Chapter 83: Chapter 63: High-Explosive Gunpowder
Upon witnessing this scene, Zhang Chen clenched his fists tightly within his sleeves, veins bulging on his hands, as flames flickered in his eyes.
How difficult are the times? Everyone has to ration water by the mouthful, yet this damned Fox Spirit is playing with water? Such waste is simply lawless.
Where did their family get the water from? Zhang Chen is powerless, relying on the gods day and night, only reading books all day and never fetching water, so where would they have water to drink?
Undoubtedly, the water in their home was brought by the Fox Spirit from elsewhere, and his own stepmother was one of the victims. This Fox Spirit, for the sake of enjoyment, completely disregards the lives of the villagers.
Zhang Chen glanced at the Fox Spirit, then silently walked back into the house, heading straight to the fireplace wall. He took a steel needle and poked open the previously blocked gap, peering inside with wide eyes, and indeed saw the countless stolen goods inside the house, including fabrics sent from his own home, and baskets of dried meat.
"It’s truly the Fox Spirit’s doing, I wasn’t wrong to blame her!" Zhang Chen expressionlessly blocked the gap in the wall, then picked up his basket and headed towards the mountains.
"That damned Fox Spirit! She must die! She must taste my thunderous methods." Zhang Chen carried his falcon, silently arriving at the cave entrance, a hint of coldness in his eyes: "Fox Spirit, I want to see if gunpowder can blow you up!"
Since he decided to blow up the Fox Spirit, the falcon certainly couldn’t stay in the house anymore.
"Last night I figured out a foolproof plan, with two key points."
Zhang Chen was no fool, running to the Fox Spirit with explosives to fight to the death, knowing the Fox Spirit isn’t stupid either, and would never give him the chance to ignite the explosives. He feared that if he approached the Fox Spirit with a bomb, given her cunning, she would definitely strike first.
"First, have a perfect disguise. Second, extricate myself, leaving myself a way out. I must get the Fox Spirit to unknowingly ignite it herself and blow herself up, without implicating me, especially since I haven’t yet figured out all of the Fox Spirit’s abilities." Zhang Chen thought to himself:
"The first point is not difficult, I already came up with a perfect solution last night. As for how to get the Fox Spirit to ignite the explosives herself and blow up her own house..." Countless thoughts flashed in Zhang Chen’s mind, finally settling on the woodpile.
"That Fox Spirit often comes to my house to buy firewood, I just need to make the explosives into detonators, hollow out the firewood and hide them inside, so when the Fox Spirit lights a fire to cook, she’ll naturally be blown up." Zhang Chen quickly formulated a plan in his mind.
He also had to consider the various reactions that would inevitably follow the explosion, and prepare accordingly in advance.
Once he ignited the explosives, such a loud noise would surely alarm the authorities, so he needed to prepare ahead of time to extricate himself.
"If the Fox Spirit is blown up, naturally it will be good for everyone! If not, who would know where the firewood came from, they can’t blame me then!" At this moment, a slight thrill surged in Zhang Chen’s heart, his gaze falling on the gunpowder, his blood seemingly boiling: "With the Fox Spirit blown up, no one will oppress me anymore, and a magical world will slowly unfold before my eyes, and I will become extraordinary, possibly even achieve immortality and dominate the skies."
There was a tremor in Zhang Chen’s eyes, but he soon collected his thoughts, contemplating the process of making high explosives.
Ordinary gunpowder was unlikely to blow up the Fox Spirit, not to mention the slow reaction and small explosive power of common gunpowder, to kill the Fox Spirit, he needed to make sensitive and high explosives.
"To make explosives and kill that Fox Spirit, I need to make two types of explosives, a small amount of highly sensitive explosive as a trigger, and a large amount of insensitive explosive as the main force." Zhang Chen thought to himself.
Fortunately, he had already made both sensitive and insensitive explosives, now all that remained was to add an additive to the gunpowder to turn it into a high explosive.
Today, Zhang Chen didn’t even dig up any soil from the cave, heading up the mountain with his basket, soon mysteriously returning to the cave to start making high explosives.
After busily working for half a day, Zhang Chen looked at the gunpowder in front of him, a gleeful sparkle in his eyes:
"It’s about to end soon!"
Zhang Chen sighed faintly, gritting his teeth as he picked up the prepared tree trunk nearby, about as thick as an arm and as long as a forearm, able to be directly placed into the stove without needing an axe to chop it, to avoid the Fox Spirit breaking the wood and exposing the explosives inside, risking discovery.
By now the tree trunk had been partially hollowed out by Zhang Chen, with only a spoon-sized opening left, designed to seal the space, creating a strong seal and explosiveness. Then Zhang Chen carefully poured the mysterious powder inside, also adding dozens of irregular iron filings into the hole, sealing it with yellow clay, and carefully sticking the previously peeled tree bark back, making it look like a perfectly fine high-intensity explosive package to anyone.
Zhang Chen only made eight of them, with some gunpowder left over, which he cautiously placed inside a clay pot, sprinkled with stones, and sealed with care, finally breathing a sigh of relief.
"This tube contains highly sensitive explosives, once she places the firewood into the stove, the temperature will rise slightly, and at that moment..." Zhang Chen smiled coldly, knowing that the Fox Spirit had no idea such things as explosives existed in the world, let alone having any defense against them.