Chapter 135: The Appendix and Argentaffin Cells

"A world record for grip strength?"

"This... this is amazing!" Wu Fang looked at the display popping up on her phone screen, then curiously tapped into the official GM150 leaderboard.

Sure enough, a brand-new entry had appeared at the number one spot. The name listed was Chen Jue, followed by a national flag icon and a recorded value of 177.12 kg. However, because the verification video had not yet been uploaded, the record remained in a starred, pending status and had not been made public.

"I’ll have to trouble you again with the video editing later!" Chen Jue leaned in with a grin.

The GM150 grip strength leaderboard is currently the most authoritative ranking in the world. Beyond purchasing the matching grip trainer, one must undergo real-name authentication and submit a video audit of the gripping process. Because there are countless ways to cheat to inflate the numbers on a grip trainer, this regulation was established to prevent fraud. The count time on the trainer must perfectly synchronize with the app's recording time and the video footage to ensure the leaderboard's legitimacy.

"Brother Jue! This is a world record!" Wu Fang took a long moment to recover from her shock, staring at Chen Jue with intense curiosity.

Chen Jue simply waved his hand. He didn't mention the three-layer buff he had activated, explaining patiently instead, "It’s just a very niche, obscure record, not much different from the world record for skipping stones I did before. Not many people pay attention to it; it’s just something for the fans to enjoy in the vlog."

Seeing Chen Jue’s calm demeanor, Wu Fang was completely won over. She felt that this man, in both his composure and his state of mind, was someone she admired deeply. He handled matters with tranquility and remained unperturbed by major events; that sense of poise alone set him far apart from any man she had met before.

Of course, the reason Chen Jue wasn't overly excited was that he had achieved this world record through a bit of a trick. If he could hit 177.12 kg in a normal state, he would certainly be more excited than he was now.

...

Since it was a vlog, there was no need for complex special effects; it just needed to be trimmed and paired with simple background music. Wu Fang also uploaded the video required for the official GM150 app. In less than ten minutes, the number one ranking was approved.

Anyone following the grip strength leaderboard would notice that the top ten, previously occupied entirely by foreign athletes, now had a striking red flag in the top spot. Like Sun Wukong making his grand debut, it was earth-shattering! It stunned the entire grip strength community. The previous world record holder had only managed 164.9 kg; Chen Jue’s new record had raised the human grip strength ceiling by a full 12 kg.

This wasn't just a minor victory; it was a dimensional strike. Such a massive gap in strength would take the 8 billion people on Earth years, if not decades, to surpass.

However, the biggest reaction came from the vlog video Chen Jue posted to his "Zhuohuo Ge" (Master of Trades) account. Because the morning training session had been long, the raw footage was a bit too much, so Chen Jue had Wu Fang edit a portion of it. It only showed him drawing the bow, performing a handstand push-up, and finally breaking the grip strength world record. The total length was less than eight minutes.

After giving it a casual title, "Daily Training Vlog," and posting it online, Chen Jue went to eat with Wu Fang. By the time they returned to the apartment to pack their textbooks for a lecture at Jiang University, the "Daily Training Vlog" had already surpassed one million views, with over a hundred thousand likes and comments.

The comment section and the barrage of bullet comments were like an explosion. Netizens gathered to drop jokes and viral comments.

"First!"

"Why is there an update on Friday? (Curious)"

"Holy cow! I recognize that black Qilin bow; that’s the 120-pound treasure from @Wubei Temple A-Jie’s shop! Brother Jue uses that for daily strength training? There are barely a few people on the entire internet who can draw that bow! (Outrageous)"

"A 120-pound stiff bow! In ancient times, he would definitely be a top-tier archer! (Strong)"

"What kind of arm strength is this? He did over a hundred pulls and his muscles aren't even sore? Brother Jue, what kind of perpetual motion machine are you running on? (Kneeling)"

"A master is a master! He treats the five most difficult street workout skills like daily training. (Envious to tears)"

"This handstand push-up is so standard, and he did it on grass! His balance and explosive power are world-class. (Like)"

This was the interaction for the first half of the vlog. Once they saw him casually breaking a world record at the end, the tone of the comments shifted instantly, filled with "High-energy warning ahead" messages.

The comment section below exploded like water poured into hot oil!

"Holy cow! Holy cow! Holy cow!"

"Grip strength 177.12 kg (Eyes wide). Can any expert explain what level of strength this is?"

"To the person above, this is roughly the level where a handshake could easily crush your hand bones. (Facepalm)"

"I just checked the leaderboard, the #1 spot has indeed changed, and the data matches. (Awesome)"

"A full 12 kg ahead of the second place (Outrageous). All I can say is, everyone else here is trash."

"So much for a 'daily training' video? Brother Jue just broke a world record on the side for kicks. (Dog.jpg)"

"The top ten in the grip strength rankings were all foreigners, and Brother Jue just air-dropped into the top spot. (I'm shattered)"

"So, is Brother Jue's real name Chen Jue??? (Shiba Inu.jpg)"

"The former grip strength master must be trembling right now @Lei Heng Grip Strength."

"The most arrogant part is that he used both hands; his left hand could easily take the world #1 spot too. (Facepalm)"

"So, the only person who can surpass Brother Jue is himself. (Laughing to tears)"

"Chinese grip strength, please enlighten us. (Embroidery needle)"

...

Since it was Friday morning, many people were slacking off at work or school, and the video's popularity soared rapidly. Within half an hour, the entry "Zhuohuo Ge breaks grip strength world record" hit the trending list. Breaking a world record in sports is a great honor that brings glory to the country, so it had broad appeal; netizens would click in just to take a look. Combined with the fact that Brother Jue was a top-tier internet celebrity, his follower count and view count began to skyrocket.

Most importantly, Brother Jue was not a registered athlete, but a web celebrity with a mysterious background. For a non-professional to accidentally break a world record was like a folk hero stepping onto the field and winning a gold medal—it hit the exact sweet spot for the gossip-loving netizens. What does it mean to have "masters among the people"? Brother Jue was the perfect example!

Having broken a world record, he was now the world's strongest human in grip strength. He wasn't just a regular expert anymore; he was on a god-like level!

A wave of video bloggers and influencers began to explain the benefits of grip training, claiming it could prevent occupational diseases like tenosynovitis. As a result, while his follower count and views exploded, the search volume for the Qilin bow and the GM150 grip trainer he had used also went through the roof. Grip trainers were originally very niche exercise equipment; most people hadn't even heard of them. Now, thanks to the heat from Brother Jue’s record-breaking, they were selling out on Taobao, JD, and Pinduoduo.

Major manufacturers were flooding Chen Jue’s private messages, looking for an endorsement deal with the world's #1, or at the very least, wanting to get their sales links featured. Chen Jue was busy attending his human anatomy class and ignored the massive influx of messages, only replying with a (grinning) emoji when he saw the (fist-and-palm) message of gratitude from A-Jie of Wubei Temple.

...

The topic of this anatomy lecture was the appendix. Chen Jue happened to suffer from chronic appendicitis; although it hadn't flared up in a long time, he decided to listen carefully since it concerned his own health.

"The appendix is a long, narrow, curved blind tube. Because it looks like an earthworm and is a protrusion near the junction of the small and large intestines, it is also known as the vermiform appendix."

"It is located in the lower right of our abdomen. If you press down hard on this area and feel abnormal pain, it indicates that the appendix is in an inflamed state."

"Students who have had appendicitis, please raise your hands and let me see!"

The lecturer was a female teacher named Liu, who was quite patient and interacted actively with the students. Seeing a sea of hands—at least a dozen students in the class had suffered from it—Professor Liu smiled and continued, "Early clinical medicine believed that the appendix was a useless vestigial organ, just like the tailbone or the auricular muscles; it was considered degenerate tissue without the digestive functions of the normal intestine, so the method of treating appendicitis was simple and brutal: cut it out."

"Later, modern research showed that the appendix plays a very important role in maintaining gut microbiota and the body's immunity."

"It is a 'safe house' for our gut flora and microorganisms, providing support for bacterial growth. At the same time, in its structure, the appendix is a highly immune organ, rich in macrophages, T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and other immune cells."

"However, the appendix's immune properties have a very obvious age-related decline. In infants and children, the immune capacity it provides is very strong, but once in adulthood, its immune function drops rapidly to the point of being negligible."

"So, students, if you have appendicitis or have already had an appendectomy, don't worry too much; the impact on our human body is almost minimal."

Hearing the professor say this, the students who had raised their hands breathed a sigh of relief. Chen Jue was hearing for the first time that the appendix was related to human immunity, so he took diligent notes, planning to use "designated points" to remove his chronic inflammation once he had accumulated enough free attribute points later.

As for Professor Liu on the podium, after calming the students, she shifted her tone: "Moreover, removing the appendix has certain benefits! Because the deep mucosa of the appendix is rich in 'argyrophil cells,' a special type of cell categorized as APUD, which is widely distributed in our human nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, lungs, and urogenital tract."

"Under normal circumstances, argyrophil cells are beneficial to the human body; they secrete a hormone called somatostatin. However, once a mutation occurs, argyrophil cells can evolve into carcinoid tumors!"

Listening to Professor Liu, especially hearing the word "cancer," Chen Jue became immediately alert. Because his mother had suffered from cancer and his grandfather had had a tumor, he was worried about whether these diseases could be hereditary. It was just unexpected that the main content of the lesson was appendicitis; Professor Liu did not go into detailed analysis regarding carcinoid tumors of argyrophil cells.

Chen Jue had to jot down these points, intending to study them in depth when he encountered pathology or cytology classes.