"What are you doing here?" Mother Lin walked into the backyard and spotted Lin Shuguang. She froze for a moment, then her expression turned to alarm. "What are you about to do?"
"Kill a chicken!"
Lin Shuguang gripped a hen's neck in his left hand, while his right held the Slaughter Blade he had successfully summoned.
The matter-of-fact expression he wore as he turned to answer was so earnest that Mother Lin was left speechless for a long moment.
Before she could say anything else, Lin Shuguang had already acted-
Slit the throat, drain the blood!
His movements were practiced, clean, and efficient.
Watching the whole seamless sequence, Mother Lin's lips twitched. She turned and left.
Although she had no idea why Lin Shuguang, who had never set foot in the kitchen, was so skilled at killing chickens, the thought of his Blood Energy Value made her sigh inwardly. She felt her son was unwilling to accept things, so she decided to leave him alone to work through it himself.
Lin Shuguang did not notice Mother Lin leaving. His attention was entirely focused on the Attribute Panel-
[Kill successful. Seized 0.1 cal of blood energy!]
"It's true! It really went up!"
Delighted, Lin Shuguang tossed aside the dead hen in his hand and lunged at the flock again, his eyes shining, sending chickens flying in every direction.
[Kill successful. Seized 0.1 cal of blood energy] [Kill successful. Seized 0.1 cal of blood energy]
As he watched the messages keep appearing on the panel, Lin Shuguang grew increasingly enthusiastic about the slaughter. He simply stopped checking the panel and charged into the dwindling flock again and again.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen just a door away from the backyard, a young man with a crew cut and work clothes listened to the "wails" coming from outside. Frightened yet curious, he whispered to his coworker as he picked through the vegetables, "What... what's going on out back? It sounds kind of scary!"
His coworker cautiously glanced toward the doorway. Seeing that neither the boss nor his wife was around, he hurriedly whispered with an air of secrecy, "Don't go poking your nose into it! I heard the boss's son awakened. He's killing chickens in the backyard!"
"He successfully awakened?!" The crew-cut young man immediately covered his mouth, his eyes widening. Then he asked cautiously, "So he's killing chickens to, to make an example of them?"
His coworker froze. "??? Huh, that sort of makes sense. Then who's he making an example for?"
Their gazes met, then quickly shifted away. By unspoken agreement, each returned to his own work without bothering the other.
Elsewhere.
Father Lin and Mother Lin were busy in the dining area. Taking advantage of a lull with no customers coming in, Father Lin finally found a moment to say, "Why don't you go check on him in the backyard? He should be about done by now."
Both assumed Lin Shuguang was plucking and cleaning the chicken after killing it. They had no idea what he had actually done.
Mother Lin stood up. "I specially bought three roosters this time. They're good for stir-frying."
In the backyard, Lin Shuguang, unaware of any of this, sat on a stool to rest after killing a dozen or so chickens.
Killing chickens was not tiring; catching them was. Every so often, two or three roosters would even turn back to attack him as they flew, leaving him rather disheveled.
Looking at the last three hens, Lin Shuguang decided to check the Attribute Panel while he rested.
--
[Name]: Lin Shuguang; [Blood Energy Value]: 11 cal; [Skill]: Basic Body Refining Technique LV2; [Destined Soul]: Slaughter Blade (silver); (Description: possessed a certain degree of offensive power when manifested); [Special ability]: Absorption LV1 (could seize blood energy upon a successful kill)
--
"Huh? It went up by 1.8 cal?" Lin Shuguang froze and looked down to count the chicken carcasses. There were twelve in total. According to the earlier notifications, each chicken should have provided 0.1 cal of blood energy, which should have added up to 1.2 cal. Where had the extra 0.6 cal come from?
Lin Shuguang went through the message log.
He really did find different messages.
Among the pile of [Kill successful. Seized 0.1 cal of blood energy] notifications were three messages reading [Kill successful. Seized 0.2 cal of blood energy].
Lin Shuguang keenly noticed what was different.
He read through the Slaughter Blade's special ability again and, sure enough, spotted the issue.
"The description for [Absorption LV1] doesn't explicitly state how much blood energy I can seize, unlike [Basic Body Refining Technique LV2]. So that means... the higher the level of the monster I kill, the more blood energy I can seize?"
Lin Shuguang immediately searched through the chicken carcasses. There were exactly three roosters among them. He recalled that those three had put up the strongest fight while he was catching the chickens. Presumably, those 0.2-cal gains had come from the three of them.
At that thought, Lin Shuguang felt a jolt and came up with an even bolder idea.
Just then-
"Good heavens! What have you done!!!"
Mother Lin appeared in the backyard, her face filled with horror. Looking at the pile of chicken carcasses that had not even been plucked, she wanted to beat that wasteful son of hers to death with a club.
Who was supposed to eat this many chickens killed all at once?!!!
Lin Shuguang snapped out of it and instinctively raised his hands, making a tactical retreat as he tried to explain. "Mom, let me explain-"
After giving him a dressing-down, making him earnestly reflect on his mistakes, and having him bow three times before the pile of chicken carcasses, Mother Lin began cleaning up the mess with a stony face.
But staring at the last three hens, Lin Shuguang still could not resist making one small request. "Mom, can I kill just one more?"
Mother Lin flew into a rage. She slammed down the basin of carcasses, grabbed the kitchen knife beside her, and bellowed, "Say that again!"
Without looking back, Lin Shuguang bolted. "I'm going to pick up Xiao Xi!"
"You wasteful brat!!!"
At home.
"Brother, I want fried chicken-"
"I don't want to hear that word today!"
"Nooo, I want it, I want it-"
"...Fine, fine, fine. I'll make it for you. Just wait!"
"Your cooking tastes bad!"
"! You haven't even tried it, and you're already saying it tastes bad?"
"How could it taste good when it's your first time cooking?"
"Then let's make a bet. A hundred yuan-"
"I don't have any money!"
"You're turning me down before I've even said what we're betting on?"
"I have no money, no money, no money, no money... Hmph, I'm not talking to you!"
"..."
Lin Shuguang sank into thought. So she still has money???
He raised his eyebrows as a bold plan surfaced in his mind.
At dinner that evening, while his sister was praising his cooking, Lin Shuguang smiled craftily. "My sweet, kind sister, blessed with both brains and beauty, would you be interested in learning about the investment industry?"
Lin Xiaoxi looked utterly bewildered. "???"
"Do you want fried chicken every day? Do you want a room full of snacks? Come on, let your big brother explain it all to you... Don't be scared. How could I ever trick you? Is that drumstick good? Here, you can have mine too!"
Two hours later.
"Top up!"
(Basic Body Refining Technique LV3: daily blood energy gain increased to 0.5 cal)
"It leveled up!" Lin Shuguang was exhilarated. He still had over four hundred yuan in his wallet, not enough to upgrade again, but he made a point of checking the upgrade requirements anyway.
(Basic Body Refining Technique LV4: daily blood energy gain increased to 1 cal; Wealth Value required for upgrade: 1,000)
Because of the "Backyard Incident," Lin Shuguang had been strictly forbidden from going to the shop.
But he also understood that there were too few "monsters" to kill there, so he soon turned his sights to a nearby slaughterhouse.
After several days of contact, he had finally become a familiar face to the stall owner.
"Hey, man, are you hiring? Someone who'll work for free!"
"..."
The contract's signed, so you can invest on Qidian now [you'll receive returns once the status is updated]~ As this new book gets underway, please bookmark it and send some recommendation votes my way. Once the status is updated, it'll officially be two updates a day o(^▽^)o
Before you continue