015 Formidable Skills

As usual, I’m asking for three things—votes, recommendations, and favorites!

After leaving the golden haze, Yang Tang couldn’t sleep a wink. He stared wide-eyed at the underside of the upper bunk. No one slept there; it was just where he kept his luggage. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that even now, fully awake, he could hardly believe what he’d just dreamed.

Should he get up and give it a try?

He sat up, glancing at the alarm clock by his bed. It was only 4:36—over two hours until their usual wake-up time of seven. That should be enough.

So he dressed quietly and slipped out of the dorm. When he reached the first-floor stairwell, he came upon the locked iron gate. Normally, the dorm supervisor would come by after six to unlock it, but this posed no problem for Yang Tang. He took out his key ring, fished around, selected the least-used key, and inserted it into the lock. With a click, the gate sprang open.

Don’t think Yang Tang had some kind of trick up his sleeve—the key was just a copy of the gate’s original. Ever since the second year of high school, when they’d moved into the new dorm building, the four of them in the room had conspired to bribe the dorm supervisor—a pack of good cigarettes worth about ten yuan each week. Over time, they got to know the man. On one occasion, Old Tang managed to borrow the gate key, and, unable to resist temptation, made a copy. Soon, everyone in their dorm had one.

After slipping out, Yang Tang closed the gate behind him and strolled out of the dormitory building.

At the edge of the sports field, he searched for a while before finally spotting a stray cat. Overjoyed, he muttered, “Cat, don’t blame me for being ruthless—it’s just that this skill can’t be used on plants!” With that, he focused on the stray cat, imitating the dramatic shouts from a cartoon, and in his heart pronounced each word clearly: “Wounding Hand!”

The result:

Insight rose—No appropriate weapon equipped, skill cannot be activated.

Yang Tang: “...”

But on reflection, the hint made sense. In games, assassin-type players always used “piercing weapons” like the Heaven-shaking Spear, Spider Dagger, or Kirin Stiletto. In real life, except for a dagger, the rest were out of the question.

“Do I need to carry a dagger at all times?”

“If a patrolling cop found it, that wouldn’t look good!”

“But right now, I need to get a dagger to see if I can actually activate this skill.”

So Yang Tang had to climb over the wall and leave the school, heading for the bus stop. He caught the earliest bus at 5:15 to the city center. He planned to buy a dagger—but not anywhere near school. After three years, the vendors on both old and new streets would surely recognize him.

At the Chuqimen Small Commodities Wholesale Market in the city center, it was only 6:20—the time when goods were being unloaded. Yang Tang wandered for a bit, then approached a stall selling trinkets and imitation antique blades. “Boss, do you have switchblades?”

Hearing the local accent, the boss replied, “No switchblades, but I have daggers—long and short ones. Want one?”

“How short is the short one?” Yang Tang asked.

“Two city inches!”

“Let me see.”

The boss rummaged under the counter and produced a short, black dagger, handing it to Yang Tang while casually asking, “Kid, what do you want a dagger for?”

“For self-defense,” Yang Tang replied, using the most awkward but common excuse.

“If it’s for self-defense, you’d be better off with this.” The boss pulled out a ring-shaped object from a drawer by the register. It had a conical spike sticking out from the front of the band. “This is called a single tiger ring—small and easy to hide. Slip it on your thumb, and it packs a punch!”

Without committing, Yang Tang tried it on and found it pretty good. An idea struck him, and he wondered silently, “Can this weapon be used to activate the Wounding Hand?”

Insight rose—Has piercing effect. Usable!

Yang Tang felt a surge of excitement, though he kept a calm face, casually taking off the tiger ring and continuing to play with the dagger. “Your dagger’s well made. How much?”

“If you want it, fifty yuan!”

Clang!

Yang Tang immediately tossed the dagger onto the counter. “Too expensive.”

“Then how much are you offering?” the boss said, a little annoyed.

Yang Tang held up two fingers. “This is my top offer.”

“Twenty? That wouldn’t even cover my cost—I’d lose out big time. Lowest I’ll go is forty!”

But by now, Yang Tang had another plan and stood his ground. “Twenty. Take it or leave it.”

The boss glared at him and stopped talking.

Yang Tang shrugged, keeping his guard up as he left the stall. Soon, he found another shop selling similar wares. “Boss, got tiger rings?”

“Sure!”

“Single tiger ring?”

“Got those too!” The boss pulled out two or three single tiger rings and tossed them onto the counter for Yang Tang to choose from.

Yang Tang didn’t try them on. He just glanced at them and said, “That spike on top is too ugly. Got any other styles?”

“Sure, want a skull?” The boss pulled out another ring with a menacing skull on its face. “Here’s one with a lotus flower, too.”

Two well-crafted, eye-catching tiger rings were placed before him. Yang Tang immediately liked the lotus one, tried it on, and asked, “How much?”

The boss hesitated. “Thirty.”

Yang Tang put on a long face. “Fifteen at most. Take it or leave it.” As he spoke, he slid the ring off his finger.

“Alright, alright, fifteen it is.”

Yang Tang quickly pocketed the lotus tiger ring, pulled a fifty-yuan note from his back pocket, and tossed it on the counter. “Give me my change.”

The boss glared at him, clearly annoyed, but counted out thirty-five yuan without complaint.

Yang Tang checked the cash for authenticity, slipped it into his pocket, and slipped away with the morning crowd, leaving the market behind.

By now, dawn was just breaking. After much searching, Yang Tang finally found a few stray cats and dogs near a trash heap on the Bund.

It wasn’t that there were no strays elsewhere, but those places were too crowded. If an animal suddenly dropped dead or was gravely wounded, it would attract a crowd.

Dreams and skills—these things were best kept low-key!

Making sure no one was around, Yang Tang locked onto a stray dog about ten meters away, slipped the tiger ring onto his middle finger, and silently recited, “Wounding Hand!”

Insight rose—Skill out of range, cannot be activated.

Yang Tang was instantly annoyed. “Damn it, too far again? Fine, I’ll get closer.” He actually stepped forward, closing the distance to about five meters. He wondered if anything else would go wrong. “Surely I can do it now?” The thought had barely formed when his vision went black, and a flood of foul smells assaulted his nostrils.

Yang Tang was buried under heaps of garbage, completely bewildered. Struggling free, he saw that the other strays had scattered like birds, while the dog he’d targeted lay lifeless in a pool of blood five meters away.

“What in the world just happened?”

Though surprised, Yang Tang was thrilled. He had finally managed to activate Wounding Hand, proving the dream was real, as were merit and sin. The start of the First Dream would have to be taken seriously.

“But to truly understand Wounding Hand, I need more tests.”

He soon found another group of strays. Taking advantage of the emptiness, he killed four or five more, finally working out how to use the skill.

The tenfold-enhanced Wounding Hand had evolved far beyond a mere game ability—it had become a wildly exaggerated assassination skill. Its maximum attack range was five zhang, but there needed to be at least ten zhang of straight-line space to activate it.

To illustrate: Imagine three points in a straight line. Point A is Yang Tang, Point B is the target (and the midpoint), and Point C is where Yang Tang appears after the skill is performed.

In simple terms, using Wounding Hand was akin to teleporting between two points. In a blink, Yang Tang could move from Point A to Point C, inflicting devastating wounds on Point B along the way.

The only restriction was that the distance between A and B couldn’t exceed five zhang.

The first time he tried to use the skill near the trash heap, the distance between himself and the dog was five zhang, but the gap between the dog and the heap was barely three. Any further, and there’d be nothing but earth and stones. No wonder the insight had warned him about insufficient range—if he’d forced it, he might have ended up trapped underground.

Wounding Hand might have this minor flaw regarding activation distance, but its power more than made up for it. Examining the slain strays, Yang Tang found each had a deep, circular wound around its neck, the spinal cord the only thing keeping head and body together.

Even more astonishing, after all the killing, the lotus tiger ring he’d used bore not a single drop of blood, nor did it smell remotely of gore, even when pressed to his nose.

Faced with such things, even “uncle” Yang Tang felt a twinge of unease. “How bizarre! Whatever, better not overthink it. The dream was weird enough already.”

After burying the dead animals near the trash heap, Yang Tang realized he reeked of garbage. He found a relatively clean spot by the riverbank and washed up.

While cleaning himself, he suddenly discovered that the burn scar on his chest had faded completely, blending in with the surrounding skin—leaving only the imprint of Kṣitigarbha King unharmed on his chest.

“What the—what’s going on now? Could this be due to my enhanced physique?”