Chapter 088: The Path to Improved Evasion

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Just now, the old guard nearly made a complete fool of himself, and Bai Keqing stared at Yang Tang in wide-eyed disbelief.

“Why are you glaring at me? I don’t want this either. He was the one who tried to grab me first,” Yang Tang said, shrugging with an innocent look.

Bai Keqing was momentarily stunned, then burst out laughing. She was about to say something when Uncle Xing straightened up and barked, “Kid, you’d better stay far away from Young Lady Ke. Otherwise, even if you know how to fight, you won’t be leaving here today!” As soon as he finished, quite a few men in suits began closing in from all around.

Perhaps he had spent too long grinding monsters in the dark; at that moment, Yang Tang felt not the slightest fear. Instead, his face wore a teasing smile as he turned toward Bai Keqing and said, “Keqing, I came to see you off. Your people are awfully rude, aren’t they?”

A trace of helplessness flashed in Bai Keqing’s eyes, and she said apologetically, “Tang Tang, Uncle Xing is the head guard my mother sent. I can’t order him around.”

Yang Tang laughed heartily. “Then don’t you live like you’re in prison every day?”

Upon hearing this, Uncle Xing hastily argued, “What nonsense are you spouting, kid? Move!” As he spoke, one of the men in suits had already lunged at Yang Tang from behind.

“Keqing, I’m less than ten paces from you now. Your guards are trying to subdue me without even making sure you’re one hundred percent safe. That’s really unprofessional,” Yang Tang said as he spoke, twisting his body slightly. The man lunging at him from behind instantly slipped past like an enraged bull missing the matador by a hair.

Crash!

The man who failed to tackle Yang Tang also slammed into another trash can.

At the sight of this, not only Uncle Xing and the men in suits, but even Bai Keqing’s expression changed subtly. Hitting a trash can once might be called a coincidence, but twice in a row, with Yang Tang at the center, different people from different angles crashing into different trash cans? That was hardly coincidence.

“Tang Tang, you—”

Yang Tang made a gesture to stop her and said with a faint smile, “No more nonsense. You asked me to come see you off, and now I’m here. This is for you too, a little token from afar.”

As he spoke, a streak of golden light shot from his fingertip toward Bai Keqing.

Startled, Bai Keqing reacted quickly. She raised her hand and caught the golden light in her palm. When she opened it, she found a gold coin. One side was plain, while the other was engraved with a standing shield of a holy knight, upon which two entwined snakes seemed to be depicted.

By then, Yang Tang had already turned unhurriedly and was walking toward Uncle Xing.

“What is this?” Bai Keqing called after his back.

“A gold coin, of course. More precisely, a lucky coin. If you ever come to a decision you can’t make up your mind about, try using it. The side with the shield is good; the side without—” As he talked, Yang Tang’s body twisted strangely twice more as he walked, perfectly dodging the grabs from Uncle Xing and another man in a suit, slipping out of Bai Keqing’s protective ring. “—is bad!”

In shock, Uncle Xing no longer worried about overcaution. He was just about to tell his men to seize Yang Tang when several airport security personnel happened to arrive. Seeing that the two trash cans at the scene were badly deformed, they immediately barked, “What happened here?”

Uncle Xing quickly offered an excuse and said he was willing to compensate at twice the price of the trash cans. After the security staff reported upward for instructions, the matter was finally settled.

But when they looked back, where was Yang Tang’s shadow? He had long since blended into the bustling crowd and vanished without a trace.

After paying for the trash cans, on the way to security, Uncle Xing seized the chance to say, “Young Lady, let me have a look at that coin!”

“No,” Bai Keqing refused at once.

“But according to regulations, it still hasn’t undergone radiation inspection—”

Bai Keqing knew what he was going to say next, so she had no choice but to take out the coin. “Give it back after we pass security!”

“No problem.” Uncle Xing agreed readily, then secretly tapped the coin he had just taken over with his fingernail. His expression changed slightly as he said, “Young Lady, I’m afraid your classmate has fooled you. With this hardness, it’s not a gold coin at all!”

Bai Keqing’s face also changed. “I don’t believe it.” At the same time, she snatched the coin back from his hand when he was off guard.

Uncle Xing said with exasperation, “Young Lady, I was only telling the truth. I really wasn’t trying to confiscate your coin!”

Unfortunately, Bai Keqing did not believe him. She only asked the other men in suits, “Hey, which of you has a radiation detector?”

Someone immediately handed over a device shaped like a dive watch.

On the way home atop his little electric scooter, Yang Tang sighed over and over. He had finally witnessed the perverse power of dodging, and at the same time he was a little worried that Bai Keqing’s guards, with nothing better to do, might go digging into his entire family.

But there was nothing to be done about it. Given the Yang family’s current social standing, anyone with assets in the millions, or any official above the rank of division chief, had channels to uncover their background. Faced with such a large group and such a high probability of it happening, Yang Tang could only let it be.

As for the matter of dodging technique, Yang Tang believed that from the expressions on everyone’s faces at the time, Uncle Xing had definitely seen even more formidable experts before, and would not yet regard him as some peerless master.

Still, he now had a full appreciation of how terrifying Level One Dodge was, so before entering the Seventh Dream, he planned to raise his dodging level by any means necessary.

Yes, according to the nature of dodging, I need to find people to gang up and beat me.

No, no. I can’t bring myself to stand there and let people hit me.

In truth, if standing there and taking a beating could really increase his dodging level, Yang Tang would not have minded being a human sandbag. The problem was that the way skills like wounds, interception, aiming, and sniping accumulated proficiency might not suit dodging at all, so he had to choose carefully.

Mingwu, do you have any good suggestions? Having failed to come up with a method for a long while, Yang Tang could not help but ask Mingwu. He had not expected an answer, and yet—

If you wish to accumulate dodging proficiency in the real world, I suggest the dreamer try insects of the bee family.

Bees? You mean wasps? Those things come in swarms right from the start.

Exactly. That way you can farm proficiency quickly. As for bee venom, do you not still have Pure Voice for purification?

Then the next question is where to find wasps—or bees will do too.

After coming up with a plan, Yang Tang went online as soon as he got home. After habitually setting up a relay, he plunged into the Bayu Home community forum.

Since he had a lurking forum account, Yang Tang did not bother hacking the site. He logged in directly and posted a new question: Where can live beehives be bought? I am looking to purchase at a high price!

Not two minutes after the post went up, someone replied: OP, what price are you offering?

That depends on the size of the hive and how many bees are inside.

How big the hive is? What use are live bees anyway?

What concern is that of yours? In short, if you have them, sell them. I’ll pay well. If not, forget it and stop wasting time.

At that point another person chimed in: There are some in South Spring, and quite a few hives too.

Don’t listen to his nonsense. I’m from South Spring. Twenty years ago there were still wild hives here, but now even the Blossom Brook River is black and stinks. The fish in it taste like kerosene. Do you have a pair of eyes in your backside, asking me to find a hive for you there?

Exactly. South Spring has been ruined for ages. If you want hives, you’ll have to go to North Spring. There must be some on Cloud Brocade Mountain!

Yang Tang read the lively back-and-forth from the netizens, feeling somewhat speechless and a little sorrowful for the land of Bayu. Still, he believed the latest comment—that there were hives on Cloud Brocade Mountain. So he decided to go check North Spring the next day.

The next day, Yang Tang rode his recharged little scooter to North Spring. By then the area had basically all been converted into private clubs, so after searching for quite a while, he finally found a few locals and asked about wild hives.

A mountain herb gatherer told him, “Young man, you came at the wrong time. There are wild hives, sure, but the season is over. Come back next spring, and you’ll basically run into them then.”

Yang Tang was speechless and near tears.

At that moment, another mountain man asked, “Young man, do you absolutely need wild hives, or will domesticated ones do? There’s a rather large apiary over in Zaoya Village. If wild ones aren’t required, you can go take a look there!”

Yang Tang’s eyes lit up. “Really?” He pulled out twenty yuan and slapped it into the man’s hand. “Please show me the way!”

Before long, the mountain man had led Yang Tang to the apiary in Zaoya Village.

The owner happened to be there; his surname was Hong.

Yang Tang explained his requirements for the hives, and Owner Hong immediately had workers carry over two boxes of hives.

After inspecting them and finding quite a few hybrid bees in the cells, Yang Tang’s interest soared. He asked, “Old Hong, do these bees bite people?”

Owner Hong waved a hand. “Usually not.”

“And if I wanted these bees to swarm and bite some wolfhound, what should I do?”

At this, Owner Hong’s expression changed. “You’re not trying to use the bees to mess someone up, are you?”

“Absolutely not. If I wanted to sting someone with bees, I wouldn’t have come here to buy them. After all, your place is a proper operation. If the police checked, wouldn’t they find it right away?”

“That’s true. I can teach you a way to make an entire hive swarm toward a dog, but it depends on how many hives you buy from me.”

“What’s the unit price?”

“The hives here are genuine. At least seven hundred apiece.”

“Seven hundred? At most five hundred. If you’re willing, I’ll order a hundred first.”

“Fine. Five hundred it is!”

. . .