Feng Jun had a very clear plan for himself.
If he wanted to make big money, he could not count on a steady stream of rich fools appearing and paying any price to erase their ChatChat balance records.
The more reliable option was smuggling goods, but he had yet to figure out how to charge up the electricity.
The best choice was to return to that space that seemed like a world of immortals and martial arts, then search for Spirit Stones in large quantities. Those things were seriously amazing at charging.
Of course, if he could get his hands on some kind of cultivation technique, he would strike it rich beyond his wildest dreams.
Fine, those were all just guesses. What Feng Jun wanted most right now was to explore that strange space. What if he found a gold mine or something? Wouldn't that be...
He could not be sure how dangerous that space was, so it was necessary to prepare in advance.
This time, he needed more than clothes, food, and other wilderness survival supplies. He absolutely needed something for self-defense. Even if he could not buy any truly powerful weapons, having something was better than having nothing.
Feng Jun browsed for half the day. He had bought kukri knives before, so he was not entirely unfamiliar with such things, but claiming he was an expert would be giving this liberal arts monk far too much credit.
He picked a few shops that looked decent, went in to chat with the owners, and placed orders for some rescue ropes and the like.
But do not assume he had really bought rescue ropes. He did need those, but more importantly, he used the excuse of buying rescue ropes to order supplies that were not displayed on the shelves.
For example, powerful crossbows and combat-grade kukri knives. Those items could not be found on a shop's display shelves at all. He could only discuss them privately with the owner and order them under the guise of buying something else.
Cheap goods were never good goods. With Feng Jun's knowledge, he might not be able to tell what counted as quality merchandise, but he was certain of one thing: expensive goods were not necessarily good, but good goods were definitely expensive.
After browsing , he was stunned to discover that he had unknowingly spent more than ten thousand yuan.
The speed at which he was spending money was terrifying. At that moment, he deeply understood why shopaholics called themselves "hand-choppers." In fact, even he wanted to chop off his own hands—one moment of carelessness, and he had spent so much.
And what he bought might not even have been genuine. At best, it was "probably not fake."
Still, Feng Jun did not regret it. No matter when, safety came first. If he lost his life, then no matter how wonderful the opportunity, he would not live to enjoy it.
After leaving , he checked the time and found it was already four in the afternoon. He got up and headed outside.
The old gatekeeper was shouting at the entrance, telling everyone who had illegally tapped into his power lines to remove their wires voluntarily, or he would cut them himself.
Some of those who had tapped into the power lines had given him benefits before, but today, someone had made his lights dim twice in a row. Not only had the old man failed to find the culprit, but even when he threatened them aloud, they pretended not to hear.
That was something he could not tolerate. The old man was a resident of Xiaowu Village. He did like taking small advantages, but once angered, he would not care about past favors. He was the sort who had no sense of the bigger picture.
His logic was this: I let you tap into the power lines before just so I could get some cigarettes, booze, food, and drink. You did not lose out either. Now that I am only asking you to remove the wires, you should be laughing yourselves silly.
Feng Jun had no interest in listening to the old man rant. He rode off on a shared bicycle, intending to buy more fuses and chargers.
As he rode down the road, he could not help baring his teeth. People said research was especially expensive. That was... absolutely true.
The day Feng Jun was fired became a day of endless shopping. By the time he rode back with several bags, it was already six thirty in the evening. Once people got busy, time passed quickly.
It was nearly pitch-dark. Normally, it should not have gotten dark so early at this time of year, but today was overcast.
Halfway back, raindrops began to fall.
This rain was unlike the last storm with its lightning and thunder, but the drops were not small, and they came down thickly.
He had not brought an umbrella when he left. What grown man cared about an overcast day? So now, he could only ride through the rain.
The chargers and fuses he had bought could not get wet, so he carefully stopped the bike and wrapped them in two layers of plastic bags.
This was the sorrow of young people at the bottom of the social ladder in big cities today. They could get soaked themselves, but their goods could not.
By the time he rode back to his place, his denim jacket was already drenched, water dripping steadily from its hem.
Over at the factory, the old gatekeeper had called in the village electrician. After pulling the factory's main power switch, they followed the main line and cut wires all the way down it. Halfway through, it began to rain. Working in the rain was unsafe, so they stopped.
When Feng Jun returned, the factory's main switch had just been turned back on. Seeing him come back soaked through, the old man reminded him, "The factory wiring is old. Don't use an electric stove to dry your clothes. Change into something else."
Feng Jun returned to his room and changed clothes, then went to the small restaurant by the entrance. He ordered a large steaming bowl of rice noodles and five flatbreads, ate his fill, and only then wandered back.
The rain was neither heavy nor light, and the factory grounds had already become somewhat muddy. As he walked across them, he secretly felt fortunate. Luckily, he had roughly leveled the ground beforehand. Otherwise, just walking in this time would have meant changing clothes again.
When he reached his room door, he stared blankly at a wooden board. He had originally planned to use it as a base for the generator.
The generator made a great deal of noise while producing electricity. Not only was it loud, it also vibrated. Although the machine he bought was from a famous brand, it had been made by an outsourced factory. It lacked some vibration dampening and noise insulation, so it was a little louder than the genuine product.
That was why he had laid this wooden board flat on the ground outside his door. He had planned to put the generator on it while it ran, so it could absorb the vibrations and keep the generator from hopping around.
But now, the rain had covered the board in water. He had already worked everything out and roughly tested the situation. He had planned to try charging with the generator that night, yet this had happened.
And the rain was still falling. Running the generator under such conditions could easily cause an accident.
That meant he could only keep eyeing the city power supply. Fortunately, it was a rainy night, and the old gatekeeper was hiding in his room, drinking and chatting with the village electrician.
Feng Jun quietly replaced the fuse with a ten-amp one, then picked up a charger. This time, he planned to hold the charger directly in his hand rather than charge through his phone.
In his view, the charger's voltage was very low. Even if he got shocked directly, it should not be much of a problem.
However, he failed to notice that the charger in his hand had gotten rainwater inside.
So in the next moment, tragedy struck. The shock made his whole body jerk, and he barely stopped himself from crying out.
The old gatekeeper suffered a tragedy too. He had just raised his wine cup and had not yet poured it into his mouth when everything before his eyes suddenly went dark.
Then the electrician beside him laughed. "Haha, the breaker tripped."
The old man was about to get angry, but when he heard the laughter, he calmed down instead. "So this is why you replaced the main fuse with a thinner one?"
"Yeah, wasn't this exactly what you wanted?" the electrician replied with a grin. "A thinner fuse trips when it overloads... Whoever uses the most electricity will be the angriest."
That had indeed been the old man's intention. He was not particularly desperate for electricity. He barely even watched television. As long as his radio had batteries and he could listen to opera warbling away, that was enough.
He had a phone too, a genuine elderly phone with large buttons and a loud ringtone. But if it ran out of power, then it ran out of power. Life went on. He was not one of those young people who could not live without their phones.
So even when lighting candles, the old man lit only one. When the electrician reached for another, he stopped him. "What, are you worried you'll drink up your nose?"
"You stingy old bastard," the electrician cursed with a laugh. "Wouldn't lighting two more make it easier to pick up food?"
The old man rolled his eyes. "If I'm lighting two candles, I might as well replace the fuse."
He was not used to being without electricity either, but he insisted on not replacing the fuse mainly because he knew others would suffer more.
The two were chatting idly when they suddenly heard a putt-putt-putt sound coming from inside the factory.
The electrician was extremely familiar with that sound. His brows rose. "Huh, that college kid renting the room has a generator?"
"Yeah," the old man nodded. "He says he's doing phone testing and can't go without power for too long."
The electrician shook his head and spoke dismissively. "Can't even wait this little while? What an impatient kid..."
Feng Jun was impatient? He was far too happy for that.
The charger that had gotten rainwater inside released an electric arc the moment it was plugged into the socket, and his left hand took the full shock.
But only after the main breaker tripped did Feng Jun realize: Had he just been shocked by 220 volts?
This was not his first time coming into contact with 220 volts. He had been shocked as a child too, an accident caused by his own mischief. It had not resulted in an actual disaster, but the sensation had been enough to haunt him for the rest of his life.
This shock seemed... not as intense as the previous one?
Feng Jun thought it over for a long time before finally determining that his serious oversight in failing to wrap the charger properly, allowing rainwater to get inside, had given him a different experience—he could even call it a pleasant surprise.
Feng Jun had always considered using city electricity to charge himself directly, but that childhood experience had left him with deep and terrible memories. He had a psychological shadow over it.
But the feeling of this electric shock told him that 220 volts really were not that scary.
It sounded frightening, but actually touching it was no big deal. The main breaker had tripped, yet wasn't he still fine?
Since city electricity could charge him directly and did not feel especially unbearable, Feng Jun could begin a new test.
So inside his room, he pulled the starter cord on the generator.
Once the generator was running steadily, he cut two lengths of wire, stripped the insulation from both ends, and carefully inserted them into the two holes of an outlet.
This outlet was connected to the generator's output, with a hundred-amp protective switch in between.
One end of the two wires was plugged into the outlet, while the other lay exposed beneath the light. Bright copper cores gleamed at their tips, silently speaking of danger.
Yet in Feng Jun's eyes, this was naked temptation, stirring endless desire within him!
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