.
Behind the counter stood a gray-haired old apothecary, grinding powder with his head down.
Hearing the sound, he looked up.
“Oh.”
“It's you.”
His voice was somewhat raspy.
Ryan nodded.
“Good evening, Mr. Harvey.”
The old apothecary lowered his head to continue grinding.
“Have money today?”
Ryan fell silent for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“I got my wages.”
Harvey chuckled.
“Looks like you aren't dead yet.”
There was no malice in his words; it was just the habitual way people in the East End spoke.
Ryan walked up to the counter and glanced at the bottles behind it.
Aspirin.
Camphor oil.
Antidiarrheal powder.
Alcohol.
Iodine.
And several dark bottles labeled “Opiates.”
“The same as before?” Harvey asked.
“Yes.”
The old apothecary slowly set down his mortar.
He turned around and retrieved a small brown bottle from the wooden cabinet behind him.
Inside was a dark brown liquid, its neck sealed with a cork.
“Laudanum,” he said, placing the bottle on the counter. “The cheap stuff. Diluted with alcohol and syrup. But it's enough for your lung condition.”
“Fifteen drops at a time. Don't take too much. You almost drank yourself to death last month.”
Ryan was taken aback.
His predecessor had clearly developed a dependency on it, which was only natural.
In nineteenth-century London, there were virtually no effective treatments for lung diseases.
Most people simply relied on opium for pain relief to get by.
“How much?”
“Four pence.”
Ryan breathed a quiet sigh of relief; it was manageable.
He placed the coins on the counter.
Harvey counted them and slid the medicine over.
“The weather's going to get colder soon. If that drafty shack of yours keeps letting in the wind, you'll have a hard time surviving this winter.”
Ryan gave a bitter smile. “I know.”
Harvey glanced at him again. “Your complexion looks a bit better today than before. Did you find a new job?”
Ryan paused slightly. “Something like that. A transfer at the archives.”
The old apothecary gave a noncommittal grunt. He didn't seem to care.
The people of the East End struggled daily just to stay alive; no one had the spare energy to worry about someone else's employment.
Harvey lowered his head again and began organizing his bottles.
He added casually, “Oh, by the way. If you have the money, you'd better buy some quinine too. A fever has started spreading around the East Docks lately. Quite a few people have already died.”
Ryan nodded, but he didn't buy any.
Quinine was too expensive; he had to budget his money carefully.
By the time he left the pharmacy, the fog outside had grown even thicker.
Ryan slipped the laudanum into his pocket and continued walking back along the street.
The wind grew colder.
Passing a stall selling hot soup, Ryan paused.
The potato soup in the pot was steaming, with bits of onion and minced meat floating inside.
The vendor was ladling soup for a dockworker.
“Two pence a bowl!”
Ryan stared at the pot of soup for a few seconds before finally walking over. “I'll take one.”
A few minutes later, he sat on a roadside bench with a bowl of hot soup and a small piece of bread.
As the steam wafted onto his face, Ryan's entire body slowly relaxed.
Too much had happened today: the knowledge of the Lantern, the archive anomaly, the formal recording hall, the transfer, his wages, and the medicine.
Only now did he finally find a moment of true peace.
Ryan took a sip of the hot soup, and warmth finally spread through his stomach.
In the distance, the bells of London began to toll.
Exactly seven o'clock in the evening.
After finishing the hot soup, Ryan felt his chest grow less cold. At the very least, his breathing became a bit easier.
He tore the last piece of bread into crumbs, dropped them into the soup, ate it clean, and then got up to leave.
The East End grew colder as the night deepened.
The fog on the street had grown thick enough to obscure half the road.
In the mist, the gas lamps cast only small, blurry halos of light.
Anything further away was completely invisible.
Ryan wrapped his coat tighter around himself and continued along the street toward St. Blaise Street.
As his soles trod upon the damp cobblestones, he could hear the faint splash of water.
He had only one thing on his mind now: go back, lock the door, drink a little laudanum, and sleep.
The people on the street grew scarcer, and many shops had already closed.
Occasionally, he saw a few drunks stumbling out of taverns or vagrants huddled against walls, smoking.
Ryan turned into a narrow alley; he was not far from St. Blaise Street now.
He only needed to cross two more alleys to return to his dilapidated tenement building.
The alley was very dark.
Only the distant intersection offered a faint glimmer of gaslight.
Rate on N.U.
