Martyrdom

"Line up. As we agreed during the day, one written agreement for one payment."

Li Wei leaned against the wire fence. The people outside looked at him with eyes full of awe.

They did not know where the money had come from, but the blood covering Li Wei's body made the answer obvious.

The one-armed man's hand trembled as he offered Li Wei a cigarette he would normally never bring himself to smoke.

Li Wei accepted it and put it between his lips, but did not light it.

He did not smoke. He had only taken it because he wanted something in his mouth, lest he lose control later and eat the ham from the other sandwich.

He casually picked up the two stacks of cash from the ground, counted out another ten bills, and handed a total of twenty-one thousand to the one-armed man.

The one-armed man respectfully handed over the agreement, already stamped with his fingerprint. With only one movable hand, he hurriedly fumbled for an ink pad after giving it to Li Wei, wanting him to complete the document properly with his own print.

But Li Wei merely waved a hand. Casually, he used his thumb to dab at the blood on his clothes—he did not know whether it belonged to the two foremen or the factory manager—then pressed his fingerprint onto the agreement.

The moment his hand left the paper, three notifications appeared in his mind in rapid succession!

[Acquired legal assets: 9,000. Experience: 9,000]

[Level increased to: 3. Reward: 6 attribute points]

[Experience: 9694.2/10000]

Seeing those enormous numbers, Li Wei's spirits immediately soared. He instantly realized that he had found the right way to level up!

Killing people to accumulate experience was the least efficient method.

Poor people had little money to take, while killing rich people was too troublesome. The risks and rewards were completely disproportionate.

As for building capital through legitimate business channels...

He had neither power nor influence in this world. He was not even a normal human being. Even if he could eventually establish a business using illegally acquired capital, that would be a matter for some distant future.

But now, murder and robbery were illegal, while workers receiving the compensation they were rightfully owed was legal!

The profit-sharing contracts Li Wei had signed with them became legally binding the moment both sides pressed their fingerprints onto them, though he still had not figured out what law that referred to or what kind of law it was.

Yet within this legal flow of money, the nine thousand Li Wei received became legal income. At least, that was how the player panel saw it!

That let him glimpse the dawn of rapid leveling!

Well, if he got out of the game and wrote this up in a report, the company would definitely change these leveling rules. Otherwise, this kind of behavior was not only sensitive, but also seemed a little too buggy.

But that had nothing to do with what Li Wei was doing right now.

Very soon, after Li Wei handed out the final compensation payment and pressed his fingerprint onto the agreement as well—

He looked at the text notifications in his mind.

With fifteen consecutive notifications of [Acquired legal assets: 9,000. Experience: 9,000], he had gained a total of 135,000 experience!

That experience sent him directly to Level 6, earning him fifteen attribute points in total.

His experience bar had now become [Experience: 135694.2/500000].

The experience required for each level clearly kept stacking in multiples of five. That meant Level 7 required one million experience, Level 8 required five million, and Level 9 required ten million. If he wanted to reach Level 10 and advance, he would need to accumulate at least over sixteen million experience after this!

It was an astonishing number, but Li Wei did not find it troubling.

This tiny factory alone had earned him over a hundred thousand experience, and it was merely a sesame-seed-sized microcosm of this city.

Leveling up and even advancing might take some effort and time, but it was hardly difficult.

After distributing all the money that was supposed to be handed out, Li Wei put the remaining cash back into the suitcase.

He was no great philanthropist. He was not going to give away this seemingly useless money after getting the experience. According to their agreement, it was what he deserved.

Besides, money made things easier no matter where one was.

Once they had the money, the workers' families did not offer many more words of thanks. They simply stood together on the other side of the wire fence and gave Li Wei a deep bow, including the youngest, Wang Xiaole.

They did not think there was anything wrong with Li Wei taking thirty percent. If anything, they thought he had taken too little.

Without Li Wei, they were almost certain they would not have received a single cent. Their families had also lost the breadwinners who supported them, and several of those shabby shacks were destined to become bleak and empty.

Not only had this young man helped them recover their money, he had also been willing to give them the larger share. In this filthy, cold Sun City, that made him an exceptionally rare existence.

Li Wei carried the suitcase and waved behind him without turning around.

"Remember, don't tell anyone you got the money. It won't affect me much, but for you, it might not be a good thing."

With that, he left without looking back.

But when the cold evening wind swept past, those dozen-odd bent figures remained unwilling to straighten for a long time.

On his way toward the meeting place he had arranged with Feng Zi, Li Wei experimentally added one attribute point to [Constitution], raising it from 12 to 13.

The instant the number changed, he could clearly feel an unusual transformation in his body!

His flesh became firmer, his strength greater, and his neural reactions swifter. He had taken another step toward becoming something inhuman.

The increase in Constitution was obvious. But what about Intelligence?

As he considered it, he tried adding another attribute point to Intelligence.

The Intelligence value rose from 10 to 11. Li Wei blinked, focusing on whether he could sense any changes in his mind.

He did some mental arithmetic quickly, but after reciting the multiplication table, he still had to write out the calculation to solve thirteen times seventeen.

It seemed like he could calculate faster, but he was more inclined to believe that was just an illusion.

Adding points to Intelligence gave him no noticeable improvement to his body at all.

However, Li Wei did not blindly dump all his remaining attribute points into Constitution. Instead, he temporarily held onto them.

From the current situation, his strength was more than enough to deal with ordinary people. Until he figured out exactly what adding points to Intelligence affected, he would use his points cautiously.

After using two attribute points, he had thirteen left, and his attributes had become [Constitution 13, Intelligence 11].

Just as Li Wei was feeling thoroughly satisfied with the gains from this trip, he had not even taken two more steps when he saw that thin, limping figure by the edge of the wire fence.

Feng Zi gripped the fence with one hand, her expression complicated as she looked at Li Wei.

This was not their agreed meeting place. She had heard the commotion from the workers' families earlier and cautiously approached. Clearly, she had seen Li Wei handing out the money.

Li Wei met those azure eyes. He did not ask anything, merely lifting the two sandwiches and giving them a shake.

"You smelled them from that far away? What, have you got a dog's nose?"

Feng Zi sniffed. Ignoring his teasing, she staggered over, then suddenly threw her arms around Li Wei and buried her dirty, pale yet delicate face deep into his bloodstained burlap clothes.

Li Wei raised the hand holding the suitcase and sandwiches. Looking somewhat at a loss, he still instinctively spouted nonsense.

"Hey, I only brought you something to eat. You don't have to be this touched, do you?"

Feng Zi raised her head. Her face was smeared with blood as well, but those clear, bright eyes were especially earnest and solemn.

"626."

"Yeah?"

"You must be the greatest, greatest scientific invention in this world."