CHAPTER 76: CHAPTER 76: SILENT HEALING TECHNIQUE

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

"See you next time."

Walking out from the gaming bus, Ren Suo carried a bag containing his newly bought Hell 4 Gamepad—and it was gold.

Although it was 30 yuan more expensive, compared to the extremely common black and white gamepads, the gold one naturally had a sense of "I am a unique spectacle" about it. Even though Ren Suo had already bought a protective cover that would hide the color of the gamepad, he still went ahead and bought it.

Yes, Ren Suo was hopelessly obsessed with appearances, especially when it came to technology products he used daily; he always went for the good-looking ones.

The reason he specifically went out to buy a gamepad was that he had broken his while playing Jedi Priest.

During that game, Ren Suo was controlling a chubby character, slicing through enemies and barely making it into the top three, when he let the chubby character hide perfectly in the snow. However, a small, thin white man suddenly walked past right in front of the chubby character.

Ren Suo couldn’t help himself. He directly used the fully automatic Rain’s SCAR to blast the skinny white man into the air, but this also exposed the chubby character’s location, and he was sent packing by a cunning old player from behind.

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. In this scenario, the oriole is happiest, followed by the cicada. The mantis is the most miserable—it had the chance to secure victory but was still kicked into the abyss.

Ren Suo rolled around on the sofa right there and then. Rolling and rolling, he didn’t secure his grip on the gamepad, which flew out of his hand, hit the corner of the wall, and broke on impact.

Although he could have purchased it online, waiting for the delivery was a waste of time Ren Suo couldn’t afford, so he went out to Anime Star City to buy his equipment.

Ren Suo had planned to head home right after buying the gamepad, but since he had come all the way out, he decided to eat out.

This actually meant going to a Kaifeng Cuisine chain restaurant for a Fried Chicken Combo and drinking Fatty’s Divine Water (cola).

The graphics of Survival of the Fittest were really on par with Assassin, but the sound effects were unexpectedly... exaggerated.

Every time Ren Suo controlled the chubby character to drink cola and eat fried chicken to boost Happiness Value, his headphones filled with CRUNCHING sounds. This Fried Chicken Combo was the kind where even the bones were fried tender.

With a mouthful of pearly whites, the chubby character ate his fried chicken with loud CRUNCH CRUNCH sounds, savoring the taste, then GLUG GLUG, guzzled the cola. The refreshing sensation made Ren Suo drool just listening to it.

He nearly ordered fried chicken for delivery. However, thinking of the high calories and how it was very ’heaty’—as a person from the south, obesity would be a minor issue for Ren Suo compared to possibly getting mouth ulcers or a throat infection if he was unlucky—he decided against it.

Of course, another more important reason was that the delivery would cost 8 yuan. In comparison, the Jian Ji downstairs with free delivery seemed more economical.

During dinner time, Kaifeng Cuisine was very busy, but since Ren Suo was alone, he could always find a seat. So he ordered a bucket of fried chicken and a large cola with no ice, and sat at a row of seats near the street window, happily eating away.

After a while, a girl sat down next to Ren Suo, took out her cellphone, plugged it in to charge, and then put on headphones, looking delighted as she started watching a video.

Taking advantage of the electricity and Wi-Fi without buying anything, occupying a seat during peak time...

Ren Suo inwardly criticized, glancing at her once. Noticing the screen of her cellphone made him pause.

No way, is it that popular?

The girl happened to be watching episode eighteen of Over My Dead Body, which had been updated at three o’clock that afternoon. Ren Suo hadn’t expected that someone randomly sitting next to him would also be watching it.

Although he wasn’t one to talk—he had promptly paused Jedi Priest at 3 PM to catch up on the drama.

Ren Suo undoubtedly knew the plot outline and progression of Over My Dead Body thoroughly. However, the TV series contained many details he wasn’t aware of, such as the trials each Family Head underwent before succeeding, and the love and hate family members experienced during Expeditions.

Like most ordinary people, Ren Suo’s attention was mainly focused on the romantic and face-slapping scenes in the drama. It must be said that Ren Naiser’s video editing skills were indeed solid. Almost every episode was compact and thrilling. Besides the plot, there were also Immortal Technique special effects, comparable to a popcorn movie.

Even though he couldn’t understand the language of Mysterious Country himself (after all, it was a language from two thousand years ago), there were subtitles in English by Xuan Wen, which basically met the viewing needs of people from all over the world.

However, seeing a random girl seriously watching Over My Dead Body now made Ren Suo feel a subtle sense of pride. Not sure if it was his glaring gaze, but the girl turned her head, saw Ren Suo staring at her phone, and took off her headphones to quietly ask, "Do you also watch Over My Dead Body?"

"Over My Dead Body?" Ren Suo was momentarily stunned, then responded, "Yes, I do. Do you think it’s good?"

"It’s great!" the girl nodded emphatically. "Although it doesn’t have my favorite stars and the costumes aren’t spectacular, and I don’t quite understand the language, it’s just an ordinary web drama. But it’s really good and quite flavorful."

Of course, there were no stars, as it was all True Humans... Ren Suo chatted with the girl for a bit and found out she genuinely liked the drama. It seemed her friends didn’t watch it, leaving her with no one to discuss the plot with, so she actually started discussing it earnestly with Ren Suo.

So, Ren Suo very pleasurably spoiled the subsequent plot for her.

"Ren Nu, oh, he dies a miserable death. Although he will later save a few nice girls, he still ends up single for life."

"You’re talking about Ren Xian, right? He’ll run off to join Liu Bei in a few episodes and eventually die of old age."

...

After he said his piece, the girl finally put on her headphones and quietly watched the show on her own. Ren Suo finished his fried chicken and, holding his cola, prepared to go home.

However, when he passed by an internet cafe in Anime Star City, he saw a huge advertisement posted there. The internet cafe was announcing an ’offline Crossfire tournament’. The champion would not only win a 1,000 yuan membership card for the cafe but also receive an MX8.0 mechanical gaming keyboard and a Logitech 502 mouse.

Crossfire, the dream of three hundred million mouse users, huh? Ren Suo had seen this game back in middle school, though he usually went to internet cafes to play RPG games and had never touched Crossfire.

Surprisingly, now that he had graduated from college, the game was still popular.

He glanced at the entrance of the internet cafe and saw many computers inside, all in first-person perspective, with players holding guns and shooting PEW PEW across a desert map.

Since everyone was wearing headphones, the only sounds in the internet cafe were the TAP-TAP-TAP of keyboards and CLICK-CLICK-CLICK of mouse buttons, like footsteps in the darkness.

Hmm? It was only then that Ren Suo realized he might have made a strange mistake, so he turned around to look for a store that sold computer peripherals...

「...」

Back home, Ren Suo first went into the bedroom. He unplugged the wired keyboard and mouse from the desktop, setting them aside, before carefully placing the Mini-World Game Console on his desk.

He then took out his newly bought gamepad and a set of wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

As he placed the mouse and keyboard on the desk, Ren Suo quickly found himself perplexed.

He had initially activated the game console with the gamepad because wireless gamepads inherently come with a button to remotely start the console.

This wireless mouse and keyboard, where’s the button to start up the game console?

He pressed the mouse button, but there was no response.

Was it really just wishful thinking on his part?

The Mini-World Game Console connected directly to the TV and gamepad with incomprehensible black technology. Ren Suo had thought it would really be that smart.

Not very hopeful, Ren Suo pressed every key on the keyboard. However, when he hit the ’wake-up’ key, the display suddenly lit up.

Ren Suo was startled. It really worked!

Lucky that he was frugal and had bought an older model wireless keyboard, purely for testing. New keyboards mostly had the ’wake-up’ and ’sleep’ keys removed.

Without delay, Ren Suo immediately tried to play Jedi Priest using the keyboard and mouse set. Although he wasn’t used to it initially, the first level gave him plenty of time to adapt.

Once he got used to it, he quickly got the hang of the rhythm. The mouse allowed him to swiftly shift views. Even in a melee with multiple players, Ren Suo could quickly make decisions and use cover to dispatch other Trial Participants to the great beyond!

He even comfortably made it into the top ten!

In fact, Ren Suo’s skills had already been honed in the previous days; it was just the gamepad that had limited his performance. Now, with the keyboard and mouse, he was like a dragon back in the sea, taking on multiple foes effortlessly!

He fought all the way to the final circle, until only two people remained. It was then Ren Suo felt he had reached his limit.

This was because the final circle was actually within a single-story house, right at the center. The Trial Participant inside hid in a blind spot. He was invisible from the windows but would surely react if Ren Suo approached through the door or windows.

Ren Suo now had no other grenades; a frontal assault seemed to be the only option. However, the Trial Participant inside seemed aware of his advantage and taunted, "You’ve lost! Just come in and accept Uncle’s loving Healing!"

Ren Suo tugged at the corner of his mouth, suddenly getting an idea. He switched on his headset’s microphone and shouted, "Can you hear me talking?"

"I can hear you. Tch, is it a kid? But since we’re from the same country, come on in. I’ll give you delightful Healing, and you’ll be touching the sky in no time," the uncle inside responded.

"But why can’t I pinpoint your location? I can’t distinguish if your voice is coming from the left or the right."

"Are you a Sand Sculpture? Our Trial Participants’ voices have been optimized to accurately reach anyone within a certain range. This is just like our increased Physical Strength and vision; they’re among the unspoken ’equivalent blessings.’ Haven’t you ever talked to someone like this before?"

"Thanks, Uncle, I really didn’t know. But don’t think you’ve won yet," Ren Suo shouted. "Do you know what the Silent Healing Technique is?"

"What Silent Healing Technique? Did you add a suppressor?" the uncle sounded puzzled.

"I’ll show you right now what a Silent Healing Technique is! WOOH LA LA LA LA LA—"

As Ren Suo yelled, he opened the door. The middle-aged, beer-bellied uncle indeed didn’t hear him open the door or notice him coming in.

"Accept the fierce Healing of Rain’s SCAR!"

"Damn, you little sneaky—"

"You’re welcome. Have a good journey."

Watching the middle-aged uncle slowly transform into a handsome, muscular, and philosophical uncle’s Spiritual Body ascending, the tense Ren Suo finally relaxed.

At that moment, the screen displayed the comment for passing the first level:

「Welcome! Apologies for the less-than-perfect hospitality!」