A Song of Life in the Rain

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

A torrential downpour arrived without warning, thunder rumbling faintly.

The window glass was pelted with incessant crackling.

Wearing only underwear and shorts, Fang Cheng stood barefoot on the floor, his eyes half-closed, shutting out all the noise from outside the window.

He simply kept repeating the motions of squatting down and standing back up.

Until he completed the final set—the twentieth Single-Leg Squat.

A blue screen emerged.

A long string of information flowed past before his eyes like flowing water.

Focus Experience +3

Boxing Experience +8

Sanda Experience +20

Squat Experience +15

Leg Raises Experience +10

Saturday, December 5th.

His sixteenth Daily Training had ended, yet the rain continued to fall.

Fang Cheng wiped away his sweat with a towel, drank a cup of hot water, and walked over to the balcony.

Silently watching the torrential rain outside the window, he felt as though he were trapped inside a cage.

His eyes flickered, revealing a trace of hesitation.

After thinking for a while, he suddenly turned around and headed toward the entrance hall.

He took a pair of waterproof rubber shoes and a military green raincoat from the cabinet behind the door.

He put on the shoes and slipped into the raincoat.

Fang Cheng then grabbed his key, opened the door, and quietly stepped outside.

Clang.

The iron door was gently shut.

It was past six on a weekend morning, and the sky was not yet fully light.

Most of the neighbors were still asleep.

The entire building was quiet. Aside from the rushing rain, almost no other sounds could be heard.

Then, a string of faint footsteps sounded in the pitch-black corridor.

They descended the stairs, then suddenly stopped at the entrance to the building.

Standing at the doorway, Fang Cheng pulled up the hood of his raincoat.

He raised his head and looked outside.

The night was pitch black as ink, making it impossible to distinguish where the sky ended and the ground began.

Strands of rain wove together into a "rain net," lingering over the entire empty, dark city.

Raindrops lashed against his face in the wind, piercingly cold and faintly painful.

Fang Cheng had no intention of retreating. Instead, he felt an unusual thrill.

The rain before dawn was actually so cold and pure!

He immediately stepped forward, leaving the sleeve building that had sheltered him.

Alone, he crossed Old Factory Street beneath the rain curtain, disappearing into the endless rain and darkness.

Jiangbin Park.

The daytime clamor of people had long since been completely drowned out by nature's uproar.

The dark grounds were covered in flowing puddles.

Four horizontal bars and parallel bars of varying heights stood alone.

Nearby, trees rustled and swayed; farther away lay the indistinct river and residential buildings.

At this hour, in this weather, no one would come here.

And yet.

A figure in a military green raincoat appeared in the park.

Rubber shoes stepped into the puddles—splash, splash—the sounds slightly sluggish.

Beneath the 2.8-meter-high horizontal bar.

That figure looked especially small and thin, like a lonely traveler crossing mountains and rivers.

When he raised his face, his eyes Flickered faintly with an eerie glow.

The newcomer was Fang Cheng, here to practice Pull-Ups.

Because of the weather, along with other factors.

The unlock progress for the "Prisoner's Six Arts" had remained stalled, stuck at the Fourth Art, "Pull-Ups."

Fang Cheng's original plan had been to wait until Potential Activation came off cooldown and the weather cleared before making suitable arrangements.

But the weather was unpredictable, and human plans ultimately could not compare to heaven's whims.

Thunder rumbled from behind the clouds, as though suppressed by something, faintly illuminating the Night Sky.

The torrential rain poured down from the sky as if the heavens had collapsed.

The entire world was swallowed by the pounding rain, like a Scene from the apocalypse.

Reason told Fang Cheng.

Practicing Pull-Ups in such terrible weather was a mad and dangerous thing to do.

Yet emotion kept whispering in his ear.

If he began getting used to making excuses for himself, getting used to avoiding all the difficulties before him.

Then those difficulties would only grow stronger and more impossible to overcome.

Until, The Whole Person was crushed and conquered.

Adversity only made the Strong Person stronger and the weak weaker!

Fang Cheng suddenly realized that he had sometimes been too cautious, so much so that he had forgotten why he wanted to grow stronger in the first place.

He did not want to keep waiting. He did not want to become that weak, helpless student again, unemployed the moment he graduated.

"A person's greatest enemy is often himself..."

He looked up at the sky, and icy rain instantly soaked his entire face.

Then it ran down his neck and slipped into his collar, making his body shiver uncontrollably.

"A true Strong Person can only rely on himself."

Fang Cheng murmured to himself, wiped his face, and walked beneath the Horizontal Bar.

Then he Exerted Force through his feet, leaped up, and firmly gripped the Horizontal Bar with Both Hands.

His Ten Fingers clenched tight as he tested his grip.

"Not bad..."

Fang Cheng's expression relaxed slightly as he let out a soft breath.

Then the muscles in his arms tensed, and he straightened his waist and back.

He pulled himself upward until his chin rose over the bar.

"1."

"2."

"3."

"..."

The first few repetitions were completed with relative ease.

After practicing for A Moment, he gradually began to feel the hindrance caused by the torrential rain.

Not only were his palms wet and slippery, making the bar difficult to grip and easy to exert force incorrectly.

Rainwater also kept pouring in through his sleeves.

Cold and wet, it felt like countless icy Little Snakes slithering against his skin.

With clothes on, his body instead felt even more uncomfortable.

Seeing this, Fang Cheng let go and dropped to the ground, then unfastened his raincoat.

The thermal underwear beneath was nearly soaked through as well. He took it off too and tossed it onto the ground.

Bean-sized raindrops hammered the ground madly, splashing layer upon layer of water.

Fang Cheng's bare, muscular back returned to the two-point-eight-meter-high Horizontal Bar.

He forcefully jumped up and continued doing Pull-Ups.

Practicing this movement in the rain meant Danger was everywhere.

Losing his grip and falling...

Muscles becoming too stiff and getting strained...

Exerting Force incorrectly and accidentally twisting his Muscles and Bones...

Even if he broke free of the Shackles, he could treat it as a shower.

Rain still soaked his hair, blurring his vision and unsettling his mind.

The near-freezing chill seeped relentlessly into his body, cutting like knives and gnawing like insects.

It was simply a double torment of body and mind!

Fang Cheng activated Focus Skill and devoted himself wholeheartedly to his workout.

In this state, not only was his endurance enhanced, but his control over his body also improved drastically.

When he reached his tenth Pull-Up, he noticed that the soreness in his arms was gradually worsening, while his back still felt barely any strain.

Fang Cheng realized that his form was not yet standard enough.

Pull-Ups primarily trained the muscle groups in the shoulders and back, including the Latissimus Dorsi, rhomboids, Trapezius, and more.

The reason they were so difficult for Ordinary People

was not only because these muscle groups were rarely used in daily life, but also because Pull-Ups were a complex technical movement.

Unlike Push-Ups or Squats, they could not be assessed solely by repetitions or time.

Pull-Ups were not merely a matter of numbers.

They also involved standards of form such as overhand or underhand grips, using momentum or doing strict pulls, grip width, speed, chest up and back arched, chin over the bar, lowering all the way down, and were directly related to one's body weight and the material of the Horizontal Bar.

Even slight differences in each aspect could accumulate into a considerable difference in the number of Pull-Ups one could do.

With Fang Cheng's current Physical Quality, he could do at least twenty-something Pull-Ups through Arm Strength alone.

If he used the trick of swinging to borrow momentum, he should be able to do more than forty with ease.

But training this way would definitely not do.

What Fang Cheng sought was not the number of repetitions.

It was his level of understanding of this skill and his degree of control over his body's muscles.

He calmed himself down.

Silently feeling the feedback from his muscles after every completed movement, he made subtle adjustments to his form.

Gradually, it seemed he had finally found the feeling.

His Latissimus Dorsi contracted sharply, generating an upward pulling force.

His Biceps Brachii then assisted in exerting force, lifting his body upward.

At the same time, his rhomboids and Trapezius were responsible for keeping his body stable and balanced.

"That's the feeling!"

Fang Cheng's eyes gleamed.

After adjusting his form, he took a Deep Breath and began doing them again in succession.

"15."

"16."

"17."

"..."

In the park at midnight, amid the Pitch Black torrential rain, a lone figure rose and fell from the bar, like a vigorous spirit of the night.