Walking out the door, Silas found his new landlady Emily standing in the street in front of the house, confronting a group of people.
She glared fiercely, her thin body trembling constantly. She looked both frightened and angry.
Facing her were several individuals who were obviously bad news. The man standing at the front was thin and gaunt, smiling at Emily with ill intent.
"This is my house!"
Emily shouted.
"It should belong to me now."
The gaunt man smiled.
"Of course, if you can pay back what you owe, I'll leave right away..."
Nearby residents and passersby poked their heads out, wanting to watch the excitement, but after seeing those fierce-looking gang members, they obediently kept their distance.
This is... debt collection?
Silas listened to their conversation for a moment.
It seemed Emily owed the man a sum of money and had used her house as collateral. Now that she couldn't repay the money, the creditor had come to take the house.
Good grief. I just rented this place a few days ago, and now the house is about to change owners?
His gaze swept past the crowd and spotted his sister Cecilia hiding in the shadows of a building behind them, secretly monitoring the situation.
The shadows diminished her presence, making her look quite inconspicuous.
She sensed Silas's gaze, turned to look at him, and her beautiful eyes gleamed blue in the darkness.
Cecilia, what's going on?
Silas communicated with his sister through eye contact.
I'm not sure either. Let's keep watching.
The girl in the shadows shook her head, replying with her eyes.
"But I only borrowed 5 pounds! I was already planning to pay you back!"
Emily argued, clutching paper money tightly in her hand. "I don't owe you that much at all. This is robbery!"
"I regret your choice of words."
The gaunt man smiled smugly and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.
"This is the loan contract we signed at the time. It clearly states you need to pay interest."
"Mr. John! When you lent me the money, you never said the interest would be this expensive!"
"I might have forgotten to mention it. But then again, didn't you make a mistake by not reading the contract carefully?"
John, the gaunt man, said, "I was generous enough to lend you money so you could treat your parents and give them a decent burial, yet you accuse me of robbery.
It really makes me feel helpless..."
Hearing this, Silas roughly understood the situation.
It turned out their new landlady's parents had died from illness after exhausting their savings, leaving only a house in the East Borough.
The East Borough money lenders had come offering sympathy and actively lent money for her to bury her parents.
Emily, grieving over her parents' deaths and lacking social experience, had naively signed the contract and mortgaged the house.
She'd originally thought that by renting out the house, she could quickly repay the debt.
But she'd never expected the other party had hidden tricks in the contract.
The monthly interest rate seemed modest, but the interest was converted into principal.
Within a few months, the interest exceeded the principal, and the debt grew larger and larger.
"Alright, you now owe me a total of fifty pounds. If you can't come up with that money, don't blame me for being rude."
"I'm calling the police! You can't take my house!"
Emily screamed hysterically.
"With this contract, the police won't say anything even if they come."
John the lender said, pointing behind himself. "Stop resisting. These friends of mine will help you move..."
He turned back to look at a scarred man among the thugs and smiled obsequiously.
"Mr. Charles, I'll trouble you."
The scarred leader looked quite impatient and couldn't be bothered with the lender.
Instead, he gave his subordinates a knowing look. They immediately understood and walked toward the house, beginning to remove the door and change the locks.
They were going to forcibly seize it.
"Don't touch my house!"
Emily screamed, trying to stop them. The gang of thugs ignored her. With a casual shove, they sent the small girl tumbling to the ground.
She stared blankly as the group burst into her home, about to take the house for themselves.
Until John the lender walked over.
"This house of yours is worth forty pounds at most. After I take the house, you'll still owe me ten pounds. Next month, you'll owe me thirteen pounds."
He calculated carefully and smiled disgustingly. "Want me to introduce you to a job at a bar? I know some customers who particularly like young girls..."
He didn't finish speaking because Emily pulled out a pair of scissors from behind her and stabbed them into his belly.
"Go to hell!"
She said through gritted teeth, full of hatred.
"Ahhhhh!"
The smile on John's face was quickly replaced by terror and pain. He clutched his belly and screamed. Blood soaked through his shirt and flowed onto the ground.
The crowd erupted. Several thugs rushed forward to pull Emily away and snatched the scissors from her hands.
"Boss!"
They shouted to the scarred leader. The scarred man walked over and frowned as he examined the injury.
John lay on the ground with a two-inch wound in his upper left abdomen, dark red blood gushing out in large quantities.
The scarred man looked up at Emily.
"The wound is deep. The bleeding won't stop."
He said simply, "He's going to die because of you. Not only will you lose the house, but you'll also go to prison."
Emily trembled, looking at her blood-stained hands, her face pale.
I just wanted to leave the East Borough. Why did it turn out like this?
Despair enveloped her, casting a shadow over her head.
A shadow?
Only then did Emily realize someone was standing behind her. Looking up, she found it was her tenant, that man with mental illness.
She saw the handsome man step forward to where the severely injured and bleeding John lay, squat down, and look at the wound in the upper left abdomen.
"Your spleen is ruptured. If the bleeding doesn't stop, you'll die in another ten seconds or so."
He said to John with a smile.
"I... I don't want to die..."
John said with difficulty. The massive bleeding in his abdominal cavity had made him incredibly weak in a very short time.
"I have a way to save you. However, as compensation, you need to cancel the debt she owes you."
Silas said. "You have ten seconds to consider. After that, you'll go into hemorrhagic shock. Ten, nine, eight..."
"I agree, save me! Save me!"
John begged. "Mr. Charles! Save me!"
Silas looked up and glanced at the gang leader.
"You can really treat this?"
He asked.
"Sure."
Silas said frankly. "If I'm going to treat him, hurry up and carry him inside. I don't want others to see the treatment process."
Charles stared into Silas's eyes, as if trying to determine his credibility.
After a moment, he said to his subordinates, "Do as he says."
The thugs hoisted John up and moved him into the apartment, laying him on the floor of the hallway.
They were then driven away by Silas. Only Charles, the gang leader, remained to monitor Silas.
Silas paid him no mind and directly thrust his fingers into John's bleeding wound.
"Ahhhhh!"
He immediately screamed in agony.
[In 1854, Britain abolished usury laws and no longer restricted any form of credit. Courts generally considered the maximum limit for usurious interest rates to be 48%, above which they would not enforce collection.]