The improvement was tiny. After all, it was only 0.06 attribute points. Compared with a standard adult man's one point, it amounted to just a six-percent increase in constitution, nowhere near enough to turn Chen Jue into a superman overnight.
Still, it had strengthened his constitution and eased his fatigue. After sitting on the little folding stool for ten-odd minutes, Chen Jue got up, opened his suitcase, and began putting away the things he had brought home.
A laptop, a tablet, several changes of clothes, and a bundle of cash totaling more than twenty thousand yuan.
Before coming back, Chen Jue had thought he was being clever by withdrawing some cash from the bank, since he planned to spend a while living in the countryside.
But when he saw QR payment codes displayed both in the minivan that had brought him here and at the village store, he couldn't help mocking himself. "My prejudices really got ahead of what I knew!"
He dug a few quilts and bedding sets out of a cupboard, spread them haphazardly over the hard wooden bed, and lay down for a while, watching the sky outside the window gradually darken.
He had originally been an ordinary office worker, earning over ten thousand yuan a month while living away from home in Hangzhou. Life had been reasonably comfortable. But with the economy struggling and workplace competition becoming ever more cutthroat, he had been fired and forced out of work.
He had returned to this old village house because, after drifting around away from home for so long, he felt lost and worn out inside.
As for Chen Jue's family, none of them were still alive.
His grandparents had passed away one after the other while he was in college, and his mother had developed cancer when he was in middle school. The family had borrowed heavily to pay for her treatment. His father had gone away to work so he could repay the debts, only to die in a construction-site accident while Chen Jue was in high school.
The death had ultimately been classified as a workplace accident, and the contractor had paid over six hundred thousand yuan in compensation. That money had just about covered Chen Jue's education through a third-tier college, several years of caring for his sick grandparents until they passed away, and repairs to the old house with help from a few of his uncles. By then, nearly all of it was gone.
After graduating from college, Chen Jue had kept moving around for work, first in Beijing and then in Hangzhou. After more than six years of that, he still hadn't saved enough to buy a home. Losing his job had left him so disheartened that he had returned to his hometown to clear his head.
As for Chen Jue's savings, he had less than three hundred thousand yuan left.
Although wages in Hangzhou were high, with his monthly pay barely exceeding ten thousand yuan, expenses were high too. Rent alone easily ate up two thousand every month. Add meals and social obligations, and he could save at most four or five thousand out of his salary.
And that was with Chen Jue living fairly frugally, without flirting with young women or getting into a relationship.
With what he had to offer, he was better off not dragging any of them down.
Even so, three hundred thousand yuan wasn't enough to get a foot on Hangzhou's property ladder, unless Chen Jue was willing to buy one of those cheap mixed-use studio apartments.
But now that he had left the working world, Chen Jue no longer wanted to chase after property ownership.
A wage earner's lot was to keep working. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't catch up with Hangzhou's soaring housing prices. Even back home in Wenzhou, where homes averaged over twenty thousand yuan per square meter, the three hundred thousand he had was nowhere near enough.
Unable to outcompete his peers at work either, Chen Jue simply gave up on buying a home. He would do what people online suggested: go back to his hometown and opt out of the rat race!
After all, Chen Jue still had his newly awakened attribute panel to keep him company. He could shut himself away and study how to make use of it, so his days wouldn't be too boring.
After lying in bed for half an hour, he picked up his phone to check the time and found it was almost seven.
Chen Jue sprang up from the bed. Feeling hungry, he went out to the village store and brought back a bag of rice, a bundle of noodles, some vacuum-packed cooked meat, and a case of beer.
Life in the countryside wasn't convenient. Apart from the elderly villagers who grew their own vegetables, anyone wanting a decent meal had to go to the market in Panlong Town.
But Chen Jue had been back for less than half a day and hadn't thought that far ahead. He threw together a makeshift meal to fill his stomach first.
After all, half a day of hard work had taken a lot out of him. Eating some meat and getting a little fat into his diet would help his body recover faster.
Of course, after three days of observation, Chen Jue had also discovered that the combination of "eating meat + exercise" made his free attribute points accumulate faster.
Otherwise, he couldn't have saved up 0.06 attribute points in just three days.
I need to find a way to get more free attribute points!
If I could raise constitution, strength, agility, and intelligence to several whole points each, wouldn't that make me a superman? Chen Jue mused.
After filling his stomach and cracking open a beer, Chen Jue stepped out of the old house and headed uphill along the village's concrete road, drinking as he walked.
After years of development, this road through Chen Village had been widened to roughly three lanes, with bright streetlights on both sides, directly linking the upper and lower villages.
Up in the hills behind the village lay Chen Village Reservoir. It covered a sizable area, surrounded by mountains and pleasant scenery.
He had heard it was built in the sixties or seventies of the last century. In recent years, it had been renovated as part of a rural development initiative, with plans to turn it into a small scenic attraction that would draw city residents out for spring outings and fishing.
Chen Jue had been too busy cleaning the house to notice during the day, but when he followed the main road to the reservoir that night, he did indeed see several parked sedans and SUVs. They probably belonged to fishing enthusiasts from the city.
A few elderly villagers and some middle-aged locals had also come up for a walk after dinner to help digest their food.
Seeing Chen Jue's unfamiliar face, they all assumed he was one of the city people who had driven out to fish. They didn't ask questions and simply carried on walking and exercising.
A newly built temple stood beside the reservoir, grand and imposing, its lights still burning at night. As he passed, he could hear chanting from inside, though it came from speakers rather than anyone chanting in person.
An open space beside the temple had been fitted with exercise equipment like the kind found in residential complexes, but it was too late for anyone to be working out there.
Chen Jue took in the sights of Chen Village, at once familiar and strange. He hadn't expected his hometown to have changed so much during his years away.
Sipping his beer, he went around the temple and walked onto the reservoir dam.
The dam was tall and long, standing at least a dozen meters above the water. Newly installed guardrails and ground-level strip lighting, together with the still water and the dark, secluded mountains, gave it a distinctly poetic beauty when viewed from afar.
Several villagers sat on the dam, enjoying the breeze and moonlight. A little old man stood alone in an open area, alternating between hopping about and throwing punches.
His movements looked nimble and vigorous, but Chen Jue couldn't tell whether he was doing some kind of calisthenics or practicing a boxing style. It wasn't the tai chi commonly seen in parks, either.
"Sir! Are you from Huang Family Village farther in?"
"I saw you practicing here. What kind of martial art is that?" Chen Jue didn't recognize the little old man, so he couldn't resist asking a couple of questions as he passed.
"Heh! Don't recognize it, do you?"
"This is Boat Boxing! Passed down by our ancestors!" The little old man grinned proudly and demonstrated a few sequences for Chen Jue, occasionally letting out strange cries. Chen Jue watched with growing interest.
He took out his phone, opened his browser, and searched. Sure enough, he found information about Boat Boxing.
The introduction described it as a traditional local boxing style from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region, with a long history. Fishermen in coastal areas had once practiced it to fight off Japanese pirates.
It was called Boat Boxing because fishermen practiced its unarmed forms or weapon techniques at the bows of their boats, with a space to stand only slightly wider than a traditional square dining table. They couldn't use the broad, sweeping movements of other martial arts routines. After all, practicing on a boat wasn't like practicing on level ground; one careless move could send them into the water.
After Chen Jue had watched from the side for some time, the little old man couldn't help asking, "Young fellow, want to learn a few moves?"
"Sure!"
Since awakening his attribute panel, Chen Jue had become extremely interested in forms of exercise like this. He followed the old master's movements and practiced a few techniques.
Before long, however, his attention was drawn to a new notification that popped up on his attribute panel.
Name: Chen Jue Age: 27 Strength: 0.83 Agility: 0.74 Intelligence: 1.22 Constitution: 1.04 Skills mastered: Boat Boxing Lv0 (3/100) Free attribute points available: 0.01
It actually added a skill stat?
Before you continue