Streetlamp Flag Raising, Aerial Pull-ups!

"Number Four, you better come clean right now! Did you hide your true background?"

"You must be some young master from Wenzhou, and your family either runs a real estate speculation group or a shoe factory. Did you actually come to Hangzhou just to experience hardship alongside us poor folks?"

"That house is worth at least thirty million, no question about it!"

"Where the hell did you get that kind of money, you bastard?"

Jiang Zhe was somewhat triggered, standing frozen at the entrance of the villa for a long time.

It wasn't until he finished smoking a whole cigarette that he snapped back to reality. Then, Jiang Zhe grabbed Chen Jue by the neck and started raining playful punches on him.

Though it had been over nine years since they graduated from junior college, the dormitory roommates kept in fairly close contact, and everyone had a rough idea of each other's financial situations.

Suddenly having someone pop up and buy a large villa in a tier-one city like Hangzhou seemed abrupt and unnatural no matter how you looked at it.

"I'll tell you a secret... I'm actually being kept by a wealthy sugar mommy, hahaha!" Chen Jue whispered near his ear, then playfully wrestled with Jiang Zhe for a bit.

With an outsider standing nearby, it wasn't the right time to reveal his true background, so he had to rely on these silly jokes to brush the matter aside for now.

"Holy crap!"

"You're actually being kept by a rich woman?!"

"It's not money earned by selling your ass, is it?" Hearing this, Jiang Zhe immediately started to believe it.

Because Chen Jue's changes over the past few months had been too drastic. Not only had he successfully lost weight and built muscle, but his overall image and aura were also leagues ahead of his previous chubby state.

Coupled with Chen Jue's current top-tier, robust physique, if he were placed in the White Horse Club, he would undoubtedly be the top of the tops, the kind that wealthy women would fight over to sponsor.

"Stop joking around! I can't enjoy the kind of happiness that involves a steel wool scrub!"

"Let's talk about business first. Help me check which of these two is actually better." Chen Jue immediately cut off his inappropriate train of thought and began pulling Jiang Zhe around to tour the two villas.

They were both detached villas, and while the floor plans were largely similar, there were slight differences in orientation.

Noticing the real estate agent nearby, Jiang Zhe stopped joking. He went to his car and retrieved professional tools like a compass, a spirit level, and a tape measure to conduct on-site measurements.

In the eyes of ordinary people, such bare-shell properties really didn't have much to look at, but in the eyes of a professional designer, it was entirely different!

The orientation of the house's central axis, the seasonal lighting angles for each bedroom, and whether there were any leaks or seepage on the roof, basement, or exposed walls all had to be taken into consideration.

If foundation settlement occurred, the house would lean slightly, something ordinary people could never detect with the naked eye.

Yet, the more Jiang Zhe looked, the more his teeth ached. In the eyes of ordinary common folk, a detached villa in Fuyue Xianxi was simply way too luxurious!

Five stories above ground and two underground, complete with a private elevator. Although the registered building area was only 398 square meters, the usable area definitely exceeded two thousand square meters.

With just some casual interior design, ten families could move in without feeling cramped at all.

Anyone who could afford to buy and live in a house like this was undoubtedly at the very ceiling of ordinary society.

Although he didn't know how his down-and-out roommate could afford such a place, adhering to professional ethics, Jiang Zhe still gave a very pertinent evaluation after inspecting both villas: "Choose the end-unit! This one receives sunlight on three sides with great natural light, moderate indoor humidity, and the other one is prone to mold during rainy days."

Upon hearing this, Chen Jue immediately waved at the nearby agent and asked for the rock-bottom transaction price of the end-unit.

"Mr. Chen, the public listing price for this unit is 28 million. If you like it, I can help you negotiate with the developer to shave off about one percent. Including the deed tax, the final landing price will be around 29 million." The agent quoted the price with an enthusiastic smile on his face.

"Your price sounds a bit inflated!"

Chen Jue wasn't happy upon hearing that. He took out his phone and opened the valuation tool he used back when he worked in finance.

Properties listed online were absurdly inflated, just like used car prices, and the actual transaction prices were far lower.

As for how to evaluate the value of real estate, the best method was to look at the data provided by bank loan apps.

Because banks held massive amounts of mortgage data, in order to prevent loan defaults and facilitate the liquidation of non-performing assets later on, a big data filter could accurately calculate the recent estimated price of a housing estate.

Although Chen Jue used to handle auto loan risk control, he also had to evaluate the value of properties under clients' names. With just a few casual taps, he pulled up the estimated price of this Fuyue Xianxi villa.

He showed the 20.58 million figure displayed on his phone to the agent, whose face instantly turned somewhat awkward.

"Mr. Chen, this estimated price is just a reference provided by the bank."

"The developer certainly won't sell it externally at this price; they'd lose a fortune. If you're genuinely interested, the lowest price I can help you negotiate is a bit over 24 million." Wiping the sweat from his forehead, the agent realized he had run into an industry insider and immediately slashed the price himself to quote a realistic figure.

"24 million is the price for a commercial loan, right?"

"I'll pay the full amount in cash upfront and offer you 22 million. If we can make a deal, great; if not, I'll go to another agency. There are plenty of agencies near the entrance with listings for this property." Chen Jue had quite a talent for bargaining, directly shifting the pressure back onto the agent.

Because Chen Jue knew that as a real estate broker, their livelihood depended on high transaction commissions.

Moreover, clients for such villas were relatively rare. Successfully closing a single deal would net the agent at least half a percent in commission, guaranteeing a handsome year-end bonus.

After freezing in place for a few seconds, the agent relayed this price—which was practically slashed down to the main artery—to the developer.

A few minutes later, the developer's representative called back, saying they needed to recover funds by the end of the year and would sign the contract immediately if the buyer paid in full.

After all, the real estate market had been sluggish over the past few months, with properties being sold at steep discounts everywhere. Finding a high-net-worth client capable of full cash payment wasn't easy.

Besides, the houses in Fuyue Xianxi had been handed over seven or eight years ago. Having missed the previous boom in housing prices, holding onto them any longer would only incur daily losses.

Thus, under this swift and decisive atmosphere, Chen Jue went straight to the agency to sign the contract, requested the developer's remittance account, and rushed to the nearby Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to pay the full property price and deed tax in one go.

"Number Four!"

"Did you win the lottery or something?"

Watching Chen Jue receive a set of villa entrance keys, access cards, and an agreement for three complimentary underground parking spaces from the property management—with only the property ownership certificate remaining to be picked up in a few days—Jiang Zhe felt completely dizzy.

"Winning the lottery is something that happens to relatives of officials; how could I ever touch that kind of luck?" Chen Jue didn't explain too much. The identity of a superhuman master wasn't convenient to reveal to people too close to him, lest he suffer a social death later on.

However, to seal Jiang Zhe's lips, Chen Jue fabricated a lie about his hometown undergoing land expropriation and relocation to gloss over it.

When he brought a dazed Jiang Zhe back to tour the villa again and casually tossed a spare key directly into his hands, his dormitory best friend was practically ready to bow down to Chen Jue.

"My budget is under five million. Do a simple, clean renovation." Chen Jue pointed around the various rooms of the villa with the air of a monarch surveying his realm.

He intended to leave the entire villa renovation process to Jiang Zhe. After all, the other party backed the largest design firm in Hangzhou, boasting both a solid reputation and capability, and having one's own person keep an eye on things made it harder to get swindled.

"Rest assured, Your Majesty. As of today, you are my real dad! First thing tomorrow morning, I'll bring a crew to take measurements and guarantee I'll deliver an award-winning design proposal before the New Year." Jiang Zhe patted his chest in assurance.

A single villa renovation project like this earned him more than taking on ten small apartment interior design orders; no matter how much he had to suck up or grovel, it was totally worth it.

...

Because it was a newly purchased home, the two of them lingered in the villa until the sun went down.

During this time, Chen Jue brought up his functional requirements, but his initial swimming pool design was vetoed on the spot by Jiang Zhe.

Because the backyard of this detached villa directly bordered a river, and the basement connected to the community garage, strict engineering requirements meant a swimming pool simply couldn't be built here.

Chen Jue had no choice but to give up the idea of swimming at home. If the opportunity arose in the future, he could just buy another villa by the seaside, allowing him to spend his summers vacationing and splashing around in the ocean.

However, because he had slightly flashed his wealth, Chen Jue couldn't escape treating Jiang Zhe to dinner at Jingitanghui that evening.

A buffet feast paired with a spa session, all-inclusive and pampering, was just enough to shut Jiang Zhe's big mouth.

Otherwise, given Chen Jue's glorious feat of splurging over twenty million that afternoon to buy a house, Jiang Zhe would undoubtedly have exaggerated and gossiped about it across the dormitory WeChat group.

...

Returning to Wangyang Apartment a little past nine, and looking at the cramped room of less than forty square meters, Chen Jue still felt that the villa he had set his sights on that afternoon was much more comfortable to stay in.

Because humans inherently possessed a psychology of worshipping grand things, having an innate yearning for large objects.

Once basic material conditions were met, normal people would pursue big houses and big cars; only with ample space could one avoid feeling oppressed.

"I'll be turning thirty after the New Year. After drifting for so long, I never expected to finally put down roots in Hangzhou." Chen Jue sighed with emotion, taking out the exquisite document bag provided by the developer to flip through it once more.

One property purchase contract, three parking space contracts—this could also be considered a not-insignificant harvest from months of diligent physical training.

However, since renovations took time, even with the power of money, the fastest completion would still take at least half a year. For the foreseeable future, Chen Jue would just have to keep squeezing into this apartment.

Seeing that the time wasn't too late and he had no sleepiness, Chen Jue went downstairs and carried all the accumulated packages upstairs.

Unboxing them one by one, he first took out a stack of nylon gloves he had ordered online and tried them on, spending a few minutes recalling tactile sensations until he finally found a pair identical to the ones used by the Gold Museum.

"These gloves are a bit slippery!" Chen Jue muttered inwardly, pulling out the fake gold brick. After putting on the matching gloves and trying several times, he found that it kept slipping.

With no other choice, he downed a bottle of pre-workout nitrogen pump, activated his adrenal hormones, and used the force-generating technique of [Bright Strength] to try again.

Even under this fully buffed state, he still couldn't lift the fake gold brick with one hand.

Unconvinced, Chen Jue used both hands instead!

Gripping it simultaneously with both hands, he measured with a professional GM150 grip strength tester, finding that his combined grip strength had exceeded 360 kilograms. That finally allowed him to lift the fake gold brick suspended in the air for over 25 seconds.

"Using both hands also doubled the surface area of contact."

"Calculating it with simple addition definitely isn't right." Chen Jue temporarily noted down the 360-kilogram value, took off the gloves, and planned to take them to Jiangda University tomorrow to have Zheng Yuan measure their coefficient of friction.

Continuing to unpack the parcels, the next two items were custom fan plaques sent by Bilibili.

Inscribed on them were "Congratulations to Master of Unique Skills for Reaching XX Million Followers," with the silver one representing 100,000 followers and the golden one representing over a million followers.

These were souvenirs issued by Bilibili to uploaders, with bullet comments like "High Energy Ahead," "Zhenzhan Treasure," and "Bowing Down" printed on the background.

Chen Jue felt these two plaques held great commemorative value and planned to find a wall to hang them as a display of honor once the villa renovation was completed.

Seeing these fan plaques reminded him that tomorrow was the regular update day for Saturday. Chen Jue specially checked the backend data for Master of Unique Skills.

Under the management of the Tianhe team, Master of Unique Skills' account followers were growing steadily. Domestic platforms had already surpassed 6 million followers, while overseas platforms had also seen consecutive submissions this week pushing follower counts past 100,000+.

Foreigners could not help but marvel after watching Chen Jue perform various unique skills. The top comments in the comment section were all spamming "OMG," "Chinese KungFu (Bruce Lee)," "NiuBi~ (Quentin)," along with NBA star Nick Young's (Black Man Question Mark) and "OHhhh" (Tactical Lean Back) meme stickers.

In short, the demands for updates had spread from domestic to international audiences, and the ID "Master of Unique Skills" had finally crossed oceans, bringing the mysterious shock of the East to international friends.

"Am I considered an international internet celebrity now?"

Chen Jue laughed self-deprecatingly, thinking of those immensely popular martial arts stars from his childhood.

In a way, through these alternative unique skills, he was also spreading Chinese culture. The sense of achievement in his heart was far more satisfying than buying a villa.

Thus, looking at the endless stream of update requests in the comments and glancing at the temporary attribute gain of +0.35 on his panel, Chen Jue changed into a sports jacket, picked up a tripod pole, and ran out of the apartment.

Finding a deserted corner at the end of the street, he set up the camera tripod to aim at a tall streetlamp pole nearby, intending to shoot a simple Vlog video to serve as a preview for tomorrow's new episode of unique skills.

Activating the recording and putting on his mask, Chen Jue didn't use traditional climbing methods to scale the lamp pole.

Instead, he did a few warm-up stretches on the spot, grabbed the pole with his hands separated vertically, lifted his body sideways, and performed one of the "Five Gods of Street Workout"—the [Human Flag]—right in front of the camera.

After establishing the foundation of the [Human Flag] pose, Chen Jue's flashy operations began!

Along the streetlamp pole, he began using his self-developed advanced version of the [Human Flag Ascent], shifting his hands alternately to slowly climb upward.

It took nearly two minutes, but he finally hoisted himself upward from the bottom like a flag, all the way to the top of the lamp pole.

Yet, upon reaching the top, Chen Jue still felt unsatisfied. With his stamina still abundant and refusing to quit, he mustered his courage and firmly gripped the T-shaped horizontal extension bar of the streetlamp.

He executed a neat 90-degree turn in mid-air, gradually shifted outward horizontally, and finally hung suspended from the streetlamp.

Looking at the nearly 20-meter drop suspended in mid-air beneath his feet, Chen Jue felt his heart rate accelerate, his breathing growing noticeably faster than usual.

If he accidentally let go at this moment, it truly would be a leap of faith!

To dispel the fear in his heart, Chen Jue simply closed his eyes and began performing front levers and pull-ups on the horizontal bar of the streetlamp.

He trained until his arms began to ache and swell, completely exhausting his remaining strength, before slowly maneuvering back and sliding nimbly down the lamp pole to the base.

By this time, several prompts had already popped up on his panel:

————————

[Ding~]

[Completed an extreme climbing exercise. Your upper body and core muscle groups have been efficiently trained, your muscle strength has increased, and your climbing technique has seen substantial growth under high-difficulty movement postures.]

[Stimulated by the high-altitude environment, your focus has sharpened, and your willpower and courage have significantly improved.]

[Climbing proficiency +500]

[Strength attribute +0.01]

[Constitution attribute +0.02]

[Spirit attribute +0.01] (End of Chapter)