Even the richest man in the world would turn green with envy!

Watching the masked young man before him extract the giant gold brick from the hole with such astonishing smoothness, Curator Jin was utterly dumbfounded!

He wondered if old age was finally playing tricks on his eyes, or if his brain had simply stopped working altogether.

When the "Gold Brick Extraction" challenge game was originally designed, its very purpose was to ensure that no one could possibly pull the brick out.

To test the security of the gold brick and simultaneously generate buzz for the museum's popularity, Curator Jin had even specially invited Brother Hua and Brother Gang—two well-known fitness strongmen from the internet—to conduct an on-site inspection.

Even those two men, who could single-handedly curl 120-kilogram dumbbells, were unable to pull the gold brick out. For an ordinary person to retrieve it, the only way would be to stuff both hands completely into that narrow hole.

"How did he do it?"

"How on earth did he pull it out?"

"That is a 25-kilogram gold brick!"

"If someone walks away with it, then my position as curator..." Curator Jin felt as though his mind had been subjected to carpet-bombing by a squadron of bombers, leaving a constant buzzing in his head.

If this matter was not handled properly, not only would the museum's reputation be dragged through the mud overnight, but his own position as curator would likely be stripped away by morning.

Of course, the only reason Chen Jue was able to extract the giant gold brick with such fluid ease was entirely thanks to the formidable grip strength and wrist power he had cultivated through relentless, day-and-night training.

As it turned out, the weight of the gold brick itself was not excessively heavy; a 25-kilogram load could be lifted with a single hand by any healthy adult present. Figures like Brother Hua and Brother Gang could even hoist overweight dumbbells weighing four to five times that amount.

The true difficulty lay in the fact that to reach through the narrow aperture in the glass, one could only use five fingers to grip one end of the gold brick. Due to the principle of leverage, the weight borne by the fingers instantly doubled from 25 kilograms to well over a hundred kilograms.

To successfully pull the gold brick out of the hole under these conditions, three strict criteria had to be met simultaneously: first, wrist strength capable of maneuvering an object weighing over a hundred kilograms; second, a sufficiently high level of friction between the fingers; and third, a finger grip strength exceeding one hundred kilograms.

Faced with these three harsh conditions, the impressive arm strength that Brother Hua and Brother Gang had trained so hard to achieve became completely useless.

Chen Jue, having trained for so long with the assistance of his system panel and having mastered the technique of deepening his fingerprint lines through practicing [Swimming] to temporarily boost his finger friction, was thus able to fulfill every single prerequisite for extracting the gold brick.

As for the moment the gold brick was secured, Chen Jue’s very first impulse was to get away from the bustling, noisy crowd as quickly as possible.

Because the instant the gold brick fell into his hands, Chen Jue could feel the strange, scrutinizing gazes fixed upon him from the surrounding crowd.

Some were filled with envy, some with jealousy, some with sheer disbelief, and there were even a few whose eyes carried the unmistakable impulse to murder him right then and there just to snatch the gold brick away.

After all, this was a valuable item worth over tens of millions. Ordinary people might never see that much money in a lifetime of hard work, so harboring a few crooked thoughts was only natural.

Even the two major internet celebrities, Brother Hua and Brother Gang, found themselves sandwiched awkwardly between him the moment they witnessed Chen Jue extract the gold brick.

"Brother! You are an absolute beast!"

"You pulled out such a heavy gold brick with just one hand?"

"Is there some sort of amazing technique to it?"

"I saw you practicing a horse stance just a moment ago—you must be a martial arts practitioner, right?"

Although the two internet celebrities were well-accustomed to grand spectacles, they still appeared somewhat rattled in the presence of a gold brick worth tens of millions.

Compounded by the barrage of wild comments flying across their livestream chatrooms, Brother Hua and Brother Gang promptly began conducting an on-site interview with the masked young man.

To their surprise, the young man was somewhat aloof and showed no intention of accepting an interview. Instead, he turned to the two notary officials standing nearby and asked, "Can I leave now?"

Those two notary officials were left completely dumbfounded by the question!

Because the only reason they had come out to make an appearance was simply to make a casual cameo.

They had never anticipated for a second that someone would actually manage to pull the giant gold brick out on the spot!

"This..."

The two notary officials stammered, hesitating to speak as they looked toward the stunned Curator Jin, casting desperate glances of appeal in his direction.

"You can leave!"

"You can definitely leave!"

"Sir, please rest assured, our museum would never go back on its word. Being able to extract the gold brick is an absolute honor for our museum!"

"However, converting such a massive block of gold into cash isn't an easy task. If you wish to exchange it for cash, our museum will redeem it for you based on today's gold acquisition price."

"It's just that issuing a check from finance takes a little time, and since pulling out the gold brick counts as windfall income, you will be required to pay a substantial windfall income tax."

"If the sir doesn't mind, you can step into our office and sit down for a moment! I'll help you contact someone from the tax bureau." Curator Jin finally snapped back to his senses at that moment. With a rolling of his eyes, he instantly put on an obliging and courteous expression.

He realized that this unexpected extraction of the gold brick was simultaneously a crisis and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for their museum.

If handled correctly, it would not only cause the museum's popularity to skyrocket anew, but it might even result in a promotion for his own position.

Therefore, right in front of so many people and two livestream cameras, Curator Jin began to regain his composure and calm, smoothly pulling off what could only be described as a textbook on-site crisis PR maneuver.

"I have to pay tax?"

Hearing this, Chen Jue was slightly taken aback, having never factored this into his calculations when he went to grab the gold brick.

However, seeing how serious Curator Jin looked, along with the two notary officials explaining that large windfalls required a twenty percent tax payment, Chen Jue temporarily shelved the idea of slipping away.

After exchanging a few words with Curator Jin, he was escorted by the museum's security guards as they parted the crowd and led him into the office to take a patient seat.

Meanwhile, Curator Jin immediately pulled out his cell phone, frantically mobilizing his connections. From the Jindu Television station to local self-media outlets, anyone involved in news dissemination was contacted without exception.

Once he finished going through his contact list, Curator Jin even made an urgent call to the secretary of the vice mayor in charge of Jindu's culture and tourism.

"Secretary Wang!"

"Something major has happened at the Gold Museum!"

"Someone managed to pull a gold brick right out of our display!" Curator Jin reported in an excitable and panicked tone over the phone.

"What?"

"What did you say?"

Secretary Wang was momentarily stunned. Judging by the tone, he had assumed some sort of safety accident had occurred at the Gold Museum, never imagining that someone had actually managed to extract a gold brick.

Yet, upon a second thought, Secretary Wang realized this was no small matter. After all, the gold bricks in the museum were funded by the city's municipal budget, with the explicit purpose of attracting tourists and stimulating the local tourism economy.

A massive 25-kilogram gold brick, with a single piece valued at tens of millions—what would happen if people could simply walk off with them like that!

If something like this happened every few days, wouldn't the city of Jindu go bankrupt?

Thus, after finishing his communication with Curator Jin, Secretary Wang hurried to report the matter directly to the vice mayor.

As it turned out, far from being alarmed, the vice mayor was pleasantly surprised. He abruptly altered his morning schedule and rushed toward the museum accompanied by a whole retinue of culture and tourism bureau officials and leaders of various ranks.

For public servants of their standing, a gold brick resting in a display case was merely a dead asset that nobody could take away or convert to cash; having someone actually manage to extract it turned out to be a stroke of tremendous good fortune.

If this situation were managed properly, Jindu's tourism market might even ride the wave of viral hype and explode in popularity across the entire internet, just like the barbecue in neighboring Zibo!

...

Chen Jue sat in the office from a little past nine o'clock all the way until ten-thirty. During that time, he drank a fair amount of tea and made several trips to the restroom, while the gold brick itself remained safely tucked inside his pocket the entire time to prevent loss.

When he finally laid eyes once more on the glowing, radiant Curator Jin, the man was accompanied by a massive, surging crowd of people.

Following a round of introductions, Chen Jue finally realized that his extraction of the gold brick had caused such a massive uproar that even the vice mayor of Jindu had shown up!

Trailing behind were the director of the tourism bureau, leaders from the tax bureau, and a horde of television station personnel, all squeezing into the office with their cameras and microphones.

"Um... Curator Jin, do you happen to have a mask I can wear?"

"I'm afraid this regular face mask won't hide enough!"

Upon chatting with the enthusiastic vice mayor and learning that this was intended to be used as promotional material for Jindu's tourism, Chen Jue had no choice but to agree with a helpless sigh. He gratefully accepted a mask printed with the face of the Monkey King handed to him by a staff member on-site and slipped it over his face.

First came the photo op holding the gold brick, followed by accepting a giant, specially printed oversized check directly from the hands of the vice mayor. The entire setup felt precisely like claiming the grand prize at a lottery center.

Of course, while lottery grand prizes were usually claimed by the director's relatives, Chen Jue was walking away with an authentic, post-tax cash check worth 9.4 million yuan.

Initially, he had wanted to take the physical gold brick with him, but realizing that carrying such an item around would be immensely inconvenient—not to mention the required twenty percent tax deduction—he opted to convert it directly into cash based on that day's physical gold acquisition price of 470 yuan per gram.

As for the traditional set of five gold wedding items he was preparing for Teacher Wu, once his grip strength training reached the required level in the future, he could simply make another trip and pull out another gold brick.

If the beaming, radiant Curator Jin had any inkling that Chen Jue was planning to return in the future to shear the sheep a second time, he probably would have suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and collapsed on the spot!

Naturally, to gather more material for the promotional video, Chen Jue was asked to return to the event area and demonstrate the entire process of the "Gold Brick Extraction" one more time.

The sight of such fluid, effortless gold brick extraction played out once again, leaving the assembled Jindu city leaders and reporters staring with slack jaws and vacant expressions.

Just like that, a casual reach yielded 9.4 million yuan in legitimate income!

Even the wealthiest tycoons in the world would shed tears of envy upon seeing this!

To the masked young man wearing the Monkey King mask, this "Gold Brick Extraction" challenge was practically a delivery service sending money straight to his doorstep.

Consequently, as soon as Chen Jue finished his reverse-reach demonstration, the attending vice mayor and tourism bureau director pulled Curator Jin aside to issue a few stern instructions, urging him to quickly revise the difficulty of the challenge activity.

At the very least, they needed to add a new rule stating that anyone who successfully completed the challenge was barred from participating a second time.

Otherwise, if someone came by every few days to pull out another brick, the entire financial department of Jindu city would likely end up suffering from chronic hypertension.

Bonus chapter update, continuing with more updates~
I'm going out to visit relatives today, but since I'll have free time over the next few days, I'll release more chapters.
(End of this chapter)