Ethan Carter looked at the madman in front of him, maintaining a constant smile on his face. He glanced at the pitch-black sky and shook his head slightly. “Sigh! Yet another idiot who’s watched too much ‘Young and Dangerous.’”

The madman and his two henchmen saw that Ethan Carter was actually ignoring their presence, and their faces grew even more ferocious. A switchblade popped out in his hand, and he strode over menacingly. “If I don’t stab a hole in you today, you’ll never know how fierce your Grandpa Crazy is!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the madman was already in front of Ethan Carter, thrusting the knife quickly toward Ethan Carter’s abdomen. At the same time, the two henchmen behind him swung the baseball bats they’d dragged over, aiming for Ethan Carter’s calves.

In the instant when Emily Foster and the others hadn’t even seen clearly what happened, Ethan Carter’s golden needles had already pierced into the bodies of all three.

Each golden needle had a thin, transparent long thread tied to its end, connected to the fingers of Ethan Carter’s drooping hands. Unless someone had exceptionally sharp eyes and looked very carefully, they would never notice the fine threads attached to his fingers.

Ethan Carter let his hands hang down, gently moving his fingers that were tied to the threads. The three gangsters, including the madman, spun around, flailing their arms and legs, moving somewhat mechanically like puppets in a movie, heading toward the corner where John Bolton was hiding.

“What? What’s going on? Stop! Stop!” The madman saw that his body was completely out of his own control, and for the first time, a great fear rose in his heart. He kept shouting.

Unfortunately, this was the place they had chosen themselves.

Back then, to avoid trouble, the madman had spent a long time finding this rarely used alley.

“Where are you taking us?” Ethan Carter asked the madman with a smile, then said to Emily Foster, “Come on! Let’s follow and see.”

“No! No! Stop, hurry up!” The madman and his henchmen staggered and swayed toward the corner of the alley where John Bolton was hiding.

Seeing such a bizarre scene, John Bolton didn’t even think—he turned and tried to run. But as soon as he turned, one of his legs unfortunately stuck out past the corner of the alley, and a stone struck the back of his knee at high speed. The piercing pain forced John Bolton to kneel on one knee, and he cried out in pain, “Aiyo!”

The corner of the alley wasn’t far from where John Bolton was hiding. Under Ethan Carter’s control, the madman quickly reached John Bolton’s side and, without meaning to, landed a heavy punch on John Bolton’s handsome face.

Stars instantly danced before John Bolton’s eyes, and a sharp pain shot from his front teeth behind his lips. Two hard objects fell onto his tongue.

Clearly, those were the front teeth that had accompanied him for years. After that punch from the madman, they had honorably retired.

“You…” John Bolton lay on the ground, glaring angrily at the madman, mumbling indistinctly.

The madman looked at his own fist, then at John Bolton lying on the ground, and said in some panic, “John Bolton, I really didn’t mean to hit you with that punch…”

“John Bolton?” Ethan Carter looked at the two of them with a smile, a look of having succeeded in his scheme. “You, a gangster passing by here to commit a crime, actually know our city hospital’s Dr. John Bolton. And you seem quite familiar. Could it be you two planned this together? Trying to stage that old ‘hero saves the beauty’ routine?”

Having said this, Ethan Carter no longer looked at John Bolton and the gangsters, but instead smiled silently at Emily Foster.

Hearing Ethan Carter’s speculative explanation, Emily Foster easily believed his guess, and her gaze toward John Bolton was clearly tinged with more contempt.

That look made John Bolton, lying on the ground with his scheme completely foiled and two teeth lost, feel utterly dejected. He wanted to explain, but found he couldn’t even open his mouth. At some point, a needle had also appeared on his body—except this one was black.

In this dark night, a black needle was even harder to notice.

In such an awkward predicament, John Bolton regretted for the first time why he had studied Western medicine instead of the Chinese medicine he’d always looked down on. If he knew acupuncture, removing this needle shouldn’t be too hard. But in his current situation, he didn’t dare touch it—if he lost the ability to speak for life, that would be a real problem.

“Let’s go! I’ll walk you to the alley entrance and get you a cab. Compared to money, you should know what’s more important, right?” Ethan Carter strolled leisurely toward the mouth of the alley, using a senior’s tone to instruct Emily Foster beside him.

The few conspirators in the alley, for some reason, were temporarily unable to move. They could only glare resentfully as Ethan Carter led Emily Foster out of the alley, disappearing completely from their sight.

Chapter 8: Extorting the Mangy Dog

Ethan Carter returned to his clinic in the red-light district. The shop, which had been smashed to pieces last night, now looked even more damaged from the outside than it had the night before. The medicine chests inside, which had once been tidied up, now seemed only good for firewood. Ethan Carter couldn’t see any other use for these wooden boxes, now reduced to planks.