How Should You Exercise Your Eyes?

As his physique attribute rose, a warm current welled up around Chen Jue's eye sockets.

After staring at the setting sun for a while, his eyes no longer stung and squinted like before. Instead, tears welled up, bringing a cool, refreshing sensation.

It felt as comfortable as looking up at a wide expanse of greenery after staring at his phone for too long.

"Special wavelengths of light shining on the mitochondria?"

"My physique is improving, and my eyesight is improving along with it?"

"I can actually gain attributes by watching the sunset!!!"

Chen Jue stared at the panel's notification, completely dumbfounded.

He had always thought that the attribute panel only gave him feedback when he exercised or relieved tension with a massage.

He hadn't expected that staring at the sun could earn him attributes too.

He wasn't a plant, and he couldn't photosynthesize, so how could he get energy from sunlight to stimulate himself?

Still puzzled, Chen Jue stared at the orange-red sunset a few more times, intending to test it.

The result was obvious!

Although the evening sunlight wasn't very strong, his eyes still grew sore and stung when he stared at it for too long.

Aside from the tears streaming down his face, the panel showed no signs of activity.

"Was it a coincidence?"

"Or was there some other reason?" Chen Jue wondered.

During a break after completing the Twelve Taiji Forms, he took the opportunity to search online for relevant information on his phone.

He focused on keywords such as "eyes," "sun," "mitochondria," and "vision restoration." Before long, Chen Jue, an office worker, had found scientific knowledge he'd never encountered before.

According to scientists, the retinal photoreceptor cells in the human eye contained large numbers of specialized mitochondria. These mitochondria aged and stopped functioning far more quickly than mitochondria in other cells throughout the body, making them one of the main causes of age-related vision loss.

However, scientific research in recent years had found that these specialized mitochondria were extremely sensitive to long-wavelength light between 650 and 900 nanometers. Exposing them to this light for a set amount of time each day could improve their performance and increase the activity of photoreceptor cells, thereby slowing down or even improving a person's vision.

In nature, long-wavelength light between 650 and 900 nanometers appeared red or deep red. The most common sources were the rising sun in the early morning and the light of the setting sun.

Just three minutes of red-light exposure each day could improve eyesight!

Although this kind of externally stimulated vision improvement was usually very slight, and often took a long time to yield any progress, it was still wonderful news for someone like Chen Jue, who was severely nearsighted.

He spent long hours working on his phone and computer every day, putting a great deal of strain on his eyes. His nearsightedness had already exceeded 500 degrees in both eyes, and he also had astigmatism to varying degrees.

Without his glasses, he couldn't tell men and women apart from half a meter away.

Even with glasses, distant objects appeared doubled, which greatly affected his ability to use skills like Darts and Stone Skipping.

"Only three minutes a day for the best results?"

"But it seems not many people know about this red-light therapy."

"Could it be that it doesn't work for everyone?"

Chen Jue wondered if the answer lay in differences between people's physiques.

He had only just come across this obscure area of human biology, so he didn't yet understand much of the professional terminology.

He'd done reasonably well in biology at school, but it had been so many years since graduation that he'd forgotten everything.

He sat there researching for half an hour, stopping only when the sun had set.

The internet was an endless sea of information. It was just like scrolling through Douyin or Bilibili—once you got hooked, you could easily waste days.

As a newly committed man of action, Chen Jue wasn't about to waste any more of his precious time on his phone.

He was drenched in sweat after exercising, so he went back to grab a clean change of clothes before heading out.

After checking his Attribute Panel, Chen Jue saw that he'd raised the Twelve Taiji Forms to Lv. 3 (1766/2000) in just one day. He figured that one more session tomorrow morning would be enough to level up.

On top of that, he'd gained 0.06 attributes that day, making it his most productive day since he'd gotten the panel.

In high spirits, Chen Jue forgot how badly Zhu Hongbin had gotten the better of him that morning. He drove to Jingtanghui to meet Jiang Zhe.

The two old college buddies met in the parking lot, exchanged a knowing smile, and flashed matching pervy grins.

First they went in for the buffet, then enjoyed the full spa treatment.

This time, though, Chen Jue didn't book the therapist Nana.

It wasn't that he thought she was bad at her job. It was just that so many perverts had their eye on Nana that she already had a queue of bookings. Chen Jue had no choice but to pick a different girl on the PAD, settling on No. 72, Xiao Mo.

Since Chen Jue was paying, Jiang Zhe was especially enthusiastic about coming along, seeing as Chen Jue didn't often splurge like this.

He told Chen Jue about the juicy gossip in their group over the past few days, especially the story about "Teacher Wu rescuing a little boy from a dog's jaws," which Jiang Zhe brought up several times.

He even pulled up the photos of Wu Fang that had been circulating online and started commenting on her appearance right in front of Chen Jue.

"Fourth Bro, isn't she pretty?"

"She's all over the internet right now!"

"Two quick throws, and she killed that huge Pit Bull! She's both beautiful and badass!"

"I heard she comes from a well-off family too. Her family has several demolition-compensation apartments, and the guys chasing her already stretch from West Lake to Qiandao Lake!"

Jiang Zhe clicked his tongue twice. Who knew where he'd heard that version of the story?

The man who'd taken down the Pit Bull with one throw was lying right next to him.

But Chen Jue didn't say anything. He just wondered to himself, From West Lake to Qiandao Lake? Do I have that many rivals?

After they'd finished talking about women, Jiang Zhe asked about Chen Jue's new job.

After all, Jiang Zhe had pulled some strings to help him get it. As the person who'd recommended him, he naturally wanted to know how things were going.

"Base salary of 20K a month, plus a furnished 40-square-meter studio apartment. The year-end bonus depends on the performance review."

"Those benefits are pretty good, right?"

Chen Jue spoke as he lay on the massage chair, letting Xiao Mo, dressed in a uniform, knead him however she liked.

He'd practiced the Twelve Taiji Forms all day. Although his muscles weren't as tired as they'd be after lifting weights at the gym, the long session had still taken a lot out of him.

When Xiao Mo's hands pressed into his joints, it felt so good that he let out piglike grunts.

When Jiang Zhe heard about Chen Jue's benefits, he whistled and said with a sigh, "That's already great! With our lousy diplomas, making 20,000 a month is pretty much the top of the ladder."

He'd been a business owner himself, so he knew what people earned in Hang City.

For someone like Chen Jue to land a job at a major financial company like Hengtong made him one of the top earners among college grads with associate degrees.

To climb any higher, he'd have to earn a more advanced degree or move into management and start his own business.

As for the online articles claiming that graduates of the class of 2023 earned an average annual salary of 10,342 yuan, those were best taken with a grain of salt.

The word "average" was doing some very clever work there!

Xiao graduated from an associate-degree program and went to a factory to tighten screws for four thousand a month. Li graduated from Tsinghua or Peking University and went to a major company like Alibaba, ByteDance, or Huawei, earning half a million a year.

They were both recent graduates. Average their salaries together, and everyone could look forward to a bright future.

Dinner and the spa took more than two hours.

Xiao Mo was very good at her job, but this time she didn't make any attributes pop up.

Chen Jue guessed that his base attributes had risen, so massages and other forms of relaxation weren't enough to make a difference anymore.

From now on, he'd have to exercise and stay disciplined if he wanted to improve his attributes.

After leaving Jingtanghui, they'd originally planned to head to an internet café and play games until eleven to kill time.

But Jiang Zhe's wife called him nonstop, so they had to cancel the rest of their plans.

Back at the talent apartment, Chen Jue had planned to turn in early and get enough rest to exercise and grind attributes again the next day.

But remembering the scientific information about eye health he'd read online that afternoon, along with the spa and massage he'd had at Jingtanghui that evening, which had loosened up his muscles and improved his circulation, a strange idea suddenly popped into his head.

"If red light can speed up mitochondrial metabolism, improve eyesight, and raise my [Physique] attribute..."

"Then if I do exercises specifically for my eyes, could I completely cure my nearsightedness?"

Once the ridiculous thought occurred to him, Chen Jue couldn't get back to sleep.

He searched online for eye exercises, and the instructional videos that came up featured the eye health exercises that had accompanied him throughout all twelve years of elementary, middle, and high school!

"Why not give them a try?"

"Maybe they really will work?"

Chen Jue watched the video, listened to the familiar music, took off his glasses, and began following along.

He did a few rounds of the four-part routine. His eyes felt a little more relaxed from the massage, but no notification appeared on the panel.

"Am I doing them wrong?"

"Or can the panel not record this kind of skill?"

Suspicious, Chen Jue searched online for different versions of the eye health exercises.

He went through versions with four parts, then five, before finally finding the origin of them all: the original eight-part routine created by Liu Shiming in 1961.

Chen Jue tried the later versions, which had been altered and shortened, but none of them had much effect.

Only the original eight-part routine worked. It came with diagrams of the acupoints and detailed written instructions. After Chen Jue tried pressing the acupoints around his eyes, the panel finally responded!

[ Ding~ ]

[You completed an eye health exercise that met the requirements. The internal carotid artery, ophthalmic artery, optic nerve, and other areas around your eye sockets received pressure stimulation, accelerating blood flow through your eyeballs and promoting photoreceptor cell metabolism. Your visual ability improved by an extremely small amount.]

[Skill activated: Eye Health Exercises]

Just one update tonight. I squeezed it out with great difficulty.

I've been going to the hospital a lot these past two days, and Pianfeng caught the flu too. My throat's inflamed, and I feel awful all over.

Also, thanks to readers ending in 8224, Si Wenhua Road, and Xiao Cao's Pride for the tips!

Let me rest for one night. Updates will return to normal tomorrow.

I'm still asking for recommendation votes.