Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

The order contained a variety of popular ingredients, bringing the total price to nearly fifty yuan.

He rode his bike to the store to pick up his food.

It was packaged very carefully, and you could smell the rich aroma even through the paper bag.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Qiliang went to the "Yuejingwan" residential community.

The community's access control is mediocre; it's easy to enter by following other residents.

Find Building 12 and take the elevator upstairs.

As per procedure, Zhang Qiliang dialed the customer's pre-registered phone number while the elevator was going up.

"Beep...beep...beep..."

No one heard.

The elevator arrived at the 12th floor.

Zhang Qiliang walked to the door of room 1203 and dialed again.

There was only a long waiting tone until the call was automatically disconnected.

Zhang Qiliang rang the doorbell. He had such good hearing that he could clearly hear the TV inside, but no one answered the door.

Some people just don't like answering the phone or meeting strangers, Zhang Qiliang can understand.

The platform rules allow riders to wait for a period of time and report an anomaly if they are unable to contact a customer.

Zhang Qiliang looked at the timer on his phone and stood quietly at the door for three minutes.

I tried making another call during that time, but the result was the same.

We'll be there in three minutes.

Zhang Qiliang clicked "Unable to contact customer" on the APP, selected "Place food at the door according to the rules", and uploaded a clear photo - the closed door, the door number, and the paper bag of scallion pancakes placed on the ground at the door.

After completing the operation, he turned and left, taking the elevator downstairs.

Stepping out of the building, Zhang Qiliang walked towards his electric scooter parked beside the green belt, mentally estimating the number of orders and battery level for the afternoon.

Just as I reached the bike, before my hand even touched the handlebars, my phone suddenly beeped with a sharp notification. It wasn't an order reminder, but a platform notification:

[Order Anomaly Alert] Your order (tracking number: XXXXXX) has been marked as "not received" by the customer. Please verify the situation immediately and contact the customer or customer service. If it is verified that the delivery is at fault, you may face deductions and credit penalties.

Lost food?

Zhang Qiliang turned his car around and returned to the building.

The elevator doors opened, and the corridor remained quiet.

The door to room 1203 was empty.

The expensive scallion pancake, along with its exquisite paper bag, has disappeared without a trace.

If it were any other delivery driver, or even if the express team arrived after receiving a report, they would most likely just shake their heads in the face of this situation—there are no security cameras at the entrance, and the camera at the building entrance is not positioned to capture this location.

You say the meal was lost, she says she didn't receive it, and each has their own version of events. In the end, the rider often has to suffer in silence while the platform deducts the money from their account.

But Zhang Qiliang is none other than himself.

He stood in front of the door, his gaze slowly sweeping over the light-colored floor tiles at the entrance.

To the average person, the place appears perfectly clean, with perhaps a few specks of dust.

But with Zhang Qiliang's extraordinary vision, the extremely subtle changes in the texture of the floor tiles and the almost imperceptible traces of dust being dragged and trampled formed a clear trajectory—from where he placed it by the door, towards the interior, it had been dragged a little.

Even clearer evidence comes from the sense of smell.

Through the heavy security door, ordinary people obviously couldn't smell anything, but Zhang Qiliang could clearly distinguish the faint smell in the air that was a mixture of a specific sauce, pancakes, and high-grade packaging paper, and the source was in the living room area behind the door.

Moreover, by slightly increasing the sensitivity of his hearing, Zhang Qiliang was able to detect obvious signs of human activity inside the door, such as chewing.

Zhang Qiliang picked up his phone again and dialed that number.

The waiting tone came through the receiver, echoing in the silent corridor.

Inside the door, a slight vibration could be heard. The chewing sound paused for half a second, then became even more cautious.

Zhang Qiliang put down his phone, raised his hand, and knocked on the door again.

This time the knocking was a little harder than before; the knuckles struck the door panel with a dull "thump-thump."

"Hello, takeout."

Inside the door, the chewing sounds completely stopped. —Hmm, good, not a hearing impaired person.

Zhang Qiliang smiled.

Then, he gently lifted his right leg and casually pushed forward.

"Bang--!!!"

A deafening roar, far beyond what could be described as "casual," suddenly exploded!

The heavy security door lock deformed and cracked in response!

The door suddenly sprang open inwards, slamming hard against the inner wall before bouncing back, still trembling. The plaster around the door frame crumbled off.

The view of the living room was completely unobstructed.

A woman who looked to be in her late twenties was dressed in casual clothes, with exquisite makeup, her newly done manicure gleaming in the indoor lighting, and a clearly expensive designer necklace pendant around her neck.

She was half-curled up on the sofa, still clutching the remaining half of a scallion pancake in her hand, a little sauce on the corner of her mouth, her face drained of color, her eyes wide open, filled with disbelief and terror, staring blankly at the uninvited guest who had burst through the door.

Zhang Qiliang stepped over the deformed threshold and into the messy living room, his gaze landing on the woman's face.

"Hello," Zhang Qiliang said with a smile, "I heard you lost a meal? I'm here to talk to you."

The woman jolted, nearly dropping the half-eaten pancake in her hand.

She sat up abruptly, her eyes darting around, her voice shrill and terrified: "Who...who are you?! How did you get in here?! I'm calling the police!"

“I’m a food deliveryman,” Zhang Qiliang said calmly, not getting any closer. “I made two phone calls, knocked on the door twice, waited for three minutes, reported the anomaly, took photos, and then the system showed ‘lost food’.”

As he spoke, Zhang Qiliang's gaze swept over the scallion pancake in the woman's hand and the corner of her mouth.

"Looks like the food wasn't lost."

The woman's face flushed red and then paled, clutching the pancake in her hand tightly. She tried to remain calm: "I...I was taking a shower! I didn't hear the phone! I only saw something at the door when I came out, so I just brought it in...My phone was dead, and I just plugged it in! I didn't mean to ignore it! Why did you kick down my door?! That's illegal!"

Her voice grew louder and louder, as if to bolster her confidence, but the panic in her eyes and the subtle trembling of her body betrayed her.

“Oh, I didn’t hear the phone ring,” Zhang Qiliang nodded, seemingly accepting the explanation. “But you’re really careless. This is an Aishang hand-pulled pancake, and one pancake costs 48 yuan… Do you know that? I’ve been running around since this morning, taking 23 orders, and only made 86 yuan.”

The woman's lips moved slightly, but she didn't say anything. She just looked at him in fear, wondering what he wanted to do.

"I...I'll pay you back!" she finally managed to say, her voice trembling. "I'll fix the door myself! You...you go away! I won't pursue this further!"

“No need,” Zhang Qiliang shook his head. “Since you don’t want to spend money, then save some. I can still afford to treat you to a pancake.”

As he spoke, Zhang Qiliang took a step forward.

The woman shrank back in fright, pressing herself tightly against the back of the sofa, her breathing rapid.

"Eat up," Zhang Qiliang said with a smile.

The woman looked at him, then at the small half-eaten pancake in her hand, and countless terrible possibilities sent chills down her spine.

She shook her head frantically, tears welling up in her eyes: "No... I... I'm full... I really will pay back the money! I'll pay double!"

Zhang Qiliang didn't speak, but just looked at her quietly. His calm gaze was more oppressive than any roar.

Time ticked by, and the only sounds in the living room were the woman's heavy breathing and the faint noise of the city outside the window.

Finally, under extreme fear and pressure, the woman's hands trembled as she slowly stuffed the remaining half of the biscuit into her mouth, chewing and swallowing mechanically, a process that was incredibly difficult, as if she were swallowing a knife.

Zhang Qiliang stood there like a patient spectator, watching her finish eating.

After the woman finished eating the pancake, her hands were empty, her stomach felt heavy, and her heart was filled with fear.

She looked up, tears welling in her eyes, pleading with Zhang Qiliang, hoping this nightmarish ordeal would finally end.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Zhang Qiliang asked, puzzled. "There are still so many."

He was pointing to the greasy kraft paper packaging on the coffee table, and the plastic bag and order form sticking out of the trash can.

39 Night Run

Eat the packaging bag?

The woman looked into Zhang Qiliang's eyes, which were filled with deep calm: "Brother, I'm not joking with you."

But eating the packaging?!

"Brother, I was wrong! I was really wrong!" Tears finally streamed down the woman's face, her voice trembling uncontrollably. "I'll pay you back! I'll pay ten times! No, twenty times! This pancake cost 48, I... I'll give you a thousand! No, two thousand! I'll even fix the door myself! Please, don't do this..."

She was rambling incoherently, only wanting to use money to pave a way out.

In her past understanding, most problems could be solved with money, especially when dealing with these low-level service industry workers.

“I already said I was treating,” Zhang Qiliang sighed, his voice filled with regret, his good intentions once again being rejected. “Are you… determined to look down on people?”

As he spoke, he took a step forward.

Just one step was enough to suffocate the woman with its oppressive force.

She pressed her back firmly against the sofa, with nowhere to retreat. A wave of overwhelming fear gripped her, bringing her to the brink of collapse: "Big brother! What do you want?! Just tell me! What do you want me to do for you to leave?! Tell me!"

Zhang Qiliang had already walked up to him.

The next moment, a hand rapidly magnified in view.

"Snapped!"

The woman felt as if she had been slammed hard on her left cheek by an iron plate. An irresistible force surged through her, causing her head to swing violently to the right and her entire body to spin.

The world spun around me, and the outlines of the furniture in my field of vision shook, stretched, and blurred wildly.

She staggered, spun around twice, and then fell to the ground with a "thud," half of her body hitting the legs of the coffee table.

It turns out that the scene in the movie where someone gets slapped and spins around isn't actually special effects...

This was the first absurd thought that flashed through her dizzy mind.

Immediately afterwards, a tsunami of intense pain swept over the left side of her face.

The burning, swelling, and intense pain that even made my eardrums ring were excruciating.

She instinctively covered her face, and could clearly feel her cheeks swelling rapidly under her palms as if being inflated, her skin taut and burning with pain.

My mouth tasted fishy, ​​and there was something hard mixed in with my saliva.

She opened her mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood and a white molar.

The woman was completely stunned.

From childhood to adulthood, she never imagined that she would be beaten like this one day.

"Eat."

The calm voice rang out again.

The woman trembled as she raised her head. Through her tear-blurred vision, she saw Zhang Qiliang standing there, looking down at her.

Looking into that gaze, the woman knew that if she didn't eat soon, her other cheek would probably get chubby too.

That was something she absolutely could not bear.

The instinct for survival, or rather, the instinct to avoid more pain, took over.

She struggled to her feet, ignoring the excruciating pain in her cheek and the taste of blood in her mouth, her eyes scanning the floor in horror—the tooth, the order slip, the brown paper on the coffee table, and the plastic bag in the trash can.

She practically crawled, picking up the order slip that was closest to her, which was covered in dust and oil stains.

The paper was small, but it felt incredibly heavy in her hands.

She looked at the printed menu items, prices, and her phone number, closed her eyes, and with immense humiliation and fear, shoved the receipt haphazardly into her mouth, mechanically and laboriously chewing it with her still-intact right teeth.

The thermal paper had a strange and pungent smell, mixed with the smell of blood, which made her feel nauseous, but she dared not stop and desperately swallowed it down.

After finishing the bill, she gasped for breath, looking at Zhang Qiliang with tearful eyes, her gaze filled with utter submission and pleading.

Zhang Qiliang simply raised his chin and gestured towards the larger piece of kraft paper packaging on the coffee table.

The woman resignedly moved over and picked up the piece of kraft paper printed with a beautiful logo and pattern.

She tried to tear off a small piece and put it in her mouth.