0102 Kegel Exercises

Cash makes a meal taste better, and the more you eat, the more you crave it.

After finishing his meal, Chen Jue had planned to sit on the lawn for a midday rest. However, the weather suddenly turned, and rain began to fall. The autumn wind that picked up carried a biting, damp chill. Chen Jue knew this was the cold front moving south; winter was about to arrive in Jiang Province.

Compared to the dry cold of the north, which is mitigated by indoor heating, the winter in the south, while not as low in temperature, feels significantly colder. It’s like the difference between physical damage, which can be mitigated by layering clothes and armor, and magic damage, where no amount of armor helps because the damp, cold air seeps right through your clothes and into your bones.

Chen Jue pulled his thin jacket tighter, shivering slightly. He hurried to the school gate, hailed a taxi, and rushed back to his apartment to change into a heavy winter coat. He now prioritized his health above all else; any injury, cold, or fever would interfere with his daily training and hinder the efficiency of grinding his attributes.

Seeing the rain getting heavier outside the window, Chen Jue decided not to go out and finished his nap in his room. When afternoon class time arrived, he logged into the school’s online portal and attended remotely from his room. Without a teacher present to monitor classroom discipline, Chen Jue didn't just take notes; he also engaged in intense physical exercise.

Since he had just received acupuncture on his hands, and Master Zhang had told him to keep the area dry for 24 hours, Chen Jue skipped upper-body training and focused on his lower body instead. Since Li Rui hadn't designed his professional athlete training plan yet, Chen Jue relied on self-study to perform a set of indoor Kegel exercises.

This is a form of exercise targeting the pelvic floor muscles, first publicized by Arnold Kegel in 1948. The goal is to strengthen the muscle tone around the pelvis by stretching the pubic and coccygeal bones. Long-term adherence to Kegel exercises can improve prostate health in men and alleviate symptoms like urinary incontinence and premature ejaculation.

Chen Jue didn't suffer from any such hidden ailments. Thanks to various panel "skills" and street workout routines, he was already in peak physical condition; the only thing he lacked was real-world combat experience. His interest in Kegel exercises was primarily to address his chronic issues with lumbar disc herniation and anterior pelvic tilt.

"This routine even includes a 'rectal contraction' movement similar to the *Cu Gu Dao* technique! No wonder it helps with urological and excretory issues," Chen Jue realized after following the video for a few sets.

After half an hour of training, the panel popped up with a notification:

——————
[Ding~]
[Completed a comprehensive workout. Your pelvic floor muscle group has been effectively exercised. Your nerve control over the bladder and prostate region has slightly improved. Your male reproductive and urinary functions have been enhanced.]
[Constitution Attribute +0.01]
[Spirit Attribute +0.01]
——————

"A pleasant surprise, indeed!" Chen Jue was pleased to see the two small points added to his attributes. As for the delicate terms in the notification, he had learned to treat them with a neutral mindset. Having been exposed to a great deal of medical knowledge lately, he was practically half a medical student. In the eyes of those studying medicine, there is no gender, only morality and health.

...

Having finished his afternoon clinical medicine lecture and gained some attributes, Chen Jue was in a good mood. During his break, he opened WeChat and sent a message to his second uncle back in his hometown of Wenzhou.

Chen Jue’s family situation was very simple. Born in a rural area of Rui County, Wenzhou, he lost his mother to cancer when he was in middle school. To pay for her treatment, his father borrowed money from every relative and friend he could, eventually falling into deep debt. Desperate, his father went to Europe to work and earn foreign currency to pay off the loans.

Wenzhou borders Fujian Province, and many rural areas there have overseas Chinese returnees. In that rugged environment with little land and many mountains, working abroad was the only way out for many rural people at the time. Entire families would leave, eventually turning these areas into hubs for overseas Chinese.

However, the Chen family seemed cursed with misfortune. After his father successfully made it abroad through an underground channel, he lost contact. According to the human smuggler who met them on the other side, there was a shipwreck, and his father’s body was never recovered. His father had been the pillar of the family, and his trip abroad was meant to improve their situation. Instead, he failed to earn the money, and the pillar collapsed, leaving an already impoverished family in even worse straits.

If it weren't for his father’s two brothers helping out and lending him money to finish his vocational college degree, Chen Jue likely would have dropped out of school before even finishing high school to work. After graduation, he moved to Hangzhou. For the first few years, most of his salary, aside from daily expenses, went toward paying off the debts his parents had incurred. For a young man just entering society, paying off over 400,000 yuan in inherited debt through self-reliance was a remarkable feat. This was the real reason he was single, unmarried, and under such heavy financial pressure.

"Second Uncle, I want to renovate the old house back home. I don't want to have nowhere to stay when I go back for the New Year," Chen Jue said after getting through to his uncle, Chen Hongye.

"The old house? Why bother fixing that up? Do you have too much money to spend? Use that money to put down roots in Hangzhou and find a wife!" Chen Hongye scolded him earnestly over the phone. As the only remaining sprout of the eldest brother's line, his uncle cared for him, even though he had his own family to look after.

Chen Jue wanted to renovate the house not only because he missed the days when his parents were still there, but also because he realized the cold front had arrived in Hangzhou and the New Year was only two months away. He would be turning thirty next year, and it would be inconvenient to stay at his uncles' houses during the holiday. He wanted to use his spare cash to spruce up the old family home.

As for buying a house in Wenzhou, Chen Jue had no such plans. Wenzhou property prices were notoriously high; the country's famous house-flipping syndicates originated there, and it would be a shame to their reputation if they didn't drive prices to the sky. Besides, Chen Jue lived in Hangzhou and only returned home for the holidays; renovating the old house was the most economical choice.

Everyone has their own bottom line. Even though Chen Jue had unexpectedly turned his life around through his "Master of Stunts" live streams, he didn't want to spend his money recklessly. After some back-and-forth, he transferred 100,000 yuan for the renovation, which finally convinced his uncle. Since all three brothers were trained masons, renovating a rural house would only take a week or two, and doing it within the family was cheap; the whole project would cost about 70,000 to 80,000 yuan.

Chen Jue ordered appliances and furniture online. Logistics were convenient now, and in the Yangtze River Delta, shipping was free even to rural villages. He just needed his uncles to receive the deliveries. As for the leftover money, he told his uncle to use it to repair his parents' graves, a small act of filial piety.

...

With the renovation settled, the sky outside had darkened. In Hangzhou, whenever it rained and a cold front moved in, the chill in his room felt unbearable. During his off-hours, Chen Jue called his best friend, Jiang Zhe, with their secret code: "Go or not?"

"Go?"

"Go! Go! Go!" Jiang Zhe chirped excitedly on the other end.

Chen Jue drove straight to Jingtanghui. Seeing Jiang Zhe standing at the entrance in a thin trench coat, shivering and smoking, Chen Jue couldn't help but laugh: "You're frozen like a dog, why haven't you gone inside?"

"I was waiting for the arrival of our Boss Chen! My lord, please lead the way!" Jiang Zhe, ever tactful, produced a pack of Diamond Lotus cigarettes and lit one for Chen Jue.

"Good smokes again."

"Tell me, which wealthy construction site have you been working at lately?" Chen Jue took a few puffs and led Jiang Zhe into the Jingtanghui. Now that his pockets were lined, he wanted to treat his best friend to a good meal. Besides, his apartment was freezing, and he wanted to find a warm place to kill time. He wasn't an ascetic, just an ordinary man. He was bored, and now that he had a little money, he wanted to enjoy himself.

"It's that outdoor equestrian club I told you about!"

"That wealthy client is throwing money at it. The construction schedule was compressed from six months to three, and it’ll be finished and handed over next week. I’ve been there supervising every day," Jiang Zhe chuckled. It was clear he had skimmed some profit off the top. On projects funded by the ultra-rich, the tighter the deadline, the more "grease" there was, because only throwing money at the problem could speed up the progress.

You can always tell how lucrative a construction site is by the cigarettes the people working there smoke. On poor sites, they smoke Baisha or Shuangxi; on decent ones, it’s Liqun, Yuxi, or Furongwang; but on the top-tier ones, it’s always Zhonghua or Diamond Lotus. Every time Chen Jue met Jiang Zhe, he could tell how the project was going just by the cigarettes in his pocket.

"An equestrian club?"

"Once it's done, can we go there to ride horses?"

Chen Jue’s expression changed. His [Horse Stance] skill had reached Level 4, but he had never actually practiced it on a real horse. Since the [Horse Stance] was derived from the riding posture of ancient warriors, riding a real horse might have unexpected effects.

He and Jiang Zhe went into Jingtanghui for a buffet, and afterward, Chen Jue had the attendant apply waterproof patches to his acupuncture sites so he could relax and enjoy a spa treatment. As they lounged, he began asking Jiang Zhe about the equestrian club.

"The place has everything—horseback riding, archery, and family activities. It’s a huge scale, and they’ve even built top-tier homestays and farm-style restaurants."

"There’s an opening ceremony next week. If you want to go, I’ll ask the project manager for some tickets," Jiang Zhe said with a grin.

I’m going to make a big push in December so no one says I’m short and slow!

This is today’s first chapter~