In the alley outside the old house, the faint hum of engines disturbed the stagnant water of the night.
Inside the SUV, Zhao Tianqi stared at the tablet screen, where a red dot blinked incessantly. It was the high-frequency vibration captured by the acoustic sensor array—the physical clicking sound Wan Dashan had made when stuffing that “circuit board” into the stone lion’s mouth.
“Mr. Zhao, the audio analysis is complete,” the technician said, adjusting his glasses with a grave expression. “The sound of the object entering the cavity has a metallic reverberation. Weight estimated between 150 and 200 grams. Consistent with the physical parameters of Wan Corp’s First-Generation Encryption Module.”
“Dashan is playing a martyr’s game,” Zhao sneered, swiping his finger across the screen. “He thinks this primitive ‘treasure map’ act can stall my three-day Silence Protocol. But he forgot: algorithms don’t just calculate human hearts; they calculate paths.”
He pressed a virtual red button.
From the cargo bay of the rear truck, three sleek, jet-black quadruped robots (Robo-Dogs) leaped out silently. They had no breath. Their paws were wrapped in high-damping rubber, making them ghostly silent on the blue brick road.
“Bypass the old man at the front gate,” Zhao ordered coldly. “Scale the west wall. Avoid all living targets. Go straight for the stone lion.”
Inside the Wan Old Residence, Dashan sat in a bamboo chair in the skywell courtyard. He held a whetstone and was slowly, rhythmically sharpening his skinning knife.
Scrape… Scrape…
The sound was steady, almost hypnotic.
“Big Brother, they’re in,” Ruyi whispered from the attic window. She held an old-fashioned optical telescope. No electronic enhancement. She knew any digital signal would be instantly flagged by the enemy.
“How many?” Dashan asked, not looking up. The knife blade sparked against the stone.
“Three. Black. Unarmed. Looks like a snatch-and-grab mission.”
“Madame Shen,” Dashan called out calmly. “Is Uncle Wang’s ink line ready?”
Shen stood behind the spirit screen, gripping a nearly invisible silk thread. The other end was tied to several large pickling jars positioned strategically around the yard. “Ready long ago. These little beasts recognize infrared. They recognize ultrasound. But they don’t recognize the ‘Traps of the Old House’.”
As if on cue, one of the Robo-Dogs silently vaulted over the wall and landed on the courtyard’s blue bricks. Its LiDAR scanner spun rapidly. In its digital composite eye, the courtyard was rendered as a neat, predictable grid.
But just as it accelerated toward the stone lion, its front left leg suddenly sank into nothingness.
It wasn’t a high-tech trap. It was a loose mud brick, corroded by years of well water seepage. Dashan had poured half a bucket of talcum powder over it just minutes before.
The robot’s algorithm tried to correct its center of gravity within a millisecond. But this purely physical stumble—a variable not in its database—caused its precision joints to emit a piercing torque alarm.
Click.
The sound was faint. But to Dashan’s ears, it was the starting gun.
“Ruyi. Break its legs.”
In the attic, Ruyi yanked a thick hemp rope.
A row of heavy clothes-drying poles, tipped with raw iron, swung down with the sheer force of gravity. They carried no circuits. They emitted no signals. To the Robo-Dog’s warning system, they weren’t weapons; they were just “Environmental Gravity Displacement.”
CRASH!
The first Robo-Dog was swept off its feet, its hydraulic leg sheared clean off like a brittle insect limb. It spun wildly on the ground, sparks flying in the darkness as its motors screamed in protest.
Inside the SUV, two of Zhao’s screens went black instantly.
“What happened? Under attack? Why no assault warning?” Zhao jumped up, banging his head on the car ceiling.
“Report…” the technician’s voice trembled. “No electromagnetic fluctuations detected. No infrared lock-on. Sir… it seems they attacked us using… gravity.”
Dashan stood up. He picked up his skinning knife and walked toward the paralyzed machine, his eyes holding the cruel glint of an old-school hunter.
He leaned down, staring directly into the robot’s camera lens. For the first time since entering the old house, a smile spread across his face.
“Mr. Zhao,” Dashan said, his voice calm and clear through the microphone. “Let me remind you of something. In Old City, in places where algorithms don’t rule… we call it ‘Jianghu’.”
He kicked the sparking robot head, silencing its alarm.
“Your dogs… have legs too brittle for the real world.”
[SYSTEM ALERT: UNIT 1 DESTROYED.]
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
[CAUSE OF FAILURE: PHYSICAL TRAUMA (BLUNT FORCE).]
[DATA INTEGRITY: 0%.]
[WARNING: ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES EXCEED PREDICTION MODEL.]
Zhao stared at the error message, his hands shaking. For the first time, he realized his greatest weakness: his machines could fight enemies, but they couldn’t fight history.
[COUNTDOWN TO FUNERAL: 47:12:05]
Who needs lasers when you have GRAVITY and a loose brick? Dashan just proved that in the 'Jianghu', old-school physics beats new-school tech every time. ????
Zhao’s expensive machines got wrecked by laundry poles and talcum powder. Talk about a budget-friendly defense! ??
Next Chapter: Zhao is furious. He’s lost his toys, so now he might bring out the big guns (or maybe just his lawyers?). How will Dashan handle the escalation?
Question: What’s the most useless high-tech gadget you’ve ever seen? ??
