026 A Bit Too Healthy!

Seeing the young doctor turn back to the counter to prepare the medicine, Chen Jue remained where he was, waiting patiently. Not long after, an elderly traditional physician, holding a thermos in his hand, slowly ambled to the front desk. He glanced at Chen Jue’s fair, rosy skin—soft as an infant’s—and let out a soft exclamation.

As everyone knows, there are four fundamental skills in cross-talk: speaking, learning, teasing, and singing. In traditional medicine, the four basic skills are observing, smelling, questioning, and feeling the pulse. What they perceive from a person’s appearance differs greatly from ordinary eyes.

Noticing Chen Jue’s unusually healthy complexion, the old physician couldn’t help but ask, "Young man, your color is almost too good. Would you mind if I check your pulse?"

Chen Jue was momentarily surprised but responded, "Please, go ahead!" He then extended his hand.

The old physician quickly placed his fingers on Chen Jue’s wrist. Within seconds, his expression shifted, showing deep emotion.

"Is there something wrong, sir?" Chen Jue asked, somewhat puzzled by the doctor’s startled demeanor.

"Your pulse is steady and robust—almost excessively healthy!"

"Young man, would you mind if I check your heart rate? I’ll do it for free," the old physician said, pursing his lips as he pulled a stethoscope from his pocket.

"Free? Then, please!" Chen Jue replied, leaning forward and rolling up his sleeve so the stethoscope could be pressed to his chest.

After listening for a while to the sounds of his heart and other organs, the old physician’s expression grew ever more astonished. He finally set the stethoscope aside, asking, "Are you a PE teacher at school?"

"No," Chen Jue shook his head.

"An athlete, then?" the old physician probed.

"No, I just lost my job," Chen Jue answered.

"That’s strange!"

"Your heartbeat and pulse are powerful and strong. In all my years of sitting in this clinic, I’ve never seen anyone as healthy as you! In fact, you’re almost too healthy. Without regular exercise, it’s impossible to have such a body," the old physician remarked, scrutinizing Chen Jue’s face closely.

"To cultivate the breath to softness, can one become like an infant?" he muttered to himself, quoting a famous aphorism from the Dao De Jing, which means to harmonize the internal energy until the body becomes soft and full, the skin as tender as that of a baby.

In martial arts novels, this is the so-called return to the innate from the acquired, reaching a profoundly advanced level of practice.

While the old physician was chatting with Chen Jue, the young doctor had already finished preparing the prescription and returned from the back. Seeing the old physician examining Chen Jue, he handed over the prescription, saying, "Grandpa, this is the medicine he needs!"

The old physician glanced at the prescription and immediately understood, "Strong Vitality Pills? That explains it! No wonder you look so healthy—you practice martial arts!"

"Martial arts?" the young doctor was taken aback, clearly unused to hearing of such a profession.

"Ah, you saw through me!" Chen Jue replied, surprised.

"I practiced qigong for a few years when I was young. Back then, there was a nationwide craze for it, but I never achieved much. When I studied medicine, I treated a few people who practiced Southern Fist, but none had pulses as healthy as yours," the old physician said with a smile, finally discerning Chen Jue’s background.

Chen Jue felt his ears grow warm at the praise, but he reasoned that his constitution and health index far surpassed that of ordinary people, so a strong pulse was only natural.

After chatting with the old physician for a while longer and paying for the Strong Vitality Pills, Chen Jue finally left the Yip Tong Ren Hall.

As noon approached, Chen Jue didn’t hurry back to the countryside. Instead, he found a boutique fast-food restaurant called "Golden Rice Bowl" for lunch.

Why was it called a boutique fast-food restaurant?

Because the ingredients used were excellent—the rice was said to be premium Wuchang from the northeast, with a small bowl costing two yuan. Chen Jue had been coming here since he started school in the city; it was a venerable establishment, over a decade old.

Despite the price, the rice tasted superb. Paired with Dongpo pork, tofu fish with pickled vegetables, and boiled shrimp, Chen Jue managed to eat five bowls in one sitting, leaving the lady serving rice utterly astonished.

He had a remarkable appetite!

This was due to the considerable energy expended during his five-hundred-meter sprint that morning. Especially after his practice, when sweat poured from every pore, Chen Jue felt a wave of weakness greater than any day spent training at home. It took nearly half an hour before he recovered.

He opened his attribute panel for a look:

Player: Chen Jue
Age: 27
Health Index: 98%
Strength: 1.01

Agility: 0.98
Intelligence: 1.23
Constitution: 1.58
Skills mastered: [Boat Fist Lv1 (132/200)] [Twelve Forms of Tendon Transformation Lv1 (10/200)] [Eight Immortals Stance Lv1 (145/200)]
Available free attribute points: 0.26

"That closed-pore state actually boosted so many attributes?"

"Looks like I’ll need to consult the experts in the forum!"

Strength and agility each increased by 0.02, constitution by 0.01, and the greatest leap was in free attributes, which shot up by 0.06.

And this was just from a five-hundred-meter sprint!

If he could maintain that miraculous closed-pore state and run farther, would the training results be even greater?

Additionally, the Eight Immortals Stance skill proficiency soared thanks to extensive practical use, nearly reaching level 2.

After sitting in the Golden Rice Bowl for a while, ensuring his meal settled, Chen Jue paid for lunch. Before leaving, he asked the staff for the online link to buy that premium Wuchang rice.

Since beginning his practice, Chen Jue had paid ever more attention to his daily diet and lifestyle, able to discern whether food benefited his body.

This Wuchang rice felt far superior to ordinary rice, so without hesitation, Chen Jue ordered a hundred pounds online.

What he didn’t know was that genuine Wuchang rice was allocated and produced in very limited quantities—one could hardly find it online.

The link the restaurant provided was actually for a variety of northeast long-grain fragrant rice, similar in taste and nutrition to Wuchang rice, but marketed under its name for the sake of hype.

It was much like ordinary hairy crabs being bathed in Yangcheng Lake and then sold at a premium.