Chương 23: Chapter 23 Monk
Biên tập viên: Atlas Studios
In the following days, Li Ang constantly tested the specific strength of the "Gland Stimulation Method—Adrenaline" ability.
Normally, his physiological functions were about the same as an average professional athlete, but after injecting adrenaline, his performance could compare with that of a national athlete, even reaching the level of world championship contenders.
In other words, as long as he used this skill, Li Ang could achieve the peak of human physiological abilities.
Of course, the side effects were quite severe: his whole body trembling, difficulty breathing, bloodshot eyes, profuse cold sweats exuding from inside out, a racing heartbeat that could even lead to arrhythmias, a strong sense of nausea from his stomach, and a horrible headache comparable to having one's head stuck in a water mill.
Fortunately, these side effects were still within Li Ang's tolerance—he had long ago learned various interrogation manuals of intelligence agencies, including the American CIA's "Kubark Interrogation Manual,"
and tested many techniques of torture and interrogation on himself. Compared to those terrifying tortures, the side effects brought by adrenaline seemed like a gentle breeze.
Moreover, after his encounter with the Black Zombie, Li Ang realized that modern light weaponry, such as assault rifles, might not necessarily inflict effective damage on the various monsters in the slaughter game.
It would take anti-material sniper rifles, individual anti-tank rocket tubes, military flamethrowers, mortars, howitzers, mustard gas...
Li Ang was fond of small-scale production, but even with his strong DIY skills, he couldn't possibly make many heavy weapons in his living room without the official monitoring system noticing.
"If only I were in Black Africa, it's not just military flamethrowers— I could even make an M388 rocket launcher."
Li Ang thought this to himself.
The so-called M388 rocket launcher was developed by the NATO alliance after World War II to guard against the onslaught of Soviet tanks. It was a rocket launcher meant for tanks.
However, it was neither equipped with armor-piercing shells, nor armor-breaking or shell-shattering shells,
but with miniature nuclear warheads with a maximum yield of up to 250 tons of TNT equivalent, with a maximum range of up to 4 kilometers.
The most outrageous part was that the radiation radius of the M388 rocket tube's lightweight nuclear warheads exceeded its range...
In other words, the user had to be prepared to be blown to bits on the spot and to perish together with the enemy upon firing the weapon.
I kill myself.
Being able to create nuclear warheads wasn't just Li Ang blowing smoke— the process of making earth-quality nuclear weapons was actually quite simple; if not for the strict customs surveillance, Li Ang would have likely already ordered two servings of the local speciality "yellowcake" from the Black Africa region online.
"Damn it, I do suffer from a fear of inadequate firepower..."
In short, without a channel to purchase and make heavy weapons for the time being, Li Ang could only patch up his existing equipment and turned his attention to magic artifacts found in folklore studies.
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Jing'an Temple, also known as Jing'an Ancient Temple, is located in Yin City's City Centre. Its history can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms period, originally named Zhongxuan Temple, and was renamed Jing'an Temple during the Dazhong Xiangfu years of the Song Dynasty, making it one of the oldest temples in the country.
As the world changes, stars shift, the old temple has turned into a tourist attraction. On this summer weekend, tourists from all over the country formed a long line inside and outside the temple, coming to take photos and check-in.
In the queue outside the temple, Wang Congshan wore a straw hat, a pink shirt, and blue shorts, holding an ice lolly in her hand, swaying her long, slender, white legs in front of Li Ang, "Hey, haven't you always hated all kinds of religions? Why did you ask me to visit Jing'an Temple today?"
"My name is not 'hey,' it's Chu Yuquan."
Li Ang, using an old joke from the last century, said casually, "I do hate religions, and I've always believed that not a single monk is up to any good."
"Then why come here?"
"Just bored and wanted to go out on the weekend."
Li Ang casually tossed the stick from his ice lolly to the side of the road and said, "I originally wanted to take you to the zoo. But Yin City Zoo isn't very user-friendly—the animals don't have price tags on them. How are we as visitors supposed to bid and buy them?"
"Damn it, bidding for a divine artifact." Wang Congshan rolled her eyes, pointing to the popsicle stick Li Ang had tossed on the ground, "Littering like this, really bad manners, especially in front of foreigners."
"Hmm..." Li Ang pondered for a moment, realizing that such behavior was reprehensible, promptly picked up the stick, and slapped himself across the face, loudly exclaiming in Japanese Kansai dialect, "Sumimasen!"
Bystanders from both sides cast their gazes upon them; Wang Congshan, already accustomed to Li Ang's daily foolishness, merely twitched at the corner of her mouth and pretended not to know him.
After a long wait, Wang Congshan and Li Ang finally queued up and entered the temple. The former took out her phone and snapped photos here and there, while the latter discreetly surveyed the temple's structure, scrutinizing potential magic artifacts therein.
After all, Jing'an Temple is one of the oldest temples in the country; if there were any ancient supernatural items left behind, this place would most likely conceal them.
Last time, he killed a possessed ghost with a willow branch, purely as an emergency measure after reading some folkloric literature (such as "Ghost Chronicles", "Dark Chronicles", "God's Strange Records", "Miscellanea of Youyang").
The fact that the willow branch could fight ghosts was a fluke—what if it encountered a vengeful spirit with greater resentment and the willow branch proved ineffective?
Even though this place might have been searched over and over by official agencies, coming here to sneak a peek at folkloric items and spying on bald monks who might have supernatural legacies wasn't a bad idea.
The pair visited the Dharma Hall, Mountain Gate, Heavenly King Hall, Bell Tower, Guanyin Hall, and Mani Hall. Along the way, they took plenty of photos of the buildings; many Buddhist artifacts, such as niches, worship pads, vases, incense burners, wooden fish mallets, and prayer beads, were also seen.
Li Ang even risked it by putting on sunglasses to activate his spiritual vision, but he still couldn't find any traces of supernatural forces lingering,
The monks in the temple were all ordinary people with no psychic response—Li Ang had even thought of buying some blessed magic artifacts for himself and Wang Congshan.
Just as they were leaving Daxiong Bao Hall, they saw a group dressed in firefighter uniforms rush into Jing'an Temple, seal off the entrance, and evacuate the tourists inside.
"There has been a gas leak in the underground pipelines; please leave orderly under the guidance of the staff,"
a firefighter announced through a megaphone, standing atop a firetruck that had driven into Jing'an Temple.
Visitors who'd come from all corners of the globe were naturally quite dissatisfied, but their own lives were the utmost priority, so they could only evacuate Jing'an Temple in an orderly manner under the guidance of the staff.
Sensing that something was amiss, Li Ang deliberately lingered at the back. He saw seven or eight monks dressed in gray clothes, heads with shaved scars, hustling in from the side entrance of the square under the "firefighters'" escort, carrying a stretcher,
covered by a white cloth making it impossible to see what was beneath, which, judging by the monks' unsteady gait, was extremely heavy.
Crack!
A sound of wood breaking was heard, and the stretcher fell, landing on one of the monks.
The monk crushed by the stretcher looked as if he had been rolled over by a heavy iron ball used in construction demolition; his face turned purple-red, his limbs convulsed, and he was speechless.
Before the surrounding "firefighters" could come to the rescue, another monk had already grabbed hold of the stretcher.
The young monk, frail as a girl with a face like white jade and delicate features adorned with a teardrop mole at the corner of his eye that lent a hint of "foxy charm,"
gripped the stretcher with both hands and let out a shout. His slender body suddenly swelled up, shooting up in height as coiled muscles bulged under the monk's robe, reminiscent of the muscle-bound fighters from WWE.
"Up!"
The muscular young beauty clenched his teeth as he hoisted the stretcher like a weightlifter, allowing others to drag away the monk who had been pinned beneath.
Thump! The stretcher hit the ground, cracking the marble tiles beneath it.
As the breeze passed, the heavily breathing muscular young beauty straightened up, adjusted his robe, and exchanged glances with Li Ang, who was watching from afar.
The exquisitely muscled monk's complexion flushed, he subtly nodded, his face blooming like a peach blossom, and judging by his face alone, his allure was natural.
Li Ang felt a shiver of disgust, both because of the monk and because the wind had lifted the cloth on the stretcher—lying on it was a shiny black, bizarre-looking bottom half of a mummified corpse.
-- Nhận quà