Health Index

After buying his groceries and medicine, Chen Jue boarded another seven-seater van at the entrance to Panlong Town.

He had little choice. His body was severely depleted, and just a few steps left him feeling weak. He had only experienced anemia this severe once before in his life.

That had been when he fractured his thigh in a bicycle accident as a child and had to recuperate at home. Living conditions in the countryside had been poor back then, and inadequate nutrition had led to anemia.

Fortunately, Chen Jue now had some martial arts training, and his constitution was stronger than an ordinary person's, so he could still just about manage the trip home.

Since it was morning, the van waited almost half an hour to fill up, then drove for another ten-odd minutes before dropping Chen Jue off at Chen Village.

Once home, Chen Jue shut the door and started boiling water. First, he mixed up three packets of donkey-hide gelatin granules, then brewed a pot of sliced ginseng.

The middle-aged woman who sold him the medicine had said that if his anemia was severe, he could take several packets at once for a stronger effect.

Besides, his digestion had become far stronger than an ordinary person's since he began training. With little left to worry about, he drank all three packets of the gelatin mixture in one go.

The hot medicinal drink tasted intensely sweet, and the moment it reached his stomach, Chen Jue felt heat spreading through his body.

After a few more sips of the ginseng infusion, the dizziness from his anemia soon eased considerably.

"It's working!"

Delighted, Chen Jue hurried into the kitchen to clean the mature duck he had bought. He added the other ingredients, salt, rock sugar, and cooking wine, then started making soup.

Mature duck soup had to be brought to a boil over high heat, then simmered gently. The longer it simmered, the more flavorful it became.

Once the soup in the clay pot began boiling, Chen Jue turned the heat down and left it to simmer while he headed to the living room to keep drinking his ginseng infusion.

He gulped down the entire pot of hot water, leaving his stomach uncomfortably bloated. Not wanting to waste time, he began practicing the twelve forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic in the living room.

He kept at it for over two hours, making several trips to the bathroom and brewing another pot of sliced ginseng along the way. Chen Jue felt the depletion caused by his anemia receding faster.

At noon, he finished the duck soup and ate the entire duck, then went upstairs, lay down, and took a long nap.

It was past five in the afternoon when he slowly woke up. Only then did Chen Jue feel comfortable all over, with that depleted feeling completely gone.

Meanwhile, during his sleep and recovery, an unexpected change had occurred in his attribute panel:

Name: Chen Jue

Age: 27

Health index: 89%

Strength: 0.92

Agility: 0.84

Intelligence: 1.22

Constitution: 1.32

Skills mastered: [Boat Boxing Lv1 (69/200)] [Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic Lv0 (8/100)] [Eight Immortals Stance Lv1 (12/200)]

Unallocated attribute points: 0

His attributes had barely changed, except for constitution, which had unexpectedly risen by 0.02 after he took the tonics and drank the duck soup.

Presumably, the medicine had taken effect and replenished what last night's training had depleted, causing his constitution to rise.

As for the newly appeared [Health index], Chen Jue quickly figured out what it did.

It was a numerical indicator of his physical health. Below 70%, he would become prone to fatigue, and below 60% meant he was in an abnormal condition, such as injury or illness.

A normal adult man's health index generally sat at around 80%. Anything higher meant the person was very healthy.

The factors that made up the health index were fairly complicated. Put simply, the higher the number, the healthier Chen Jue was; the lower it fell, the further he was from normal.

The attribute panel probably added this new function automatically because my body became depleted this time.

It's like a game getting patched. After version 1.0, there are bound to be versions 2.0, 3.0, and so on. Chen Jue glanced at the attribute panel, feeling that his reasoning was probably sound.

After waking up, Chen Jue had regained the energy he had enjoyed over the previous few days. When he checked his phone, he found several missed calls.

He must have slept too deeply that afternoon to hear them.

He called back and learned that the calls had come from the technician coming to install his television.

But it was already past five, and the technician had finished work for the day. Chen Jue could only apologize several times and ask him to come again the next morning.

There were also several delivery notifications indicating that the exercise equipment, clothes, and other things he had ordered had been arriving at the little shop by the village entrance.

Delivery networks were well developed these days. Even out in the countryside, nearly everything Chen Jue had bought over the previous two days could arrive within about forty-eight hours.

After all, he had a habit of filtering for sellers shipping from within the province and choosing SF Express when ordering. Spending a little more saved him a lot of waiting.

He got up and started the rice cooker, then went out to the shop at the village entrance to bring home the parcels that had arrived.

Seeing that Chen Jue seemed intent on staying in the village long-term, the shopkeeper, Chen Aqiang, asked a few extra questions.

Ancestral hall traditions were widespread in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Everyone in a village often shared a surname, descended from branches of the same ancestor's family. A few generations back, they might even have belonged to the same household.

Chen Jue and the shopkeeper were distantly related, so he had to address him as Uncle Aqiang when they met. He chatted with him a little longer; he would be coming here often to collect parcels and buy things, so he could hardly neglect the relationship.

When Chen Aqiang learned that Chen Jue had quit his job and returned to settle in the countryside, he remarked several times that it was a shame.

To Chen Aqiang, a university graduate in the prime of his youth choosing not to make his way in the city was simply wasting his best years.

But Chen Jue had different aspirations. After discovering the joy of martial training and cultivation, he had completely put aside thoughts of earning money to support a family and carrying on the family line.

He was the only one left in his branch of the family anyway, with neither elders nor children to support. As for expanding the family and continuing its line, he still had several male cousins to handle that, so their ancestors would not lack descendants to honor them.

The money he had earned in Hangzhou was enough to live on for several years, so he had firmly decided to make training and cultivation his foremost goal.

It was simply a difference in outlook and aspirations. Chen Jue would not reveal much of his secret to outsiders, either.

There were quite a few parcels, and it took several trips to bring them all home. Once he unpacked them, several enormous dumbbells lay scattered across the floor.

There was also a sit-up bench and a telescopic pull-up bar that could be braced between walls.

As for the fishing rod and changes of clothes, Chen Jue took those upstairs and put them away for the time being.

He went downstairs and made dinner, reheating and finishing the little duck soup left from lunch. He also brewed himself another pot of sliced ginseng tea.

It was good for replenishing qi and blood, and Chen Jue planned to brew a pot every morning and evening.

After all, the experts on the online forums had said that training required both physical practice and internal tonics. He could not rely entirely on fresh food to replenish his energy.

But he could not keep drinking the donkey-hide gelatin granules. His health index had now reached 89%, and his anemia symptoms were gone, so taking more would only waste the medicine's effects.

Unless he experienced a similar bout of depletion and anemia again, Chen Jue would not casually try taking this kind of fast-acting prepared Chinese medicine.

As for the All-Nourishing Decoction and other remedies he had ordered online, Chen Jue was beginning to look forward to them.

These ancient formulas, passed down through the ages, would presumably have unexpected nourishing effects, just like tea brewed from sliced ginseng.