Destitute, Medical Fees Like a Mountain

The predawn slum was shrouded in a hazy, gray mist.

Lin Fan reheated the half-bowl of cold, coarse rice porridge and handed it to his sister. Lin Xiaoyu sipped it, a weak smile barely gracing her pale face. "Brother, you eat too."

"I already ate," Lin Fan lied. The pot was empty, the rice bin bare. He hadn't even saved the leftovers from last night for himself.

While his sister drank her porridge, Lin Fan began a thorough inventory of their "home."

Inside the broken wooden crate were a few old clothes, washed until faded, patched over and over. At the bottom of the crate was a small cloth bundle. He carefully opened it to find two faded photographs—a young couple holding a toddler version of himself and his infant sister, their smiles simple and warm. This was the only image of their parents left.

Beside the photos lay a thin booklet, its cover bearing the title Basic Fist Technique (Popular Edition). The paper was rough, the edges curled, clearly having been flipped through countless times by its previous owner. Lin Fan picked up the booklet, memories surfacing: three years ago, when his parents were still alive, they had gritted their teeth and spent 50 Credit Points to buy it from a used book stall, hoping their son could change his destiny through martial arts.

Underneath the booklet were a few paper Credit Vouchers.

Lin Fan counted them: one 100-point note, one 50-point note, three 10-point notes, and a few coin-like 1-point metal tokens.

A total of 198 Credit Points.

This was all their worldly possessions.

He took a deep breath and carefully tucked the 198 points into his inner pocket. He walked to the rice bin by the wall, lifted the lid again, and scraped the bottom with a wooden spoon—there were truly less than two handfuls of coarse rice left, mixed with some broken grains.

"Xiaoyu, how long will the medicine last?" Lin Fan asked.

Lin Xiaoyu put down her bowl and said softly, "Yesterday… yesterday noon was the last pill. Doctor Wang said if we stop the medicine for more than three days, the cold will rebound and… and cause paralysis."

Her voice grew softer and softer, until it was barely audible.

Lin Fan's heart felt like it was being squeezed. Three days. He had only three days to get 5,000 Credit Points.

But what could 198 points do?

In his memory, a porter in the slums earned 30 points a day, and that was for able-bodied laborers. Cleaning sewers was more dangerous, earning 50 points a day, but there was always the risk of methane poisoning or being bitten by mutated rats. Even if he didn't eat or drink, he couldn't earn 150 points in three days.

"Brother, maybe… maybe I won't take the medicine anymore." Lin Xiaoyu suddenly looked up, tears welling in her big eyes, though she tried hard not to let them fall. "You train hard, get into the academy, and then…"

"Don't talk nonsense," Lin Fan interrupted her, his voice a little harsh. "I'll handle the medicine. You rest well and don't think too much."

He helped his sister lie down and covered her with the thin quilt. There was a hole at the corner of the quilt, revealing blackish cotton wadding inside. Lin Fan pressed it with his hand; it felt damp and cold—Jiangnan City's spring was rainy, the shed leaked, and the quilt had long been damp.

He had to get money quickly, not just for medicine, but also for rice, bedding, and everything else needed to survive.

Lin Fan walked out of the shed.

The slum morning was already bustling. Women squatted by the public faucet washing clothes, children ran barefoot in the dirt, and men carried tools, hurrying towards construction sites or warehouses in the inner city. The air was a mix of musty smells, sweat, and the aroma of cheap food drifting from afar.

Lin Fan, relying on his memory, walked towards the only pharmacy in the slum.

The pharmacy was located at the border between the slum and the "outer city." It was a two-story cement building, its facade drab, but in this area of shacks, it was already considered "grand." The sign read "Wang's Pharmacy," the characters faded.

He pushed the door open, and a strong scent of traditional Chinese medicine hit him.

Behind the counter stood a young man in his early twenties, wearing a washed-out blue shirt. He was hunched over, fiddling with an old calculator. Hearing the door open, he glanced up at Lin Fan, his gaze sweeping over Lin Fan's faded clothes before he lowered his head and asked lazily, "What do you want?"

"Excuse me, how much is the Lung Cleansing Pill?" Lin Fan asked, approaching the counter.

The clerk didn't look up. "5,000."

"Can… can it be cheaper? Or do you have any cheaper medicine that can temporarily suppress the cold?" Lin Fan asked.

The clerk finally looked up, sizing Lin Fan up. He curled his lips. "Cheaper? The Lung Cleansing Pill is a standard pill from the Alliance Pharmaceutical Factory, with a fixed price. Think it's expensive? Here, those are herbal packs over there, 50 points a pack. Boil and drink it, and you won't cough for half a day. But Doctor Wang said your sister's illness is congenital lung cold. Herbal packs only treat the symptoms, not the root cause, and drinking too much is bad for the stomach."

Lin Fan followed his gaze to the corner where bundles of dried herbs tied with straw ropes were piled up.

"Is there… any possibility of installments or credit?" Lin Fan's voice was dry. "My sister has run out of medicine. She must take the pill within three days, otherwise…"

"Credit?" The clerk seemed to hear a joke and scoffed. "Kid, do you know how many people come asking for credit every day? If everyone got credit, this shop would have closed long ago. 5,000 points, not a single point less. No money? Go to the inner city and sell your blood or organs, or try your luck outside the city walls and kill a few Tier 1 Demonic Beasts. Their Demonic Cores can be exchanged for money."

He said it lightly, but there was undisguised contempt in his eyes.

Lin Fan clenched the 198 points in his pocket. His fingernails dug into his palm, the sharp pain keeping him alert.

"Then… if I get Demonic Cores, do you buy them?" he asked.

The clerk raised an eyebrow. "We buy them. A Tier 1 Demonic Core is 100 points on the market, Tier 2 is 500 points, Tier 3 is 2,000 points. But you?" He sized up Lin Fan's thin frame again. "Kid, don't say I didn't warn you. Those Demonic Beasts outside the city aren't like cats and dogs at home. Last month, seven hotheads from the slum went out, and only two came back, missing limbs. Are you crazy for money?"

Lin Fan didn't reply.

He turned and walked out of the pharmacy. As the door closed behind him, he heard the clerk mutter, "A pauper dreaming of buying Lung Cleansing Pills…"

The sunlight was harsh.

Lin Fan stood at the pharmacy entrance, watching the bustling crowd on the street. Vegetable vendors, workers rushing to their jobs, beggars, children chasing each other… everyone was struggling to survive, just in different ways.

5,000 points.

It was like a mountain, pressing down on the sixteen-year-old boy's shoulders.

He touched the 198 points in his inner pocket, then thought of his sister's pale face and her trusting eyes.

He couldn't give up.

Even without a system, even with only this malnourished body and 198 points, he had to find a way out.

Lin Fan looked up, gazing into the distance—beyond the low shacks of the slum, he could see the towering city walls of the inner city, and further beyond, the distinctive bell tower spire of the Jiangnan Martial Arts Academy.

The entrance exam in a month.

If he could get in, the academy would provide basic food and lodging, and there would be opportunities to take on missions to earn credits for resources. But the prerequisite was that he had to survive this month first, and let his sister survive these three days.

"Demonic Core..." Lin Fan murmured the words.

In his memory, the original owner's understanding of Demonic Beasts was limited to hearsay: a first-order Demonic Beast was equivalent to a first-grade Martial Disciple, but Demonic Beasts were naturally strong, and in the same tier, human Martial Artists often needed several people working together to hunt them. Outside the city, the wilderness was fraught with danger, not only from Demonic Beasts but also from mutated plants, poisonous miasma, and other ill-intentioned hunters.

The risks were extremely high.

But the rewards were also tempting: one first-order Demonic Core was worth 100 points. If he could hunt five, along with materials, perhaps he could gather 5,000 points.

That was, assuming he could return alive, and successfully hunt them.

Lin Fan took a deep breath and turned to walk in the direction of his home. His steps were heavier than when he arrived, but his eyes gradually focused with a determined light.

Passing an alleyway, he saw several half-grown youths practicing punches and kicks around a clearing. Their movements were clumsy, but they practiced earnestly. One youth finished a set of punches, panting heavily from exhaustion, and said to his companion, "I'm exhausted... but if I train for another month, maybe I can pass the Academy's Strength test."

"Get real, you can't even hit 300 jin."

"What if? If I get in, I get free food and lodging, and a chance to become a Martial Artist..."

Lin Fan stopped and looked at the youths.

He thought of the Basic Fist Technique in the box.

The original owner had only reached the introductory level after two years of practice. But the current Lin Fan, with the mind of two lifetimes, could perhaps... train better?

More importantly, if the flashing system text he saw wasn't an illusion...

Lin Fan quickened his pace, almost running back to the shack.

Lin Xiaoyu was already asleep, her brow slightly furrowed, as if she wasn't at peace even in her dreams.

Lin Fan gently took out the Basic Fist Technique from the wooden box and sat cross-legged on the straw mat, using the light filtering through the broken window to turn the pages.

The booklet was thin, only a dozen pages. The front had simple diagrams of the human body's meridians and key points for generating force. The back contained decomposed movements for twelve basic fist techniques: thrust punch, swing punch, hook punch, collapse punch... Each movement was accompanied by crude illustrations and a few mnemonic phrases.

In the original owner's memory, these movements were already familiar. But now, Lin Fan re-examined them with a programmer's logic and found many details that could be optimized: the angle of force generation, the rhythm of breathing, the synergy of muscles...

"If the system really exists," Lin Fan closed the booklet and shut his eyes, "then it should respond to me."

He concentrated his mind, imagining a panel appearing before him, like an attribute interface in a game.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Nothing.

Lin Fan opened his eyes and gave a wry smile. Perhaps it was truly an illusion, or perhaps the mental shock of transmigration hadn't completely subsided.

But just as he was about to give up--

A line of extremely faint, almost transparent text suddenly flashed before his eyes:

[Martial Arts Panel loading... Current progress 1%...]

The text flashed and disappeared, as quickly as an illusion.

Lin Fan sat bolt upright, his heart pounding.

It wasn't an illusion.

It really existed, it was just loading, or rather... waiting for some trigger condition?

Lin Fan looked at the fist technique booklet in his hand, then at his own hands, which belonged to a sixteen-year-old boy.

A thought became clear: no matter when the system fully activated, he couldn't just wait. With three days, every second was precious.

Since the original owner could reach the introductory level of Basic Fist Technique through hard training, then he, a transmigrator with the will and analytical ability of an adult, had no reason not to do better.

Even without the system, he would forge a path to survival through his own efforts.

Lin Fan stood up and walked to the small clearing outside the shack.

He took a stance and, following the first movement in the booklet—"Thrust Punch"—slowly pushed out.

The movement was clumsy, the force soft.

But he didn't stop, retracted, and pushed out again.

Again and again.

Sweat seeped from his forehead, his arms began to ache.

Lin Fan gritted his teeth, counting silently in his heart: one, two, three... ten... twenty...

He didn't know how many times he needed to practice to see results, didn't know if this Basic Fist Technique could give him the strength to hunt Demonic Beasts within three days, and didn't even know if he and his sister could survive this month.

But he knew that if he stopped now, there would truly be nothing.

"One more time."

The boy's low voice was faint but firm amidst the noisy background of the slum.

In the distance, the bell of Jiangnan Martial Arts Academy rang out again, long and solemn, as if announcing the prelude to a new era—though at this moment, no one knew what kind of storm this boy, punching in front of a dilapidated shack, would stir up.