Face

He ran his food truck in Manhattan in the morning and returned to the Bronx to work out at the gym in the afternoon. Lin Rui earned money while strengthening himself.

Yesterday, he had challenged a 160-kilogram squat. Today, he tried the same weight and discovered that without activating the enhancement from the card, he could not lift the barbell off the rack even with all his strength.

He smiled wryly. He still had to train.

After attempting a heavy load, it was inadvisable to train again immediately, because the body would experience severe lactic acid buildup and muscle tears.

The body needed two or three days to clear the lactic acid and repair the muscle groups, and beginners would take even longer-during recovery, the muscles would be extremely sore, leaving them unable to walk or hold chopsticks. In extreme cases, they might even urinate blood.

But with "Steel Lungs and Viscera," Lin Rui's soreness only lasted one night and had improved substantially by the next morning. He returned to the gym to consolidate the results of his training.

Considering that the Lesser Attribute Enhancement Card was only valid for one month, Lin Rui intended to use the full six hours every day that month, using heavy loads to improve himself rapidly.

Several posters hung on one wall of the gym, all featuring fitness stars and the world records they had set.

One poster featured an enormous Black man who truly looked like a beast. A line of small print on the poster read-1995, US Men's Powerlifting Championships, 430-kilogram record.

Holy shit, these guys were absolute animals. Their strength stats had to be at least thirty.

But four hundred-plus kilograms was not the limit. Lin Rui vaguely remembered someone later pushing that weight to a terrifying figure of nearly six hundred kilograms.

Fuck, over half a ton!

Was that even human?

Lin Rui shook his head and obediently reduced the barbell to one hundred kilograms. After activating the card, he warmed up first, doing sixty reps in five sets, progressing step by step.

After finishing the first set, sweat began beading on his forehead, but his breathing remained smooth, and he felt good. Just as he planned to rest for two minutes before continuing, the gym's iron door clanged.

Judging by the time, it should have been Toby.

Lin Rui thought about how to guide Toby into setting his next fitness and weight-loss plan so he could get another card quest-the cards were simply too useful. Their drawback was their time limit.

But when he reached the iron door, he discovered that the visitor was not Toby at all, but Molly... and seven or eight delinquent-looking boys and girls.

"Leon, open up. I brought my friends along to work out. You don't mind, right?" The little delinquent girl pointed at her companions behind her.

A group of adolescents stood outside the iron door, three boys and four girls, of varying heights and builds, all Molly's classmates.

They had been chattering outside the iron door, but the moment they saw Lin Rui's stern face and tall, straight figure, they fell silent, their gazes fixed squarely on him as though pinned in place.

Expressionless, Lin Rui pushed the door open and stepped aside.

The kids filed in, their footsteps echoing chaotically across the concrete floor. They looked around curiously, their eyes sweeping over the battered machines.

"This equipment... is so old." A boy as skinny as a bean sprout muttered disdainfully. He reached out and touched the rust-speckled guide rail of a Smith machine, immediately getting dust on his fingertips.

"Feels like antiques from the last century." A girl with dyed hair beside him tilted her head back to stare at the yellowed poster on the wall-it featured a bodybuilding champion from the 1990s, his muscles glistening with oil, his pose exaggerated.

She curled her lip. "I've been to the best gym in Manhattan, the kind where a monthly membership costs hundreds. There's enough space to play basketball, it's brightly lit, and all the equipment is brand-new.

"Professional trainers, with private sessions starting at two hundred bucks. Now that's fitness. This place... is so low-class. It's the worst I've ever seen. There's no way you could get any results here."

As soon as she finished, the others chimed in, like a lit fuse setting off another explosion of chatter.

"These weight plates are all rusty. Won't they get stuck?"

"The dumbbell rack is crooked. Looks like it could collapse any second."

"With a floor this hard, won't your knees be wrecked if you train too long?"

They touched things here and there, pointing and criticizing, finding nothing to their liking. Their voices echoed through the cramped space like a swarm of flies buzzing about.

Molly had originally wanted to bring her friends to meet her "boyfriend"-to show off Lin Rui's breathtaking, overwhelming charm.

But now her face darkened little by little, her arms folded across her chest and her lips pressed into a thin line.

The three boys had shown faint hostility toward Lin Rui from the moment they entered.

Their instinctive repulsion toward the same sex made them deliberately look away, yet they could not resist stealing glances-Lin Rui stood over 180 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and sharply defined muscles.

His long, lean figure cast an elongated shadow under the lights, like a three-dimensional sculpture. They knew perfectly well that this was not someone they could easily outshine.

The four girls were more complicated. Their eyes drifted toward Lin Rui from time to time, while they deliberately put on an "I don't care" attitude-especially in front of Molly, they absolutely could not show weakness.

Lin Rui turned a blind eye to all of it. He walked over to the squat rack, scooped up a small handful of chalk, and rubbed it between his palms with a faint rustling sound, preparing for his second set of hundred-kilogram squats.

But the racket beside him grew increasingly grating, like countless mosquitoes circling inside his head. A familiar notification sounded deep in his mind:

"Demon hunter, a group of ignorant fools has looked down on you. Their smooth cerebral cortices refuse to acknowledge your excellence.

"This is blatant discrimination!

"To defend your honor, and even more importantly, to shatter their hypocritical pride, crush their perceptions with your actual performance."

"Quest reward: aside from pride and honor, you will receive nothing else."

Lin Rui's brow twitched. Damn, a quest with no benefits?

While he was hesitating over whether to simply throw these brats out, Molly approached with a dark expression. She stopped in front of him, wanting to speak but holding back.

It took no guessing to know that the little delinquent girl felt she had lost face.

She hoped her "boyfriend" would step forward and show off his strength, making those foul-mouthed crows submit wholeheartedly and shut up for good.

Lin Rui glanced down and understood everything. He clapped the chalk from his hands, sending white powder drifting through the air.

"All right." His voice was low, yet carried clearly throughout the gym. "Quiet down, all of you. If you want to watch, stand back."

The teenagers' voices cut off abruptly.

Lin Rui turned his back to them, shouldered the barbell, and squatted.

His knees bent, his hips shifted back, and his spine stayed straight-a textbook squat posture. As the weight pressed down, even the floor seemed to tremble slightly.

One... two... He began exerting himself, the barbell rising and falling repeatedly, his muscles rolling beneath his skin like a sculpture come to life.

The entire gym instantly fell silent, leaving only Lin Rui's steady breathing. The boys' and girls' eyes gradually widened.

After finishing the second set, Lin Rui said to Molly, "Add some plates for me. I want to try three hundred pounds today."

"Three hundred pounds" was roughly 150 kilograms. At that number, an uproar broke out in the gym.

Though the brats did not know much about it, they knew that weight was two or three times their own body weight.

Secretly pleased, Molly obligingly went to find weight plates. But she was terribly weak and could not even lift a ten-kilogram plate. Everything she brought over weighed only two or three kilograms.

"All right, all right, stop making a mess." Lin Rui told the little delinquent girl to stand aside and added the weight himself.

One boy nearby took out his phone and quickly sent a message. "Dad, is a three-hundred-pound squat a pretty average result?"

"For a nonprofessional, that's very good," the boy's father soon replied. "But it also depends on body weight. Someone under two hundred pounds generally can't shoulder that much."

By then, Lin Rui had stepped beneath the squat rack. Gripping the bar with both hands, he hoisted the 150-kilogram barbell onto the backs of his shoulders and slowly took two steps back.

Watching the swaying barbell approach them, several girls, Molly included, were frightened into backing away repeatedly.

One girl looked at the muscles tensing all over Lin Rui's body under the load and could not resist taking out her phone to snap several pictures of his back.

The boy who had sent the message glanced at Lin Rui's build and said quietly, "I don't think he's two hundred pounds. Bet he won't get back up once he squats."

Another boy nodded repeatedly in agreement.

Hearing this, Molly shot the boy who had sent the message a vicious glare.

Lin Rui slowly squatted, feeling his thigh muscles begin to tighten. When he stood again, his muscles burned fiercely, and his knees grew hot and red.

That single descent and ascent left all the boys and girls present deeply awed.

Just then, a mocking voice sounded at the gym entrance. "Toby, this is the Asian kid who's stronger than you? He doesn't look that impressive. At least, he's no match for me!"