My Personal Fitness Coach

Chapter 31: My Personal Fitness Trainer

Plop, plop...

Half-asleep, Cheng Yan—Wait, Cheng Yun—turned off the faucet, wiped his hands on a towel, and then grabbed his head as he opened the door and walked out.

It was just past ten o'clock.

I wonder if the old mage has left yet, Cheng Yun muttered to himself, then gave his head a vigorous shake.

Just as he reached the second floor, he ran into the six girls who had gathered to study together last night. They happened to be heading downstairs too, and whether they had actually studied last night or not, they all looked remarkably energetic.

Hao Nianwen spotted him first and immediately waved excitedly. "Hey, handsome boss!"

"Morning," Cheng Yun forced out a smile in reply. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Oh, it was simply amazing! You have no idea how long it's been since I slept this well!" Hao Nianwen revealed a satisfied smile. "You made me feel like I was back home in my hometown. It's just that the nights are quiet beyond belief, and without cell service or internet, the only purpose of collapsing onto the bed is to sleep—you don't let your mind wander or suffer from insomnia, and you wake up feeling like your mental state is absolute perfection! If it weren't for having to pay, I'd really love to sponge off you here every day and never leave!"

"As long as you slept well," Cheng Yun said listlessly.

"Hmm, Boss, you look like you didn't rest very well, though," Hao Nianwen tilted her head cutely as she asked him. With all that she had said, Cheng Yun had only replied with such a short sentence.

"Because I worked the night shift."

"Oh, thanks for the effort."

"That's business for you. What business isn't hard work?"

"Right! Right after waking up, the few of us unanimously decided that if the dorm's air conditioner still isn't fixed today, we'll stay another night at your place. So there's a chance we'll see each other again tonight, oh."

"You're welcome anytime," Cheng Yun smiled, trying his utmost to make his attitude seem warm. "Though rooms are a bit tight lately, you'd best book early."

"Mm!"

The six girls walked a little ahead of him. Hao Nianwen took out the deposit receipt and room card from her bag to handle the check-out procedures at the front desk, while the other five girls sat on the sofa waiting for her.

Cheng Yun walked into the front desk, sat down next to young Yu Dian, and asked, "Have you eaten breakfast?"

"I have." Young Yu Dian's voice was soft. Her complexion looked much better than it had the past few days—fair and clean, which matched her delicate facial features rather well.

"Oh," Cheng Yun nodded, then asked, "Has the guest in Room 202 already gone out?"

"Hm? That very kind old man?" Yu Dian paused for a moment before saying, "He just went out about five minutes ago and even checked out, but he said he didn't pay a deposit."

"Five minutes ago..." Cheng Yun checked the time. Five minutes ago was exactly ten o'clock sharp.

"Mm," Yu Dian nodded in reply, simultaneously pulling out a hundred-yuan bill to hand to Hao Nianwen, saying quite politely, "Please keep your deposit safe. If you enjoyed your stay, you're welcome to come again next time."

"Okay, thank you." Hao Nianwen nodded, then smiled and waved goodbye to Cheng Yun. "Handsome boss, goodbye."

"Have a safe trip," Cheng Yun said.

Then the rest of the girls thanked him one by one, and he responded to each of them.

When they had all left, Yu Dian whispered to Cheng Yun, "Oh right, when Cheng Yan went out this morning, she said she was going shopping with a friend and wouldn't be back until this afternoon, so she won't be eating lunch here at noon. She also said..."

"What else did she say?" Cheng Yun asked.

Young Yu Dian's face turned red, making her look exceptionally embarrassed. She paused for a moment before continuing, "She said to WeChat her the money for this morning's breakfast, eighteen yuan in total."

"Oh," Cheng Yun nodded, collapsing straight onto his chair and narrowing his eyes slightly.

Hao Nianwen and the other girls served as a reminder that he ought to start the small hotel's marketing work as soon as possible. Cheng Yun had intended to do this for a long time, but these past few days his mental energy had been nearly wrung dry by the nighttime dreams, and he had various other matters to deal with at other times as well, to the point that he still hadn't started sorting out his thoughts.

Lazy as Cheng Yun was, he was undoubtedly far more visionary than the two professors, and he was well aware of the importance of marketing in this day and age. Most of the money he had made in college came from doing marketing well. Even though he was now running a small hotel and wasn't in a scenic area, getting the marketing right would still allow him to screen for customers who suited his preferences. Business would be much better, and he would save himself a lot of trouble.

After narrowing his eyes to ponder for a while, he felt a bit hungry. He got up to open the refrigerator to check the ingredients inside, went out to the vegetable market to buy a few more, and only then went upstairs to start stir-frying.

At noon today, it was just him, young Yu Dian, and Heroine Yin eating. Cheng Yun casually stir-fried only two home-style dishes, making the portions quite large.

At three in the afternoon, the sunlight was at its most venomous.

Cheng Yun wore a pair of black athletic shorts, a tight-fitting running t-shirt he had bought previously, and a pair of running shoes. Feeling some palpitation, he stood at the entrance of the hotel, looking at the street blinded by the scorching sunlight, feeling as though the glass door separated two entirely different worlds—inside the door was a pleasantly cool air-conditioned room, while stepping outside was like plunging into the devouring abyss of a raging inferno.

"Um... are we really going out right now? Just looking at this blazing sun makes me scared!"

"I'm not even scared, what are you afraid of?" Heroine Yin was likewise wearing a pair of athletic shorts, a white t-shirt on her upper body, and a pair of lightweight flip-flops on her feet.

"Can't we go at night?" Cheng Yun hesitated. Even though he had applied Cheng Yan's sunscreen, he still felt this sun was far too powerful.

"So much nonsense!" Heroine Yin stuffed two brand-new socks, one into each of her shorts pockets, directly pushed open the glass door, and said, "You want to practice martial arts yet you're afraid of hardship—where in this world is there such a good bargain? Besides, you already have your own enterprise and all sorts of things to handle every day. If you don't have the perseverance to keep at it every day without slack, when do you plan to practice?"

"Heroine speaks the truth!" Cheng Yun nodded, gritted his teeth, and stepped outside, only to feel a wave of heat wash over him.

"Hmph, that's more like it!" Heroine Yin was quite calm and followed him out.

Meanwhile, young Yu Dian sat dazedly inside the front desk, her hands still resting on the computer keyboard, but she turned her head to blankly watch their backs, having listened to every single exchange between them. She blinked her eyes for a long while before snapping back to reality.

I'd better just tend to my own business, she muttered, looking back down at the computer screen.

Today was the day Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin had agreed to start polishing his physique. The so-called body polishing was actually just elevating his physical fitness. This process didn't involve having him sit in one place to circulate internal martial arts techniques or anything of the sort, nor was it going under a waterfall to seek torment; put bluntly, it was exercise—

Endurance training, strength training, speed training, reflex training... all kinds of training!

Martial arts masters were forged this way.

Yizhou University, sports field.

The sun in early July was truly vicious beyond belief. By this time, university physical education classes had long since finished, and the entire sports field was completely empty save for a few members of the soccer club practicing their kicks, along with twos and threes of people sitting in the shade of the trees to beat the heat. Cheng Yun knew that once night fell, this place would be packed with people running, playing soccer, and taking walks, and mornings were quite crowded too. He had been a regular here during his freshman and sophomore years, but by his junior year he only came occasionally, and as for senior year right up until now, he had practically never set foot here.

At this moment, two figures—one tall, one short—stood at the entrance of the sports field. The westward-slanting scorching sun cast their shadows onto the plastic ground inside the field, stretching one long and one short.

"Sigh," Cheng Yun sighed. He knew not many people would brave such intense heat to come to this ghost of a place.

Heroine Yin, however, opened her mouth wide and mechanically turned her head to survey the entire oval sports field: an outer circle of red plastic running track with white lines, wide and vast; in the middle was a soccer field paved with artificial turf, the grass reflecting a vibrant, forgiving green under the glare of the sun; a group of boys in soccer uniforms were sweating profusely on the green field, letting out crisp shouts from time to time...

"I bet the training platform on Sword-Sharpening Cliff at Flying Fish Ravine isn't even this big!" Heroine Yin said blankly.

Cheng Yun, on the other hand, only felt the scorching heat. "So hot."

Heroine Yin walked inside in a daze. Heavier even than Cheng Yun, she could easily feel the elastic cushioning of the running track and couldn't help but marvel in wonder, "Is this what you called the place used for running?"

"Yeah."

"People in your world really know how to enjoy yourselves. Even the ground for running is soft!"

"That's because our bodies are much more fragile." Cheng Yun shook his head helplessly. Anyone who ran frequently knew the importance of cushioning for running, especially long-distance running. To this end, people spared no expense to buy good running shoes, one of the major purposes being to reduce the impact of running on joints like the knees. And a plastic running track with built-in cushioning naturally felt much better underfoot than running on a paved road.

Cheng Yun used to run often as well, mostly night runs. Back then he could run ten kilometers, but as for now...

"Fine." Heroine Yin didn't dwell on it. She looked at the plastic running track ahead and pondered for a moment. "A single lap around this is probably over a hundred zhang. Why don't you just run thirty laps for me to see first?"

"Pfft!" Cheng Yun felt like coughing up blood.

One lap around this track was a standard four hundred meters, and thirty laps made a full twelve kilometers...

"What? Can't do it?" Heroine Yin raised an eyebrow.

"I can! Why wouldn't I be able to!" Cheng Yun gritted his teeth and started doing warm-up exercises. "I'll warm up first."

"Mm, no rush. I'll still arrange some tasks for you after you finish running," Heroine Yin said indifferently, then looked him up and down again. "It's not that I'm talking down to you, Station Master, but this flesh of yours has gone completely to waste! Since the old mage has already cut you some slack, I should also lay on some heavy medicine; otherwise, wouldn't it be an injustice to you running into the old mage's room in the middle of the night and staying there for so long!?"

"How do you know that?" Cheng Yun froze instantly.

"I... Ah, stop talking nonsense, hurry up and run!" As she spoke, Heroine Yin put on a stern posture. "I'll just stand right here and watch you! Since you're just starting now, you can run a bit slower, but you aren't allowed to stop, or else I'm going to punish you!"

"Uh."

Cheng Yun felt that Heroine Yin was truly dead set on transforming his flab into sinewy muscle in a short amount of time. Having no other choice, he could only grit his teeth and start running around the track beneath the blazing sun.

Cheng Yun was quite tall and handsome. The track was far too empty in this scorching weather, and the moment he started running, it attracted quite a bit of attention—several students sitting in the shade of the trees, boredly chatting while watching the soccer match, all cast varying amounts of attention toward him, probably trying to figure out what was wrong with this guy's brain to choose to run at a time like this.

Facts proved that over a year of a comfortable lifestyle was enough to ruin a robust physique. After running just a single lap, Cheng Yun felt a clear sense of exhaustion. Judging by this situation, he would be exhausted to the point of collapse after running one thousand meters, and even if he gritted his teeth and kept running, he probably wouldn't make it past the two- or three-thousand-meter hurdle.

Right at that moment, the mark on his back began to feel as chillingly crisp as ice, actually radiating a wave of coolness. The coolness quickly spread all over his body, followed by a slight, tingling sensation.

His legs, torso, chest, and even his arms...

Cheng Yun clearly felt his sore and exhausted legs begin to return to normal. His fire-burning lungs and rapidly beating heart slowly calmed down, and even the muscles in his swinging arms, chest, and back felt a rush of coolness as the fatigue vanished entirely.

A kilometer down, nothing felt amiss...

Two kilometers, three kilometers...

Cheng Yun wasn't running particularly fast, but he definitely wasn't slow either. Today, he kept his pace around five for the first lap, which was quite fast for a jogging pace. In the past, he could finish ten kilometers at this speed, taking fifty minutes. Now, without his cheat, he would at most be able to finish one kilometer at this speed.

And now, as the rune program was activated, he gradually realized that he might find it hard to feel fatigued, so he intentionally accelerated. Thus, he ended up running faster and faster, his pace quickly dropping to around four—this was the speed he used to dare deploy only during physical fitness tests for one thousand meters.

Five kilometers, six kilometers...

True to form, Cheng Yun no longer felt any muscle soreness or swelling, only a slight limpness, beginning to get the sensation that his legs were hollow.

The men and women in the shade of the trees shifted their gazes toward him from seeing him as a fool at first to viewing him as a master...

Until Cheng Yun finished thirty laps, taking less than fifty minutes—this even surpassed his former peak performance.

At this moment, Heroine Yin was standing to hide from the sun under a tree at the edge of the sports field. She wasn't watching Cheng Yun, but instead staring blankly at the group of people playing soccer on the green grass, her dainty feet moving boredly inside her flip-flops.

It wasn't until Cheng Yun walked up to her that she asked in surprise, "Finished? What did the old mage feed you, you're so fierce!"

"Done!" Cheng Yun felt his stomach hollowed out, and a wave of hunger swept over him—he could practically imagine his hard-earned fat burning violently.

Next, Heroine Yin didn't let him off the hook either, making him do quite a few high-difficulty muscle-torturing movements. Some were relatively common actions in the real world, like push-ups and pull-ups; some were movements that only appeared in professional fitness courses like Ab Ripper; and there were even some movements Cheng Yun had never seen before and that his muscular strength found extremely difficult to execute. It was as if that twelve-kilometer run was merely an aerobic warm-up, and the main course was only just beginning.

Around four-thirty, Heroine Yin waved her hand and said, "Let's stop here for today. We'll continue the day after tomorrow."

"..." Cheng Yun was already past the point of speaking.

Even though he had a cheat and the recovery energy released by the vest mark kept his whole body's muscles in a non-fatigued, undamaged state at all times, he felt that his body simply had no time to provide energy for such high-intensity exercise. Consequently, his current sensation was like having starved for three days and three nights; every single bone and joint in his body was completely empty, and he just wanted to go back and let loose, eating two pounds of meat and three bowls of rice, with as much oil as possible.

Heroine Yin stretched out her neck to look at the group of soccer-playing students once more before turning to walk back.

As for Cheng Yun, he followed closely behind the heroine with floating, faltering steps on the way back, wearing an expression of utter despair.