Half an hour later, Lin Li finally reached Chenghua Avenue after walking along the highway.
He went beneath the shade of the roadside trees to avoid the sun's fierce rays.
He took his phone from his pocket, opened the ride-hailing app, and placed an order. Then he leaned against the tree trunk and waited with his eyes closed.
A moment later, a taxi came driving from the distance. The driver was a young man only five or six years older than Lin Li.
When he saw someone waving at him from beneath the roadside tree, he immediately stopped the car in front of that person.
"You called for the car, right?"
"I did! Let me show you my order number!"
"No need. Get in. I drove all the way here, and there's no one else around besides you."
"Click... thump."
Lin Li nodded, opened the door, and sat in the back seat.
The young driver turned the steering wheel, swung the car around, and began driving toward the city center.
After laboring for half a day in the perilous wilderness, Lin Li sank into the soft seat. His already weary body immediately grew drowsy.
The driver, who was driving, observed Lin Li through the rearview mirror, focusing on the badly bandaged gauze around the other man's left hand.
He was wearing camouflage clothes flecked with grass, his face was full of exhaustion, and he had been injured on the hand. Since he had appeared on Chenghua Avenue, this customer was a Beast Hunter—and most likely a rookie at that.
"This rookie's having it way too rough!"
The driver had carried quite a few Beast Hunters before. They almost never parted with their backpacks and weapons, which could be considered standard equipment for those Beast Hunters.
Yet this young Beast Hunter, who was a few years younger than himself, had nothing besides the camouflage clothes he was wearing.
Could it be that he had encountered a Beast attack in the wilderness and then fled in blind panic?
The idiom "throwing away one's helmet and armor" instantly surfaced in the mind of this driver, who loved letting his imagination run wild.
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. When the driver looked at Lin Li again, his gaze was filled with sympathy.
He wanted to offer the other man some words of comfort, saying that losing his weapons and equipment was no big deal as long as he had kept his life.
But just as the words reached the tip of his tongue, he felt that they would be inappropriate to say.
After all, it was said that the weapons used by these Beast Hunters were Spiritual Energy weapons specially made for Cultivators, with even the cheapest ones costing several hundred thousand yuan.
Several hundred thousand! He worked himself to the bone driving a taxi every month, yet only earned six or seven thousand yuan. He would have to work for several years before he could afford a single Spiritual Energy weapon.
This young man a few years younger than himself had gone into the wilderness to hunt Exotic Beasts. Not only had he returned empty-handed, he had even lost a very expensive Spiritual Energy weapon. Sigh... What a miserable fate!
At that moment, the utterly drowsy Lin Li had no idea that, in the driver's eyes, he had already become a pitiful, tragic figure.
Of course, even if Lin Li knew the driver saw him that way, he would not care. At that moment, all he could think about was getting home as quickly as possible, taking a hot shower, and lying down for a nap.
"Creak..."
The journey was smooth, and after more than twenty minutes, the taxi stopped at the entrance of Ping'an Garden Residential Area.
After paying the twenty-five-yuan fare, Lin Li got out of the taxi. Just as he was about to enter the residential area, he saw a girl eating ice cream by the roadside. He thought for a moment, pressed his lips together, and then walked toward the convenience store at the entrance.
He spent five yuan on a chocolate-flavored popsicle, tore open the wrapper, tossed the wrapper into the roadside trash can, and ate it as he walked.
After spending his last five yuan, Lin Li could now be said to be penniless. Yet he was not panicked in the slightest.
That was because he had checked the app earlier, and You Speed Recycling had already placed the Boar Beast and Rabbit Exotic Beast he had hunted into the refrigerated storage warehouse.
The next step would be putting them up for sale. It should not be long before he received a sum of money.
"Huh? Little Lin, didn't you go camping with your friends? Why are you back so early? Your hand... how did your hand get hurt?"
Lin Li had just finished his popsicle and was about to enter the corridor of Building Six when Auntie Wang, who had gone out to throw away the trash, approached from the distance and happened to spot him.
Oh no, he had actually run into Auntie Wang. Next time he went out, he had to put the camouflage clothes away on Mysterious Small Island and change into them after reaching his destination, so he would not run into this kind of trouble again...
When Lin Li saw Auntie Wang gazing at his injured left hand with concern, he smiled and explained, "I accidentally took a tumble while camping and hurt my hand, so I came back early."
"Is it badly hurt?"
"Just a minor injury. It's nothing serious. A few days of rest will take care of it..."
When Auntie Wang heard Lin Li say this, the worry in her eyes immediately faded.
"Auntie Wang, you go on ahead. I'm heading home."
"Mm."
Lin Li turned and entered the corridor. Just as he was about to take the elevator, he saw that it had been sealed off.
He looked at the notice pasted on the door. It said that the elevator had developed a minor fault and needed to be repaired by maintenance personnel, so it would be out of service today.
"..." After reading the notice, Lin Li cursed his luck under his breath, then turned and walked toward the emergency stairwell.
Fortunately, he lived on the sixth floor. It was not very high, and he soon reached his front door.
With a thought, he retrieved his backpack from Mysterious Small Island, pulled open the zipper, and took the key to his home from the inner compartment.
"Click."
He opened the door and entered, casually pulling it shut behind him.
"I'm finally back. Home really is the most comfortable place!" Lin Li took off his shoes, put them in the shoe cabinet, slipped on his house slippers, and hurried into the living room.
"Smack."
He casually tossed the backpack in his hand onto the sofa, then turned and walked into his bedroom. Before long, he came out carrying a change of clothes and went to the bathroom to shower.
As the sun set in the west, the sun, which had labored all day, packed up and clocked off to return home. The blazing-red sunset was the final silhouette it left behind for humanity.
"Click."
The bedroom door opened, and Lin Li, who had just woken up, walked out of the room with a yawn.
After a short nap, his depleted stamina had been fully restored. He felt that, in his current condition, he could battle the Boar Beast he had killed earlier for three hundred rounds.
He turned to look out the window. The sky was growing dim, and the streetlights would come on soon.
Lin Li sat down on the living-room sofa and wanted to eat some fruit, but unfortunately, the fruit in the bowl had long since been devoured.
He picked up the television remote from the coffee table and pressed the power button, only to find that the television did not respond.
"No way? The television actually broke?! I only bought it last year!"
Seeing that the ultra-thin widescreen television he had bought for more than six thousand yuan had actually broken, Lin Li's face was full of astonishment.
Before you continue