Chapter 123: Various Preparations

The supplies that Yan Liqiang purchased the day before included things like mattresses, cutlery, three chicken feather brushes, twenty odd large sewing needles, a box of gum, a roll of paper, and a pair of scissors.

Nobody would ever think that these things could be made into weapons capable of taking human lives. But when Yan Liqiang returned to his small courtyard, he carried the pile of supplies he bought yesterday into a room on the first floor and began crafting his murder weapons with the items.

The handles of the three chicken feather brushes were made of golden bamboo. They were not thick; instead, were tough and long. Golden bamboo could only typically grow to as thick as a human’s thumb, with each of its nodes as long as sixty centimeters. The nodes of the golden bamboo were protected by a very thick and extremely tough layer of skin. Therefore, they were very hard to snap. The surface and the interior of the bamboo were smooth, making it the most ideal type of material for fishing rods or chicken feather brushes.

Yan Liqiang selected one of the chicken feather brushes first, then cut off both ends of the handle with a knife. With that, he immediately obtained a long, forty-centimeter hollow tube in his hands.

After shaving both ends of the bamboo tube and making sure that they were flat, Yan Liqiang blew air into the bamboo and studied the interior to make sure that it was indeed hollow. The inner wall of the bamboo tube was smooth, devoid of any foreign objects. In just less than three minutes, Yan Liqiang had completed the first component.

He then picked up a pair of scissors and cut a small piece of paper. He then rolled it into a cone-like shape and inserted a thick sewing needle at the cone’s tip with the point of the needle facing outwards. He then affixed the sewing needles to the conical-shaped paper roll and reinforced them by using gum and threads. With that, the second tool he needed was complete.

It took longer than the first one, but the second tool took less than five minutes to complete. Maybe it was troublesome to make, but the object that Yan Liqiang crafted looked like the pitot and radar attached to the front of a modern-day fighter jet. The part made of paper was the radar dome while the sewing needle was its pitot.

When all preparations were complete, Yan Liqiang headed out to test the firepower of his tools.

The courtyard was very spacious, and there was a pomegranate tree in the courtyard full of fruit. The fruits were next to worthless in the wild, and these pomegranates were one of the benefits that came with the house Yan Liqiang had rented — they were free of charge.

Yan Liqiang inserted the needle into the bamboo tube and stood fifteen meters away from the pomegranate tree. He raised the bamboo tube to his mouth, aimed it at the trunk of the pomegranate tree, and blew into the tube with force, sending the needle flying to the trunk of the tree. The needle, however, did not bury itself into the trunk and instead fell to the ground…

…

That was right, the object that Yan Liqiang made was a blowpipe. It was the simplest and most ancient hidden weapon that was the easiest to create and master. The weapon itself possessed unprecedented firepower as well.

In his previous life on Earth, no one even knew how long the history of the blowpipe was. A tiny projectile fired from a hollow tube could deal an unbelievable amount of damage to its victim. From the native tribes in the Amazonian rainforests to the special forces of multiple countries as well as assassins and hired killers, the blowpipe was a weapon that would never let its user down. It was a weapon that was very, very easy to craft, master, and operate.

Yan Liqiang witnessed with his own eyes what a new colleague at his company did to an aluminum can in the office with a pencil lead and a piece of A4 paper rolled into a tube reinforced with cellophane tape. A simple blow from fifteen meters away was enough for the pencil lead to pierce through the aluminum can.

Yan Liqiang was deeply impressed by the firepower of the blowpipe ever since. According to his colleague, his brother, who was a ranger, was able to subdue beasts such as lions, tigers and even elephants and rhinoceros by using a handmade blowpipe with projectiles laced with anesthetics. If the pencil lead were replaced with a sharper projectile fashioned from the spoke of a bicycle wheel and a longer pipe, the weapon would have no problem punching through a two-centimeter wooden plank or even shattering a beer bottle from twenty meters away.

Just the blow dart alone wouldn’t be able to inflict a wound deep enough to kill anyone. However, if the blow dart was laced with the poison of antiaris toxicaria, then killing someone with this weapon would be as easy as turning a hand. It would be impossible to effectively defend against it since the speed of the released projectile was not only high; it was also silent.

Using hidden weapons like throwing knives and spears would require at least three to five years time to make some progress. On the other hand, it would only take about three to five days to master the blowpipe technique.

…

Yan Liqiang wasn’t too satisfied with the first blowpipe. He thought the blow dart was a little shaky after it flew out for more than ten meters. He picked up the blow dart, made another one with some adjustments to the ratio of the exposed needle tip and the conical-shaped paper roll behind it, then tested it out again. After that, he picked it up again, made another blow dart and tested it again…

If the size of the fletching was too small, then he’d make it bigger. If it was too big, he’d cut it smaller… If the length of the exposed needle tip was too short, he’d make it longer for the next blow dart. If it was too long, he’d push it back in a little again… If it was a little too light, he’d coil some of the flaxen thread he bought at the end of the sewing needle to increase the overall weight… If it still didn’t seem right, then he’d keep shifting the position of the bobweight on the blow dart.

Yan Liqiang kept trying to determine the most ideal parameters for the blow dart as though he were conducting a scientific experiment in a laboratory. When it was nearly afternoon after he was busy working for the entire morning, he finally found the best parameters for the blow dart after repeating the experiment a few hundred times.

…

In the evening, when the sun was about to set, Yan Liqiang stood twenty meters away from that pomegranate tree in the courtyard. He loaded the blowpipe with the newly-crafted blow dart and took a deep breath. The pressure inside his expanded lungs instantly transformed into kinetic energy that then pushed the blow dart out of the blowpipe.

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The blow dart which flew out of the blowpipe was akin to the launch of a mini rocket. At the same time, it also seemed like a bolt of lightning which was so small that it could easily go undetected. Even Yan Liqiang’s eye which had been staring at it wasn’t able to catch its trajectory in midair. The moment he blew into it, that blow dart almost immediately stuck itself to the tree trunk like a little black flower.

For the sake of achieving the most accurate and realistic result, Yan Liqiang had already dyed those yellow paper rolls into black for use.

He walked to the pomegranate tree and discovered that the tip of the blow dart had sunk more than two centimeters into the tree trunk. Like a nail which had been hammered into the tree, it had very securely pinned itself on it. He had to exert a little extra force on his fingers to pull it out.

After being occupied for nearly the entire day, Yan Liqiang’s face finally broke into a smile…

With such firepower, this would be enough to pierce through a few layers of clothes and make the target bleed as long as they were not wearing any armor.

Yan Liqiang crafted another ten blow darts which conformed to standard in one go for practice.

At night, Yan Liqiang continued practicing under the illumination of the moon and the stars. The accuracy of his blow dart was also rapidly improving.

After he had practiced enough, Yan Liqiang performed a round of his night regime — he cultivated three rounds of Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing before he called it a day.

…

The next day, on the 29th of the eighth lunar month, Yan Liqiang changed into a set of old clothes which he rarely wore after completing his morning regime. He deliberately covered his face with a bit of dirt, put on a hat, and found a useless and worn out burlap sack from the storage room of his rented house before he went out and left Wuyang Village.

He walked along the public road outside Wuyang Village for more than ten kilometers before he finally arrived at the biggest bazaar in the northern parts of Pingxi City.

The bazaar in the northern parts of Pingxi City mostly sold things like fur, leather, mountain products, and medicinal herbs. The sellers here were mostly hunters, herb gatherers, and peddlers that specialized in selling mountain products while the customers who usually came here were the staff or shop owners of medicinal stores and restaurants in Pingxi City. Many Pingxi City citizens also came to shop here for the things they would rarely buy on ordinary days because the mountain products were cheaper here.

As soon as the sun rose, the entire bazaar started to grow lively and bustled with activities.

Yan Liqiang walked around the bazaar and scanned the mountain products which were on sale there.

Among those mountain product peddlers, quite a number of them were selling snakes which had either been captured by the hunters or the herb gatherers from the mountains nearby. Quite a number of people in Pingxi City enjoyed the taste of snake meat, so some restaurants would serve various kinds of snake soups and snake dishes. Some medicinal stores also purchased snake guts and various snakes alive. Since such demands existed, there were also people who were willing to capture snakes for a cheap price.

There were more than ten species of snakes on sale. All of them were contained in a bamboo cage. Some were venomous, some weren’t venomous, and some were slightly venomous while some were highly venomous.

After touring for one round around the bazaar, he discovered that there wasn’t only one merchant selling the species of snake he needed, and it wasn’t rare for people to sell that kind of snake. So he finally walked to a stall which seemed to be doing well.

“Shopkeeper, how much for this black-ringed viper?” Yan Liqiang spoke to the seller with local Pingxi City accent.

The seller glanced at Yan Liqiang and replied, “The price of this snake is one mace and four candareens of silver. Little Brother, what do you plan to do with this snake? Are you going to eat it?”

“No, no, I can’t possibly afford to eat it. The medical prescription a physician gave me requires this black-ringed viper to treat my father’s eye condition…” Yan Liqiang gave the seller a troubled look. “A mace and four candareens of silver is too expensive, can you give me a little discount?”

When the seller heard Yan Liqiang’s explanation, he stopped questioning him. “Since Little Brother is so filial, I will reduce it to a mace and three candareens. ”

“That’s still too expensive, can you give it to me for a mace of silver?”

“A mace of silver? I’m going to make a loss…”

After bargaining with the seller, Yan Liqiang bought the black-ringed viper at the price of a mace and two candareens of silver. He picked up the bamboo cage which contained this snake and left the bazaar. When he was outside, he covered the bamboo cage with the burlap sack he brought with him and then took a big detour. After ensuring that no one was following him, he went to a river, washed his face, tidied himself up, and returned to Wuyang Village with the snake.