Running

Chen Xiuxiu ate half a plate of Smashed Cucumber Salad. With every bite she took, Jiang Feng heard a delightful system notification.

Ding. Experience gained: 10 points.

Ding. Experience gained: 8 points.

Ding. Experience gained: 8 points.

Compared to Comrade Wang Xiulian's miserly one point of experience, Chen Xiuxiu was an incredibly generous customer. The lovely notifications kept ringing out, and Jiang Feng could not help recalling the time he had spent with Chen Xiuxiu back in high school.

Grilled Sausage, Pan-fried Tofu, Pan-fried Buns, Rice Noodle Rolls, Grilled Gluten Skewers, Soup Dumplings, Soup Dumplings, Siu Mai, Pan-fried Dumplings...

Just thinking about them made him a little hungry.

Before she knew it, Chen Xiuxiu had finished an entire bowl of congee.

She let out a small burp.

That bowl of congee should have felt honored. In the past, only Comrade Jiang Jiankang's Braised Pork Hock had received such treatment.

"Not good!" One moment, Chen Xiuxiu's face had been glowing with the blissful smile of someone who had eaten her fill; the next, her expression changed dramatically. "I went over my calorie limit today!"

Jiang Feng could not understand how a bowl of plain congee without even a drop of sesame oil could put someone over their calorie limit.

"Damn it!" Chen Xiuxiu angrily clenched her little fist and slammed it onto the table.

"It's only one bowl of congee. It's fine," Jiang Feng reassured her.

Chen Xiuxiu shook her head.

"You don't understand. That's how dieting works. If you indulge yourself once, there'll be a second time, and eventually all your previous efforts will be wasted."

Women really were terrifying.

Jiang Feng could not help sighing inwardly.

"You could go running." An idea struck Jiang Feng, and he suggested, "My roommate lost weight by running. It works really well. You're so light now, it won't be hard for you. I can casually run ten kilometers."

"Really?" Chen Xiuxiu looked deeply skeptical. She had witnessed Jiang Feng's talent for spouting nonsense since they were children.

"Of course." Jiang Feng looked utterly sincere.

The only problem was that when his roommate ran to lose weight, Jiang Feng, the one running alongside him, had been the one who slimmed down.

"Tomorrow morning at seven. Meet downstairs." Jiang Feng made the decision with a single stroke.

Chen Xiuxiu hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

Speaking of losing weight by running, Jiang Feng had to mention his roommate, Wang Hao. Nurtured by love, Wang Hao had grown fatter and fatter until he finally lost his girlfriend. After an entire relationship, the only thing he had gained was fat.

After gaining a whole body full of fat, Wang Hao reflected bitterly and decided to run to lose weight. Worried that he would not stick with it, he dragged Jiang Feng out every day to run with him and keep an eye on him.

He ran, but he never ate any less.

The appetite his ex-girlfriend had indulged had already become huge, and after exercise, it turned into a bottomless pit. Wang Hao successfully went from being a flabby fat guy to a sturdy fat guy.

His roommate's tragic weight-loss experience had taught Jiang Feng something: exercise could make people ravenous.

Chen Xiuxiu currently looked sickly. In the span of a single year, she had starved her elephant-sized appetite into a bird-sized one, as though she were determined to torture herself to death.

Jiang Feng had to marvel at how big-hearted Uncle Chen was. If he had done the same thing, Comrade Jiang Jiankang would probably have used a funnel to force-feed him every day if necessary.

Jiang Jiankang and Wang Xiulian had already gone to bed. After quietly washing up and returning to his room, Jiang Feng checked his attribute panel.

(Repeated entries omitted.)

2. Neighbor's Wish: Chen Duxiu's daughter, Chen Xiuxiu, has recently become obsessed with dieting to lose weight. Please fulfill the neighbor's wish and help Chen Xiuxiu return to normal eating habits.

Quest Hint: Chen Xiuxiu has begun showing signs of anorexia due to excessive dieting and self-induced vomiting. Please act quickly. (Chen Xiuxiu likes Smashed Cucumber Salad on the sour side.)

The quest hint had gained an extra sentence, explaining why Chen Xiuxiu had given him so much experience for eating that plate of Smashed Cucumber Salad the night before.

So players were supposed to explore things on their own?

Only after he discovered something would the game explain it. If he had not discovered it, the game would not point it out either.

Over the years, Jiang Feng had only known that Chen Xiuxiu liked to have a serving of Smashed Cucumber Salad before meals, and that she especially liked the cucumbers he smashed himself. It turned out it was not because years of practice had made his Smashed Cucumber Salad especially delicious, but because he always failed to judge the amount of vinegar properly and added too much.

Jiang Feng nearly shed tears when he learned the truth.

After clicking yes under the level section, only the level and remaining experience changed to:

Level: 1 (109/200)

Remaining Experience: 0

There were no other changes to the attribute panel.

Experience and levels were useless?

Jiang Feng did not think so. His level was probably simply too low to qualify for whatever it was meant to unlock.

He had a running date with Chen Xiuxiu the next morning, so Jiang Feng did not continue studying the attribute panel. He set his alarm for six-thirty and went straight to sleep.

Early the next morning, Jiang Feng changed into workout clothes and sleepily pushed open the door.

Chen Xiuxiu was already standing outside, wearing relatively loose clothes and a pair of sneakers.

For the run, she had even tied her hair into a ponytail.

The moment he saw her, Jiang Feng paused.

"You came out early. Why didn't you knock and hurry me up?"

Chen Xiuxiu glanced at her watch. "If you still weren't out by seven, I would have knocked. How are we running?"

Chen Xiuxiu seemed eager to get started.

Running in this neighborhood gave her a feeling of holding her head high.

It was like the 120-pound version of herself had returned, and she was no longer the 170-pound her from before—a strangely satisfying sense of achievement.

Even losing two pounds after starving for three days could not give her that feeling.

"We'll run to No. 1 Middle School." No. 1 Middle School had been Jiang Feng and Chen Xiuxiu's alma mater. The food vendors around the school might not know who the principal was, but they definitely knew who Chen Xiuxiu was.

After all, she had once eaten her way through the entire area.

"We can have breakfast at the back gate while we're there," Jiang Feng said as if it were an afterthought.

"Breakfast?" Chen Xiuxiu frowned. She had originally come running today to burn off the bowl of congee from last night. Eating another breakfast would make the whole thing seem counterproductive.

The word breakfast did not exist in a dieter's dictionary.

"With that much exercise, you might faint if you don't eat breakfast," Jiang Feng said. It was nearly three kilometers from here to No. 1 Middle School, which was no short distance even at a jog for a beginner like Chen Xiuxiu.

"I'll just have a cup of soy milk," Chen Xiuxiu compromised.

Jogging sounded easy, but actually doing it was not friendly at all to beginners.

Just like Wang Hao on his first day of running, when he had boldly declared that he would run ten kilometers, only to sneak off to the cafeteria after four laps to reward himself with Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin.

The mere three kilometers took them a full hour.

Chen Xiuxiu was drenched in sweat as she sat in the Shaxian Delicacies restaurant behind No. 1 Middle School, cooling herself with an electric fan.

Ever since slimming down to 120 pounds, she had not sweated this much again.

"Want something to eat?" Jiang Feng's voice sounded like the devil's whisper in Chen Xiuxiu's ears.

Of course she wanted to eat. She wanted freshly ground soy milk with two spoonfuls of sugar from Granny Zhang outside No. 1 Middle School, tea eggs from the alley cooked until the flavor had seeped all the way in, zhajiang noodles with only cucumber strips and shredded scallions, and the Steamed Dumplings from this Shaxian Delicacies restaurant.

"Just a bowl of soy milk. No sugar." Chen Xiuxiu was practically beginning to suspect that Jiang Feng had done it on purpose, choosing this place as their running destination.

"Miss, don't you want to try our Steamed Dumplings? They're delicious! There used to be a girl from No. 1 Middle School who ate several baskets every day!" As always, the proprietress enthusiastically recommended her Steamed Dumplings to new customers.

"Jiang Feng, why don't you talk some sense into your girlfriend? Young girls can't handle constantly exercising and not eating."

"Ma'am, she's Chen Xiuxiu." Jiang Feng smiled as he ordered two baskets of Steamed Dumplings and a bowl of Mung Bean Soup.

"Xiuxiu?!" The proprietress's voice was now comparable to Comrade Wang Xiulian's.

"Xiuxiu, you've gotten prettier! Girls really do change completely when they grow up. Auntie couldn't even recognize you. How can you come to Auntie's place and not eat Steamed Dumplings? Come, come, have a basket. Don't starve yourself. How can a young girl skip breakfast? If that's not enough, Auntie still has six more baskets. And if that's still not enough, Auntie will wrap some fresh ones for you!"

Under the proprietress's enthusiasm, Chen Xiuxiu could only retreat step by step. Her original bowl of soy milk became a basket of Steamed Dumplings and a bowl of soy milk.

Chen Xiuxiu picked up a Steamed Dumpling and glared fiercely at Jiang Feng. "You did this on purpose. You tricked me into coming here to eat."

"What? Their Steamed Dumplings aren't good?" Jiang Feng looked innocent. "When I was younger and didn't know better, I always thought these were the best Steamed Dumplings in the world."

Jiang Feng swallowed a Steamed Dumpling in one bite, chewed a few times, and swallowed it.

"Then I went to college and traveled farther away, and I realized that their Steamed Dumplings really are the best in the world."

Chen Xiuxiu could not refute him. After exercising, her blood circulated faster, insulin was secreted, and her already empty stomach and intestines began churning rapidly, protesting to the rest of her body without pause.

After starving herself for a year, she had thought she had already grown used to hunger.

When Jiang Feng saw that Chen Xiuxiu was no longer eating as slowly and delicately as she had eaten cucumber the night before, but was instead devouring the Steamed Dumplings with some urgency, he pressed his advantage. "Same thing tomorrow?"

"Mm."

Chen Xiuxiu took a fierce bite out of a Steamed Dumpling.