Xue Wan

Xue Wan: "Son, have you eaten yet?"

His mother Nan Jiayu's gentle voice came through the phone.

Xue Jing smiled, put the phone on speaker, and placed it in the hanging basket beside the stove. As he worked, he said, "Not yet. What's up? Calling me out of the blue."

Although his parents in this life were often away on business, the love they gave their two children was no less than any other family's. All the money they worked so hard to earn was spent on their children.

"Can't I call even if nothing's wrong? Am I not allowed to hear my own son's voice?"

Mother Xue, Nan Jiayu, feigned anger.

"You're right. My mistake." Xue Jing immediately surrendered.

Only then did Nan Jiayu smile and begin asking after his well-being, inquiring about how he had been lately. The two chatted about family matters for quite a while.

"Your dad and I should be coming back around New Year's Day. We'll bring you presents then."

"Also, be careful when you're going to and from school lately. Don't run around carelessly. It's best to stay home most of the time. I just saw on the news that a group of smugglers from the Intersection Zone may be in Sunny City. Those people are desperate criminals. If you notice anything strange outside, don't go near it."

Nan Jiayu warned him in a serious tone.

Xue Jing immediately realized that this was the true purpose of her call.

He reassured her, "Don't worry, Mom. I know what I'm doing. If I really run into trouble, I'll run faster than a dog."

"That's good."

Nan Jiayu sounded satisfied, then seemed to suddenly remember something. "By the way, have you called your sister recently?"

Xue Jing said, "It's probably been half a month since our last call. We did chat on WeChat a few days ago, though. What's wrong?"

Nan Jiayu fell silent for a moment before saying, "Yesterday afternoon, Wanwan suddenly called and said she missed your dad and me."

"Isn't that normal?" Xue Jing asked doubtfully.

"It is normal, but I still feel like something's off. This child is just like your dad. She seems pretty lively most of the time, but whenever something happens, she likes to keep it bottled up and not let anyone know."

"Maybe it's a mother's intuition, but I have a bad feeling about it. Son, ask her about it when you have time. You and Wanwan have always been close since childhood, and you're of the same generation. If something really happened, maybe she'll tell you."

Xue Jing thought it over and agreed. "Mm, don't worry, Mom. I'll ask her properly."

After finishing his call with Nan Jiayu, Xue Jing looked thoughtful.

His older sister, Xue Wan, was a cheerful and beautiful person. Ever since childhood, she had been the sort of standout figure in school who would definitely make the list for school beauty contests. Her grades had always been excellent too. Though she had failed to get into the Inner Ring, she had still enrolled in a top Outer Ring university ranked even higher than Qing Da. She had always been someone people could rest easy about.

But Xue Jing, who had grown up with her, knew that she was far from as perfect as she appeared. Unless someone forced her up, she would definitely sleep in. When gaming, she loved using underhanded tricks. She was a terrible loser and never accepted the outcome of a bet. Even after saying that liars were puppies, she could bark without the slightest shame. She would even use the line, "Let me introduce you to my handsome little brother," to trick female classmates into buying her meals in his name...

But her biggest flaw was exactly as Mother Xue had said: whenever something happened, she liked to keep it all to herself.

Xue Jing felt somewhat worried. After thinking for a moment, he picked up his phone and entered a number. His finger hovered over the call button, but he did not press it. Instead, he exited the dialing screen and put away his phone.

"I'll call tonight instead."

He decided to call his sister Xue Wan later that night, when everything was quiet.

That was the time when people were more inclined to open up.

Putting away his phone, he continued working in the kitchen. He cooked a pot of rice and made three dishes, gaining over 50 more points in Cooking.

After having lunch with Maomao, Xue Jing picked up the cat, who was sprawled on the floor after eating her fill, and carried her into his room. He sat down in his computer chair and pressed the power button.

One hand rubbed the belly of the too-lazy-to-move Maomao, while the other rested on the mouse. Xue Jing planned to look up some information about "jin force."

He opened the browser and entered a search engine he often used. Just as he was about to type on the keyboard, his gaze shifted.

Xue Jing's keyboard was black and resistant to dirt, making ordinary dust and stains difficult to notice.

But with Aim activated, his eyesight was extremely sharp, allowing him to see things that ordinary people could not.

He clearly saw tiny black and white hairs lodged throughout the gaps in the keyboard.

Is this... cat hair?

Without changing his expression, Xue Jing turned his gaze toward Maomao in his arms.

This little thing touched my computer?

After considering it, Xue Jing did not say anything. Pretending he had noticed nothing, he began searching for information on jin force.

After skipping countless useless ads and incorrect results, Xue Jing finally found some relevant information more than ten minutes later on a relatively professional Q&A platform similar to Zhihu.

He became absorbed in his reading, and Maomao also sat upright on his lap to look at the webpage.

Hm? He's looking up martial arts material? Does he want to practice martial arts?

Maomao thought as she read.

This half-baked article is full of people pretending to know what they're talking about. It can only fool outsiders. "Cultivate deeply enough and you'll develop supernatural abilities"? Are those things trained out of you? Without taking forbidden drugs or implanting an Alien Plant Body, even Limit Breakers who have crossed the dragon gate are still nothing but flesh and blood. There are no miracles of the human body in this world—only brutal methods and technology...

Maomao raised her head and looked at the gentle lines of Xue Jing's jaw.

If he's really interested in martial arts... after I leave, I could introduce him to that person. Consider it rent for staying here...

Lost in thought, Maomao yawned.

After eating her fill, drowsiness came in endless waves.

She curled up on Xue Jing's thigh. With the reassuring scent of the young man lingering around her nose, she slowly drifted into sleep.

"..."

After noticing that Maomao's breathing had become steady and deep, and that she was completely asleep, Xue Jing calmly exited the website.

He opened the search engine and entered "screen recording software that can be hidden." After browsing for a while, he successfully downloaded one that met his requirements.

He set it to automatically start recording when the computer booted up, then restarted the computer and checked the results. Only after confirming there were no problems did he shut it down.

After finishing all this, Xue Jing gently picked Maomao up and placed her on his bed, then quietly left the room.

In the "Fitness Room," Xue Jing looked at the barbell on the bench press rack in front of him.

It was a standard barbell bar weighing twenty kilograms, with two twenty-kilogram plates mounted on each side, for a total of exactly one hundred kilograms.

This was his usual bench press training weight. If he pushed himself to the limit, he could actually add another twenty kilograms or so.

After thinking about it, Xue Jing picked up two fifteen-kilogram plates from the yoga mat covered in barbell plates on the floor and loaded them onto the bar. Then he picked up two more five-kilogram plates and added them as well.

That brought the barbell's total weight to one hundred and forty kilograms.

Xue Jing lay down on the bench press rack, gripped the barbell with both hands, took a deep breath, lifted it off the hooks, and lowered it to his chest. Then, with a burst of strength, his muscles instantly tensed as he pressed it up!

The one-hundred-and-forty-kilogram barbell slowly rose. There was barely a hint of trembling during the lift; it was extremely steady, showing that he still had some strength to spare.

After successfully pressing it up, Xue Jing did not stop. He continued bench pressing repeatedly until he had completed a set of nine reps, then returned the barbell to the hooks.

He panted lightly, feeling refreshed.

"After activating Combat, my physical fitness has improved quite a bit. Combined with the hundred-plus Fitness experience points I gained from fighting, my bench press limit has increased by around twenty to thirty kilograms."

That weight increase might not seem like much, but one had to understand that physical training had diminishing returns.

The closer one came to the limits of the human body, the harder it became to gain strength.

With diligent training, a person might go from bench pressing sixty kilograms to one hundred and twenty kilograms in just two or three years. But reaching one hundred and forty kilograms was no longer merely a matter of effort. Even with eight, ten, or an entire lifetime of training, it might still be impossible.

Therefore, the additional twenty to thirty kilograms Xue Jing had gained on his bench press was extremely valuable.

After testing the bench press, Xue Jing walked over to the standing punching bag in the middle of the room. He took a deep breath, narrowed his gaze, and threw a punch! Bang!

With an explosive crack, Xue Jing's fist slammed into the punching bag. A ripple spread across its leather surface, and the shockwave from his punch seemed faintly visible. The iron base, filled with sand and weighing over three hundred jin, immediately tilted sharply and began toppling to the side.

Xue Jing reached out with one hand to steady the punching bag, nodded, and muttered to himself, "Not bad."

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