The Defying Skill — Divine Selection

"Skill: Divine Selection!"

"Enemies cannot inflict crippling or fatal injuries on you, and likewise, you cannot inflict crippling or fatal injuries on them. The latter can be adjusted—you may choose to kill the enemy."

Though a bit of a tongue twister, once you grasp the meaning of this skill, you'll realize how incredibly powerful it is—far beyond just being "defiant." The previous "defiant" skills were simply strong, but Divine Selection blends formidable ability with a deeply humanized design that aligns with the current reality of Earth and modern-day China.

Killing people is illegal.

As long as you've chosen this skill, you can't kill anyone. Even if you stab someone straight into their eye socket, it won't cause real blindness. This means that in a fight, you can strike without hesitation or fear of accidental consequences that could ruin your life.

Likewise, you don't need to worry about others seriously injuring you—no one can cause you debilitating harm.

At the moment he saw this skill, Xu Bin felt it was tailor-made for gangsters. It's like a cheat code for walking into a battlefield and taking down generals—no matter how many people come at you with machetes, you won't face life-threatening danger. Of course, excessive blood loss is still a potential issue.

At the same time, this skill is perfect for cautious, conflict-avoidant individuals. It's a 100% match for them. You might tell yourself that to succeed in this ruthless society, you have to be fierce, but deep down, you're unsure of what that really means. What if you hurt someone and end up ruining your bright future? Now, with this skill, that fear is gone. You never intended to become a killer—just being able to protect yourself is enough.

Except for the truly timid who would never fight under any circumstance, anyone who gains the Divine Selection skill will feel empowered. No longer will you be bullied—when forced to choose between physical pain and humiliation, you'll take the former. Besides, you're not completely helpless—just swing the cleaver or axe. At worst, the opponent gets sent to the hospital and you pay some medical bills. Even if there's disfigurement, there'll be no disabling or deadly injuries.

This is practically a divine-level skill made to show off. It instantly outclasses all previous rewards. After wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, Xu Bin shut the door and headed to a stall in the underpass near the train station, where he bought a short knife with the flair of a Hong Kong action movie. It had a curved blade with a carved dragon, beautifully crafted—clearly decorative, not functional, with a dull edge.

He then searched around a residential area near the pedestrian street and, as expected, found an old-school knife sharpener. For just five yuan, the elderly man—speaking in a dialect Xu Bin couldn't quite place—sharpened the blade without asking why he needed it.

Once upon a time, when Xu Bin was still a student, he fantasized about being bold and invincible. He feared both getting hurt and hurting others. He'd seen students fighting with knives a few times and had always kept his distance, unable to understand their ruthlessness. Even now, he couldn't truly relate to their mindset—but now he could finally experience something he'd never dared to before. Damn it, Che Dong, you little bastard—if you come at me again, I'll show you what it means to go in with a white knife and come out with a red one.

He placed the knife in the right-side drawer of his computer desk. Excitement surged through him. Every boy dreams of being an invincible hero. If he could add a pain-immunity skill on top of this, life would be perfect.

After a whole night and morning of effort, followed by a fight and a burst of adrenaline, Xu Bin began to feel sleepy. As for the upcoming weekly mission, he reminded himself that it wasn't something achievable in a single day. Trying to replenish all that energy at once would either break his body or run out of available used goods. With the smartphone trick now in play, he had a safety net. If home appliances didn't pan out, he'd take a financial loss to complete the task—time to shift focus.

He drifted off in his chair, dozing off without realizing it. In the room across from his, Zhong Yu saw him slumped over with drool at the corner of his mouth, smiled, walked over, and gently covered him with a blanket.

Li Jiuren showed up after Xu Bin had napped for over an hour. Playing the role of a master visiting his apprentice, he walked into the shop and saw the bruises on Xu Bin's face. With a "disappointed mentor" tone, he said, "You two, senior and junior apprentices, both grown men—why couldn't you talk it out instead of fighting? I already scolded Che Dong, but you, Shuangquan, were too rough. Knocked out one of his teeth and gave him several lumps on the head. I really didn't expect you to go that far."

He claimed to be there to hold people accountable, but in truth, he came to smooth things over. You'd have to be an idiot to think Li Jiuren and Che Dong didn't know what they were doing. The nearly brand-new goods they got from Xu Bin a few days ago had already been flipped using their industry connections, netting them a few hundred yuan profit just by talking and running errands. That's way easier than doing repairs. With the appliance market this tough, whoever can help you make money is king.

Li Jiuren came to ease tensions with Xu Bin. He even stayed for lunch at the shop, buying three dishes from a fast-food place and claiming it was to share a drink with his apprentice. But everyone knew the real reason. If the sales channel wasn't a problem, Xu Bin wouldn't have shown him any kindness at all. It was Li Jiuren who tipped off Che Dong earlier—otherwise, none of this would have happened.

The food was bland, the drinks tasteless. Li Jiuren brought over more than a thousand yuan in cash and took away a fridge and a color TV. He also promised that any future secondhand items would be picked up directly by the junior apprentice, Dengpao. He even offered to send Dengpao to help Xu Bin out at the shop.

Xu Bin flatly refused. He wasn't about to let someone plant a spy here. After his fight with Che Dong that morning, he fully realized—only money that ends up in your own pocket is real. When money talks, everything else steps aside.

With his cash flow back in motion, Xu Bin had no choice but to work hard for the monthly mission. His total now exceeded 10,000 yuan. Rent was 5,000, daily expenses and transport another 2,000, and 3,000+ had gone into stocking goods. He still had a little over 2,000 yuan left. Looking at the few phones on display, he felt they looked too shabby. So he locked up the shop and rode his Phoenix bicycle to Anhua Secondhand Electronics Market.

Back when he was apprenticing under Li Jiuren, he'd taken an electronics repair class. It was mostly theoretical phone repair knowledge. Later, he worked in Anhua for over a month as a "seam"—someone who buys broken phones, repairs or refurbishes them, then sells for a profit. He barely got a foot in the industry before financial pressures forced him to quit and open his own repair shop. Over the past six months, he'd spent as much time at Anhua as he could, making a few acquaintances and earning a bit—until a 64GB iPhone 4s crushed his confidence and capital. He lost 2,000 yuan on it. Life in Spring City was tough. Xu Bin had to tread carefully with every step. Until now, he hadn't dared to return to Anhua. But things were different now. With the "Restore Old to New" skill and the remaining secondhand market, he was determined to make a killing here.

Back when phone designs were all over the place, manufacturers competed on looks. There were over a hundred different models to choose from. Then smartphones came along and shrank that diversity. Big screens became the standard. When Apple made all phones look alike, repair work declined—higher integration meant even the best repair skills couldn't beat machine-level precision. Ironically, the secondhand market hit a small boom. Many who couldn't afford a new iPhone found hope in used ones. Samsung's rebound proved that smartphones were the future.

Now, Xu Bin wasn't afraid of being scammed. He just needed to make sure a phone had all its components. Even a cracked screen or water-damaged motherboard didn't matter. This time at Anhua, he didn't even visit his usual contacts. If he was going to get scammed, he'd rather it be random people than so-called friends. With a backpack on, he looked like someone in the trade. He wandered from stall to stall, specifically targeting broken or scrapped phones. For 1,500 yuan, he bought eight smartphones—five of them Samsung, one HTC, one unbranded scrap unit that was practically free. After two hours, he left with a full load.

A country has its fate, and so does a person. Ever since Xu Bin obtained the Interstellar Merchant system—that of a cosmic reseller—his luck had turned around. No longer the struggling youth, fortune now favored him, and good things kept landing in his lap.

Early that morning, a big repair shop owner came to his store, responding to Xu Bin's initiative. He gave high praise to all the refurbished goods in stock and, without a word of haggling, bought the entire batch at 50 yuan higher than Li Jiuren's price. Professional movers ensured not a single item was scratched. Xu Bin stared at the empty shop with a strange feeling—but it vanished within 30 minutes.

It turned out this bigshot wasn't just a repairman—he was also a refurbisher and a small-scale supplier for rural appliance programs. Buying Xu Bin's stock meant his refurbishing skills were now good enough to fool even seasoned pros.

Spring City may be big, but the appliance repair circle is small. With this, Xu Bin became famous overnight in the train station district—his reputation skyrocketed!