012 Health Index

After buying groceries and medicine, Chen Jue boarded a seven-seater van at the entrance of Panlong Town. There was no helping it—his body was so depleted that even walking a few steps left him feeling weak and lightheaded. He hadn’t experienced such severe anemia since childhood, when an accident on his bicycle had left him with a fractured femur, and a long period of convalescence at home in the countryside—with poor nutrition and harsh living conditions—had led to the same symptoms.

Fortunately, Chen Jue had since trained in martial arts, and his constitution was now much stronger than that of the average person, so he could just barely make it home under his own power.

Since it was still morning, the little van waited nearly half an hour to fill up with passengers, and then took another ten minutes or so before finally delivering Chen Jue back to Chen Village.

Once home, Chen Jue shut the door behind him and immediately set about boiling water. He mixed up three packets of donkey-hide gelatin for himself, then brewed a pot of sliced ginseng. The middle-aged woman who sold him the medicine had said that in cases of severe anemia, it was safe to take several packets at once for a more pronounced effect.

Given his enhanced digestive abilities from years of martial arts practice, Chen Jue had no qualms about it and downed the three packets in one go. The hot, syrupy medicine sent a wave of heat through his body, and after a few sips of ginseng tea as well, the dizziness from anemia quickly began to fade.

“It’s working!”

Delighted, Chen Jue hurried to the kitchen, cleaned the old duck he’d bought, and prepared it for soup with the usual seasonings: salt, rock sugar, and cooking wine. Old duck soup required bringing to a fierce boil and then simmering gently for hours to bring out the full flavor.

He watched the soup come to a rolling boil in the clay pot before lowering the heat, letting it simmer on its own while he returned to the living room with the pot of ginseng tea. Gulping down cup after cup, he soon felt bloated, but unwilling to waste any time, he began practicing the twelve postures of the Muscle-Tendon Classic right there in the living room.

He persisted like this for over two hours, making several trips to the bathroom and brewing yet another pot of ginseng tea. Gradually, the sense of depletion from anemia began to subside even faster.

By noon, he had finished off the entire pot of old duck soup and eaten the whole duck besides, then went upstairs to take a long nap.

It was nearly half past five in the afternoon when Chen Jue finally woke, feeling thoroughly refreshed. The weakness had vanished entirely, and during that restorative sleep, his status panel had undergone an unexpected transformation:

Player: Chen Jue
Age: 27
Health Index: 89%

Strength: 0.92
Agility: 0.84
Intelligence: 1.22
Constitution: 1.32
Skills: [Boat Fist Lv1 (69/200)] [Muscle-Tendon Classic Twelve Postures Lv0 (8/100)] [Eight Immortals Stance Lv1 (12/200)]
Unassigned Attribute Points: 0

There had been no significant changes to most of his attributes, but his constitution had risen by 0.02 after taking the tonics and drinking the duck soup. Presumably, the medicine had replenished what was lost from last night’s training, prompting the increase in constitution.

The newly appeared “Health Index” was something Chen Jue quickly grasped the function of. It was a measure of his physical health: below 70% he would be prone to fatigue, and below 60% would indicate some kind of illness or injury. For a normal adult male, a health index around 80% was average, and anything above that meant exceptional health.

Many factors determined the health index, but in simple terms, the higher the number, the healthier he was; the lower, the more unwell.

“It must have been the depletion this time that triggered the addition of this new function in the status panel,” he mused. “Just like how a game updates with patches and new versions—after 1.0 there’s always 2.0, 3.0, and so on.” Glancing at the word “Player” at the top of the panel, Chen Jue was convinced his reasoning was sound.

After waking, Chen Jue felt as energetic as he had in previous days. When he switched on his phone, he found several missed calls—he must have slept so deeply in the afternoon he hadn’t heard them. Calling back, he learned it was the technician scheduled to install his new television. But by now it was after five in the evening, and the technician had already finished work for the day. Chen Jue apologized and arranged for him to come again the next morning.

There were also several delivery notifications—his fitness equipment, clothing, and other orders had arrived at the village convenience store. Thanks to modern logistics, even in the countryside, deliveries placed just two days ago were already at the local shop—he always selected in-province shipping and express delivery, willing to pay a little extra to save time.

He set the rice cooker to prepare dinner, then left to collect his deliveries from the convenience store at the village entrance.

Noticing that Chen Jue seemed intent on settling down in the village, the shop owner, Chen Aqiang, couldn’t resist a few questions. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, clan culture was strong; the whole village shared a surname and a common ancestor, so even a few generations back, they might all be family. Chen Jue was distantly related to the shop owner and still had to call the man “Uncle Qiang” out of courtesy. They chatted for a while—after all, Chen Jue would be coming by often for deliveries and supplies, so it wouldn’t do to be standoffish.

Upon learning that Chen Jue had quit his job to settle in the countryside, Uncle Qiang expressed some regret. In his view, a young university graduate should be making his mark in the city, not wasting these prime years back in the village.

But Chen Jue’s ambitions were different. Having experienced the joy of martial cultivation, he had let go of thoughts of earning a living or continuing the family line. He was the last branch of his family, with no elders above, no children below, and there were plenty of cousins to carry on the family name, so there was no risk of the ancestral line dying out. The money he’d saved from working in Hangzhou was enough to live on for several years, so he had resolved to make martial cultivation his top priority.

Such differences in perspective and aspiration were only natural, and Chen Jue saw no need to disclose his secrets to outsiders.

There were quite a few deliveries, and it took several trips to carry everything home. Once unboxed, the living room was soon crowded with massive dumbbells, a sit-up bench, and an extendable pull-up bar for mounting on the wall. The fishing rods and new clothes he took upstairs and put away for the time being.

After preparing dinner—finishing off the last of the old duck soup and brewing another pot of ginseng tea—he resolved to make this a daily practice, as the experts online insisted that martial training required both internal and external nourishment; fresh ingredients alone weren’t enough.

However, he would not be taking more of the donkey-hide gelatin, since his health index had already reached 89% and the anemia was gone; to continue would just waste the medicine’s effects. Unless he faced another bout of severe depletion, he had no intention of relying on such quick-fix remedies.

He was, however, somewhat looking forward to the ten-ingredient tonic soup he’d ordered online. Ancient formulas like that, passed down through the ages, might well have unexpected restorative effects, just like the ginseng tea.