The First Order

Someone once mentioned that when one of the five senses of a person is “switched off,” the other senses become heightened. These five senses referred to sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

The human body did not only have five senses but also a legendary sixth sense, which was the soul.

Some people asked, “Do humans really have souls? Can humans really exist in the form of a soul or even have the ability to influence reality?”

Someone had once tried to gradually switch off their taste, hearing, sight, and so on with each passing year. After switching off his senses one by one, the remaining senses would be greatly enhanced. It was as though those deactivated senses ended up being concentrated on one sense, the sense of touch.

Then, at the moment when his emotions fluctuated the most violently, he ended his life, thus effectively ending his sense of touch as well.

Some people said that from that moment on, he existed only in the form of a soul, which was also the sixth sense. But no one could verify this since no one had ever seen the soul of that extreme person before.

Getting back to the topic of the five senses, some people’s hearing would become exceptionally good after they went blind. However, this was uncommon. Instead, people who went blind usually ended up with a better memory than that of able people.

The storyteller was the type who had great hearing and memory. So he could hear very clearly what Xiaolu said to Ren Xiaosu.

His granddaughter was actually whispering secrets to an outsider while trying to keep it from him?

After eating, Ren Xiaosu slowly walked back home. Although he was now a familiar face in town, the impression that most people had was that he was someone rich.

Previously, it was not only the refugees who came to seek help from him. There were also others from the world’s oldest profession that came knocking on his door in the middle of the night offering their services. However, he rejected all of them. Sometimes he would just drive them away without even opening the door.

As for the spooky event Xiaolu had mentioned… he already guessed what was going on.

Seeing that the lock on his house door was still intact, Ren Xiaosu opened the door with his key and headed straight for the backyard. There, he saw five people lying on the ground and smashed potatoes everywhere.

These five people were all normal people, and they were long dead from the Potato Shooter’s attacks.

However, Ren Xiaosu did not feel the least bit distraught when he saw a few bone knives scattered around the backyard. If a normal person were living here, they would probably have been killed by these people.

Everyone in town knew Ren Xiaosu was rich, so there would always be thieves trying to enter his house every now and then. In the past, Ren Xiaosu would have to kill them himself, then put their bodies away in his storage space and take them to the wilderness to bury.

But now, he did not have to do that anymore. The Potato Shooters would help him do all the dirty work.

The “haunting” was probably just the screams of these intruders when they got hit by the Potato Shooters after climbing into the backyard.

When Ren Xiaosu thought about it, he also felt that it must have been eerie that night.

A newly established recruitment office in town was offering high pay to workers to build roads.

Fortress 178 and the Wang Consortium had reached a consensus. The roads in the Central Plains would soon be extended to the Northwest, and there would be a highway for vehicles and a railway leading to the former Zong Consortium strongholds.

Due to the frozen ground, they could not build the railway further into the depths of the hinterlands of the Northwest. Construction would get too difficult, and the maintenance cost would be extremely high.

All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu received another text message. “The targets in Stronghold 61 are from the Pyro Company’s Midnight squad. They are currently located in a residential building on 137 Lingbao Road. A-rank. Reward: 1 million yuan. Up to five people can work in a group for the mission, and all will receive rights to use the safe house and be protected by us upon being pursued by the enemy.”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. This mission was very similar to the mission that took place in Stronghold 63 a few days ago. Moreover, the Anjing House increased the difficulty and reward of the mission this time. Previously, the mission allowed hitmen to work in groups of three, but that had expanded to a group of five this time.

Actually, the number of hitmen working together was not important. All it meant was that this mission’s reward would be given out as five sets!

It looked like the Anjing House was going all out against the Pyro Company this time. They had issued another mission with them as targets again this soon? Suddenly, it felt like these two heavyweight organizations were going to fight each other to the death.

It could also be because the ambush enraged the Anjing House and made them determined to clear out the Pyro Company from the Wang Consortium’s territory at all costs.

However, Ren Xiaosu did not plan on getting involved this time. He realized that every time he tried to stay out of something, trouble would automatically come looking for him even if he were just watching the commotion as a spectator.

He had caused too much of a commotion in Stronghold 63. If the Anjing House and the Pyro Company came looking for him together, he would be in deep trouble.

Furthermore, who knew if the Anjing House might have issued this mission at Stronghold 61 because they were trying to flush him out? How else could there be such a coincidence?

Therefore, Ren Xiaosu decided he would just stay home and catch up on sleep. In the evening, the sound of gunfire suddenly came from the stronghold. There were even loud explosions too, and this woke Ren Xiaosu up.

However, he headed to the tavern for dinner as though nothing had happened. When he arrived at the tavern, the storyteller was resting and eating dinner. It was nothing too special, just a bowl of biangbiang noodles.[1]

Ren Xiaosu smiled and said, “Where’s Xiaolu?”

The storyteller did not answer him. Instead, he asked in turn, “Aren’t you going into the stronghold to have a look?”

“Why would I go in there? I don’t want to get involved in that mess.” Ren Xiaosu chuckled as he said to the waiter, “I’ll have a bowl of biangbiang noodles; make it extra spicy. I heard that y’all purchased fresh watermelons. Cut one for us. I’ll have some together with Grandpa here.”

The storyteller “stared” at Ren Xiaosu with his cloudy eyes. “Haven’t you already had your fair share of messy situations?”

“Only when I’m forced by circumstance,” Ren Xiaosu said with a laugh.

All of a sudden, the storyteller asked, “Let me ask you a question. If a watermelon is cut into three pieces, each portion will be 0.333, right?”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. “That’s right.”

“0.333 multiplied by 3 equals 0.999. Then I ask of you: Where did the remaining 0.001 go?” the storyteller asked calmly.

Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment. “It’s on the knife? Yes, it’s on the knife!”

The storyteller paused for a while. “You’re indeed inclined towards certain subjects….”

Ren Xiaosu suddenly turned serious. He was only fooling around earlier. Of course he knew about the recurring decimal sequence.[2]

But about being “inclined towards certain subjects,” didn’t that rumor come from the Northwest? The storyteller was obviously referring to something else by bringing that up.

Ren Xiaosu asked calmly, “So Grandpa already knows who I am?”

“People always say that only fearsome dragons cross the river, but how many river-crossing dragons can there be in the world?” The storyteller slurped up the remaining noodles in his bowl. “I’m warning you! A dangerous person like you better not get near my granddaughter!”

Then Xiaolu came in from the backyard with a watermelon. “Grandpa, the waiter said that you wanted to eat some watermelon? I’ve already cut some for you.”

The storyteller threw his chopsticks on the table. As if the watermelon was cut for me!

[1] Biangbiang noodles, alternatively known as youpo chemian in Chinese, are a type of noodles popular in the cuisine of China’s Shaanxi Province. The noodles, touted as one of the “eight strange wonders of Shaanxi” (陕西八大怪), are described as being like a belt, owing to their thickness and length. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biangbiang_noodles

[2] The infinitely repeated digit sequence is called the repetend or reptend. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_decimal