Chapter 3: The Third Day of Being a Salted Fish

“True enough.” Lu Yuan expressed his agreement with the other man’s point of view. Then, this protagonist, who had been lying on the sofa for two entire chapters, finally began to sluggishly push himself into a sitting position.

“Right?” Goudan said, focusing on the TV while sloppily slurping his noodles. He chimed in casually, “I know you too well. For a guy like you, asking you to be even a little diligent is like asking for your life. I don’t even know how you managed before-“

The voice cut off abruptly.

Across from him, Lu Yuan had sat up. Sporting a head of messy hair that looked like a bird’s nest, he wobbled over to the side to wash his hands.

Hearing the voice stop, he looked back at Goudan with a puzzled expression.

“…” Goudan let out a heavy sigh. “Brother, can you please, please care just a little bit about your image?”

“I don’t have a brother as ugly as you,” Lu Yuan retorted.

“Don’t try to change the subject!”

“It’s not important.” Lu Yuan returned to the sofa and sat down. “Just eat your food.”

“…I wonder who it was that spent the whole time lying there without moving,” Goudan grumbled, but he looked away from Lu Yuan with a look of disdain.

Lu Yuan didn’t mind. He reached out, pulled his bowl toward him, and began to eat his noodles. He asked casually, “By the way, what’s that outsider doing here?”

“No idea.” Goudan shrugged. “Claims he’s here for tourism, but only he knows what’s really going on.

“Population flow on the Desolate Planet isn’t exactly frequent, but it happens occasionally. Some people can’t make it where they used to be, some just genuinely want a change of scenery. Of course, I can’t rule out that someone came here specifically for a mission, but I don’t think we have anything here worth an outsider’s greed…

“Oh, except for you, Boss.

“But you live such a secluded life that word about you doesn’t really get out. Plus, you’re not from the Desolate Planet originally, so there probably aren’t any old grudges. There likely aren’t many people who would come looking for you specifically.

“At most, they might get a bit curious after they arrive… though I expect you wouldn’t care anyway.”

“Oh, true.” Lu Yuan listened to the rambling half-heartedly, offering a casual response before falling silent again.

It took a long while before he seemed to process something, suddenly looking up. “Actually, not necessarily.”

“…?” Goudan froze for two seconds before realizing that Lu Yuan was likely responding to one of the sentences he had said earlier… though he could no longer tell which one it was.

But according to Lu Yuan’s habits, he didn’t need to distinguish it clearly.

“Your reflex arc¹,” he simply complained, “is way too long.”

“No.”

Lu Yuan gave a brief reply, his dark gray eyes slowly narrowing until they closed completely.

When his expression turned calm, the superficial lethargy and sloppiness vanished entirely. An invisible pressure gradually filled the entire space as his Mental Power spread out like a massive, fine-meshed net, bringing the entire district under his control.

…Something happened?

Goudan realized this and immediately became as quiet as a cicada in winter².

It wasn’t out of fear. How to put it? Lu Yuan had a very good temper; normally, he was too lazy to get angry, and even lazier to take it out on others. As long as you knew you hadn’t done anything wrong, or even if you had but hadn’t crossed Lu Yuan’s bottom line, there was no need to fear him.

Goudan was simply…

Experiencing the unavoidable submission and dread a weak person feels when facing the strong.

This side of Lu Yuan was rare, but Goudan had seen it before. In fact, when he first met Lu Yuan, the man had appeared in this very state.

It had reached the point where, when Lu Yuan later began to display his “salted fish” persona, Goudan had briefly questioned his own reality.

After seeing it more often, he gradually accepted the truth, eventually gaining the courage to trade insults with the lazy version of Lu Yuan.

But facing the serious Lu Yuan, it was still hard to get used to, and hard not to cower.

With a slight flick of Lu Yuan’s finger, a small, almost elegantly beautiful gun slid silently into his palm.

Goudan never knew where Lu Yuan hid his gun.

Lu Yuan raised the weapon casually-or at least it looked very casual-and calmly pulled the trigger.

He didn’t need to open his eyes to aim, and from his current position, he couldn’t actually see the target he intended to hit.

His Mental Power had turned the entire area into his domain. The threads of his power would guide the bullet in the right direction.

Lu Yuan deliberately distorted the bullet’s trajectory to avoid exposing his own location.

Sensing the development of the situation with his Mental Power, he fired another shot two seconds later.

“Mm, it’s settled,” he said. Then, his aura receded like a tide, and his entire being quickly wilted. He looked at the remaining noodles in his bowl and sighed. “Sigh, disturbing my dinner.”

“…”

Goudan slowly took a deep breath.

“It’s the outsider.” Fortunately, Lu Yuan remembered to handle the aftermath… or at least make some arrangements. “He broke into Zhu Rong’s house-quite a coincidence, I just talked to you about Zhu Rong today, otherwise I wouldn’t have known what to call her place.

“Then the outsider got into a fight with Zhu Rong’s mother. He was playing for keeps. I fired the first bullet to stop him. After he collapsed from paralysis, Zhu Rong’s mother wanted to finish him off. I obviously couldn’t allow that, so I fired another shot.

“Go over in a bit, haul the outsider back, and ask what’s going on.”

“Oh.” Goudan slowly set down his bowl. “You’re certainly diligent at times like this.”

“I prefer my living environment to be a bit peaceful,” Lu Yuan said. “It saves a lot of trouble.”

“Isn’t the process of maintaining peace troublesome?”

“…Well, for me, no?” Lu Yuan sounded a bit uncertain.

“You must have been a high-ranking control freak in the past.” Goudan stood up and walked toward the door.

In the distance, the streets had already quieted down.

It was said that the outsider had broken into Zhu Rong’s home, but in truth, there weren’t many structures on the Desolate Planet that could be called “houses.” Zhu Rong’s home could at most be considered a shack.

After the fight, it had already collapsed into ruins.

This provided an excellent view for the onlookers. Before Lu Yuan had acted, many spectators had already gathered nearby out of curiosity.

But now, they were all gone.

The outsider and Zhu Rong’s mother lay on the ground, unconscious, but no one dared to lay a hand on them again.

For over a year, everyone had come to learn Lu Yuan’s rules.

Or rather, while few people knew much about Lu Yuan himself, everyone knew that a “powerful idiot with a screw loose” had set rules for this place: those living here had to be civilized, and no killing was allowed.

They also knew that this powerful idiot enforced these rules, having even recruited bullies like Goudan to help with the oversight.

If someone broke the rules, Goudan and his crew would catch and punish them. If someone tried to kill, they would draw the powerful idiot’s bullets.

The powerful idiot didn’t kill people himself. His ammunition consisted of Anesthetic Bullets; after lying there for half a day, the target would naturally wake up. However, not everyone could lie there peacefully until they regained consciousness. Those who actively defied the rules were often “scavenged” by Goudan.

No one was quite sure what happened to those who were scavenged. By some unspoken consensus, they all remained vague and tight-lipped about the experience.

By the time Goudan walked over, the crowd had long since dispersed. All that remained were the ruins of the shack, two “corpses,” and Zhu Rong, the only one still standing.

The little girl seemed frozen with fear, her small face deathly pale. She stood there silently, as still as a wooden post.

Goudan, however, clearly had no intention of comforting her.

He merely spared her a sideways glance before brushing past her. He hoisted the outsider under his arm and dropped a brief remark: “Your mom will be awake by dawn,” before turning to leave.

He left the little girl staring blankly at his retreating back.

A long time passed.

Only when Goudan’s figure had completely vanished from sight did the little girl’s lips tremble slightly.

A low, fragmented murmur escaped her mouth, slowly dissolving into the air.

“…Beautiful… bullets…”

Her gaze swept through the air, finally coming to rest in the direction of Lu Yuan’s little shop.

“…So beautiful.”

Translator’s Notes