0063 Electronic Pickled Vegetables

Wu Fang was remarkably calm when she saw the message Chen Jue had sent. Most likely, her previous experience—when the dog with the guard crest went viral for saving someone—had deeply disrupted her work and life, leaving her somewhat averse to the whirlwind of sudden internet fame.

She simply replied with a cute sticker saying, "Keep it up! I'm rooting for you," and then went silent.

"Ms. Wu is really composed," Chen Jue thought. "It was just a video that got a little popular, not like I won five million in the lottery. There’s really no need to get so worked up."

He found himself reflecting on this. Although his body had improved a lot recently, thanks to the panel and the regular workouts it prescribed, his temperament and willpower still left much to be desired. He might be nearing thirty, and already understood a lot about life, but deep down, Chen Jue’s heart was as immature as a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old’s, still harboring a childish urge to show off.

"It’s one thing to train my body—just follow the panel’s tips and keep moving. But how on earth do I train my mind and willpower?" he wondered. The panel, after all, wasn’t omnipotent.

To match someone like Ms. Wu—a woman of both high intelligence and emotional acuity—he would ultimately have to rely on his own wisdom and charm.

After this lesson from Ms. Wu, Chen Jue felt much calmer as he watched the numbers rise on his “Master of Skills” account. Hot topics on the internet rotated daily; even influencers with millions or tens of millions of followers came and went in quick succession. The reason his account had made it onto the trending list was simply a combination of being interesting, novel, and possessing a special skill others couldn’t replicate.

For bored netizens, endlessly consuming the same digital “pickled vegetables” gets old, and a change of flavor was only natural.

He put down his phone, stopped his exercise, and gazed out at the sunset, half-sunken below the horizon. The city, bathed in orange-red afterglow, struck him with a strange, inexplicable melancholy.

Though he had a stable, comfortable job in Hangzhou, he still lived a solitary, drifting life. But now, with the panel and a girl he admired, he finally had a source of motivation and a goal that brought a positive drive to his otherwise uneventful life.

He drove around the city for a while, then randomly picked a well-reviewed restaurant from an app and treated himself to a good meal as a reward for his hard work over the past two weeks.

After dinner, Chen Jue transformed again into a city hunter. He planned to use the night to grind some proficiency in "Projectile Throwing." His left hand would probably be fully healed after another night’s rest, and since exercising now wouldn’t affect his recovery, he felt free to let loose.

He returned to a trash collection point near the university district. The recent rain had kept things quiet for a few days, but now the group of "dining criminals" was active again.

While they were distracted, he used his right hand to fling nails from a distance. With the hiss of three-inch iron nails slicing through the air, anguished squeaks echoed from the garbage piles.

After half an hour of this, he had racked up 860 proficiency points in "Projectile Throwing" and decided to call it for now.

That was when he spotted, beside a new trash site, two young men who, like him, were hunting in the wild.

The two were dressed in outdoor sports gear, each with a custom high-powered slingshot in hand and headlamps on, aiming at rats beside the trash bins.

Thwack, thwack—two crisp snaps as the slingshots sent colored clay pellets flying. When the projectiles struck, the rats’ bones and organs shattered instantly, their lives snuffed out in a heartbeat.

"Are there others competing for kills?" Chen Jue thought, approaching them curiously.

He’d seen videos online of city hunters using slingshots to kill rats, but he hadn’t expected to run into fellow enthusiasts so soon after joining the fight against rodent infestation.

Seeing Chen Jue approach, the two young men lowered their slingshots warily. Those things packed a punch, and a stray shot could land someone in trouble with the police.

"Hey, just throwing out some trash?" one called out.

"You go ahead! We’ll wait until you’re done," said the sturdier of the two, stepping aside.

But Chen Jue shook his head, pulling a three-inch round nail from the paper box in his pocket. "I’m here to hunt, too! We’re all in the same game."

"Huh? The same game?"

"You’re hunting wild rats too?"

"How do you hunt with nails? Using a miniature crossbow?"

The two were stunned, thinking he was joking with them.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, Chen Jue sent the nail flying from his right hand, pinning a rat peeking from the trash bin to the spot.

The two slingshot hunters were speechless.

"No way!"

"A master of throwing weapons!" they exclaimed, rushing over to see. The rat had been nailed right through, blood pooling beneath it—no doubt about its fate.

Their admiration and awe for Chen Jue shot to the maximum.

"You’re amazing!"

"I’ve never seen anyone hunt with nails!" said the sturdier one, bombarding Chen Jue with questions.

After a round of introductions, the three became acquainted.

The sturdier young man was named Guo Shao, the slimmer one Yang Fan. Both were students at a nearby university, and had formed a hunter’s club with several classmates. Besides splitting into teams to clear out rodent infestations at night, they also regularly hosted social events, inviting enthusiasts from other universities to join their hunts.

They never expected to meet a folk expert like Chen Jue at the trash collection point tonight!

After witnessing his lethal throw, Guo Shao and Yang Fan were in awe, shamelessly adding Chen Jue on WeChat and pulling him into a group called the Hangzhou Wild Hunt Elite Team.

The group was big—over three hundred people. According to Guo Shao, it included not only the best university hunters in the city, but also many enthusiasts and beginners who had joined after seeing videos online.

Chen Jue, with his unique "Projectile Throwing" technique, was like a dimensional rift in the group, instantly heating up the atmosphere.

Before inviting him in, Guo Shao had already posted a video of the rat nailed through, tagging everyone to witness the feat.

Messages exploded in the group:

“Nails? Seriously? (wide-eyed)”
“My lack of education leaves me speechless! (kneels)”
“Stunned! Is that a flying nail?”
“Are you sure it’s not a nail gun?”
“Full video, please! (on my knees)”
“Requesting video +1 (offering a smoke)”
“+10086 (offering a cold cola)”
“Rat: Another new way to reincarnate (crying)”
“This way to die…makes me hungry (dog-face tongue-out)”

Seeing how hyped everyone was, Guo Shao urged Chen Jue to show off a little. No need for a group livestream—a short video would do, just to let him flex before 300-plus group members.

Chen Jue didn’t refuse; he’d joined the group with a secondary account and wasn’t worried about exposing his identity.

He pointed to the now empty trash heap. “As long as you don’t film my face, fine! But there aren’t any rats left here. Shouldn’t we find a better spot?”

"There is!"

"Plenty of rats!"

"You don’t know, but we have an IT guy in the group who made a detailed wild hunt map of all Hangzhou."

"Every spot with heavy rat traffic is marked, and you can even search them on a navigation app," Guo Shao explained, showing him the map. It was impressively detailed, with many red-marked spots and notes like "Rats frequent here" or "This river has scavengers."

They picked the nearest spot with the most marks, and Chen Jue followed the two in their Land Rover Defender.

"Rich kids," Chen Jue muttered to himself. The car was the latest model, costing over 800,000 yuan. No average student could afford that—clearly family-funded. Hangzhou was full of households made wealthy by urban redevelopment, and judging by their accents, Guo Shao and Yang Fan were locals with well-off families, hunting rats at night just for the thrill.

After about ten minutes, the two cars pulled up at the edge of a river.

"Here we are!" Guo Shao said as he got out, shining his flashlight on a recessed sewage outlet along the riverbank. In the beam, a cluster of large, grey rats feasting together became visible.

Chen Jue was pleased; this spot was teeming with targets, all gathered close together—much more convenient than picking them off one by one at garbage sites. The only drawback was the distance: seven or eight meters across the river, and the dim lighting made it hard for a normal slingshot to reach or hit accurately.

"Stand back and film from a distance—just don’t catch my face," Chen Jue instructed, and Yang Fan and Guo Shao stepped aside.

He took a handful of nails in his left hand, used the flashlight’s beam, then plucked out a nail with his right hand and, in a flash, hurled a three-inch nail with lightning speed.

The nail flew so fast that it was nearly invisible on camera. There was only a faint whistling sound, and then, at the mouth of the pipe, a grey rat had its head blown apart, collapsing without even a squeak.

Seeing this, Guo Shao and Yang Fan shouted in excitement, "Awesome!"

They quickly sent the ten-second video to the group.

Instantly, the wild hunt enthusiasts in the group flooded the chat with “666,” “Kneeling to the master,” “Please livestream,” and “Want to see the action live.”

Chen Jue checked his vibrating phone, saw how lively the group was, and, thinking fast, used his secondary WeChat account to share the link to his Master of Skills ID, inviting everyone to follow him if they had time.

The response was explosive.

"I already follow this ID! (shocked)"
"Saw it on the trending list today!"
"Is this the masked Master of Skills?"
"IP shows Hangzhou, must be the real deal."
"@Hunter1 Guo Shao @Hunter2 Yang Fan, hurry and get an autograph and a photo with the master!"