On his second day off, near noon, sunlight filtered through the gaps in the blinds.
Mike stretched and woke up in the master bedroom of his new home; Sarah had already left.
He got out of bed, showered, and changed into an old T-shirt and cargo pants.
He had a lot to do today.
In the kitchen, he brewed some coffee and settled his brunch with milk and cereal.
After eating, he drew up a shopping list: pliers, a screwdriver set, a grinder, saw blades, safety goggles, work gloves, and…
angle iron, bolts, and a workbench.
The original basement had a drill and some common hardware left behind by the previous tenant, which saved him some time.
In the afternoon, he drove to a nearby hardware store.
As he was checking out, the male clerk scanned his items and remarked casually, “Looking at these tools, this isn’t just basic maintenance.
If you’re doing gun mods, I’d suggest going to a specialty shop.
We don’t carry some of those parts here.”
Mike looked up.
The clerk’s expression was calm, with no hint of suspicion or probing.
“It’s not a gun,” Mike shook his head.
“Just making some gadgets.”
It was a suppressor, so technically not a “gun,” but the item itself was even more illegal.
It was better to keep quiet.
“That’s good then.” The clerk packed the tools into a paper bag.
“Some customers think they can mod their own pieces, but they just end up breaking parts or even hurting themselves.
Better to leave professional work to the professionals.”
Mike paid in cash and took the bag.
“Thanks.”
Back home, he moved the tools to the basement.
The basement was cramped, with the ceiling only two meters high.
The floor was concrete, and the walls smelled faintly of dampness.
A few boxes were piled in the corner, still unpacked.
Mike started by assembling the workbench.
He built the frame with the angle iron, laid down the pre-measured wooden boards, and secured them with bolts.
The workbench was 1.5 meters long, 80 centimeters wide, and waist-high—plenty of space for his tools and materials.
Next came a simple shelf for tools and parts.
Finally, he installed an LED work light above the bench, providing bright, even illumination.
Once he organized the rest of the tools and materials into categories, his basic workshop was ready.
In the evening, after dinner, Mike went down to the basement, put on his goggles and gloves, and started his first project: a suppression device for the Desert Eagle.
The makeshift soda-can suppressor he’d used last time had limited effectiveness and had been damaged after continuous firing.
He needed a more reliable design.
He retrieved the Desert Eagle from his system space, placed it on the workbench, and measured the outer diameter of the barrel.
Then, he looked up suppressor schematics online.
He didn’t need perfect silence; he just needed to effectively reduce the muzzle blast.
He had several lengths of stainless steel tubing ready, selecting one with an inner diameter slightly larger than the Desert Eagle’s barrel. This chapter was taken from novelping(.)com without permission.
After repeated measurements, he got to work.
Using a cutoff saw, he carefully cut a 15-centimeter section, secured it in a vise, and began drilling.
He drilled several rows of small holes in the tube wall to create expansion chambers—the basic structure of a simple suppressor.
The drill bit ground against the metal with a shrill screech, sending fine metal shavings into the air.
Mike kept the speed low, spraying water occasionally to cool it down.
An hour later, three neat rows of holes lined the stainless steel tube.
Next was the internal packing.
He used two materials: a layer of high-temperature resistant steel wool and a layer of fiberglass insulation.
These materials would slow down the expansion of gunpowder gases and dampen the report.
He rolled the materials into a cylinder and carefully slid them into the steel tube, ensuring they wouldn’t obstruct the bullet’s path.
Finally, there was the connector—the hardest part.
Since he didn’t want to thread the Desert Eagle’s barrel directly, he fashioned a clamp out of steel plate with a rubber pad on the inside.
This would grip the barrel, and the clamp would connect to the stainless steel tube via threads.
Two hours later, the suppressor was essentially complete.
Though it still looked crude, it was structurally sound and could be attached or detached.
It wasn’t like the movies where you pull out a silencer, hold up the gun, and twist it a few times for an instant fit.
His handmade version required securing the clamp and the suppressor body separately.
Mike attached the suppressor and aimed at the far wall of the basement.
The weight and feel were much better than the soda can.
He didn’t dare test it here.
Even with a suppressor, he estimated that in a residential area this quiet at night, the neighbors would still hear the shot.
He tried to store the Desert Eagle back into his system space without removing the suppressor—and it worked!
“Oh!”
Mike weighed the suppressor in his hand, grinning.
This was quite convenient!
Unfortunately, it didn’t work the other way around; he couldn’t have the suppressor automatically attached when he drew the gun.
He placed the suppressor separately in a drawer.
He cleaned up the area, swept away the metal shavings, and put his tools back in their places.
With nothing left to do, Mike sat on his new sofa, his mind looping over the warehouse, Jesse, and The Hand…
A week had passed since the warehouse incident.
He felt the “heat” had likely died down and wanted to check on the situation.
At 9:00 PM, after total darkness had fallen.
Mike changed into a deep gray tracksuit and a black jacket, donned an ordinary blue baseball cap, and wore a pair of plain-glass spectacles to slightly alter his facial profile.
He applied some dark foundation to his face and stuck on a small goatee.
After checking the door and window alarms, he drove out.
He parked at a bus stop several blocks away and took a night bus toward Jesse’s apartment complex.
At 9:40 PM, he stood on the roof of a five-story old apartment building.
This building was located diagonally behind Jesse’s, separated by a patch of low-rise warehouses, at a straight-line distance of about eighty meters.
The position was hidden but offered a great vantage point, allowing him to see clearly into the third-floor windows and the back alley of Jesse’s building.
Mike lay flat behind the parapet wall at the edge of the roof, only his eyes visible.
His Dynamic Vision skill made the distant details clearer.
The window to Jesse’s room flickered with the light of a television; it seemed a new tenant had moved in.
Some other windows were lit while others were dark; the whole building looked peaceful, no different from the surrounding old apartments.
He observed for twenty minutes.
During that time, three people entered or exited the building—all looking like ordinary residents.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, he noticed a tiny glint of light on the windowsill of the third-floor hallway.
A camera!
Mike reacted instantly.
Someone was monitoring this place!
Mike, who had been about to give up, regained his patience and searched more carefully.
Soon, his gaze locked onto the corner where two small alleys met behind Jesse’s building.
There was a shadow cast by a dumpster.
That shadow was slightly deeper than the surroundings, and its shape was unnatural.
Mike held his breath and focused.
Dynamic Vision allowed him to distinguish subtle changes in light and shadow.
Within that shadow was a region where, although the outline was blurred, he could faintly make out a crouching human form.
Someone was there, motionless!
Another ten minutes passed before the shadow moved slightly, as if adjusting its posture.
If Mike hadn’t been staring with total concentration, it would have been nearly impossible to detect.
A ninja?
Mike couldn’t be sure, but this extremely stealthy method was definitely not the style of ordinary gang members.
It seemed someone suspected that Jesse, the “rookie,” had leaked information about the “warehouse.” In the world of dealers, an untrusted rookie—even just an outsider—ended up being “erased.”
The cold wind on the roof made Mike shiver, but he remained still.
Midnight passed.
The lights in the third floor of Jesse’s building went out, and the flicker of the TV disappeared.
The tenant had likely gone to sleep.
The shadow at the corner of the alley was still there.
Twenty minutes later, the shadow finally moved.
It didn’t stand up; instead, it slid slowly against the wall, gliding into another alley like liquid, vanishing into the darkness.
The entire process was silent and seamless.
If Mike hadn’t been watching the whole time, he might have thought the shadow had never existed.
Mike lay on the roof for another fifteen minutes to ensure the person wouldn’t return before slowly standing up, backing away, and leaving the roof’s edge.