Technology and Ruthless Tricks

After buying the nails he'd use for wild encounters, Chen Jue had planned to ask Jiang Zhe to go explore Trash Street in Xiasha, Binjiang, and reminisce about the old days.

To his surprise, the guy rushed home as soon as work was over to take care of his kid, flatly rejecting Chen Jue's suggestion.

He'd probably been going to Jingtanghui too often lately, and his wife had imposed a strict curfew.

But just mentioning Trash Street filled Chen Jue's head with memories.

Back when he'd just graduated and arrived in Hang City, the two freshly minted wage slaves had been broke. They couldn't afford upscale restaurants, so their favorite weekend pastime was eating street food like this.

How did that saying go?

The night markets were three-Michelin-star restaurants for broke college students, roadside massage parlors were bathhouses for losers, and Home Inn and Hanting were five-star hotels for students.

They couldn't afford fancy places, but still wanted to satisfy their cravings, so all they could do was eat some junk from food carts.

But street food was all about technology and ruthless tricks. It was delicious, sure, but it was guaranteed to give you the runs the next day.

Back when Chen Jue had just graduated, he didn't have much in savings and lived on a tight budget. Sometimes, on the weekend, he'd ask Jiang Zhe to make time and go try a few bites of street food with him.

He wasn't a reckless eater. He mostly went for the glutinous rice and lean pork meatballs that tasted like home.

As a Wen City native living far from home in Hang City, it was only natural that he'd miss the flavors of his hometown after a while.

But later, once their salaries went up, the two of them rarely spent money in places like Trash Street.

For one thing, they'd gotten older and broadened their horizons. After eating healthier food, they naturally stopped touching this kind of junk.

The other reason was a little embarrassing: sitting at an office desk all day had given them minor cases of hemorrhoids, so they didn't dare risk having the runs.

Since he hadn't managed to find anyone to go with, Chen Jue slowly drove to Binjiang University Town, following his memories. By then, it was already dark outside, and lights were coming on in the nearby apartment buildings and offices.

But when he arrived, Chen Jue was dumbfounded.

He hadn't been here in years, and Trash Street, which he remembered as filthy and chaotic, with dirty water flowing everywhere, had changed quite a bit.

The food carts he remembered were gone, replaced by neat, square storefronts. They'd even built a food court with a domed roof, orderly seating, and a stage.

As he passed by, he saw bright neon signs flashing everywhere. The lively atmosphere mingled with the crowds of college students, and the air was filled with the tempting aroma of food.

"Laxi Street?"

"Eat here and get diarrhea!"

"What kind of immortal came up with that name? What a damn genius!"

After finding a parking spot nearby, Chen Jue was nearly blinded by the sign above the food court entrance.

He'd planned to come here and get in some practice with Darts, while finding something to do with his otherwise dull evening. He hadn't expected the place to have changed so much.

He first followed his memories to the storefront that used to sell snacks from Wen City. The same two owners were still there, but after several years, both of them looked a lot older.

Running a night-market stall was hard work. They spent every day in the smoke and heat, and all that toil could easily make someone age faster than usual.

Chen Jue was just an office worker, yet his body's biological age was already nearly three years older than his actual age! How much worse must it be for people who worked in the food business from dawn until late at night?

Still, the elderly couple seemed to be doing well. Their faces showed the happy satisfaction of making money; they'd clearly earned a fortune from college students.

Don't underestimate street vendors. With enough foot traffic, they could make a lot of money in a year!

He ordered a serving of glutinous rice and lean pork meatballs, then sat down to eat at a leisurely pace.

The taste was just as he remembered, but prices had soared ridiculously.

The two snacks cost Chen Jue thirty yuan. When he'd first arrived in Hang City, they'd only cost twelve. In just eight years, the price had nearly tripled.

"Roadside-stall quality, big-city prices."

"Now that's keeping up with the times!" Chen Jue couldn't help sighing.

The people in charge here had probably worried visitors would complain that the street food was too expensive, so they'd arranged seats for the customers.

A band made up of college students was performing on the stage at the front of the seating area. They were pretty good, and when they finished a song, the audience applauded and cheered.

After listening to NetEase Cloud Music all the time, it was nice to hear a live performance for a change.

The snacks served as dinner. Chen Jue sat and watched the performance for a while.

The crowd kept growing. Students from several nearby universities gathered here, filling the streets and leaving barely any room in the square. Quite a few visitors had also brought their whole families along.

With so many people around, the area was getting dirty.

Disposable tableware was scattered everywhere, along with the occasional bit of leftover food.

But there were cleaning staff in the square, so Chen Jue hadn't spotted any suitable targets for a wild encounter yet.

Once he'd mostly digested his food, Chen Jue got up and left his seat. He went to where he'd parked, took out a box of nails, and slipped it into his pocket.

Trash Street might have been cleaned up and brought under control, but some things couldn't be judged by appearances alone.

What street-food business didn't produce kitchen waste?

He followed the cleaners for a while, then skirted around the orderly storefronts on the main street and found a small garbage station behind the shops on Laxi Street.

The ground was wet, and several large garbage bins sat around with their lids open. Unidentified liquids and soup had mixed together on the ground, and the air reeked of food waste.

Flies swarmed overhead, while large southern cockroaches crawled back and forth across the walls.

A few big, gray rats were eating scraps around the edges of the bins and beside a drain on the ground. Judging by their plump bodies, they were regular residents here.

"Found them!"

Chen Jue's face lit up.

He pretended to fiddle with his phone for a while, waiting for the cleaner to leave. Then he pulled a round carpenter's nail out of his pocket.

The nail was three inches long, about the size of a small international dart.

But hitting a moving rat from a distance was far more difficult than it sounded.

The alley was dim and hard to see in, and the rats were standing at awkward angles. They weren't like the green-headed fly from earlier, which had landed in the open on a tabletop.

Chen Jue didn't have a headlamp like Ah Fei, the urban hunter, either. He had to rely on his own eyes to aim at the rats.

Getting closer wasn't an option, either!

Once he got within five meters, the rats would stop eating and raise their heads warily. Their black eyes would watch the unfamiliar human in the distance, and the slightest disturbance would send them scurrying behind the bins. Their natural counter-surveillance skills were practically at master level.

"A rat's reaction speed is ten times that of a human."

"Its top running speed can reach eight meters per second."

"It also has thick skin and incredible adaptability. Among rodents, it's one of the best at surviving!"

"Its only weakness is terrible eyesight—about one-thirtieth as good as a human's. It can't see moving objects well, which is why people say rats have tunnel vision and are easy prey for cats."

"But its night vision is excellent, six times better than a human's. Its eyes are on the sides of its head, giving it a field of vision of over 280 degrees. It's a natural creature of the night."

"To kill one, it's best to hit it with a single dart—and throw hard!" Chen Jue glanced down at the rat data he'd found online and edged closer to the garbage bins.

When he'd crept to about ten meters away, the rats on the bins began to react, raising themselves one by one.

"This should do."

Seeing that, Chen Jue took a step back. Ten meters was as close as he could get; it was also the limit of the rats' night vision.

It was about the limit of Chen Jue's nearsighted vision, too.

Any farther away, and the rats would blur and double in his sight, seriously affecting his aim.

"I still need to keep training my eyes!"

"I wonder if there's a way to improve my night vision." Chen Jue thought about it and decided to look it up when he got home.

But for now, he had to nail those rats first!

He raised his left hand and made a fist, holding the three-inch round nail upright between his thumb and index finger.

At this distance, using the international-dart technique was definitely out of the question.

He'd have to rely on brute force and throw it with a flick of his arm.

With his Lv. 5 master-level [Hidden Weapon Throwing] skill, the moment Chen Jue picked up the nail, he instinctively knew how to bring out its full potential.

He focused his eyes and aimed at a rat perched on the edge of a garbage bin. With a whoosh, his arm swung sharply, and the nail shot across the ten-meter gap.

Thud! The nail pierced the raised lid of the plastic bin. The whole bin shook, and the nail sheared off part of a rat's tail.

The rats all jumped in alarm. Their four paws scrabbled rapidly over the hard lid before they darted into the shadows behind the bin.

"Did I miss?"

Chen Jue froze for a moment. He was about to move closer and take a look when the system prompt appeared:

[ Ding~ ]

[ You completed a qualifying night-time hidden-weapon practice session and successfully hit your target. Your hidden-weapon technique has improved. ]

[ Hidden Weapon Throwing proficiency +10 ]

"Just breaking off a rat's tail counts?" Chen Jue rubbed his chin, moved a little farther back, and took out another nail to prepare for another throw.

After watching plenty of urban hunter videos that afternoon, Chen Jue knew how greedy rats were. As long as there was food in front of them, they'd come out to eat even if it meant risking their lives.

Some stubborn ones would even poke their heads out to eat again after getting hit by a small steel ball from a slingshot, until their internal injuries finally killed them.

That was the instinct of wild animals searching for food.

They could lose their lives, but they had to get that food into their mouths first!

Sure enough, it took less than half a minute for the first rat to emerge from the shadows.

It cautiously circled around on top of the bin. When it found no danger, it began to eat ravenously again.

Perhaps the first rat had scouted ahead, because the others followed it out of the shadows. Even the one with the broken tail came out.

"Keep the music playing, keep the dancing going!"

Chen Jue chuckled to himself and edged closer again.

The previous throw had gone wide, probably because he hadn't focused his vision and hadn't yet gotten the feel of throwing a nail over a long distance.

This time, he adjusted his glasses, pushing the arm resting over his ear upward. The angle of the lenses changed, correcting his vision and making things much clearer.

He took a little longer to aim, then gripped the nail and threw it with all his strength.

With a soft thump, blood splattered. The nail pierced the head of the rat with the broken tail, and after it writhed a few times, it fell off the garbage bin.

A prompt appeared on the panel:

[ Ding~ ]

[ You completed an excellent night-time hidden-weapon practice session and successfully killed a small mammal. Your hidden-weapon throwing technique has improved significantly. ]

[ Hidden Weapon Throwing skill proficiency +100 ]

First update~

My flu's a little better today, though I'm still coughing. The medicine's helped keep it under control, so updates are back to normal~

And as always, please keep voting for me with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets~

P.S. There'll be a lot more educational data later on. I hope you guys won't mind.