Ultimate Firepower
Chapter 164 - 153 Sick

Chapter 164: Chapter 153 Sick

Li Jie’s face was clearly haggard.

Having met his lifesaver again, Li Jie felt he needed to show his appreciation, so he invited Gao Yi and his group to his home.

A large farmhouse-like house, the kind favored by Texan ranchers, but rarely inhabited by Chinese people.

They rang the doorbell.

"Come in, I see you guys. I can’t get up right now, the door is unlocked. Please, come in."

Gao Yi and his companions entered with slight confusion.

Li Jie’s home had a certain romantic touch characteristic of technical men: everything was impeccably clean and orderly.

A very normal and ordinary-looking living room.

"This way, please. I’m not able to receive you standing up, come over here to talk."

Following the voice, Gao Yi found the room where Li Jie was.

Li Jie didn’t open the door, nor did he greet his lifesaver with a hug; he just kept sitting in his chair, watching Gao Yi.

Li Jie sat on a swivel chair, his back to a triple monitor setup, the screen paused on a game menu, with a large desk cluttered with gadgets in front of him, the type used for manual crafting.

His feet propped on the desk, holding a Siamese cat in his arms, Li Jie pressed his left hand against the cat, gently stroking its belly with the right, he murmured, "I’m petting the cat. This silly cat rarely gets close to me, I can’t move right now."

Gao Yi didn’t know what to say. He glanced at the items on the table, his eyes lit up, "Is this gun mine?"

"Yes, it’s yours."

There was a handgun on the table, quite large, a size bigger than standard handguns.

Its color was a non-reflective gray and the black grip panels made it look really cool overall with no other adjective coming close.

Gao Yi rubbed his hands unconsciously, then excitedly picked up the gun.

The handgun was indeed heavy, very heavy – at least twice as heavy as a standard handgun. Nowadays, handguns were being made lighter, with six to seven hundred grams being the norm, but a two-kilogram standard handgun was certainly uncommon.

Heavy, with a reassuring heft, it felt very stable in the hand.

"I worked overtime to assemble and adjust it knowing you’d come. Just half an hour before you arrived, it was... hey, don’t move, don’t move!"

While he warned against moving, the plump cat in Li Jie’s arms still managed to struggle free from his "clutches" and jumped to the floor, shook itself, and then walked away with a proud gait.

"This silly cat... It always lies in front of my keyboard when I play games and climbs on my workbench when I craft, but never lets me touch it."

Li Jie looked fondly at his cat as it left the study-cum-gaming room, finally lowered his feet from the desk and stood up, looking worn out, "About your gun, it’s fully hand-tuned and took me six hours. It nearly killed me."

Gao Yi, holding the gun he had eagerly awaited and put so much effort into obtaining, cautiously asked, "May I try it?"

"Sure."

Li Jie stood up and walked to a nearby cabinet. Opening the cabinet, he retrieved a tray from inside.

On the tray were high-precision bullet storage boxes.

"I asked a friend to custom-make these bullets for you. There’s twenty percent charge, forty, sixty, eighty, and full charge. That’s one set, arranged with even-numbered propellant charges."

He quickly pointed out five bullet boxes, but there were eight more on the tray.

"Fearing you might have OCD – actually, it’s me who has a bit of OCD – here are the oddly-charged bullets: ten, thirty, fifty, seventy, and ninety, the minimum being ten percent and maximum being ninety percent of the charge."

After pointing out five more bullet boxes, Li Jie motioned towards the last three, "These last three are simple: they are all overcharged bullets, with increments of twenty percent, fifty percent, and up to twice the standard charge. You can custom order any caliber of bullets you want, all handmade with less than a 10 microgram margin of error, and you can also choose the type of bullet."

Thirteen types of bullets for a single gun, that was quite something.

Taking an empty magazine, Li Jie continued, "This gun has never been test-fired, not a single shot, so I don’t know which type of bullet fits best. But I guess that the ten percent charged bullets won’t provide enough recoil and will likely cause ejection issues due to insufficient cycling, so give it a try."

Gao Yi took the magazine with a single bullet loaded and inserted it into the gun.

He hadn’t fired yet, no, hadn’t even racked the slide – it was just the magazine insertion that gave a very noticeable difference in tactile sensation.

Smooth, comfortable.

Hard to pinpoint exactly why it felt comfortable, Gao Yi just knew that holding the gun felt right.

"Take some bullets and go shoot outside. Don’t fire in my house."

Li Jie took two large headsets and placed them on the tray, leading the way without giving Lin Xianghua and the others any special acknowledgement, just nodding his head. As he left the study and passed through the living room, he couldn’t help but give Lucy an extra glance.

Once through the back door of the living room, they were in the yard.

Li Jie’s house wasn’t like a normal person’s home, or rather, not like an ordinary person’s home. Not because he lived in the suburbs, nor because his yard was massive, but because his backyard was a shooting range.

Under the shade canopy in the backyard, Li Jie placed the tray on a large wooden table and pointed to a circular iron target ten meters away: "Fire when ready."

Gao Yi couldn’t wait any longer; he racked the slide.

The gun was heavy, but the slide felt one way – silky smooth. The entire loading process was incredibly slick.

A click, crisp and clear.

Gao Yi raised the handgun, aimed at the small circular target, and aimed through the holographic sight, the green dot targeting the bullseye, he immediately pulled the trigger.

A very light trigger with slight resistance, not requiring any extra pressure from the shooting finger, but the final instant of firing had a noticeable feel.

Indescribably smooth, raising the gun, an unintentional shot rang out, and the metal target made a ’ding’ sound, indicating Gao Yi had hit it.

Indeed, as Li Jie mentioned, the ten percent charge was too weak; the slide didn’t fully cycle back, and the casing got stuck in the ejection port.

Gao Yi cycled the slide, tilted the handgun, and the casing fell to the ground.

Li Jie took a bullet and suggested, "Try the twenty percent charge. I think it still won’t work, probably manage to eject but might have issues reloading. Fire a few more shots to be sure."

Li Jie started to load bullets into another magazine.

Gao Yi looked at Li Jie, astonished, "There’s absolutely no recoil!"

Turning to a group of firearms experts, Gao Yi exclaimed, "Truly, there’s no recoil at all!"

"Don’t be so loud. Try this one."

Li Jie handed over the newly loaded magazine, which Gao Yi took.

Even just switching magazines was a pleasure, akin to trading a long walk for a spin in a supercar on a racetrack.

Such a vast difference.

Gao Yi took the new magazine and fired again. There was hardly any muzzle rise, allowing him to smoothly fire off a second shot.

Both bullets struck almost the exact same spot, one beside the other.

"Wow, I can actually make these shots!"

Gao Yi was thrilled, feeling for the first time that his marksmanship was extraordinary, feeling like a true sharpshooter.

It proved that when skill was lacking, equipment could make up for it, and Gao Yi could become a sharpshooter after all.

Gao Yi was overjoyed, while Lucy, perplexed, asked, "What’s the use of such a gun other than target practice? Does it have any other purpose?"

Everyone fell silent, and after a moment of contemplation, Feng Biao said, "You... uh... boss..."

Even Feng Biao, adept at flattery, couldn’t find a practical use for the gun, and struggled to find words.

Gao Yi didn’t care; he was too impatient and quickly fired off every bullet.

With the gun, firing standard .38super bullets he barely felt any recoil – it was that powerful. Firing one and a half times the standard propellant, the recoil was noticeable, but even with double the charge, which normal firearms couldn’t withstand, the kickback was much less intense compared to a regular handgun.

Overall, ignoring its lack of portability, weight, and size, it was a Divine Artifact.

When Gao Yi fired the last overcharged bullet, Li Jie finally sighed, "Perfect test pass, congratulations."

Li Jie led the applause, with everyone joining in, unsure if they were celebrating Li Jie’s creation of a superb handgun or Gao Yi’s realization of his sharpshooter dream.

Li Jie placed his hands down, then said seriously, "Double the charge, plus sub-caliber fin-stabilized armor-piercing rounds, and it’ll pierce any Bullet-Proof Vest. It’s got no flaws except the price. Do you want it?"

"Of course, I want it!"

Gao Yi was excited, shouting, "I’ll take whatever’s available. I’ve got money now, price is no object."

Li Jie nodded, then suddenly asked, "Are you guys hiring?"

"Hiring... what?"

Li Jie bit his lip, looking earnest. "Since coming back from Iraq, I’ve been troubled. I’ve been wondering, what am I really after? Is it making the guns I want in the workshop or going after the people I want to shoot? I’ve thought about this for many days and decided that making guns isn’t as satisfying as using them."

They all stared at Li Jie.

Gao Yi, confused, said, "You have a bright future and money, and you want to mingle with us? Are you sick?"

Li Jie nodded seriously and admitted, "Yes, anxiety, depression, a troubled heart. How about this? I’ll pay you guys to take me on a spree, how does that sound?"