Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
In terms of physical appearance, Xiang Kun had become bald, his skin was smoother, and his teeth were whiter. Not only that, there was a significant drop in his BMI, and his belly was visibly flatter. The most obvious change of all was that he had to buckle his belt one hole tighter.
Nevertheless, there was no evident change to his weight. Back in the start of the year, when he had gone for a body checkup organized by his company, Xiang Kun’s weight was 86kg, not much of a difference from the 84kg now, not to mention that he had hardly eaten any proper food for almost five days since the 11th.
Xiang Kun also sensed that his legs were stronger than before. He clearly felt this when he walked, climbed stairs, and carried groceries.
Thinking of which, he suddenly dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups.
Ever since graduating university, Xiang Kun had buried himself in work. As a result of his lack of exercise, not only had he become rounder, his strength had slumped as well. When he was at home over the New Year holiday, he played a few rounds of poker with his old friends, and they agreed that the punishment for the losers would be doing standard push-ups. Xiang Kun’s record was only 14 in one go.
Now, however, 30 standard push-ups was a piece of cake for him. His shoulders and triceps only started to ache after 50, and when he reached 58, he was no longer able to maintain his position.
Certainly, though, 58 push-ups might not be difficult at all for those gym-hitters. But to Xiang Kun, a man of 86 kg and severely lacking in exercise for the past few years, it was truly impressive that he had progressed from 14 to 58 in half a year’s time.
Xiang Kun returned to his laptop and recorded this in the document too. Then he uploaded all relevant photos and other statistics of his body, and renamed the files with the date.
After that, Xiang Kun did a few more sets of other indoor exercises, including planks, crunches, and squats.
In addition to his significantly better performance at each individual exercise, his overall stamina had increased drastically too.
In the past, the most he could do was 14 consecutive push-ups, one-minute rest, 13 push-ups, two to three-minute rest, and lastly about 11 push-ups before he got totally exhausted.
Now, Xiang Kun only needed a one-minute rest after his 58 push-ups before he completed another set of 58. He maintained the same rigor until the eighth set, when his muscles finally started to feel sore and he only managed to complete 52.
As of now, most of the changes that X had brought to Xiang Kun’s body had been beneficial.
But he was still concerned about his diet.
From the 11th of July until now, the hunger had still yet to set in, despite Xiang Kun’s active lifestyle. Although he had spent most of his time sleeping in the past few days, this was rather abnormal, especially after the intense calorie-burning regime that he had just completed. Moreover, his muscle strength almost fully recovered after some rest, and the fatigue had faded too.
One thing for sure was that his body was showing no signs of malnutrition or exhaustion. Psychological effects were apparently not a convincing reason to explain his current condition.
Intriguingly, how could that one ounce of chicken blood provide so much energy?
Could it be due to the changes in his stomach, such that he could absorb enough energy for many days of activities just from that little bit of blood alone?
At 6 PM that day, Xiang Kun went to the restaurant where he had drunk his “sorrow” away on the 11th.
Soon, he noticed the surge in his spirit and excitement when he moved around outdoors after sunset, as if the moon was powering him through some unexplainable means.
At the restaurant, Xiang Kun ordered the same alcohol and food as he had the other day. After pouring himself a cup, he sat still and pretended to be playing with his phone while glancing at the surroundings with his peripheral vision. He did not touch any of the dishes nor the alcohol at all.
He tried to recall the situation back then, searching for anything unusual around him, or about his food.
At almost 8 PM, Xiang Kun finally stood up and approached the restaurant owner. After paying his bill, he claimed that he had lost his phone there after a dinner last Thursday, and he requested to have a look at their camera footage. Earlier, he had noticed the camera on the counter.
The owner did not object, as Xiang Kun was a customer who had just paid his bill. Then a waiter showed Xiang Kun the footage.
Luckily, Xiang Kun was not too late, because their footage would be deleted after one week.
Rewinding back to that fateful evening, the video clip showed that Xiang Kun had been drinking by himself all along. No one had approached him, besides the waiters who came to deliver his food and drinks.
At about 8:30 PM, he paid his bill and called a taxi. Two minutes later, he got into the car.
Nothing unusual.
After seeing the footage, Xiang Kun left the restaurant. Instead of calling a Grab, he chose to run back home.
In fact, the restaurant was not too far away. It would only take about five minutes by bus, and was definitely within walking distance. This time, however, Xiang Kun deliberately took a detour and ran for a few miles more.
Along the moonlit pedestrian walkway, Xiang Kun felt that he was running increasingly faster, as if he had unlimited energy. Hence, he started to accelerate, sprinting like a whirlwind, which attracted curious glances from the passersby.
Of course, his energy could not be endless. After two minutes of running at top speed, he started panting and had no choice but to stop.
Reaching home, Xiang Kun took a bath and drank a bottle of mineral water. Then he sat back in his chair and recorded the “results of his investigations” this evening in a document named “Investigation of the Cause of X: the Restaurant”, attached with the camera footage that he had copied from the restaurant earlier.
As usual, Xiang Kun could not fall asleep that night. So he got up and wrote a web crawler program, scraping all the information relevant to his “symptoms” from the search engine and several social media sites. He deliberately discarded data from movies, fiction, and dramas. This was much more efficient than doing it manually himself.
After that, he would exercise for half an hour after every 30 minutes. Push-ups, squats, crunches, glute bridges, planking… all the silent workouts that did not require any equipment.
He had even purposely increased the difficulty for himself, like push-ups of various widths, weight-bearing squats, martial-arts squats, basic yoga moves, and even power and clap push-ups—though he failed, which proved that there was indeed a limit to his physical strength and body coordination.
He was curious about how much energy his body could consume before feeling hungry again. After all, it was still hard to believe that that little chicken blood he had gulped down the day before could last him for so long.
Even more strangely, his muscles would fully recover after about 20 minutes rest no matter how tired he felt after each workout. Besides, there was no hunger nor decline in strength; it was more like he had been recharged completely after a short rest.
The workout went on until the next morning, when Xiang Kun finally caught a glimpse of tiredness in his body. However, for some reason, he believed that the fatigue was due to the sunrise, not his repeated exercises.