City Hunter

“Did I really hit it?”

Not only was Shen Shikun utterly baffled, but even Chen Jue himself felt a surge of excitement.

He had only wanted to test whether his Level 5 “Projectile Throwing” skill would work on a creature as tiny as a fly. After all, it was his first time targeting something so small, and he lacked experience.

The only reason he dared try was that the green-headed fly landed close by—less than two feet away, on the other side of half the table—and Chen Jue waited until it had settled before attempting his strike.

He hadn’t expected to be so accurate on the first try!

This brought Chen Jue a pleasant surprise. From now on, whenever he encountered annoying insects—flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches—he could simply deal with them physically.

At that moment, his interface popped up a prompt:

———

[Ding~]

[You have completed a meticulous live target projectile kill: one live insect eliminated.]

[Projectile Throwing Proficiency +50]

———

Seeing the prompt, Chen Jue recalled the pit bull he had once brought down with a single dart to the throat.

Back then, he’d received a similar real-combat notification.

He hadn’t thought that striking such a tiny target as a fly would grant him such a large chunk of proficiency, especially at Level 5, where every additional point was supposed to be twice as hard to obtain compared to Level 4.

“No wonder I gained so much in one go. With my current master-level projectile skills, hitting a live fly at close range is something I could hardly guarantee.”

“That was a stroke of luck—a moment of inspiration, mostly luck,” Chen Jue analyzed inwardly.

By now, Shen Shikun, sitting across from him, had recovered from his shock and confusion. He glanced at the fly impaled under the toothpick, then at Chen Jue’s ordinary-looking face. His mouth opened and closed a few times before, after some hesitation, he finally said, “Chen Jue… no, I should call you Brother Jue! You’re a year older than me, after all!”

“Brother Jue! How did you pull off that move just now?”

“That was pure luck! I probably couldn’t do it again,” Chen Jue answered modestly, then mentioned to his chubby new colleague that he had some experience playing international darts.

“International darts?”

“You mean those darts with the metal tips?”

Shen Shikun had grown up abroad and was familiar with such leisure activities. But when he thought of the dinner-plate-sized dartboard, then compared it to the rice-grain-sized green fly’s head, he couldn’t help but feel there was more to his colleague than met the eye.

“Brother Jue, are you one of those hidden city hunters on the internet? The kind who rids the city of pests for the people?”

Shen Shikun grabbed a napkin to cover the fly-skewered toothpick, sparing himself the unpleasant sight, and pulled out his phone to open a video.

“City hunter?”

“What’s that?” Chen Jue leaned over curiously to watch.

The video was titled “A Slingshot Guy’s Battle with Rats.” On screen, a young man wearing a miner’s headlamp and holding a professional slingshot was searching for targets beside a stinking dumpster.

Upon spotting a rat, the young man pulled back the slingshot, shouted, “There you go!” and sent a steel ball flying—a direct hit.

The rat twitched a few times on the spot and then went limp, obviously suffering a fatal internal injury.

By the end of the short clip, the young man had dispatched over a dozen fat rats lurking in the city’s filthy corners with his slingshot.

“Amazing!”

“So this is the city hunter you mentioned?” Chen Jue couldn’t help but marvel.

He hadn’t seen such quirky videos before, but after just a brief glance, he was hooked.

The video was only a few minutes long, but thanks to clever editing and humorous captions like “Turn on the light and your days are numbered,” “Here’s a peanut for you,” or “Actor number one has clocked out,” it was a fast-paced, cathartic watch—far more entertaining than the two shoddily made trick-shot videos Chen Jue himself had filmed.

“This is Fly, the City Hunter! I’ve been following him for a while.”

“With your dart-throwing skills, Brother Jue, why don’t you make your own videos?”

“Fly has over a million fans across the web, and just by hunting rats, he makes quite a bit every month!” Shen Shikun’s face brimmed with envy. At over two hundred pounds, he admired nothing more than these nimble folk heroes.

Chen Jue didn’t comment further, only saying he wasn’t on that guy’s level.

Besides, a slingshot’s destructive power is significant. At close range, it’s almost as powerful as an air gun—far more so than an ordinary dart throw.

Whether Chen Jue could throw a dart with such force? Considering that pit bull he’d killed with a single blow, the answer was obvious.

But recently, he’d been busy grinding his attributes and developing new sports routines. The proficiency bar for his upgraded skill was so long that he hadn’t seen much hope of improvement, so he hadn’t paid much attention to practical projectile training.

He hadn’t expected that a simple lunch with the chubby guy would open up so many new ideas.

———

Perhaps it was his lunchtime display, but Shen Shikun now looked at Chen Jue with an even stranger expression—part scrutinizing, part suspicious, but also tinged with respect and curiosity.

That toothpick-through-the-fly scene was simply unforgettable.

“If only I’d snapped a photo and posted it in the group! Might’ve gone viral!”

“Blame my neat freak tendencies!” Shen Shikun lamented, slapping his thighs as they returned to their desks after lunch.

These days, with work stress so high, people love quirky, entertaining videos, images, memes, or comments. If he’d captured that toothpick-skewered fly and posted it online, it might have topped the comment section of some influencer’s page.

Meanwhile, Chen Jue, inspired by his new train of thought, searched for the city hunter “Fly” on his work computer, followed his channel, and browsed his videos.

He discovered that Fly was not only a famed rat-hunting city hunter, but also a professional wrestler and fitness coach by trade.

He had a well-built physique, thick, muscular arms perfect for slingshotting.

The city Fly lived in had poor sanitation; the old neighborhoods dated back decades. Every landfill and dumpster he filmed was filthy, teeming with rats, flies, and cockroaches.

This was unimaginable in a metropolis like Hangzhou!

As a newly minted first-tier city, Hangzhou had just hosted an international sports event, and its urban image was polished to an almost obsessive degree.

Every street was scrubbed daily, and you’d be hard-pressed to spot a rat anywhere.

But just because you can’t find pests in the CBD doesn’t mean the city is entirely free of them.

No matter how polished a city appears, there are always hidden corners of filth.

“If I find a spot with lots of restaurants and kitchen waste, where hygiene is a bit poor, there are sure to be plenty of pests!” Chen Jue mused, growing interested. That afternoon, apart from reviewing a few high-priority clients assigned by the system, his mind was occupied with thoughts of projectile practice.

Why focus only on pests? Because nowadays, too many animals are protected. Disturbing a bird’s nest could land you a decade in jail—Chen Jue dared not act recklessly.

If he accidentally hit a protected animal and ended up with a pair of “magical shackles” and years behind bars, it’d hardly be worth it.

———

Finding new enjoyment, he watched several city hunter videos and browsed sports-related materials online. The afternoon flew by in pleasant idleness.

Since it was his first day at the new job, he wanted to make a good impression, so he didn’t leave early.

At 5 p.m. sharp, he clocked out on his phone, changed back into athletic wear in the restroom, and joined his coworkers leaving the 17th floor risk control department, chatting about dinner plans.

He didn’t bother with the elevator—the line was too long.

Hengtong Tower had 32 floors and over three thousand employees; the eight elevators were never enough at rush hours.

If you worked on the lower floors, it was easy—just take the stairs. But the 17th was right in the middle; walking down wasted too much time, so most people waited for the lift.

But Chen Jue had already climbed up to the 17th that morning, so going down was no challenge at all.

With a mix of jogging and skipping, he made it from the 17th floor to the basement in about five minutes.

Since the physical effort was minimal, his interface didn’t grant him any additional prompts this time.

“Twelve minutes to climb up in the morning, five minutes down at night.” He opened his new calendar app and logged the day’s stair times.

He planned to climb the stairs every day, comparing times to track his improvement. This way, he could visually monitor his climbing progress.

Compared to the panel’s composite attribute numbers, these times made it much easier for Chen Jue to judge his progress.

“Before bed, I’ll record today’s attribute gains too—then I can build a data model for training efficiency!” Chen Jue plotted. He couldn’t let his master-level risk control data skills go to waste.

———

After leaving Hengtong Tower by car, he didn’t return to his talent apartment but circled the downtown area instead.

After about ten minutes, he found a small hardware store tucked away in a corner of an old commercial street.

“Boss, do you sell nails?” Chen Jue parked by the curb and went inside.

“Yes, nails! For hanging things on the wall?” the owner replied.

“Want to buy a hook instead?”

The owner, seeing Chen Jue’s delicate appearance, guessed he wasn’t in construction—probably just an office worker from nearby—and began recommending adhesive plastic hooks.

Young renters in the city rarely have much space; apart from power strips, hooks are a common purchase.

“No need, just nails.”

“Preferably about the length of a finger, the cheaper the better,” Chen Jue said, gesturing with his index finger.

“That’d be three-inch nails—carpenter’s nails, okay?” The owner fetched a small box from the shelf and resumed his calculations.

Chen Jue opened the box to weigh a nail—lighter than his darts or steel chopsticks, but just usable. He asked if he could test it on a piece of wood.

The hardware store owner, a straightforward man, pointed to a carpentry board in the corner, thinking Chen Jue wanted to test the nail with a hammer.

But before he could react, Chen Jue, seizing a moment when the owner wasn’t watching, snapped his arm, flung the nail forcefully, and drove it into the board from three meters away.

“What the heck was that?” The owner, still punching numbers into his calculator, thought something had fallen from the shelf and looked up in confusion.

“Not bad!”

“I’ll take ten boxes of these nails!” Chen Jue nodded in satisfaction at the interface prompt: [Projectile Throwing Proficiency +1].

“You want ten boxes?” The owner was stunned—he hadn’t expected this young office worker to buy so many.

He hurried to the back and brought out ten boxes. The total was only ninety yuan—much cheaper than Chen Jue’s darts.

“Forty nails per box, less than two cents each. These are much more cost-effective for my field practice!” Chen Jue paid cheerfully, grabbed the large plastic bag, and drove off.

The hardware store owner stared after him, then suddenly slapped his forehead as if recalling something, and walked over to inspect the carpentry board.

He saw that the nail had been driven more than halfway into the board.

“Good heavens!”

“He didn’t even use a hammer?”

“How did he do that?” The owner scratched his disheveled hair, questioning everything he knew.