After dinner, Zhang Yang rested for a little while, then headed straight to a nearby gym.
He'd bought a one-week trial pass in advance, so he'd have somewhere to work out during his stay in Yinghai City.
Commercial gyms really were different from personal training studios.
The cardio area was always packed with women. There were always membership consultants in tight clothes, and the group exercise room was always bigger than the weight area. Oh, and the weight area was often full of old gym veterans.
Zhang Yang had only bought a trial pass to check the place out, but one of the membership consultants had already latched onto him.
He wouldn't stop pushing memberships or personal training packages.
Damn, if it had been a female membership consultant or trainer pestering him, he might have put up with it. But what chance did this guy have?
"Hey, man, how about hearing me out? It's our anniversary promotion. An annual membership is only twelve hundred." The guy grinned ingratiatingly.
Zhang Yang opened a secondhand marketplace app and took a look. Yep, it was this very gym. Someone was selling a membership with a year and a half left for only eight hundred, and they'd cover the transfer fee, too.
He brushed the guy off with a few casual words, then got right into his workout.
Having been coached so thoroughly by an expert close to earning a pro card, Zhang Yang's form soon drew a crowd of gym veterans.
"Man, you're really professional. I could never get a feel for this movement. Now I see where I was going wrong."
"Could you take a look at mine? I always feel like my traps are doing the work when I do this. Look, my neck's almost disappeared, but my arms still haven't changed much."
Zhang Yang didn't mind sharing, and casually offered them a few pointers.
Making progress in the gym had never been about how perfect your form was or how well you could engage the right muscles. Given enough time, you'd figure out what worked best for you.
The real test was showing up to work out every day of the year, turning fitness into a habit.
Just walking into a gym already put you among one in a hundred. Of those, more than half could be eliminated just by looking at who showed up regularly. And people who kept at it for years without fail were so rare they were practically one in a million.
Someone who was genuinely well-built in any given city could easily be one in a hundred thousand.
Just then, a mincing voice rang out beside him. "Hey, handsome, am I using the thigh adductor machine right?"
Zhang Yang looked over. A young man in a pink skintight outfit was sitting on the thigh adductor machine, squeezing his legs together over and over.
What normal guy used the thigh adductor machine at the gym?
Zhang Yang's hair stood on end, and he hurriedly put some distance between them.
Later that evening, Zhang Yang finished logging his workout for the day. Once again, he hadn't wasted a single day of the thirty.
After showering, he stepped out feeling a little empty in the stomach. He turned his car around, planning to get some carbs. During a bulking phase, you had to replenish carbs and protein as soon as possible after every workout.
On Sanyuan Middle Road, a noodle shop run by a married couple from Runzhou was brightly lit, and there were plenty of customers.
"Pork liver noodles, please." Zhang Yang walked in and ordered the liver noodles he'd often eaten back in school, then found himself a seat.
A moment later, the steaming bowl of noodles was served.
The pork liver was tender, the lettuce crisp from a quick blanch, and the noodles a little on the thick side. One bite was enough to take Zhang Yang back to his student days.
Ding.
As he sat at the table eating, his phone gave a soft buzz. Bei Wei had just sent him a message.
Zhang Yang tapped it open. It was a photo of the two of them together.
It turned out she'd gone to Disney that day with her rich second-generation roommate.
In the photo, Bei Wei wore a red-and-white plaid floral dress and Disney-style headwear. Her smile was sweet and clear. As for the roommate beside her...
Well, to be fair, he hadn't gotten a good look at her roommate that night. All he remembered was her smoking figure.
In today's photo, she looked meticulously made up, carrying Gucci and wearing Chanel. She really did have the air of a rich young lady. She looked quite demure in the picture, a striking contrast to her fiery appearance that night.
If her surname happened to be Xiao, Zhang Yang would name her Xiao Shaobi.
Zhang Yang studied the photo, then let his gaze linger on the bag in Bei Wei's hand. Yep, it was that Coach bag worth several thousand.
It was a nice bag, but naturally, it didn't stand out next to all the luxury goods her roommate was wearing.
Luckily, Bei Wei had the looks to carry it off and didn't come across as a mere background extra.
I'll get her a bag sometime.
Once he was earning fifty thousand a day, he might not have absolute freedom to buy luxury goods, but he'd have relative freedom. A bag worth a hundred or two hundred thousand would only cost him a day or two of cashback. No big deal.
He wasn't about to let Bei Wei be outshone by her roommate over something like that.
After eating his fill, Zhang Yang stood outside the shop, enjoying the evening breeze as he took in the familiar old street and savored the long-missed feeling of being home.
When he got home late that night, the house was pitch-black. Zhang Zhaohai and his wife had gone to bed long ago.
He went into his bedroom and turned on the light.
The sheets had been changed, and they'd had a good day in the sun. The room was filled with the scent of sunshine.
Zhang Yang checked the time. There was less than an hour until midnight. He wasn't sleepy yet, so he decided to wait for the clock to strike twelve.
The seconds ticked by.
Midnight.
Ding!
Settling last month's long-term quest. Congratulations, Host. By the end of last month, your body fat percentage had reached the target. You have been awarded five experience points.
Zhang Yang had expected it. He'd put in plenty of sweat that month, so reaching his body fat goal was inevitable. Now he only needed thirteen more experience points to level up.
It'll be a month of working out in a few days. That'll earn me another ten experience points. Fifty thousand a day is just around the corner. In the middle of the night, Zhang Yang was so excited he could barely sleep.
Fifty thousand a day, and the incredible physique he'd been looking forward to for ages. Just thinking about it made him happy.
Ding!
You have an unclaimed May Day gift pack.
His excitement hadn't even faded when he received another message from the system. His spirits immediately lifted.
There's a holiday gift pack, too?
Zhang Yang immediately checked the new holiday gift pack:
Congratulations, Host. You have received a brand-new Bentley Continental GT. Please collect it from the designated dealership.
"Continental GT?" Zhang Yang murmured.
So it was that model.
With options, it would easily cost over five million yuan. It was a top-tier luxury car in every sense of the word—and the dream car in Zhang Yang's heart.
He would never forget the sight of a white Bentley passing by him in Magic City, or the middle-aged man sitting inside, looking utterly composed.
He had seemed so unruffled, as though nothing in the world could faze him, no matter how serious it was.
There were plenty of luxury cars, and some cost more than anyone could imagine.
But a Bentley was different. It wasn't merely luxurious; it had an elegance that seemed to radiate from within. The first thing anyone thought when they saw one was: What a beautiful car. The owner must have excellent taste.
Thank you, system. Zhang Yang was going to be a Bentley owner, too.
Suddenly, he felt that his watch finally had a car worthy of it.
Driving a Porsche that cost over a million while wearing a watch worth seven hundred thousand—what kind of sense did that make?
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