Combat Equipment

"Beep beep~"

The unrestricted electric bike sped along the road, fierce wind howling past his ears. Li Yang seemed to feel his phone vibrate, but riding beneath the blazing sun, he chose to ignore it.

You have been riding for forty minutes. 2.3 kilometers remain to your destination. Estimated time: ten minutes. Turn left in one hundred meters...

The voice navigation broadcast came from the map app. Li Yang looked at the empty intersection ahead and knew he had ridden out into the suburbs. It was only a turn, so he rode through.

Before long, he finished the last two kilometers. After riding the electric bike for forty minutes, Li Yang was exhausted. He quickly parked it in the shade and stood up to stretch.

"Who sent me a message just now?"

Standing by the roadside and twisting his body a couple of times, Li Yang remembered his phone seeming to vibrate with a notification on the way. He immediately took it out and checked.

Missed calls: Lin Shiyu x8

Unread messages: Lin Shiyu: "...; x9

Unread messages: Brother Jun: Where are you? I'll come pick you up...

Pulling down the notification bar, two conspicuous alerts came into view, all from Lin Shiyu. Besides those, there was also a brief message from Brother Jun.

"So many?"

Li Yang opened Lin Shiyu's WeChat chat window in astonishment. Five consecutive lines of exclamation marks filled his view.

Lin Shiyu: Where did you go?

Lin Shiyu: Where are you?

Lin Shiyu: Li Yang?!

Lin Shiyu: !!!!

"..."

Lin Shiyu: Li Yang, don't scare me. Nothing really happened to you, did it?

Just as he stood there dazed, another message suddenly popped up. Li Yang gave a dry cough, feeling extremely embarrassed, and hurriedly explained that he had an urgent matter to deal with and had forgotten to say anything. He also apologized.

Lin Shiyu: You bastard, I thought you'd kicked the bucket. I covered for you at the company this afternoon. When you get back, you can deal with the rest yourself.

Alright, alright. Thanks, Sister Lin! I'll treat you to a big meal on Saturday!

Lin Shiyu: Fine, go handle your business. You didn't even ask for leave or give anyone a heads-up. This must really be something huge.

Facepalm

After chatting with his beautiful supervisor for a few lines, Li Yang shook his head. He silently lamented that he still needed more practice. Just coming to pick up a crossbow had thrown him into such a panic; he had not even handled such a small matter properly.

"Phew~"

Letting out a soft breath, he shook his head and cleared his thoughts. Li Yang took out his phone, sent Brother Jun his location, and told him he had arrived.

After a while.

Brother Jun: You're here already? That fast? I'll come lead you over.

Okay.

After receiving the message, Li Yang replied and waited patiently. Looking around, he found that although this was the suburbs, the outskirts of Linhai City were no place some small town could compare with. There were more grass, trees, and little hills, but the buildings were luxurious too.

When he saw the few small mountains nearby, Li Yang's heart settled.

With these mountains here, he had somewhere suitable to secretly do this himself.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a motorcycle suddenly rode over. Li Yang recognized the man on it at a glance. He was Brother Jun, the veteran enthusiast who sold all kinds of cold weapons through his social media feed!

"I brought the goods. Want to give them a try?"

Brother Jun was a skinny, dark-skinned man. After getting off the motorcycle and exchanging a few greetings with Li Yang, he directly patted the item strapped behind the bike and asked with a smile.

Of course he had to test it. After all, he was going to use it to gamble with his life.

With the World Gate in hand, Li Yang had gained some courage. He nodded at once and followed the other man into the forested hills behind them to test it out.

"Thunk~"

With a muffled sound, the tiny arrow, only fifteen centimeters long, shot through a thigh-thick sapling with fierce force. Delight filled Li Yang's eyes as he put away the Fully Automatic Repeating Crossbow in his hand.

"The Zhuge Repeating Crossbow requires you to move the lever back and forth for every shot. I added a spring based on the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow, then went through precise modifications to finally create this model. It fires one at a time, but with the arrow box loaded, it can fire sixty arrows in succession. I even added a sight. For ordinary arrows, you can just use little wooden branches yourself. There's no need to use these special metal-tipped arrows—I only brought them so you could test the power."

Brother Jun proudly introduced his prized creation. Li Yang said nothing and kept pulling the trigger, only stopping once he had emptied every arrow from the magazine.

"Remember to put this thing away when you're not using it, so the bow arms don't stay too tightly drawn. I can get you a few more arrow magazines, plus a hundred spare arrows. How's that? I'm being generous, aren't I?"

Seeing Li Yang stop, Brother Jun asked with a broad smile. Clearly, a big deal worth twenty thousand yuan was rare for him.

"Fine. Pack everything up for me and put it in a cloth bag. I'll transfer the money to you in a moment."

Li Yang folded the crossbow as he had just learned to do. It looked somewhat crude, yet every inch of it carried a rugged industrial beauty. He put it into the backpack on his back and spoke to Brother Jun with a gleam in his eyes.

Brother Jun nodded with delight. The two of them went back out together. Once the goods had been handed over, Li Yang transferred the money to Brother Jun on the spot, then rode his electric bike back the way he had come.

Brother Jun watched Li Yang's departing figure and smiled. Then, happily riding his motorcycle away as well, he returned to his real home ten kilometers away.

The world was vast. There were always people living in their own little corners, relying on every possible means to survive. He was one such person, living in a little corner.

Li Yang rode his electric bike, turned around, and returned to the forested hills from earlier.

He looked around in all directions, and only after making sure no one was there did he unfold the crossbow and slip into the woods to practice his shooting accuracy against various targets.

"Thunk, thunk, thunk~"

The sounds of arrows burying themselves in wood rang out one after another. At close range, improving the crossbow's accuracy was fairly easy. Only when he could precisely hit a fixed point on a thigh-thick sapling from twenty meters away did Li Yang stop shooting. Then he recovered every arrow he could find, chopped down a bundle of straight little branches, cut them into uniform arrow lengths, and stuffed them into his backpack.

Only then did he lick his lips, put the crossbow, arrows, and arrow magazine into another bag, place it on the electric bike, and ride back again.

By the time he got home, it was already five-thirty in the afternoon. The company usually got off work at eight, and the place he rented was completely empty. He parked the electric bike, which was nearly out of charge, downstairs and carried the bags back home.

"Phew~"

After setting down the large and small bags, Li Yang let out a long breath. He was soaked through with sweat. Pulling the curtains shut, he finally realized just how much pressure his mind had endured while procuring such illegal things in peaceful times.

But... a crossbow alone would not do.

Li Yang drank some water, locked his bedroom door tight, and went out again.

At seven-thirty in the evening, Li Yang returned to his rented apartment carrying an ornamental Miao Dao and a suit of ancient armor. He set the items down, locked the door from the inside, and lay exhausted on the bed.

"No, I need to sleep."

The thought flashed through his mind, and before he knew it, Li Yang had fallen asleep.