Chapter 290 - 289: Delivering Food Really Isn’t Easy (Middle)

Chapter 290: Chapter 289: Delivering Food Really Isn’t Easy (Middle)

CRACK. The secret realm shattered, and the two men and one dog reappeared at the entrance of the Garden District. Their torn clothes were good as new, their severed muscles reconnected. It was as if the deathmatch had never happened.

Only the pain remained, lingering.

’Damn it, is delivering food this hard?’ Shi Tiexin rubbed his leg.

Injuries from the secret realm recovered to a significant degree; at the very least, open wounds and torn muscles would mostly heal. But the vital energy you expended wouldn’t be returned to you. What’s used is used.

Without the food supply from the Black Venerable era, Shi Tiexin was back to pinching pennies to get by. To conserve his vital energy, Shi Tiexin fought using only his physical strength. He used Scattering Hand Explosive Chamber to generate explosive power instead of his vital energy, relying on the recovery abilities shared from the other two worldlines to withstand the side effects.

It seemed the effect was pretty good.

With his Explosive Chamber proficiency over seventy, the side effects were already much weaker. After exiting the secret realm, the bruises on his thigh had faded, but it would still ache for a while.

Looking at the man and dog beside him, the man was still unconscious, but the dog had managed to struggle to its feet. It looked at Shi Tiexin, ready to bare its teeth.

Shi Tiexin shot it a ferocious glare. The teddy immediately cowered, whimpering with its tail between its legs as it ran off.

HISSS... Shi Tiexin rubbed the back of his right calf. That damn mutt’s bite was really fucking painful, way worse than being hit by a person. If he hadn’t tempered his will through suffering while practicing the Hard Qi Technique in his dreams, he might not have been able to endure such intense pain and fight at full strength.

He glanced at his watch. No time to waste. Shi Tiexin hopped on his bike and sped into the Garden District, finding the target building. He locked his bike at the entrance, took a quick look around, and found that this building didn’t have an elevator either. He’d have to climb, floor by floor!

’Guess I’m climbing, then.’

Five minutes later, Shi Tiexin was huffing and puffing, exhausted, as he knocked on a door.

The door opened to reveal the face of a woman in her thirties with a harsh, mean-spirited look.

"What took you so long? If you weren’t technically on time, I’d file a complaint against you!" The woman’s beady eyes stared at Shi Tiexin as she snatched the food container from his hands.

Shi Tiexin took a deep breath, but his expression remained neutral as he slowly said, "Well then, enjoy your meal."

"Enjoy it? As if! Hmph!"

SLAM. The woman shut the door. Shi Tiexin’s wristband stirred listlessly, displaying that the delivery order had been completed on time.

From accepting the order to delivering it, it had taken a total of twenty-eight minutes. He had barely avoided being late and having his pay docked.

’I never thought delivering food would actually be this hard.’ Shi Tiexin caught his breath, then began to descend the stairs at an unhurried pace.

In any case, he had successfully delivered his first order. Since it was done and he didn’t have another order pending, Shi Tiexin could take his time going down the stairs, regulating his breathing.

But when he was halfway down, he suddenly heard a massive eruption of barking from not too far away within the residential complex.

"WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!"

The barks rose and fell, answering each other from various locations near and far throughout the complex. To Shi Tiexin, it sounded like he was surrounded and ambushed from all sides.

Shi Tiexin’s expression changed. He was done taking his time. He began to rush down, taking the stairs two or three at a time in a mix of running and leaping.

Just as he reached the building entrance, he saw more than ten dogs of all sizes charging murderously in his direction. The teddy bear dog was leading the charge, calling its friends as it ran. Other dogs, large and small, were converging on the pack from all directions. The sheer momentum of the group was awe-inspiring, like a landslide.

"WOOF WOOF WOOF!" The teddy roared at Shi Tiexin. You could practically read the smugness on its doggy face: ’I’m back, Sun Thief!’

The other vicious dogs immediately locked onto their target, all of them accelerating toward Shi Tiexin with murderous intent.

"HOLY SHIT!!!"

Shi Tiexin’s face paled. He quickly leaped onto his bicycle, slammed his foot on the pedal, and fled in a panic.

’So many vicious dogs... I can’t handle them, and neither could Black Venerable!’

’The key thing is, without a Beast Tamer nearby, just facing a pack of dogs, who knows if a secret realm will even open? If it doesn’t, and I get swarmed by a huge pack of vicious dogs, I’m dead!’

’Dead for real!’

Shi Tiexin fled for his life. Surrounded, pursued, and cut off by the pack of dogs, he had to make full use of his superb, Perfect-level riding skills.

Not only did he have to use the "Wind-Speed" attribute, he was even forced to use "Lightning-Flash." Of course, a bicycle’s power had to be provided by the rider, so he could only push himself to the limit.

’Using Explosive Chamber just to pedal a bike... who would believe that?’

’Situ the Bald probably never imagined this when he taught me the move.’

Finally, after a frantic struggle and at the cost of one pant leg, Shi Tiexin shot out of the Garden District like the wind. The huge pack of vicious dogs chased after him out the main gate, barking loudly, but they seemed to know the extent of their territory. They didn’t run far, just stood at the entrance, barking at Shi Tiexin.

The teddy, Maodou, licked the face of the unconscious dog owner who was still lying there, then let out a triumphant howl at Shi Tiexin’s retreating back.

"AWOOOO~~~!"

"Holy shit, a dog is actually gloating!" Shi Tiexin couldn’t help but say resentfully, "You just wait! I’ll be back to deal with you all sooner or later!"

But a cool breeze blew, and he felt a chill on his left heel. He touched his pant leg; it was completely shredded. That had been the most dangerous lunge—a large dog had torn off a palm-sized piece of fabric in one bite. If Shi Tiexin hadn’t reacted quickly enough, it would have sunk its teeth right into his heel...

Shi Tiexin glanced back at the dogs lingering at the complex entrance, paying special attention to the powerful ones that were so well-built you could see the lines of their muscles even through their thick fur. In the end, he decided it was best not to come back here for a while.

"Delivering food is too damn hard! I’m risking my life out here!" Shi Tiexin thought it over, analyzed the situation rationally, and felt something was off.

’No, there’s definitely something wrong here.’ Shi Tiexin looked at his wristband. Countless orders flashed and disappeared, and he still couldn’t even see the specific details.

He stood there trying to grab an order for fifteen minutes but still couldn’t get a single one.

’There’s absolutely a problem!’ Shi Tiexin began to ponder. ’It can’t be this hard for everyone else to deliver food. After all, who could deal with such a huge pack of vicious dogs without some level of sharp qi cultivation? And who with sharp qi cultivation would be out here delivering food! There must be some trick to it.’

The golden hour for lunch deliveries usually ended around one-thirty. After all, the biggest customers for takeout were concentrated in the business district, and few white-collar workers had time to eat after 1:30 PM.

After two o’clock, there were almost no more big rushes of orders, just a few scattered small ones.

Having had a fruitful lunch shift, a smug and satisfied Old Tang returned to the Jingtuan crew’s dormitory. He planned to arrange a "chance" encounter with Shi Tiexin, comfort the "helpless" young man, and then logically extend an olive branch.

’After that, wouldn’t everything else be a piece of cake?’

But he looked around twice and couldn’t find any sign of Shi Tiexin.

’Where’d that kid run off to?’

At that same moment, Shi Tiexin arrived at a place he had always wanted to visit but never had the chance.

The electronics market.

Today, he was going to buy a computer.