Chapter 38: Deduction

His current knowledge points totaled 472, with the two newly added points coming from the time he bought roast chicken and snacks for Mouse Beibei. As Chen Meng willed it, the high school alchemy book drifting through the starry sky began to flip rapidly. Page after page turned, quickly surpassing six hundred, and a wealth of high school alchemy knowledge poured into his mind, which he absorbed and digested. The numbers before his eyes changed as well.

Knowledge points: 0
Pages flipped: University Runes (0/1998), High School Alchemy (602/909), High School Forging (0/712)
Analysis progress: Ghost Step Lotus (3%), Spinning Shot (4%), Hidden Shot (2%)

Chen Meng let out a long breath. This should be enough to handle the alchemy test on Tuesday or Wednesday. He still had nearly twenty-three thousand in savings, which could be converted into a good number of knowledge points when the time came.

On Sunday, Chen Meng donned his newly bought combat suit and went to the martial arts center, carrying his dagger in his backpack.

Afternoon, at the flying disc shooting range.

"Is Coach Lv Guang not here today?"

Chen Meng checked the list of coaches for the day and didn’t see Lv Guang’s name.

The female receptionist glanced at Chen Meng and nodded. "Coach Lv Guang has taken leave. You can book another coach."

Chen Meng shook his head. He was mainly here to learn the Spinning Shot technique, and none of the other coaches could teach him that. Luckily, he had already captured the Spinning Shot footage in his mind sea. He didn’t need any coach; he could practice on his own. Originally, he’d planned to ask Lv Guang where to buy a gun, but now that Lv Guang wasn’t around, that matter would have to wait.

"These days, the Law Enforcement Bureau is conducting increasingly strict checks in my neighborhood. Even if I buy a gun, it’d be of little use. If the authorities find out, it would only draw more suspicion on me," Chen Meng muttered to himself, setting the thought aside for now.

Looking at the receptionist, he shook his head. "I don’t need a coach today. Just assign me a range; I’ll practice by myself."

"No problem," she replied, unfazed—she’d seen plenty of students like this.

Soon, Chen Meng was assigned a range, which happened to be the one where Lv Guang usually taught, making things convenient for him. Since he was training solo, he checked the time—it was only 1:40, not yet 2 o’clock—but he wasn’t about to waste time. He got started immediately.

First, as usual, he bought a thousand rounds of ammo for himself. The system instantly converted this into a hundred knowledge points.

Chen Meng began his first analysis.

The image of the Spinning Shot played slowly in his mind sea, and soon he gained new insights into the technique.

Spinning Shot (7%).

Staring at the increased progress, Chen Meng was a little stunned. Just one analysis this time had raised his progress from 4% to 7%—a 3% jump.

He didn’t start practicing yet, but tried analyzing again.

Spinning Shot (9%).

The progress only increased by 2% this time, but it was still quite fast.

He continued analyzing, and the progress kept climbing.

Spinning Shot (11%).

Spinning Shot (13%).

Spinning Shot (15%).

Spinning Shot (16%).

...

Spinning Shot (20%).

At that point, the progress finally stopped increasing.

Chen Meng could hardly believe it. His analysis of Instant Shot and Recoil Suppression had never gone this quickly—and he hadn’t even fired a shot yet today.

He pondered for a moment and soon found the answer: "It must be that practicing Instant Shot and Recoil Suppression greatly improved my gun sense and technique. With all those prerequisites, my analysis of Spinning Shot could proceed smoothly to 20%. As I suspected, the speed of analysis—or even the page-flipping progress—depends on the conditions I already possess. The more I have, the faster the analysis goes. In short, the harder I work to create these conditions, the faster I improve."

With this realization, Chen Meng grew even more confident.

By 4:30 p.m., after two hours and fifty minutes of tireless practice and analysis, he finally reached 100% progress.

He checked his knowledge points and found he still had as many as 30 left.

He remembered that after analyzing Recoil Suppression with the same hundred knowledge points last time, he only had 13 left.

Not bad at all!

He took a sip of water, resting for a bit. It was still not yet five.

"In that case, I’ll proceed to analyze Hidden Shot!"

Chen Meng continued, and after using up the last thirty knowledge points, he finally stopped. It was now 6:30, half an hour more than he usually practiced.

Knowledge points: 0
Pages flipped: University Runes (0/1998), High School Alchemy (602/909), High School Forging (0/712)
Analysis progress: Ghost Step Lotus (3%), Hidden Shot (44%)

Chen Meng looked at his stats, feeling quite satisfied.

...

By the time he returned to school, it was nearly eight o'clock.

As usual, Chen Meng went to his classroom, planning to study for another hour before heading back.

"Eh, someone’s here tonight."

He walked over and, pushing open the door, saw Tang Wenjing.

"You’re here?" Tang Wenjing looked at Chen Meng, seemingly unsurprised.

Chen Meng nodded. "Just here to read for a bit."

Tang Wenjing thought for a moment. "Mr. Zhang informed me last Friday that there’ll be another alchemy test on Tuesday morning."

Chen Meng knew Tang Wenjing was the class alchemy representative, and her alchemy grades had always been first in the class, with even the class president Ni Hu lagging behind.

Mr. Zhang Dali usually informed Tang Wenjing ahead of time about test dates.

"Do you need me to tutor you?" Tang Wenjing asked after a moment’s hesitation.

Chen Meng was taken aback. What did she mean? He’d tutored her in runes and charged her a hundred a day—was she trying to earn her money back from him now?

That couldn’t happen. He immediately declined. "No need. For me, just passing is a breeze. Honestly, taking first place from you wouldn’t be hard at all. I can score over 130 minutes on those tough rune exams—alchemy is nothing in comparison."

Tang Wenjing was a bit dumbfounded. Sometimes she really couldn’t tell if Chen Meng was pretending or genuinely clueless.

"I told you I’m aiming for Jiangdu University. Do you think someone at the bottom of the year could get in?" As Chen Meng spoke, he walked over to Tang Wenjing. "You have no idea what I’m capable of—studying is nothing to me."

With that, he slowly walked past her.

Tang Wenjing froze, stunned by Chen Meng’s confident tone.

In his mind, however, Chen Meng was thinking something else: "Damn, I never noticed before, but Tang Wenjing’s underwear, under her white-collar beauty outfit, is actually training gear. Wait, she seems to have several sets in different colors—how much must that cost?"

These filthy rich folks—sometimes you don’t even know when they’re showing off.

Back at his seat, Chen Meng took out his copy of Ancient Language, flipping through it. Even now he had to admit, this was probably the hardest cultural textbook for him. Without a middle school foundation, he didn’t understand a thing, and of every ten characters in a sentence, he only recognized one—like reading an English sentence and only knowing the first letter, 'I.'

...

Jiangzhou City Law Enforcement Bureau.

Wu Tengkong frowned, his expression sour. "It’s been almost five days—still no leads?"

Han Hao, the officer in charge of the Wang Jie case, looked embarrassed. "I’ve already sent people to search that old neighborhood thoroughly, but we haven’t found the awakened, intelligent rat."

Wu Tengkong tapped his desk but had no good solution.

"Keep thinking of ways. Since this rat showed up, it must exist. At the very least, it’s been in Jiangzhou. Even if it’s left, you need to find me evidence the rat left Jiangzhou, or I have no way to answer to the Animal Protection Association." He paused, thinking of a certain annoying individual, and added, "You have one more week. Find that rat, or I’ll replace you."

Han Hao was startled, feeling the pressure mount.

Leaving the director’s office, he returned to his own, going over the case again. There were too many suspicious points.

Why did the killer murder Wang Jie? Was it for the drug?
What was the relationship between the killer and the rat?
Did the rat bite Wang Jie before or after his death, or did the killer and the rat know each other and work together to kill Wang Jie?
Where did the rat go afterward?
Who was the killer, and where did he learn that shooting technique?
Wait—the gun?
Where did Wang Jie’s gun go? The records showed he had one.

His eyes suddenly lit up as he realized: "Wang Jie was a fugitive at the time; he would have carried his gun, not left it in his backpack. But after his death, the gun wasn’t found on him or nearby—there’s only one possibility: the killer took it."

Understanding this, Han Hao realized they’d been looking in the wrong direction.

"If the killer had a clear motive and specifically targeted Wang Jie for the drug, he’d have known Wang Jie’s whereabouts and would have no reason to take the gun—he’d just use his own weapon and take the backpack, no need to bother with Wang Jie’s gun. So, the truth is clear: the killer just happened to run into Wang Jie, had no gun himself, and used Wang Jie’s weapon to kill him. Since the gun might have his fingerprints, skin, even blood, the killer took the gun to destroy the evidence."

After this deduction, Han Hao drew in a sharp breath. "Now about that rat: judging by Wang Jie’s wounds, it attacked him proactively. The question is why. Previously, this made no sense. But with my new deduction, there’s a logical explanation: the rat knew the killer. Seeing the killer in danger, it attacked Wang Jie, biting the hand he used to grip the gun. Only then could the killer seize the gun from him. So, the killer and the rat worked together to kill Wang Jie. Where is the killer? Maybe right near that old neighborhood. Otherwise, who else would just happen to pass by at that time?"

Han Hao pulled out a map, drawing a one-kilometer-radius circle around the old neighborhood—Chen Meng’s community was squarely within it.

Chen Meng never imagined that by taking Wang Jie’s gun, originally to destroy any trace of evidence, he had instead become the key to Han Hao’s deduction—his actions had unwittingly pinpointed his own location. Would this be a case of cleverness backfiring?