Fortunately, there were enough people, and Steve's house was well-equipped with fire extinguishing equipment. The fire hadn't escalated to a terrible degree, so it was quickly brought under control and extinguished.
Looking at the smoking living room and smelling the burnt and decaying odor floating in the air, the soot-covered group huddled together or leaned against the walls. Everyone was gasping for breath, their hearts still pounding with lingering fear.
Well, only Steve looked as if life had lost all meaning. Although killing a man-eating monster was a good thing, almost all the messy aftermath would fall on him to handle.
"Will, are you okay?" Richard walked over to Jonathan and Will, asking with concern.
Jonathan had one arm around his younger brother. His emotions had calmed down quite a bit, and he spoke on Will's behalf: "Yeah, he's fine now. It stopped before we knew it."
Will also shook his head. "I don't feel particularly uncomfortable anywhere; it's just that my nose feels a bit weird right now."
"Should I take a look at him?" Richard asked Jonathan. He knew Jonathan had always been very protective of his soft-spoken younger brother.
Jonathan nodded, and Will cooperatively leaned a bit closer to Richard.
Richard cupped Will's face, checked his bleeding nostrils, and shone a flashlight in. There was nothing seriously wrong inside the nasal cavity, just some redness and swelling. Then he asked Will to stick out his tongue to check its appearance.
No one present knew what Richard was doing by looking at Will's tongue, but they were impressed despite not understanding. After what had just happened, everyone's suspicion about Richard's identity deepened. Richard's silhouette suddenly became mysterious. The boys, in their chuunibyou phase, even secretly speculated if Richard was a mysterious sorcerer from the East with unfathomable powers, who had crossed the ocean to come here because he bore the mission of fighting monsters like that one.
"Internal Heat." Richard put away the flashlight and reached a conclusion based on Will's various facial physiological characteristics.
This sentence was spoken in Chinese. The others didn't understand, but it sounded like an incantation. However, Robin, who was currently learning Chinese, understood. She had a moment of realization and said, "Are you saying Will has symptoms of a respiratory infection?"
With this translation, everyone began to understand. So that was it; was that what 'Internal Heat' meant?
"Um... it's something like that, but a mild case." Richard thought for a moment, feeling that her phrasing wasn't particularly accurate. After all, the 'Internal Heat' famous in Chinese Medicine wasn't such a severe pathological symptom; translating it into Robin's terms would inevitably make people think it was a major illness. However, for the sake of easy understanding, he chose to adopt it.
Richard looked at Will with a smile and said, "You haven't been sleeping well lately, and your diet has been a bit unhealthy, right? Like staying up late and waking up early, and loving oily, spicy junk food and the like."
Hearing this, Will's face turned red, and he admitted it with some embarrassment, "Halloween just passed, so I collected a lot of candy and cookies..."
"In terms you can understand, Will has probably been staying up late too much recently, his immunity has dropped, and combined with eating unhealthily, it triggered some hidden ailments in his body." Richard patted Will's head and said to Jonathan, "Keep his diet light for the next few days, cut down on snacks, and pay more attention to rest. If possible, have him take some vitamins; the symptoms Will gradually subside. If you're still worried, you can go see a doctor when you have time."
Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief and thanked him: "Thank you."
"Thank you," Will added as well.
Everyone's mood had lightened considerably. Seeing that it was getting late, they all chose to head home.
Just as Richard was about to leave, Steve grabbed his shoulder with a look of resentment, preventing him from departing. "Do you really think you can just walk away like this?"
"Of course," Richard replied unceremoniously.
"No, you can't!" Steve cried out. He glanced at his house, feeling that it was no longer as warm as before; home was no longer his safe haven. He stared at Richard and said, "You have to take me with you tonight no matter what. You can't just leave me behind like this."
"Oh, you want to stay at my place?" Richard understood; this guy was scared.
Steve thought for a moment: "Or you could stay at my place. My house is pretty big, and I can drive you to class tomorrow."
"You'd better stay at my place then. I'm also afraid another monster might crawl out of your house." Richard shook his head. Although the walls of Steve's house had been scorched and the temporary rift opened by the Demogorgon had been destroyed by the fire, according to the plot of the original first season, there was another rift somewhere in the woods outside Steve's house.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief and gave a silly grin: "Fine, then I'll go get the car now. You can just put your bike in the back seat."
At 10:33 PM, Benny, who had finally finished cleaning the shop, brought two bags of trash outside. As he threw the trash into the bin, he suddenly heard the loud sound of a car stereo from afar. Benny frowned and instinctively looked over, curious about which family's youngster was so inconsiderate as to blast music so late at night.
When he looked closely, he saw a blue convertible parked in front of Richard's house. Two people got out of the car: Richard and an unfamiliar young man. The one driving was probably some classmate or friend of Richard's.
The young man driving the blue convertible was acting a bit neurotic, following closely behind Richard. Richard also seemed to have a look of disdain for the other person as the two of them walked into the house together.
Seeing this scene, Benny stood in place and remained silent for a long while. Suddenly, he let out a sharp intake of breath and murmured, "So Chade actually brings boys home? *Hiss*—"
Perhaps due to what had just happened, Steve had no objections to being assigned to sleep on the living room sofa and wasn't picky about it. He borrowed the bathroom to shower, collapsed onto the sofa, hugged a pillow, and fell asleep.
Richard locked his bedroom door and didn't relax until he confirmed that Steve's breathing had become steady and regular. Only then did he immerse his consciousness into the system.
[Agent: Richard]
[Skills: English (C Rank) - Your level has met the daily requirements for listening, speaking, reading, and writing. You can accurately translate and express your Chinese thoughts. Fortunately, your CET-6 in college wasn't just for show.
Programming (C Rank) - An industry big shot, a master of algorithms.
All-around Housework (C Rank) - An essential survival skill for those without parents. If the appliances are broken, I'll fix them; if the house is dirty, I'll sweep it. As long as it saves money, everything at home depends on my industrious hands. You are only one 'money' away from being the ideal type for most women.
Culinary Arts (A Rank) - Wow! Dishes that glow!
Misfortune (E Rank) - An innate talent. Please take two seconds to briefly recall your life.
Shooting (D Rank) - Oh, not bad. You actually improved to this level in a short time without relying on cheats.]
[Derivative Skill: Hyper-digestion - Your body's energy absorption rate from food substances is greatly increased. You can quickly replenish energy and restore your life state by consuming food.]
[plot points: 101]
In two months, Richard had practically scoured the entire town to scrape together this many plot points. The bulk of it was still gleaned from the kids in the main protagonist group's junior squad.
"Can plot points only be obtained by getting to know plot characters?" Richard was always full of doubt about this. He often thought that since they were called 'plot points,' if they could only be obtained through character relationships, wouldn't the meaning be a bit too narrow? If changing the direction of the plot should also generate them, right?
But from the time he transmigrated until now, he didn't know how much he, this little butterfly, had changed the plot's direction. Tommy H., who shouldn't have died at the hands of The Lab's people, was now dead. The protagonist group had learned the truth about The Upside Down almost ahead of time. Yet, he couldn't scrape even a single plot point from any of that.
But according to his personal intuition, Richard felt that there should be more than one way to reap rewards. There must be others.
Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to find the answer until now.
Richard selected the [Culinary Arts] skill, took a deep breath, consumed 40 plot points, and gambled on 'Refinement Development' once more, hoping to develop another [Derivative Skill] that could increase his combat capability.
[Ding! [Culinary Arts (A Rank)] is undergoing refinement and strengthening...]
[Ding! Strengthening failed.]
Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his heart turned cold. Richard knew this was his [Misfortune] talent acting up again. He gritted his teeth and decided to gamble one more time.
[Ding! [Culinary Arts (A Rank)] is undergoing refinement and strengthening...]
[Ding! Refinement and strengthening successful!]
[Ding! You have developed a new derivative skill: [Weak Point Exploitation].]
[Weak Point Exploitation - To take off one of your arms, I only need one strike! Like Hufu slaughtering pigs or Pao Ding butchering an ox, your rich slaughtering experience has given you the ability to see through the weaknesses of all things.]
"The gamble paid off; the bicycle turned into a motorcycle." Richard breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, his [Misfortune] was sensible enough not to keep messing with his plot points. He was also full of excitement because the derivative skill that appeared this time was an ability that could be used in actual combat.
He opened his eyes and felt that the world before him had undergone some subtle changes again. But in fact, that was just the further sensory enhancement brought by the extension of [Weak Point Exploitation], allowing him to observe the world with even more meticulous detail.
To test the effects of the [Weak Point Exploitation] ability, he opened his bedroom door, poked his head out, and cast a malicious gaze toward Steve, who was snoring loudly on the living room sofa.
At this moment, in This fellow Li's eyes, Steve was no different from those pigs, cows, and sheep waiting to be slaughtered. Every weak joint on Steve's body seemed to be marked, clearly visible and glowing even in the dark night.
After watching for a while, Richard returned to his room and locked the door tight.
After secretly retracting his ability, Richard felt his originally focused spirit become scattered, and his head felt groggy. Clearly, this derivative skill could not be kept active for long; it was currently only suitable for on-the-spot performance, as using the skill consumed a significant amount of mental energy.
"It's a good thing after all..." Richard murmured. Without resisting the mental grogginess, he fell into a deep sleep.
Hawkins National Laboratory... At this moment, the laboratory was in a complete mess. Although the alarm had been deactivated, the flashing warning lights still alternated between red and blue, disturbing the minds of every lab member cleaning up the aftermath.
Just over an hour ago, the supernatural experiment guided by Dr. Brennan had run into trouble once again, and this time the problem was massive. A superpowered young girl with the number and name 'Eleven' had suddenly erupted with power far exceeding the norm, tearing open a massive rift to The Upside Down in the underground laboratory. The creatures from The Upside Down seemed to have launched a retaliation for their last attack; countless vines and unknown small monsters rushed out of the rift, capturing and killing many lab members on the spot.
In the end, a mature monster chased a doctor who was trying to run outside and escaped the laboratory. The superpowered girl who directly caused all of this also took the opportunity during the chaos to escape through The Lab's sewer, and her whereabouts remained unknown.
Looking at the mangled remains in The Lab elevator, with human blood and flesh splattered everywhere, a flash of guilt crossed Dr. Brennan's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by cold rationality. He turned to an armed personnel and asked, "Have you found any trace of Eleven or the monster?"
"No, Dr. Brennan," the man replied regretfully.
Dr. Brennan's breathing was heavy. He calmly said to those around him, "Completely seal off the underground laboratory and isolate the room with the rift to The Upside Down. Afterward, notify the congressmen and have them send Federal government investigators to assist in the search for Eleven and the monster. Then, have Shepard, Avery, and the others prepare for human traversal through the rift into The Upside Down. Tomorrow, we Will conduct tests using working dogs first."