Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
The elevator door closed slowly. Xiang Kun, still holding Shiling’s hand, stood on one side of the elevator with Shiling’s mom. On the other side was Miss Yang and her beloved pet dog, Pinkie.
However, now the husky had totally lost its animated self. It curled up against the corner of the elevator, as if trying to blend itself into the elevator walls. It was unresponsive to Miss Yang’s calls and tugs.
Huskies have been made into many memes because they are known for their hyper and easily excited nature, which make them hard to control. They are the naughty ones—always causing trouble and breaking things. Together with the Alaskan Malamute and the Samoyed, they are jokingly called the “Silly Sled Dog Trio”.
In fact, these three breeds aren’t silly at all. Sled dogs used to be working dogs trained by Arctic nomads. They have a much better sense of direction in blizzards than humans. The lead dog often has to make the decisions.
Hence, they behave less well not because they can’t understand instructions. Instead, they feel they are brighter than their owners if their owners don’t earn enough respect. Also, they often have their own goals to achieve when they misbehave.
Obviously, Miss Yang hadn’t earned enough respect. The husky probably even felt that he himself was superior.
Xiang Kun knew that the husky didn’t want to attack Shiling. It probably only wanted to play. However, because of its size, it could still make Shiling fall. Even the shock factor alone would be quite harmful.
It was definitely Miss Yang’s fault for not training her dog properly.
However, even if she couldn’t control her dog, Xiang Kun could.
When he had gone “patrolling” at night, he would often come across stray cats and dogs, or people walking their pets.
He discovered that if he held his breath and tightened his muscles to signal fierceness, they would immediately run away or lie on the ground in fear upon seeing him, even if he didn’t do anything.
He had once met an unleashed labrador that wanted to sniff him. He only gave it a glance and it instantly flushed itself against the ground and didn’t dare to move at all. When he came across it the second day, it immediately did the same and wouldn’t budge no matter how its owner pulled.
At home, he had tried the same trick on the rabbits he had bought. The effects were the same.
But it seemed to be ineffective against birds. Pigeons on squares, sparrows on walls, or even chickens and ducks on the shelves in the market didn’t respond to his “threats”.
Xiang Kun suspected that mammals like dogs and cats were more sensitive to danger with their alarm pheromones.
He was certain that from today onwards, Miss Yang’s Pinkie would avoid him and Shiling at all costs.
Shiling peered over from the side of Xiang Kun’s thigh while still holding his hand. Her fear gradually faded as she saw the wall-facing husky.
“If you’re not afraid of it, it will be afraid of you,” Xiang Kun explained as he patted her head.
Shiling’s mom looked at Xiang Kun, then at the husky hiding in the corner. She was a bit puzzled. It seemed pretty obvious to her that the dog was “frightened” when it saw Xiang Kun.
Soon, the elevator reached the ground floor. Miss Yang still couldn’t seem to get her beloved Pinkie out of the elevator when they walked out of the building.
…
After leaving the building, he bade farewell to Shiling and her mom. He then began his brisk walk, which turned into a run 10 minutes later.
He was so fast that he caught the attention of many passers-by. He had a backpack on him, so it appeared to them that he was rushing to work and wasn’t really odd.
Of course, those people had no idea that he was going to run 20 kilometers.
He didn’t push himself to his limits. It was a moderate speed that allowed him to observe and ponder.
He had roughly measured his speed once. It was around 11 seconds for a 100 meter run.
It would be an amazing feat for a normal person. It was the same speed as a Second Tier National Athlete1. But it wasn’t satisfactory for Xiang Kun. He was still nowhere near the limit of the human body.
Nevertheless, if he was competing in ultra-long distance runs, he was confident that he could break a few world records.
After all, he could recover way too fast. He could run at his fastest pace for a very long time and would fully recover with only a while of jogging. It would be like cheating if he went to a marathon.
He observed things around him as he ran. He tried to remember the streets, the shops, and landmarks along the way. He then compared them to the online map he had memorized to build a three-dimensional map of the area in his head.
It was not only because he wanted to understand the area better because he would be living here, but also to train his awareness and memory.
He took more than an hour to reach the gym. It was naturally much slower than taking public transport, but it was extremely fast for running. Furthermore, he had hardly perspired and showed no signs of fatigue.
But he decided to not come to this gym any more after that morning.
The young trainer from the martial arts center downstairs heard that Xiang Kun was at the gym and came to find him. He asked Xiang Kun whether he wanted to join the gym as a fighter. According to him, the founder of the gym was the older trainer that refereed for them when they fought that time. The founder himself would like to train Xiang Kun.
Xiang Kun thanked them but still rejected the offer.
The incident made him realize that he had demonstrated his capabilities too much at the gym, during his fight at the boxing gym, and the hike. He was attracting a lot of attention.
He knew that the gym probably wouldn’t come look for him again after he had rejected them, but there was still a possibility that they would. He was no longer training with crazy weights at the gym, but many people there still paid much attention to him as everyone wanted to know how he trained. The amazing results he had at the gym had become widely known.
With all the attention, he felt that training at this gym would make him uncomfortable.
Hence,he decided to go somewhere else for his training, despite the fact that the membership card he had recently received would become quite a waste.
Fortunately, all the training he had been doing didn’t really rely too much on equipment.
After making his decision, he spent the whole afternoon finding a venue within 10 kilometers from his new estate that was quiet and remote enough for him to train and experiment without worrying.
In the end, he chose a small hill four kilometers away.
There was an abandoned construction site at the foot of the hill. It was supposed to be a group of bungalows, but the project had been terminated.
The residents around the area had all moved away. The location was very unglamorous, with weeds growing amid the uncompleted structures and construction waste. No one would come here. It was difficult to even find the way around this place.
After sunset, the area was shrouded in dead silence and darkness. Gazing at the estates in the distance, Xiang Kun felt as if he was peeking at the world from the abyss.
Xiang Kun was very satisfied.
Although it wasn’t too far away from civilization, interferences from smells, noises, and light were minimal. The location was apt for his sensory training.
The smell here was not as jumbled up as it was in the densely populated areas. However, it was also less familiar for Xiang Kun.
He could make out the smells of blood and degradation. It wasn’t coming from very far. It was probably dead rats.
He followed the smell and, with the help of his phone’s flashlight, he spotted a few rat carcasses in one of the bushes. The abdomens of the rats were all cut open. It was a pretty gruesome scene.
Having confirmed his judgment, he was about to leave. But he suddenly stopped and closed his eyes to take a deep breath. He caught the scent of alarm pheromones.
Could it be from the animal that had hunted down these rats?