Emerging from the white light, Chen Xu couldn't help but glare at the one-eyed instructor. "Damn it, how can the pain in this virtual world feel so real? Don't you NPCs feel pain?!"
Um, please forgive Chen Xu for using so many vulgar words. In this kind of situation, no one could be so gentlemanly and arrogant... By now, his face would be contorted with pain!
The one-eyed instructor looked at him with pity: "Rookie, do you understand your situation now? It's not that having a weapon makes you strong enough. I'll say it again: it's the person who needs to be strong, not the weapon. No matter how powerful a weapon is, it's only for the person to use. If you can't even understand this, then you should go back to being a good boy. This place isn't for you!"
"Damn it, do you think I wanted to come here?" Chen Xu muttered under his breath. "If it weren't for that damn privilege, would I have come here to suffer like this?!"
Despite his complaints, Chen Xu understood that the one-eyed instructor was right. Weapons didn't necessarily represent individual strength, and he knew he still had a long way to go.
Chen Xu didn't actually want to become the world's number one martial arts master. He was already quite content to be able to use his position to his advantage in martial arts circles. However, his willingness to suffer even knowing it would be painful didn't mean he was a masochist by nature. Rather, it meant he had thought things through very clearly!
The permissions set by your future self for your present self are definitely not just for fun or for your future self to torment your present self when you're bored.
There must be a deeper meaning behind it!
Although Chen Xu didn't yet know the deeper meaning, he was certain... After all, no one knows you better than yourself! Even if your future self has experienced countless trials and tribulations... Chen Xu was even more convinced that your future self must have a purpose!
Otherwise, if he's the one being abused, then he's the one being abused too. Who would do something like that?
Having grasped this point, Chen Xu was certain that there might be something in the future that he would need to resolve using force… and if something absolutely required the use of force, then it was definitely not a good thing!
It could be dangerous if not handled properly.
So even though Chen Xu complained to the one-eyed instructor, he remained vigilant and determined to improve his skills!
The one-eyed instructor then said, "Kid, have you figured it out?"
Chen Xu's pain subsided, and he took a deep breath, stood up, and said, "I understand. Thank you for your guidance, instructor."
The one-eyed instructor's face showed satisfaction. He said, "Actually, your progress is quite good. Your current strength has reached the peak of E-level. Ordinary people are no match for you. And if you handle things properly, you can even defeat some people who have trained in martial arts or combat. But your biggest weakness right now is your strength... Your agility is barely enough, but your strength is insufficient. When you punch someone, they feel no pain. But when someone punches you, you can't withstand it. You need to know that no matter what kind of kung fu it is, you learn to take hits before you learn to hit. Your ability to withstand hits is too poor right now. If you want to level up, you must develop a body of steel!"
"Give me a break!" Chen Xu couldn't help but roll his eyes and said, "Boss, I'm a student, not a real soldier with a body of steel! You might as well just replace my bones with steel. Will we have that kind of technology in eighty years? Seriously. A body of steel, is that something an ordinary person can train to have?"
This request is just too much to ask. Chen Xu could accept practicing hitting, but practicing being hit… damn it, isn't this just asking for trouble?!
No way! I absolutely cannot agree to this!
Chen Xu's enthusiasm vanished instantly. To be beaten up in real life... Nonsense, does being beaten up in the virtual world have any effect on the body? At most, it only makes one mentally more resistant to pain.
Seeing Chen Xu shaking his head like a rattle-drum, the one-eyed instructor couldn't help but snort angrily: "You good-for-nothing!"
Chen Xu rolled his eyes. "So what if you're spineless? If you were as promising as you say, you'd probably be dead by now! Besides, what good would it do you to become a muscular man? Guan Yi and the others don't like overly muscular men, okay?"
Furthermore, and more importantly, which urban fantasy novel features a protagonist with a muscular physique who then develops a powerful, external martial arts style reminiscent of the Thirteen Protectors' Golden Bell Cover?
We need to attack! Attack again!
Your one-eyed instructor is incredibly powerful. Chen Xu knows he can't afford to mess with a SEAL-level opponent, but can he even bring himself to provoke one? Besides, he's just a student, all gentle and mild-mannered like a submissive… Ugh, Chen Xu is the dominant one, always the dominant one… Enough of this nonsense. He's just a student, looking completely harmless, and then he secretly uses a sonar gun to sneak up on people and knock them unconscious. Who could possibly be his match if they're caught off guard?!
Upon hearing Chen Xu's unreasonable argument, the one-eyed instructor couldn't help but snort coldly and ignored him. Chen Xu awkwardly exited the fighting system, wondering what he should do.
Sigh, not being able to take a beating is indeed a problem. Although it may not be a big problem, it is still a problem, albeit barely. If only I could have a suit of armor, like the one in the famous Japanese anime "Tekkaman Blade". Wahaha, D-Boy, that suit of armor is so cool!
However, Chen Xu also knew that was impossible. Well, the main problem was that this book was set in the city and didn't have that much messy pseudo-science fiction stuff.
Chen Xu woke up at five in the morning. Usually, the other guys in the dorm were still fast asleep at this time... Only Wu Yuan insisted that Chen Xu wake him up so that he could help Bi Xuan work at the cake shop... As one of the owners of Princess Cake Shop, Chen Xu naturally wouldn't refuse this request... What a great laborer, and he didn't even have to pay him. Why not take advantage of him!
However, just as Chen Xu was about to wake him up, he saw Wu Yuan lying on the bed with his eyes open, having woken up even earlier than him.
Chen Xu jumped off the bed in surprise and said, "Boss, you've been quite diligent today? Did Bixuan make a special request?"
"Go to hell!" Wu Yuan retorted without hesitation, "Damn it, can't you see I'm all sweaty? I just had a nightmare, and my heart is still pounding."
Upon hearing this, Chen Xu's gossip spirit immediately ignited! He had used Xiao Min to read several of his own dreams before, only to find that the reality of dreams was completely different from the dream itself!
In dreams, everything feels so beautiful and real, but when viewed as a video in reality, you'll find that such dreams are actually very monotonous, with dull colors, blurry figures, and mostly fragmented pieces that don't connect together. They lack the immersive feeling of being there in a dream.
Especially... well, to be shameless, it's springtime now, and it's only natural to be attracted to young women. Chen Xu is a virgin and doesn't masturbate regularly; his lustful desires naturally overflow. So, occasionally, he dreams of making love with a goddess, only to wake up in the morning to find white spots on his underwear... As for the goddess's appearance, she resembles several real-life figures. As for who she is, well, that's not for outsiders to know.
However, the erotic dreams of innocent virgins are mostly absurd and bizarre. What they see and think in their dreams is mostly knowledge gleaned from pornographic films. When they try to imitate these things in their dreams, they often end up with something that is neither quite right nor wrong. Not to mention that Chen Xu repeatedly woke up screaming in fright after untying the belt of the goddess of Wushan in his dreams and finding a man's penis inside. Later, he searched online with tears streaming down his face and found out that this was a normal phenomenon and not that his sexual orientation had changed to anal sex. Even on the occasional occasion when he experienced the warmth and softness of a woman and the pleasure of lovemaking, after reading his dreams, he realized that he was indeed an idiot to a certain extent.
Basically, the most common action in such dreams is to hug the other person and kiss them passionately. The thing that comes to mind most clearly is the ample breasts of the goddess in the dream. As for those kinds of illicit affairs, in the few recorded dreams, I really didn't do them much in the end.
Alas, the pitiful erotic dream of an innocent young virgin.
So Chen Xu asked Wu Yuan, "Boss, you didn't dream that when you were doing *that* with Bi Xuan, you looked down and found yourself under that 1.5-meter-tall, 180-pound pretty girl, did you?!"
Chapter 174 Uncle
Wu Yuan said, "Go to hell! Do you think I'm like you? You still dream about being raped by Sister Furong even though nothing's wrong?"
Chen Xu chuckled mischievously, and Wu Yuan said, "Damn it, all I did was accidentally step on a spider last night! Did I really have to dream about a swarm of spiders chasing me?! And each one of them was as tall as Yao Ming! Like those spider monsters in Harry Potter!"
Chen Xu couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat and said, "Boss, now you understand the importance of protecting small animals, right? Now you're getting your comeuppance, aren't you? Hmm, let this fortune teller tell you what this dream signifies. Hmm, boss, you might have a bloody disaster in the next few days!"
Wu Yuan was about to retort when Qin Xiao'an, who had been sleeping, muttered, "Damn it, eldest brother and third brother, what's with all this nagging so early in the morning? Don't you have any sense of public decency? Don't you want people to get any sleep?!"
No sooner had he finished cursing than Dong Qingjie, who had been burying his head under the blanket, yelled, "Damn it, you son of a bitch, both of their voices combined aren't as loud as yours, shut the hell up!"
Chen Xu and Wu Yuan chuckled to themselves, then jumped off the bed to wash their faces and brush their teeth.
It's said that a person's lifestyle can be seen from their face-washing and teeth-brushing habits. For example, Chen Xu, under the influence of that vixen Guan Yi, has actually started using face wash... Qin Xiao'an, the first person in the dorm to use face wash, was looked down upon by Chen Xu and Wu Yuan, who said that this guy was a typical show-off, what kind of grown man would use face wash... But when Chen Xu used it himself, he didn't say anything. When Qin Xiao'an brought it up to laugh at him, Chen Xu still looked self-righteous: "Nonsense, it's a face wash that a beautiful girl gave me, so why not use it!"
Wu Yuan is the most special one in the dormitory. Simply put, the eldest brother is the most manly one in the dormitory!
Wu Yuan was the oldest in the dorm, two years and a month older than Chen Xu, the third oldest. But being older wasn't the only issue; Wu Yuan also looked quite mature for his age. To put it simply, although he usually stayed in the dorm, disliked sports and other activities, and was even worse at getting along with girls than Chen Xu… our eldest had one distinctive feature: he had an unusually large amount of body hair!
People like Chen Xu are only just starting to use razors, but the older guy started shaving when he was in the second year of junior high... Experienced people know that the more you shave, the more beard grows. So now, Wu Yuan only needs to go three days without shaving, and he'll have a full chin! Anyone who didn't know better would think he was some kind of burly, bearded man!
Wu Yuan was shaving, wiping the shaving foam off his chin. He looked extremely comical. Chen Xu, standing beside him, chuckled and said, "Boss, I should take a picture of this manly scene and show it to Bi Xuan. I guarantee it'll make the little girl's heart flutter. Hmm. No wonder Bi Xuan likes to be close to you."
Upon hearing the first sentence, Wu Yuan was about to unleash a torrent of curses, but the next sentence silenced him. The man, looking like he was in the throes of passion, leaned closer and asked, "Third brother, do you think Bixuan really likes me? Did she tell you? Or did Guan Yi and the others tell you?"
"Go to hell!" Chen Xu looked at him with disdain: "Boss, look in the mirror. Do you look any different from that horny tomcat behind the building? Damn, I mean, I believe Bi Xuan has a reason to like you now!"
"What reason?"
"It's simple. Boss, you're so manly, while Bixuan grew up without a father. She might have an Oedipus complex..."
Then, Chen Xu, enraged, slapped Wu Yuan away. Then, shamefully, he made a hasty escape to urinate, leaving Wu Yuan shaving while deep in thought, feeling utterly frustrated. Then, a splatter of blood… “Ouch!” A wolf’s howl shattered the peaceful morning, echoing throughout the entire dormitory building…
It's true, there really is going to be a bloody disaster.
When Chen Xu and Wu Yuan arrived at the Princess Cake Shop, Tang Bixuan looked at Wu Yuan's chin with surprise and asked, "Wu Yuan, what happened to you?"
Tang Bixuan's voice was very soft, with a gentle, southern Wu dialect charm... This girl was from Zhenjiang, and her voice was very sweet, or as Chen Xu described it, "cute"... Sure enough, after hearing this, Wu Yuan immediately felt like he had eaten candy, and he no longer cared that he had accidentally cut his chin with the razor earlier...
Seeing Tang Bixuan carefully remove the band-aid from Wu Yuan's head and then gently and carefully treat the not-so-large wound on his chin, and seeing Wu Yuan's blissfully intoxicated expression, Chen Xu couldn't help but shiver and retreat... He felt that he was being far too conspicuous a third wheel... However, after turning away, Chen Xu took a few loud steps and then sneaked back, pressing his face against the crack in the door to see if the couple inside could ignite their passionate flame.
"Push her down, push her down! Take this opportunity!" Chen Xu gritted his teeth, pressed against the crack in the door, as if he were the one inside the room: "Hold her shoulders, lay her down on the chair, kiss her, tear her clothes, waka waka!"
"What are you doing?" Just as Chen Xu was daydreaming, Gao Xiaojie's voice suddenly rang out from behind. Chen Xu turned around and saw Gao Xiaojie looking at him like he was an idiot. Chen Xu shamelessly stood up, laughed twice, and said, "Oh my, Xiaojie, why are you up so early today?"
"Pah!" Gao Xiaojie spat at him. "Why are you calling me so affectionately? We're not even close. Where's Bixuan?"
Chen Xu furtively pointed to the door, then lowered his voice and said, "With Wu Yuan..." He then raised his eyebrows in a lewd manner, made a circle with his right hand, and slipped it onto his left index finger in a lewd way, then lewdly slipped it up and down...
"Chen Xu, what are you doing?" Chen Xu was happily making that lewd gesture with his back to the door when suddenly the door creaked open behind him, and Tang Bixuan's sweet voice rang out from behind, in a curious tone: "What kind of gesture is that?"
"Oh, it's nothing," Chen Xu quickly put on a serious face: "I accidentally poked the wall with my finger, and I'm massaging it myself."
"Tch!" Gao Xiaojie rolled her eyes at Chen Xu, pulled Tang Bixuan back into the house, and Wu Yuan followed behind, making a contemptuous gesture. Only the naive Tang Bixuan knew nothing and looked completely bewildered.
The four of them had their contract expired, and the cake shop was about to open. Having been exposed to it all along, even Chen Xu could make those simple baked cakes. So the group quickly got to work, and Tang Bixuan opened the shop, placing the steaming hot cakes on the table.
Princess Cake Shop has been a thriving business since its opening. Its delicious cakes, affordable prices, and limited-edition pastries made by Zhan Jing herself every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon at 3 PM have made it incredibly popular among students at several nearby universities. A quick search for "Princess Cake Shop" on the BBS of He Xie University and several surrounding universities will yield at least ten pages of results. Many of these are requests for the phone numbers of the shop's attractive staff. There are also some guys with cameras who come to take pictures.
However, the children from the nearby elementary school and kindergarten prefer this princess cake shop.
Because there are residential communities near several universities. These communities include elementary schools and kindergartens, so after Princess Cake Shop became famous, many children in the community liked to eat there. They would sweetly call Bixuan and Gao Xiaojie "sister," Chen Xu "brother," and Wu Yuan "uncle"...
Wu Yuan looked at Chen Xu with tears in his eyes: "I'm only two years older than you. How did I become your uncle? Am I that old?!"
"Brother" or "uncle", "sister" or "aunt"? To be honest, for young people like Chen Xu and Gao Xiaojie, this is a watershed moment.
When people are chatting casually, someone might say, "Today I was on the bus and saw a young mother holding a two- or three-year-old child, so I gave her my seat. The mother then said to the child, 'Say thank you, uncle!' And the little girl, well, she was a little girl, said in a very sweet, childish voice, 'Thank you, uncle.' Sigh. In the blink of an eye, I've become an uncle myself."
Chen Xu hadn't encountered this kind of thing much before, but he was quite moved after hearing about it.
The mother probably made her child call him "Uncle" because that way she would consider herself to be of the same generation as him. Otherwise, if the child had to call him "Brother" or "Sister," wouldn't that mean she was a generation above him?
However, for this age group, who were previously considered children, the sudden change of age overnight, especially online, is something they find hard to accept.
Before going to university, this group was called the flowers of the motherland and the successors of the Four Modernizations. Although young people may not admit their age, they actually feel that they are not that old.
Especially for Chen Xu's generation, the one-child policy resulted in most of their children being only children. If the age gap between cousins is not large, it is rare to have a nephew or niece who is older than oneself. So, suddenly being a generation older than oneself is a feeling that is both exciting and daunting.
Now Gao Xiaojie and the others are jokingly calling Wu Yuan "uncle," while Tang Bixuan stands to the side, smiling gently and somewhat shyly. Whenever Wu Yuan looks at her, she looks away in slight panic.
But how could such a small trick escape the notice of Chen Xu and Gao Xiaojie, those two shrewd people? The two chuckled and each made an excuse to leave, leaving the two of them alone.
"Hey, Dr. Li Liangyan is giving his first lecture tonight, are you going?" Outside, Gao Xiaojie and Chen Xu exchanged a few chuckles before Gao Xiaojie asked.
Chen Xu asked curiously, "Li Liangyan? Who's that?"
"You don't even know Dr. Li?" Gao Xiaojie rolled her eyes and said, "Then do you even know what our Hexie University's most famous major is?!"
Chen Xu knew this, of course. The most famous major at Hexie University was Life Sciences... The year Chen Xu and his classmates took the college entrance examination, the average admission score for Hexie University as a first-class key undergraduate university was 560, but the admission score for Life Sciences was a whopping 593... Damn it, a perfect score of 750 and an admission score of almost 600, that score is almost enough to get into Tsinghua or Peking University!
So, the life science majors usually act all high and mighty, but they're also the most looked down upon by other majors... because across all the majors at Hexie University, in school events like football and basketball leagues, sports meets, or other arts and cultural competitions, if the life science majors dare to claim second to last place, nobody dares to claim last!
The most hilarious incident occurred a year before Chen Xu and his classmates enrolled. Back then, the life sciences majors, probably wanting to shake off their perennial bottom-ranking status, went to challenge the nursing department of the medical school to a soccer match… This news caused the entire association to burst into laughter. The nursing department! The male nursing students are all called "baby"—it's estimated that even if you added up all the classes from all five years of nursing, you could barely field an eleven-person team. For the life sciences department to do this is like adults bullying children; don't they feel ashamed?
Then something terrible happened: the Nursing Department actually agreed to the competition. On that day, the school football field was packed with people—more than even the school football cup finals could have had… All the female students from the Nursing Department were there. The guys from other departments either came to laugh at them or to see them being mutilated; in short, thousands showed up, shocking even the principal.
Then, witnessed by thousands, the Nursing Department created a miracle in the history of He Xie University… They defeated the Life Sciences Department with a score of 5-4, which looked like a penalty shootout. The player who dominated the game was Nursing Department's number 10… He scored all five of Nursing Department's goals. And then, even more astonishing news came after the game. If the Life Sciences Department's loss to Nursing Department was a tragedy comparable to discovering on their wedding night that their wife wasn't a virgin, then the next piece of news made everyone in the Life Sciences Department feel like they had discovered on their wedding night that their wife was a transvestite!
Because that short-haired player number 10 from the nursing department is actually a freshman girl… Although her looks are… well, let’s just say they’re not exactly conventionally attractive, her footwork is absolutely phenomenal. I found out she started going to soccer school when she was seven, until she had to retire at 15 due to a serious injury. Then she focused on her studies… And let me tell you, with that kind of skill, you probably couldn’t find many players on the Hefei University men’s soccer team who could compare.
So the Life Sciences Department completely withered at He Xie University... There was no way around it. The department was full of hardworking, good students, all of them bespectacled and girly. There were no special admissions students, and no exceptionally talented individuals who could both score high enough on the college entrance exam for this insane major and be outstanding in other areas. Therefore, the Life Sciences Department became the strangest department at He Xie University... Outside the university, it was the most attractive department for admissions, but within the university, it had the lowest status.
However, this major is indeed very prestigious. Perhaps realizing that their major could not cultivate well-rounded talents with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics and labor, the dean of the School of Life Sciences simply gave up. Since the football defeat last year, they have not participated in any activities for a year and have been studying and doing scientific research in a down-to-earth manner. The Department of Life Sciences also has the highest rate of students going abroad, with 50% of the graduates going abroad after graduation.
After hearing Chen Xu mention the Department of Life Sciences, Gao Xiaojie said, "Bingo, Dr. Li Liangyan is an internationally renowned life science expert. Many of his papers have been published in internationally renowned journals. Because Dr. Li Liangyan is a local, and he and our president were alumni, I heard they were even classmates, he agreed to become a visiting professor at our school, and he takes about three months each year to come back and do research. Didn't you know? That newly built 20-plus-story building next to the administration building was specially funded by the school for the School of Life Sciences, so that those alumni who have achieved academic success can come back and continue their research."
Chen Xu sweated a bit and said, "That's really extravagant! That's really extravagant!" Then he thought for a moment and said, "If that's the case, then our principal is really doing badly. Look at others, they're all internationally renowned PhDs, while he's still stuck as a lousy principal. Sigh, the difference is huge!"
Gao Xiaojie rolled her eyes. She really wanted to say that the president of Hexie University already had a high status, at least on par with the mayor of the city, but looking at this idiot, she was too lazy to say it. She just asked, "Are you going to attend the class?"
"I'll go if you can find a seat." Chen Xu shrugged helplessly and said, "Do you think someone like that could possibly get a seat in the auditorium, even if it's a large auditorium?" Last time, the famous female host from the city's TV station was invited by the student union to hold a talk event, and the auditorium was packed. Luckily, the air conditioning was on, otherwise the heat would have killed everyone.
There are many activities in university, and the school also supports students in organizing and hosting all kinds of activities, including various lectures. When Chen Xu first entered university, he found them very interesting, but later he got bored and preferred to play games in his dormitory... This is the transformation process of a college student from a newbie to a veteran!
Actually, many of these lectures are quite good, especially those that are very targeted at current events and employment, which can be very inspiring. However, since Dr. Li is an expert in life sciences, his lectures are probably related to life sciences, and these people may not be able to understand them!