City Hunter

"Did it really hit?"

Shen Shikun wasn't the only one dumbfounded. Chen Jue himself was a little excited.

He'd originally wanted to test whether his Lv. 5 [Hidden Weapon Throwing] could work on tiny insects like flies. After all, this was his first time aiming at such a small target, and he had no experience.

He'd only tried because the green-headed fly was close—just over half a meter away—and he waited until it had settled before making his move.

He hadn't expected to hit it on the first try!

It had come as quite a surprise to Chen Jue.

From now on, whenever he saw annoying bugs like flies, mosquitoes, or cockroaches, he could get rid of them with this physical method.

Just then, the Attribute Panel popped up with a notification:

[ Ding~ ]

[You completed a precise hidden-weapon combat trial and successfully killed one living insect.]

[Hidden Weapon Throwing proficiency +50]

Looking at the notification on the panel, Chen Jue thought of the Pit Bull he'd killed with a dart to the throat.

That time, he'd received a similar combat notification.

He hadn't expected that hitting a tiny target like a fly would earn him so much combat proficiency, too.

And this was a Lv. 5 skill. In theory, gaining even one point of proficiency should be more than twice as difficult as it was at Lv. 4.

"No wonder it gave me so much! With my current master-level hidden-weapon skills, I really can't be sure I could hit a tiny living target like a fly at close range."

"That last throw must've been a stroke of genius. Luck probably had more to do with it," Chen Jue thought.

By now, Shen Shikun, sitting across from him, had recovered from his shock and confusion.

He looked first at the green-headed fly pinned beneath the toothpick, then at Chen Jue's utterly ordinary face. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally asked, "Chen Jue... No, I should call you Brother Jue! You seem to be a year older than me!"

"Brother Jue! How did you do that just now?"

"I just got lucky! I probably couldn't do it again," Chen Jue said modestly when he saw how curious the other man was. He also mentioned that he'd practiced international darts, giving the chubby man a bit of background.

"International darts?"

"You mean those darts with the sharp points?"

Shen Shikun had grown up abroad and had heard of the casual sport.

But when he pictured the huge dartboard used for international darts, then compared it with the fly's head, which was no bigger than a grain of rice, he couldn't help thinking there was something off about his new colleague's modesty.

"Brother Jue, are you secretly one of those City Hunters you see online? Out there to rid the world of pests!"

Shen Shikun first covered the fly on the toothpick with a tissue so he wouldn't have to look at the nauseating sight. Then he took out his phone and opened a video.

"City Hunter?"

"What's that?"

Curious, Chen Jue leaned over to take a look.

The video was titled "A Slingshot Guy's Battle with Rats." In it, a young man with a slingshot was wearing a miner-style headlamp and searching for targets beside a stinking dumpster with a professional slingshot in hand.

As soon as he spotted one, the young man pulled back his slingshot and said, "There you go!" A small steel ball shot out with a twang and hit the rat.

After taking the shot, the rat convulsed on the spot a few times, then immediately died. It had clearly taken a critical hit—its internal organs had ruptured.

In one video, the young man used his slingshot to take out more than a dozen fat rats prowling through the filthy corners of the city.

"Impressive!"

"So this is the City Hunter you were talking about?" Chen Jue couldn't help exclaiming.

He'd never seen a video this bizarre before. After watching just a few clips, he was already hooked.

The video was only a few minutes long, but the fast-paced editing and funny voice-overs—things like "I turn on the lights, and you lose your life," "Have a peanut," and "Actor Number One has been served his final meal"—made it immensely satisfying and stress-relieving to watch.

It was much more lively and entertaining than the two crudely made trick videos Chen Jue had filmed.

"That's City Hunter A-Fei! I've been following him for ages."

"Brother Jue, you're that good with darts. Why don't you make a video?"

"A-Fei has over a million followers across the internet. He makes good money just by hunting rats!" Shen Shikun said, looking envious. At two hundred jin, he was a chubby man who envied nimble, skilled amateurs like this the most.

Chen Jue didn't comment. He only said that he wasn't as good as A-Fei.

Besides, a slingshot could do a lot of damage. At close range, it was almost as destructive as an air gun—far more powerful than an ordinary person's thrown dart.

As for whether Chen Jue could throw something with that much force, he only had to think of the Pit Bull he'd killed to know the answer. He certainly could.

It was just that Chen Jue had been busy grinding attributes and developing new sports. On top of that, the proficiency bar for his upgraded skills was so long that there was no hope of advancing anytime soon, so he hadn't paid much attention to practical hidden-weapon training.

He hadn't expected that going downstairs for a work lunch with this chubby man would open up so many new possibilities.

Maybe it was because Chen Jue had shown off at lunch, but Shen Shikun's gaze grew more and more peculiar.

Along with a hint of scrutiny and suspicion, it now held a touch of respect and curiosity.

After all, the sight of someone pinning a fly with a toothpick was impossible to forget.

"If only I'd taken a picture and posted it in the group chat so everyone could see! It might've gone viral!"

"This is all my fault! My cleanliness obsession kicked in again!"

After they finished eating and returned upstairs to rest at their desks, Shen Shikun slapped his thigh in frustration.

Work was stressful these days, and people loved strange, entertaining videos, pictures, memes, and comments.

If he'd taken a picture of that fly skewered by the toothpick and posted it online, it might've ended up as a top comment under some influencer's post.

As for Chen Jue, now that he'd found a new direction, he searched at his desk for the account belonging to the uploader whose ID was City Hunter A-Fei.

He followed him first, then clicked through his videos.

Chen Jue discovered that, aside from being a City Hunter who'd made a name for himself by hunting rats, A-Fei also worked as a wrestler and fitness coach.

He had an excellent physique. His arms, the ones he used to pull the slingshot, were thick and powerful, with bulging muscles.

The city where A-Fei lived had poor sanitation, with plenty of old streets that looked as if they'd been left untouched for decades.

The trash stations and bins he filmed were usually flooded with dirty water, and rats, flies, and cockroaches were everywhere.

That was almost unimaginable in a big city like Hang City!

As a newly promoted first-tier city that had just hosted a sports event and welcomed a wave of international visitors, Hang City maintained its image to an almost absurd degree.

They practically scraped every street clean every day, let alone allowing rats to be seen around the corner.

But just because there were no rats in the central business district didn't mean the city was free of pests.

Even the most glamorous places had unexpected corners where filth gathered.

"Find a place with lots of restaurants, plenty of food waste, and poor sanitation. There'll definitely be pests!"

Chen Jue grew interested. That afternoon, aside from reviewing a few Class A clients assigned to him by the system, he spent his time thinking about practical hidden-weapon training.

The reason he was focusing on pests was that there were too many protected animals these days.

You could get ten years in prison for raiding a bird's nest. Chen Jue didn't dare go around throwing things carelessly.

If he hit a protected animal and earned himself a pair of shiny steel bracelets enchanted with years of confinement, it would be a terrible deal.

Having found a new hobby, Chen Jue watched a few videos from City Hunter creators and looked up information on related sports online. The afternoon passed in a flash of happy procrastination.

It was his first day at work, and Chen Jue wanted to make a good impression on his new colleagues, so he didn't leave early.

As soon as five o'clock came, he clocked out on his phone, went to the restroom to change back into his sports clothes, and left the Risk Control Department on the seventeenth floor with a group of colleagues who were discussing what to eat that evening.

He didn't take the elevator because the line was simply too long.

Hengtong Building had thirty-two floors and more than three thousand employees. During the morning and evening rush, its eight elevators were nowhere near enough.

It was fine on the lower floors; you could just walk down a few steps and be out.

But the seventeenth floor, right in the middle, was awkward. Walking down took too long, so most people waited for the elevator.

Chen Jue had already tried climbing the seventeen floors that morning, though, and walking down was hardly any effort for him.

He walked and hopped down, reaching the basement in one go in about five minutes.

But since it wasn't much exercise, the Attribute Panel didn't give him any notifications this time.

"Twelve minutes up, five minutes down." Chen Jue opened the calendar-tracking app he'd just downloaded and recorded how long it had taken him to climb the stairs today.

He planned to climb the stairs every day from now on and track how long it took, so he could clearly see how his climbing speed improved.

Compared with the Attribute Panel's overall stats, changes in time would make it easier for Chen Jue to compare his progress.

"I'll record the attributes I gained today before bed, too. Then I can build a data model to track how efficiently I'm improving!" Chen Jue thought.

He couldn't let his master-level Risk Control data skills go to waste.

After driving away from Hengtong, he didn't return to the staff apartment where he lived. Instead, he drove around the city center nearby.

After about ten minutes, he finally found a small hardware store tucked away on a commercial street outside an old residential neighborhood.

"Boss, do you sell nails?" Chen Jue pulled over by the curb, went inside, and asked.

"Sure. For hanging things on the wall?"

"Want to buy a hook instead?"

The hardware store owner set down his calculator. Seeing Chen Jue's fair, delicate skin, he knew the young man wasn't a construction worker.

He figured Chen Jue was probably a young office worker from nearby, so he tried to sell him some everyday self-adhesive plastic hooks.

Young office workers who came to the city for work couldn't afford big apartments. Their rooms were cramped, with little usable space, so when they came to a hardware store, they usually bought power strips or hooks like these.

"No, I just want nails."

"Preferably about this long. Nothing expensive," Chen Jue said, holding up his index finger to show the length.

"Then you want three-inch nails. Woodworking nails will do?" The shop owner took out a small box from the shelf and went back to calculating.

Chen Jue opened the box and weighed one in his hand. The three-inch iron nail had a decent weight. It was lighter than the darts and iron chopsticks he'd bought, but it would do. He asked the shop owner if there was a board he could test it on.

The hardware store owner was an honest man. He pointed to a piece of woodworking board hanging in the corner and was about to ask whether Chen Jue wanted to try hammering a nail in to test its quality.

But while the man wasn't paying attention, Chen Jue swung his arm, gripped the nail, and threw it with force. With a thud, it sank into the board three meters away.

"What was that noise?" The hardware store owner was focused on his calculator and hadn't reacted. Thinking something had fallen off a shelf, he quickly looked around.

"Not bad!"

"I'll take these. Give me ten boxes!" Chen Jue looked at the Attribute Panel's notification—[Hidden Weapon Throwing] proficiency +1—and nodded with satisfaction.

"You want ten boxes?"

The hardware store owner froze. He hadn't expected the young office worker to buy so many at once.

He hurried to the shelves and brought out ten boxes. The total came to only ninety yuan, much cheaper than the darts Chen Jue had ordered.

"Each box has forty nails. That's less than twenty cents apiece. This is a much cheaper way to practice outdoors!" Chen Jue paid cheerfully, grabbed the large plastic bag, and drove off.

The hardware store owner was left looking bewildered. Then, as if he'd suddenly remembered something, he slapped his forehead and went over to inspect the woodworking board up close.

The nail in the board had sunk more than halfway in.

"My goodness!"

"He drove it in without even using a hammer?"

"How did he do that?" The hardware store owner scratched his messy hair, wondering if he was losing his mind.