Singlehandedly - Chapter 11
Chapter 11: Money Talks
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Early hours of the morning.
A guest house somewhere in Yunhai City.
Tang Hong, who finally received his daily notification after waking up, was full of smiles.
[Ding dong!]
[Experience single life, individual value+1]
[Ding dong!]
[First time experiencing a night at a guest house alone, individual value+1]
Lying all alone on the bed, Tang Hong stared at the ceiling, entirely still.
The corner of his lips were curled up, it was happiness.
The dreamy Tang Hong dozed off again. When he opened his eyes once more, it was already noon, he had missed two periods of his electives. He felt a little remorseful and hurriedly packed up and left, without staying any longer.
The check out time for all guest houses was 12PM.
On the way back to school, Tang Hong opened WeChat. He did not leave a bad rating.
He was in an especially good mood, even though the morning weather had suddenly changed and the patter of the constant May drizzle was emitting cool temperatures. “A stay at the guest house and I earned two points of individual value, the cost-performance ratio is really high!”
First, he verified the reason for the disappearance of the daily wake-up notification:
As Tang Hong had guessed, he had to be sleeping alone.
He probably could not stay in the campus dormitory anymore. With Han Shibin,Zeng Li and Wu Jie, three others in the dormitory, it would be difficult for him to trigger his daily wake-up notification. This was an uninterrupted supply of long-term yield.
If he could persevere, he would certainly hold a large amount of individual value.
Secondly.
Tang Hong discovered another key point of individual value’s trigger mechanism. “The increase of individual value can be stacked!”
The stacked individual values would not cancel out each other.
A few days ago, he had noticed this when he went to Disneyland. Only, he did not confirm it.
Until today, after the initial summary, Tang Hong quietly muttered, “Individual value is most easily triggered by a first-time incident or action.” i
With mood and time as supplementary key factors.
The next step.
He planned on verifying whether these first-time incidents that increased his individual value could be repeatedly triggered, whether he could gain individual value through a second or third time doing so.
Tang Hong decided to spend a night at a guest house again, simple and economical.
The first-time incidents ought to possess commonality.
For example, if a guest house could refresh his individual value, it was presumably the same for motor cars, cabs and ride-hailing services.
“I’ll go to a different guest house today.”
The chances of succeeding in the same room were too low. Tang Hong a room at a guest house whose ratings were as high as 4.9 points.
Then, he headed to the fitness center of Yunhai University of Finance and Economics.
This was a fitness center newly constructed last year. It held a set of facilities such as basketball courts, volleyball courts, badminton courts, swimming pools and more.
Tang Hong had never been here, he’d thought it would be very expensive. Today was his first time coming here.
“Tang Hong!”
Wu Jie, who was only wearing a vest, covered in sweat, welcomed Tang Hong into the fitness center.
“Let me tell you, just in case you don’t wish to continue after training for a few days, you would have bought your protein powder for nothing. Use mine for now, I haven’t finished the two containers I bought at the beginning of the year.”
“And.”
“You mustn’t have your arms bare when exercising here.” Wu Jie was so long-winded, as if he was a grandma.
But Tang Hong felt at ease, he quietly glanced at Wu Jie.
He asked, “If you can’t bare your arms, why are you wearing a vest.”
Wu Jie chuckled and said in a low voice, “Many people have the misconception that baring their arms means having their arms unconcealed. Not at all. Having their arms bare means having their torsos naked. We often have female schoolmates in the fitness center. It is the campus fitness center after all, if you really wish to go shirtless and flaunt yourself, go do that outside.”
“You sure know a lot,” Tang Hong said in understanding.
“Don’t, don’t, I’m a little ant.” Wu Jie held Tang Hong’s arm, speaking as they moved. They passed the fitness center’s basketball court, swimming pool, then arrived at the gym area.
All kinds of appliances were neatly arranged.
There were people seated on chairs with earphones, training their biceps with dumbbells; there were others carrying barbells, doing deep squats, with spotters beside them; there were also people gathered together and talking incessantly.
As they walked, Tang Hong stumbled. He looked down and saw a dumbbell on the ground.
“Be careful, don’t injure your toes.”
Wu Jie then cursed inwardly, there were poorly mannered people everywhere.
He lifted the dumbbell labeled ‘2.5KG’ on the side and lightly laid it on the dumbbell rack at the side.
At this time.
A tall guy wearing a purple short-sleeve shirt and sandals walked over. He said grinningly, “Isn’t this our class’s Hongjun Laozu1, what’s going on, you’ve awakened the memories of your previous life and started cultivating?”
Hongjun Laozu was his nickname when he was a freshman. Tang Hong turned his head and recognized that the tall guy in the purple top and sandals was the class’s sports representative, Xuan Lizheng.
This name was especially easy to remember, not only because the Xuan surname was rare, but also because the historical story behind this name, Xuan Lizheng.
The name that Xuan Lizheng’s father had wanted was Xuan Lizheng1.
That year, the rural level local authorities had yet to use computers for data entry so they got it wrong. He had gotten used to it all these years and did not change his name the whole time.
Tang Hong waved his hand and said with a smile, “Just casually training.”
“Mm.”
Xuan Lizheng looked towards Wu Jie. “Spot for me for a bit.”
“Let’s go.”
Xuan Lizheng prepared to do bench presses, Wu Jie went over to spot him and called Tang Hong to go along.
The two of them started adding weights, 20kg on each side.
“Tang Hong.”
Wu Jie spotted him while using his gaze to signal towards this perfectly straight barbell bar with a silver-white metallic luster. “This is a 20KG standard Olympic bar. When Xuan Lizheng is done, try with the unweighted bar, Tang Hong.”
Moments later.
Xuan Lizheng stood beside the barbells with narrowed eyes, panting lightly.
Tang Hong laid down. Wu Jue corrected his posture to generate force and said, “Try your best to slow down when the bar is coming down, it helps in stimulating the muscles.”
Tang Hong attempted to push upwards. “It’s a little light.”
“We’ll add more?”
“All right.”
10kg was added on each side, Tang Hong felt a slight strain when pushing up. The bar was shaky and seemed as if it would crash down once he wasn’t careful.
Fortunately, there was Wu Jie protecting him with both hands, there was no need to worry.
Xuan Lizheng was surprised. “Lifting 40kg directly on your first try? A little vigorous.”
40kg was pretty good.
But that was also it.
He used 60kg during his usual training and his maximum level had already reached 85kg. It was already more than double of Tang Hong’s.
It was essentially all university students in the campus gym. Xuan Lizheng was already considered the advanced level of the university’s fitness center.
After exercising for a while, Tang Hong wiped his sweat and got up to give his thanks. “I’ll wait for you outside, I’ll treat you to a feast, get Han Shibin and the rest?”
“All right.”
Wu Jie nodded with a smile and went on to continue training on other equipment with Xuan Lizheng. He’d leave after completing the last two sets.
He did not hold hopes about Tang Hong. Wu Jie had sharp eyes and noticed that Tang Hong’s arms were slightly trembling. He understood then that this was Tang Hong’s current limit. To be able to lift his own body weight in a month was almost impossible.
As for a 100KG bench press, he and Xuan Lizheng did not even dare think about it even after training for two years. It was absolutely impossible to achieve.
On the other side.
Tang Hong was brimming with confidence. “I originally did not want to increase my strength percentage figure, I just wanted to be a low-profiled person.”
“I’ll set a small goal first.”
“Bench press 100KG by May.”
He’ll just suffer a little.
Strength increased little by little instead of a sharp boost, so long as it wasn’t a startling change, it won’t be a problem.
He planned on increasing his strength a few days level, then check specifically how much his bench press standards have improved by. From there, he would proceed step by step to reach his short term plan of his small bench press goal.
As for the willpower test.
Tang Hong was not worried. He believed that when the time came, willpower would certainly be one of his strongest aspects.
He continued checking into a guest house today.
He slept alone for another night.
Regrettably, when Tang Hong woke up the next day, he only got his daily wake-up notification.
Deciding to bring out his system’s information page, Tang Hong looked towards his individual value.
Mortal: Infinitely small and weak creature.
Willpower: 44%
Strength: 29%
Realm: 0.00
Individual value: 3
He fell into deep thought, unable to speak for a long while. All of a sudden, his eyes lit up.
‘First staying in a guest house could increase my individual value.’
‘What about the first time staying in a hotel.’
Guest houses didn’t have distinctions of rank but hotels were categorized by number of stars.
If a three-star hotel could trigger one point of individual value, would four-star, five-star, even six-star hotels give a larger increase.
Act, rather than desire.
At this moment, Tang Hong keenly realized the accuracy that money talks.
