A Masterful Image That Didn't Quite Fit

At 8:30, Chen Jue left the park and leisurely ate breakfast at a roadside shop.

Watching the traffic on the road gradually build, he knew he was about to face the morning rush-hour congestion, but he wasn't worried in the slightest.

After all, Team Leader Li Mo had told him yesterday that his work schedule for the week would be for training purposes. He wouldn't have to take responsibility for risk control; only in the afternoons would he be assigned some clients to practice on.

Even if he was late in the morning, the most he'd lose was a few hundred yuan from his attendance bonus. For someone earning a 20K salary and slacking off at work, that bonus was hardly worth caring about.

Besides, the closer it got to 9:00 when he left, the less traffic Chen Jue found on the road.

That was because the peak congestion period had already passed. The people still on the road were either bosses or people with the same attitude as Chen Jue: I'm already late anyway, so what's the point of rushing?

Then something miraculous happened!

Chen Jue drove all the way to Hengtong Building without a hitch and clocked in downstairs at precisely 8:59.

The drive took only seven minutes, which was way less trouble than leaving half an hour early the day before.

After parking, he slung his small bag over his shoulder and started climbing the stairs.

This time, the exhaust fans in the stairwell were on, blowing fresh air into the stairway with a steady whir.

The air didn't feel as stuffy as it had yesterday, so the climb was more comfortable.

Having already tried the stairs the day before, Chen Jue had some experience now. This time, he began trying to pace himself sensibly.

He didn't push too hard at the start, climbing at a steady pace instead.

Once he reached the eighth floor, he started using both his hands and feet. He held the railing with one hand for support and lifted his legs in a steady rhythm. He didn't stop to rest even once, climbing all the way to the seventeenth floor in one go.

Standing outside the Risk Control Department, he checked the time. The whole climb had taken only nine minutes, a huge improvement over yesterday!

Just then, the Attribute Panel displayed a notification:

[ Ding~ ]

[Proficiency reached 100%]

[Climbing Lv0 (100/100) → Lv1 (1/200)]

[You have gained an initial understanding of climbing. You are beginning to learn how to pace yourself, improve your posture, and coordinate your balance and sense of direction.]

[ Ding~ ]

[You completed a high-intensity aerobic workout. Your leg muscles have been trained, your cardiopulmonary function has improved, and your muscular endurance has increased slightly.]

[Free Attributes +0.01]

Although he hadn't triggered a critical hit like yesterday, Chen Jue was still delighted to see his attributes increase.

In particular, [Climbing] had gone up a level, and he'd gained unfamiliar muscle-memory from the exercise.

He was sure that if he climbed again tomorrow morning, he could shave more time off his ascent to the seventeenth floor.

Under the astonished gazes of his new coworkers, Chen Jue strolled over to his desk.

Team Leader Li Mo, sitting some distance away, glanced at the time and frowned. Then he messaged Chen Jue: "Don't be late tomorrow!"

"Team Leader, I'm not late (grinning). I got stuck waiting for the elevator." Chen Jue replied instantly, attaching his clock-in record.

Li Mo looked at Chen Jue's last-minute clock-in, then remembered that the man had apparently been brought in through a back door by a vice president and had powerful connections. Even General Manager Luo had personally asked about him. After a moment's thought, he replied, "Good, as long as you're not late. Still, try to arrive earlier next time. It doesn't look good."

"(OjbK)" Chen Jue sent back a meme and went to the bathroom to change.

As soon as he entered the bathroom, he saw the plump, fair-skinned Shen Shikun coming out, his face flushed red. Clearly, he'd gone in as soon as he arrived and spent quite a while in there fighting a battle on the toilet.

The two seasoned slackers exchanged a knowing smile without saying a word, then brushed past each other.

Judging by Shen Shikun's uneven gait, he'd obviously sat on the toilet until his legs went numb.

Chen Jue had hemorrhoids too, and he'd often been constipated back when he worked at Taisheng Finance.

When you spent all day sitting at a desk in an office, reduced intestinal movement was inevitable if you sat for too long. It was hard to escape that embarrassing bout of constipation.

But ever since he'd awakened the Attribute Panel, increased his exercise, and established a regular routine, Chen Jue had generally been able to take care of his morning business after doing his eye exercises.

He drank plenty of water before going to the bathroom to lubricate his bowels, and things went smoothly once he sat down. He was usually done in a minute. It was an unexpected benefit, alongside the improvement in his eyesight.

As for his hemorrhoids, Chen Jue had looked up some information over the past few days and gotten a rough idea of what was going on.

The exact mechanism behind the condition hadn't been fully established. Like hair loss and baldness, it was still something of an unsolved problem. Some said it was caused by varicose veins or blood clots in the anal cushions, while others said it resulted from the cushions shifting downward.

The main treatments were surgical removal or, more conservatively, medication.

Chen Jue had been applying hemorrhoid cream ever since his medical checkup, but it hadn't done much. He planned to try the pelvic-floor exercises he'd read about online while at work.

He'd have to try them to find out whether they worked.

After changing, Chen Jue sat down at his desk and glanced at Shen Shikun, who was sitting next to him.

The plump man had come out of the bathroom looking pale and was now dozing with his head bowed, a complete change from his previous flushed appearance!

He bobbed his head now and then like a chick pecking at grain. It was obvious he'd stayed up late the night before.

"First he takes a paid bathroom break, and now he's sneaking in a nap."

"This guy's way better at slacking off than I am!" Chen Jue muttered to himself. He pretended to turn on his computer, picked up his Grip Strengthener, and started squeezing it.

He had to stick to his twice-a-day, thirty-minute grip-training sessions.

His Strength attribute was still weak, so he planned to work on it during office hours.

He'd just finished a thirty-minute session and gained 0.01 Strength when the phone on his desk rang.

He picked it up. It was the group's front desk, calling to say that two police officers had arrived looking for him. Chen Jue was stunned.

"What have I done now?"

Chen Jue had no idea what was going on. Thinking it might still be about the incident where he'd killed a dog while saving someone, he informed Li Mo and went down to the reception room on the first floor of the group's building.

Inside, Officer Liu and his junior partner, Officer Li, were drinking hot tea brought over by the receptionist. Both were thinking the same thing: those finance types sure knew how to have fun!

During the day, they looked like polished professionals in suits. But at night, they turned into urban hunters, tracking down the rats in the garbage heaps and gleefully slaughtering them for the thrill of hunting wild animals.

To find Chen Jue, their "suspect," the master and apprentice had spent all night reviewing surveillance footage around the university town.

It was too dark, and the garbage spots Chen Jue had visited were all blind spots for the cameras. In the end, the two had identified Chen Jue's black domestic SUV with temporary plates and traced it to the vehicle registration records for Hengtong Group.

As soon as the workday began, they'd gone out on purpose to retrieve the employee records from Hengtong. They planned to catch Chen Jue "red-handed" and take him back with them.

But once they met Chen Jue and sat down to ask him a few questions, Officer Liu and Officer Li were both dumbfounded!

"You didn't use a homemade crossbow or an air gun?"

"You just threw the nails by hand?"

Officer Li, who was taking Chen Jue's statement, raised his voice a little and gave him a skeptical look.

In his eyes, the finance professional sitting in front of him looked perfectly mild-mannered. Apart from his unusually sharp eyes, there was nothing about him that suggested he was some kind of hidden expert.

Could someone like this really kill rats by impaling them with nails?

"Right, I threw them by hand. I didn't use any of those crossbows or homemade air guns you mentioned, Officer." Chen Jue spread his hands, looking innocent.

So this was trouble caused by his hunting trips!

"Mr. Chen, can you tell us what happened when you threw the nails?"

"The footage from the cameras isn't very clear, so we came all this way to confirm it with you," Officer Liu said from the side. He wasn't entirely convinced either.

After all, the more than twenty rats found dead last night had all died in almost exactly the same way. Each one had been killed with a single nail.

Aside from a specially made nail launcher, he couldn't imagine anyone having the power to inflict that much damage by throwing nails by hand!

"I just found the right angle, stood about ten meters away, waited until the rat stopped moving much, and threw the nail..." Chen Jue scratched his head.

"Ten meters? Are you sure?"

Officer Li's hand trembled as he took notes. It felt like he'd run into some kind of immortal.

He'd only recently graduated from the police academy and vaguely remembered that he'd barely passed when shooting a pistol at targets fifteen meters away.

At a distance of around ten meters, forget piercing a rat with a nail—even with a gun, it wouldn't necessarily be easy to hit a small, moving target like that accurately.

"Never mind. I'll just show you. I've got some nails in my car."

Chen Jue had meant to explain it in words, but then realized that his Lv5 [Hidden Weapon Throwing] skill really was a little ridiculous.

So he took the two skeptical officers down to the underground garage and retrieved a box of nails from his trunk.

Officer Liu cautiously checked Chen Jue's trunk and confirmed there were no prohibited items inside.

As for Chen Jue, he went to his car for a bottle of mineral water and set it in the garage passageway.

He backed up about ten meters, then whipped his arm forward and threw a nail with all his strength. In an instant, it pierced straight through the bottle, sending water spraying everywhere.

The force of the nail even knocked the bottle rolling away.

Officer Liu and Officer Li, who had been recording the entire demonstration with their body cameras, were both stunned by what they'd seen. They finally believed that everything Chen Jue had told them was true.

The misunderstanding cleared up, the two police officers left Hengtong Building, still reeling.

On the way, Officer Liu was checking Chen Jue's identity information. When he saw the Darts registration information and the most recent case report pop up on the system, he laughed. "So this is the amateur expert who took down that dog last week! No wonder he's so good at throwing nails!"

"If he can easily nail a rat from ten meters away, then killing a dog with one dart really isn't that hard."

"Huh? Master, what did you say? Chen Jue took down that Pit Bull last week?" Officer Li, who was driving, cried out in surprise.

Last week's attack by the vicious dog had caused a huge stir in Hang City.

Although people online had been distracted by Teacher Wu, their colleagues at the station still brought it up whenever they had some free time.

Besides analyzing the case, Officer Li and his coworkers had privately speculated about the true skill of the dart-throwing expert who'd never shown his face.

He never expected to run into the real deal on an ordinary field assignment.

But when he recalled Chen Jue's ordinary white-collar appearance, half of his fantasies about the dart-throwing expert crumbled away.

"Master, if Chen Jue is that good, why doesn't he become an online celebrity or a star?"

"You can make a lot more money as an online celebrity than you can at work!" Officer Li muttered.

Seeing this, Officer Liu patted him on the shoulder and gestured for him to focus on driving. Then he advised him earnestly, "You're still too young. Don't go getting carried away with that kind of thinking!"

"There are always people in this world with strange temperaments! Not everyone is willing to put aside their pride and go out in public."

Second update~

I finished typing it up eventually, even if it was a little late.

More tomorrow!

And while I'm at it, I'd like to ask for some recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. November's almost here, and the new book's numbers aren't looking good. I hope you'll all show it some support.

Especially recommendation tickets. I update every day, and you have to give them to someone—so please save yours for Pianfeng. (kowtows)