On a bus heading out to the countryside, Chen Jue gazed at the green rice fields slipping past on either side of the road.
Level stretches of rice, murmuring streams, and a broad asphalt road stretched before him. Here and there, a row of newly built houses with yellow walls stood beside the road, presumably resettlement villages for people who had just moved out of some remote mountain valley.
The economy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was thriving, and rural development was in full swing. With charging stations and basketball courts provided as well, the surroundings looked scarcely worse than an urban residential complex.
Ultimately, housing prices in the cities were simply too high. Most people from the countryside could not afford property there, so they found ways to build similar residential developments on the outskirts, giving them something to pass down to the next generation.
But Chen Jue only glanced at these sights. Once the novelty wore off, he began studying the attribute panel in his mind, which had awakened less than three days ago:
Name: Chen Jue Age: 27 Strength: 0.83 Agility: 0.74 Intelligence: 1.22 Constitution: 0.98 Available attribute points: 0.05 (Reference note: the average attribute value for a standard adult male is 1 point.)
That was the entire attribute panel. It was extremely basic, but it was enough to show Chen Jue's overall physical condition.
So what if I've awakened one of those system panels that novels have done to death?
This is the real world. There aren't any supernatural powers... Chen Jue mocked himself inwardly.
When he first obtained the panel, he had been incredibly excited, thinking his miserable life was finally about to change.
But after three days, it had made little difference to his life, and much of his excitement about the attribute panel had faded.
After stopping and starting along the way, the bus pulled into a place called Panlong Town, where Chen Jue had grown up.
After leaving home to make his way in the world more than a decade ago, he had finally returned to the hometown buried deep in his memories.
His family home was not in Panlong Town itself, however, but in Chen Village, several kilometers away.
He got off the bus and, dragging a large suitcase, flagged down a seven-seater van carrying passengers at the entrance to town.
Panlong Town had eight villages under its jurisdiction, most of them nestled in mountain hollows. They seemed close, but walking to them could leave your toes covered in blisters.
That was why several vans always waited beside the bus stop at the entrance to town, picking up passengers.
As a child, Chen Jue had ridden diesel-powered three-wheelers-essentially pedal rickshaws fitted with diesel engines. But those things swayed badly on the road and risked overturning, so they had been completely banned a few years earlier.
After agreeing on a fare of seven yuan, Chen Jue climbed aboard with his luggage. The driver was a little old man in his fifties or sixties. His vaguely familiar face suggested that Chen Jue had ridden his three-wheeler before, but this time the old man had upgraded to four wheels.
Apart from Chen Jue, the young man with luggage, the van held two elderly women in their seventies or eighties. They wore plain clothes and carried plastic bags containing medicine, presumably having just come from the town clinic together.
After chatting with the driver about how Panlong Town had changed in recent years and exchanging a few words with the two elderly women, Chen Jue watched the scenery retreat outside the window.
Leaving the town's asphalt road for a battered concrete mountain road, the little van twisted and turned its way to Chen Jue's family home in Chen Village in less than twenty minutes.
Chen Jue scanned a payment code, paid seven yuan, and got out. Looking at the sparsely populated village, he could not help marveling at the passage of time and all the changes it had brought.
Once upon a time, Chen Village had been known throughout the surrounding area for its large population.
Of the village's more than two hundred registered households, most had now moved to a resettlement village beside the national highway.
A few wealthier families had settled in the city. Those left behind were either elderly, in poor health, or too poor to leave.
When Chen Jue stepped out of the van, several old people chatting outside the village shop gave him puzzled looks.
"Young man, whose family are you from?"
"We're getting old. Our eyes aren't good enough to recognize you anymore!"
When they asked, Chen Jue made no secret of it, telling them he was Chen Yan's grandson. Only then did recognition dawn on their faces.
"Oh! You're Chen Yan's grandson! Look how big you've grown!"
"Are you back for a visit during your school break?"
"We haven't seen you in years!" Their questions brought a chorus of wistful remarks.
Chen Jue chatted with them for a while, then got the village shop's address and phone number to use as his default delivery address before dragging his luggage back to his family's village house.
The house consisted of two adjoining concrete units, each two stories high, totaling over 140 square meters. The main structure was already more than forty years old.
It had been renovated ten years earlier. The exterior had been painted white, tiles fitted inside, and wooden flooring laid on the second floor. The doors and windows were aluminum alloy and stainless steel, and the house had everything: water, electricity, internet, air conditioning, and a gas stove.
But after years without anyone living there, a thick layer of dust had accumulated inside.
Chen Jue found the key in his backpack and opened the door. First, he opened all the windows upstairs and downstairs to air the house out, then picked up a plastic broom, a bucket, and a rag and began cleaning.
It took more than four hours of work inside and out just to get the house reasonably clean.
As for the sofas and mattresses, although they had all been covered in plastic, their inner padding had grown damp and moldy over the years. Chen Jue could only take them apart and wash and dry everything.
Looks like I'll be sleeping on a bare bed board tonight!
Chen Jue wiped the sweat off his body and checked the attribute panel again.
His available attribute points had risen from 0.05 to 0.06, an increase of 0.01. Chen Jue knew that was the result of his hard work.
After awakening the attribute panel, Chen Jue had tried countless ways to earn these freely allocatable attribute points.
Eventually, he discovered that any labor that left his body tired, or any intensive exercise, could accumulate attribute points.
Although he could only earn 0.01 points at a time, he had managed to save up 0.06 over the past three days.
Why not try adding some points?
He found a small folding stool and sat down to rest for a moment, then opened a bottle of water and gulped it down.
Of his current attributes, only his intelligence was somewhat higher than that of a standard adult male. All the others were below 1 point.
Chen Jue guessed that his physical condition had deteriorated because he had spent so much time sitting in an office and eating and drinking to excess, leaving his body short of exercise.
Still, all the traveling and physical labor over the past few days had brought his strength, agility, and constitution back up a little.
Maybe I should start with constitution!
Constitution affects health, improves physical vitality, and boosts recovery, fatigue resistance, and the ability to withstand blows. I'm a little tired after cleaning, so let's try putting some points into constitution.
Chen Jue focused on his constitution value of 0.98, then directed all 0.06 of his available attribute points into it.
Constitution: increased from 0.98 to 1.04
A notification flashed past. Chen Jue felt a surge of heat through his body, and his tired, aching limbs began to relax. Even his breathing became noticeably steadier.
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