I Want a Beating

"What the heck?"

The detective was completely bewildered. After being a middleman for so many years, he had never seen such a bizarre scene.

"Ahem, I meant this."

Huai Shi coughed twice and took out a glass bottle from his pocket, placing it in front of the detective. The bottle was filled with Calamity Ash.

This was the simplest way to make money that Crow had come up with for him.

As a rare essence, Calamity Ash was a necessary base for some alchemical manufacturing. However, due to its limited applications and the fact that the material wasn't difficult to find in deeper regions, it didn't fetch a high price.

"Wait a moment."

After he reacted, the detective immediately opened his phone and made a call: "Hello? Uncle, I remember you placed an order for some Border Sediment a few days ago? I have a customer here who wants to sell some, why don't you come take a look?"

Within a few minutes, the computer screen lit up.

Even more bizarrely, the light on the camera inexplicably transformed into the phantom image of an old man. He seemed impatient as he walked over and instructed the detective to pour out a few grains of Calamity Ash from the bottle and drop them into a solution that Huai Shi couldn't name.

Soon, observing the reaction of the solution, the old man's expression calmed slightly, and he nodded slowly.

"It's rare to see such pure Calamity Ash in the present world nowadays. Let's go with the price for top-grade quality. I'll take it all." The old man, showing a rare hint of warmth, glanced at Huai Shi. "If you have more Calamity Ash in the future, contact me. I'll buy it at a ten percent markup from the market price."

With that, he disappeared.

The detective didn't waste any more time. He took Huai Shi's bottle to be weighed. After accounting for the bottle's weight, the contents were approximately three hundred grams.

Normally, a bottle of iron sand like this would weigh over a pound, but Calamity Ash was much lighter than it looked.

This was all the weight Huai Shi had managed to accumulate these past few days. He was already at his limit; after all, he wasn't the type to dwell on the past and lament his fate. He could only condense it through continuous reading of death records.

After calculating for a while, the detective looked up and asked, "Based on recent market transaction prices, the total is eighty-four thousand. I'll take a one-twentieth cut as a commission. I'll give you the buyer's business card later. I won't handle it next time; you can contact the buyer directly. How does that sound?"

Huai Shi had no objections. After all, wasn't the middleman's job to profit from the price difference?

Moreover, earning eighty thousand so easily made him feel a sense of anticipation for his identity as an Ascendant for the first time.

Before leaving, Huai Shi, as instructed by Crow, spent money to buy a more precise set of equipment and materials. The cheap stuff he had at home was fine for fooling around in the chemistry lab, but it was useless when he actually needed it.

The simplest set of tools alone cost Huai Shi over nine thousand. If Crow hadn't repeatedly emphasized its necessity, he would have settled for what he had.

He didn't plan to give all the remaining seventy-one thousand to Crow. Crow's words should always be taken with a grain of salt; even giving him fifty thousand would be enough for him to take drugs for half a month.

The remaining twenty-one thousand, if used for living expenses, would last a long time.

Huai Shi planned to set aside five thousand for daily expenses and use some money to tidy up Stone Marrow Hall, replace the glass, and repaint the exterior walls. Doing it himself would save a lot of money. The remaining money would be used to get a better set of strings for his cello and buy a few chairs to fix up the main hall. There wouldn't be much left after that.

Carrying the tools, Huai Shi walked out, still immersed in happiness. Even the stray dogs peeing on the roadside seemed cute to him.

Liu Dongli watched his dazed expression and shook his head helplessly, walking ahead.

But just as Huai Shi was about to say goodbye and go home, he suddenly shivered.

He stopped in his tracks and turned around abruptly.

A few hurried pedestrians on the desolate street, several cars driving by, and a stray cat climbing over the wall slowly walking away...

In that instant, he felt his Death Sense skill activate on its own, followed by a needle-like chill pricking the back of his neck.

An intuition that needed no words surfaced in his heart – someone harbored killing intent towards him. But immediately after, that Death Sense quickly dissipated, as if it were an illusion.

Only the residual chill lingered in his chest.

"What's wrong?"

Liu Dongli noticed his abnormality.

"Nothing," Huai Shi smiled calmly. "This is as far as we go. I'm heading home."

"Alright."

Liu Dongli waved. "Remember to come out for a meal before you leave."

Huai Shi acknowledged him and turned to leave.

The killing intent was directed at him and had nothing to do with anyone else. Old Liu had finally been discharged from the hospital; why drag him into his own mess?

For once, Huai Shi acted responsibly.

But... who the hell wanted to kill him?

"Oh my god, I think I'm being targeted!"

In the main hall of Stone Marrow Hall, Huai Shi looked at Crow in front of him. "Crow-a-mon, do you have any ideas?"

"You're beyond saving. Just wait for death. Goodbye."

Crow calmly replied with a series of reaction images, unhurriedly examining the items Huai Shi brought back. He said as if it were commonplace, "What's the point of asking such a simple question? If someone wants to kill you, you kill them. Isn't that how it should be?"

"How do I kill them? Conjure an axe?"

Huai Shi sighed. He knew his own limitations. Even with a dragon robe, he wouldn't look like an emperor. Even as an Ascendant, he could only deliver the finishing blow. A crippled Red Glove could easily defeat him. If someone were to jump out from an alley one day and shoot him with a PPSh, he wouldn't be able to resist.

"That's why I said last night..."

Crow looked up and smiled gleefully. "Do you want to try the new feature of the Book of Destiny?"

Despite a bad premonition, Huai Shi nodded helplessly.

Then the Book of Destiny opened, and Crow transformed into a pen, marking a point downwards.

Huai Shi's vision instantly went black.

When he opened his eyes, he smelled a pungent stench of blood.

In the dim basement, corpses were everywhere. A emaciated man, his body half-rotten, roared at him, his left hand, covered in chitin, thrusting forward.

Huai Shi instinctively took a step back, and before he could even react, he felt the searing pain of his body being pierced.

Immediately after, the man raised his grotesquely swollen right hand, pressed it against Huai Shi's forehead, and squeezed hard.

Crack!

He was dead.

In the pitch-blackness before his eyes, a large, blood-red character for "Loser" slowly appeared.

What the hell is this?

What's going on?!

Huai Shi jumped up from the chair amidst the intense pain, glaring at Crow. "Besides adding a 'Loser' character to mock me, isn't this still the same as before!"

"Huh?" Crow retorted, "Don't you notice any changes?"

Huai Shi paused, then suddenly remembered that in that death record just now, he seemed... to have... taken a step back?

Yes, that was right. He was no longer passively experiencing things as a spirit behind someone.

This was the first time he had reacted to his own death.

"This is the new function?"

"Yep," Crow nodded. "If before you were like a spectator watching streamer videos, now you've installed some software with a valve icon and can try playing the game yourself—Hmm, speaking of which, it's kind of a loss that I can't be a freeloader anymore, right?"

"Enough already."

Huai Shi rolled his eyes, wondering where the bird learned so many cheesy pickup lines.

"But it seems it's best not to have you tackle high-difficulty content on your first try."

Crow pondered for a moment. "Currently, the most complete record in the Book of Destiny is related to Red Glove. How about I find you a beginner's tutorial first?

But before that, lift your left hand. Yes, just like that, point one finger upwards, and keep the others tucked in."

"Like this?"

Huai Shi held up his left hand blankly, unsure of its purpose. "What's the point?"

"You'll know soon enough."

Crow smiled mysteriously, skillfully took out his phone, snapped a photo, and waved his wings at him. "Farewell."

Huai Shi instantly collapsed back into the chair, falling into a deep sleep.

Then, she opened Photoshop and skillfully added a line of text below Huai Shi's photo:

—I want to get beaten up.

New meme acquired~

Then, the beating began.

By the time Huai Shi finally understood the meaning of that pose, he was already in a strange training ground, being brutally beaten by a burly, powerfully built man.

The Roman Boxing Technique, whose traces he had glimpsed on Red Glove, was now performed with breathtaking mastery by this unfamiliar opponent.

Especially when he struck, there was absolutely no mercy or hesitation.

He was aiming to cripple Huai Shi!

As soon as the whistle blew, he launched a kick that nearly snapped Huai Shi's neck. Then, with a skillful mid-air flip, he landed and applied a grappling hold with his bare hands.

Crack!

Huai Shi's right hand broke.

"What are you spacing out for! Prisoner 7944!"

At the edge of the training ground, a man with a chilling demeanor, hands behind his back, spoke sternly. "Did all your training go to the dogs? Pick up the dagger and kill him! Or does it not matter if you get killed by this death row inmate!"

His cold tone left no room for doubt about his attitude.

Either die as trash, or kill the grinning opponent and earn your worth.

Huai Shi took a deep breath. After a brief pause, he bent down, reached for the dagger on the ground, and gripped it tightly.

Sometimes, he couldn't help but be grateful that this scene was just a dream.

That way, he wouldn't have to overthink it before picking up a weapon and killing someone, without regard for laws, morals, conscience, or any other considerations.

Perhaps that was its most terrifying aspect?

Once he became accustomed to all of this, how willing would he be to return to his ordinary life?

For some reason, he found it difficult to resist this thought.

"Come on!"

Amidst the instructor's sharp whistle, Huai Shi charged forward!

Then, he died.

In reality, after Huai Shi's flurry of actions, as fierce as a tiger but dealing only two and a half points of damage, he finally managed to slash the opponent's neck.

He won.

But at this point, his waist was practically kicked in, and three of his four limbs were broken.

As he tried to ask the instructor for help, the instructor walked up indifferently, snapped his neck, and the last sound he heard was:

"You have betrayed the Empire's expectations of you."