Chapter 72 - 61: Degenerated Tail

"Whoa... that’s amazing!"

Wu Fang stared in awe at the two jokers—one red, one black—pinned to the tree trunk by the Short Sword Darts.

She never imagined Chen Jue’s skill with Darts could be this incredible!

From Wu Fang’s perspective, throwing Darts in quick succession wasn’t difficult. Many ordinary people who’d practiced could do it easily.

Even hitting a moving target wasn’t exceptionally hard. With enough practice, it became second nature.

The truly difficult part was that after throwing a rapid series of Darts, he could still accurately hit those two specific jokers out of a flurry of scattered playing cards.

After all, once a full deck of cards was tossed into the air, they only took a brief four or five seconds to land.

A standard deck has 54 cards, and the probability of drawing both jokers consecutively is already as low as 0.34%.

Let alone finding and hitting both jokers among so many fluttering cards before they touched the ground—the probability was so low it was practically impossible to calculate.

That wasn’t just absurd. It was absurd on a whole other level!

Of course, to prove on camera that the cards hadn’t been tampered with in post-production, Chen Jue deliberately took the two jokers off the Short Sword Darts, tore them to shreds in front of the lens, and showed the pieces.

Still, managing to film the entire stunt video so smoothly in a single take was something that surprised even Chen Jue himself.

’Could it be that having a girl here gave me a buff?’

Chen Jue mused to himself as he took off his Face Armor, smiling at the stunned Wu Fang. "So? That should count as a pretty neat trick, right?"

"It counts! And it’s an incredible trick! With so many cards flying through the air, my eyes went blurry just trying to watch. How did you do it?" Wu Fang nodded, her face full of curiosity.

"Uh... I guess it was by feel!"

The question caught Chen Jue off guard. He carefully recalled the absurd sequence of movements he had just performed.

He realized his ability to quickly spot the two jokers wasn’t just from his recent nighttime "forays" at the garbage dump, which had trained his eyes’ dynamic tracking. It also seemed to be related to his day job.

As someone in financial risk control, besides scrutinizing the basic information submitted by clients, he also had to sift through massive piles of bank statements to identify risk factors.

For example, he had to spot abnormal transactions and frequent deposits or expenditures. These records helped determine if a client was involved in online gambling, making large in-game purchases, or donating money to female streamers. This was all done to rule out poor spending habits and eliminate deeper risks.

Bank statements were dense and voluminous. Pulling up six months’ or a year’s worth could yield tens of thousands of entries for a single client!

Finding a client’s risk factors with just a few glances through so many records was a huge test of a risk control officer’s eyesight and analytical processing ability.

It was like the cardsharps in old Hong Kong gambling movies. Besides learning card-swapping and peeking techniques too fast for the naked eye to see, they also needed a brilliant mind for memorizing and calculating cards.

It was a unique operational logic that combined visual capture with rapid brain computation, which then triggered a swift physical response.

It was like integrating several Master Level Skills to achieve such an extraordinary result.

Calling it a "special trick" was no exaggeration at all!

"By feel?"

Wu Fang’s expression showed a hint of understanding when she heard his explanation.

She often practiced the Rope Dart with her grandfather and knew that hitting a target wasn’t just about aiming beforehand. A lot of it came down to a feel for the weapon and a sense of distance.

Once that feeling clicked into place, the accuracy of her Darts would increase dramatically.

But this was a difficult thing to describe to outsiders. It was often a sensation one could only grasp after practicing a skill to a high level.

So, after hearing Chen Jue’s vague answer, Wu Fang didn’t show much surprise. Instead, she adopted a serious, thoughtful expression.

That look—a mix of seriousness and intellect—made Chen Jue’s heart skip a beat, as if he’d been shot right through it.

’Teacher Wu! You’re a goddess!’

...

After they finished filming the trick shot video together, they reviewed the footage.

The cinematic quality of the shots left Chen Jue speechless with amazement.

’As expected of a girl. Her camera skills are in a completely different league from a rough guy like me.’

He quickly edited the clip with a phone app, titled it "Stunt Shot: Royal Flush," and uploaded it to the platform. Then, Chen Jue packed up his props and sat on the lawn to chat with Wu Fang.

When he learned that she often came to the park on weekends to read and prepare lesson plans, an idea sparked in Chen Jue’s mind.

’I haven’t interacted with Teacher Wu enough to get to know her well.’

If he used opportunities like filming videos together to interact with her more in the future, maybe their relationship could progress. Without a second thought, Chen Jue extended a long-term invitation for her to be his assistant.

Wu Fang hesitated for a moment at first, then smiled and nodded in agreement.

After getting to know him a little, she was actually quite curious about Chen Jue.

She was curious not only about his background but also about how he had developed such incredible skills.

She had studied martial arts and practiced the Rope Dart with her grandfather since she was a child. Her talent was decent, but she definitely couldn’t perform the kind of elaborate tricks with Darts that Chen Jue could.

Besides, she was often bored on weekends, and watching Chen Jue perform his stunts live was much more entertaining than watching videos online. So, she agreed to his small request.

’It’s just filming a video, after all!’

Setting up a tripod, adjusting filters, and finding angles wasn’t difficult work. It was a simple favor.

Moreover, Chen Jue had already accepted her cousin’s invitation, so she could consider this returning the favor.

...

After chatting with Wu Fang for a while, Chen Jue packed up his things and headed back to his apartment.

He knew there would be plenty of opportunities for them to be alone in the future, so he decided not to disturb Teacher Wu while she was focused on her reading.

Back in his apartment, he quickly wiped off the sweat from his workout, then opened his computer and started searching for information about the Tailbone.

After about an hour of browsing through various articles and video explanations, Chen Jue got a general understanding of the Tailbone’s function.

The Tailbone, or coccyx, is a special bone located at the very end of the human spine, usually formed by the fusion of three to five vestigial vertebrae.

According to modern scientific research and speculation, its origin is likely the remnant of the tail that our human ancestors "evolved" away over a long period.

’The Tailbone is a vestigial tailbone?’

Chen Jue muttered as he read the material, his mind drifting to a tabby cat he had as a child in the countryside.

When a cat gets scared, it tucks its tail in, and all the fur on its body stands on end.

This was remarkably similar to how he would tighten his Tailbone while practicing Pile Skills and Squeezing Valley Dao, which stimulated his body and gave him goosebumps.

According to case data from modern medical research, everyone’s Tailbone has a different shape due to various factors like environment and Innate genetics.

There are differences not only in the number of fused vertebrae but also in their size.

As for the function of the Tailbone, it seems insignificant on the surface, but it actually holds hidden mysteries.

Besides partially connecting to the gluteus maximus, the Tailbone also houses the human body’s only Sphenopalatine Ganglion, which serves as a relay station for signals to and from the perineum.

What is the "Huiyin"?

From the perspective of Chinese medicine, the "Huiyin" is a major acupoint on the body’s Ren Meridian, forming a straight line with the "Baihui" at the crown of the head.

The "Baihui" is the ultimate yang acupoint, while the "Huiyin" is the ultimate yin acupoint.

The function of this acupoint is fundamentally linked to bodily functions like defecation and urination.

When Chen Jue practiced Pile Skills and Squeezing Valley Dao, he strengthened the neural sensitivity of his Tailbone.

The reason he would get goosebumps during practice was that the bioelectrical signals released by his central nervous system tricked his body into thinking he was about to defecate or urinate.

These two physiological functions cause a loss of body heat. Since urine and feces are stored in the bladder and intestines at close to body temperature, their expulsion leads to heat loss. This, in turn, causes the central nervous system to release an erroneous signal about temperature change, triggering the arrector pili muscles to contract and resulting in the goosebump reaction.

The logic behind this process seemed simple, but just reading about all the unfamiliar medical and anatomical knowledge made Chen Jue’s head spin.

He lamented his lack of academic knowledge.

He hadn’t studied hard in his youth, but now, approaching 30, he had to apply himself again for the sake of his health, using the power of the panel and all this seemingly useless online knowledge to glimpse the mysteries of the human body.

...

By the time he finished his research, it was already noon. Chen Jue had lunch and planned to take a nap.

Weekends were for relaxing. While his left hand was still recovering, he planned to properly adjust his physical condition to more effectively raise his Attributes.

He took two cod liver oil capsules as usual, but unexpectedly, a notification popped up on the panel:

——————

[DING~]

[Through long-term intake of steroid substances rich in vitamins A and D, your vision has slightly improved, and your bone growth has been weakly promoted.]

[Constitution Attribute +0.01]

——————

"Yes!"

’This cod liver oil was worth every penny!’ Chen Jue was overjoyed.

This was the first Attribute gain he had ever received from nutritional supplements, a small step toward success.

To improve his eyesight, he had even intentionally increased his intake of cod liver oil from one capsule a day to two.

He hadn’t expected to see a notification with results after just a few days.

Chen Jue figured that the rapid improvement in his vision wasn’t just due to the red-light therapy and the Eye Health Exercises. The cod liver oil had clearly played a part as well.