"It's fine," Li Wei said resolutely. "Add it. You can spot me from behind."
He didn't even weigh 80 kilograms, yet on his second day at the gym, he wanted to bench press his own body weight. To Michael, this seemed a bit reckless.
"Alright, alright," Michael gave in, shrugging. "I'll make sure you don't get crushed to death."
From Michael's perspective, having trained for almost a year, this was probably a classic case of a beginner getting overconfident, eager to prove himself.
He and Li Wei each took a 10-kilogram plate and loaded them onto either side. Then, Michael moved to the head of the bench press, hovering his hands, ready to spot Li Wei at any moment.
For some reason, he suddenly felt that his classmate's physique looked a bit bigger than before, with some visible muscle definition.
'Is it just an illusion from the pump?' he muttered to himself while watching Li Wei unrack the bar, touch it to his chest, and push up.
"Okay... down... What the fuck!"
He watched as Li Wei, who had just been struggling to press 60 kilograms with him, was now slowly but steadily pushing up an 80-kilogram barbell. And from the look of his movement, it seemed he still had strength to spare.
"Dude," he said, his eyes wide as he watched Li Wei get up from the bench. "Haven't you been working out for less than a week?"
"Yeah," Li Wei said with a grin, feeling his prominent deltoids. "Maybe I'm just naturally strong?"
He stood in front of the mirror, looking at his now well-defined chest and arms, turning this way and that with delight.
'It must be that East Asians have superior neuromuscular recruitment,' Michael thought, consoling himself. 'They are really dominant in the lighter weight classes of weightlifting.'
Li Wei felt that benching 80 kg had actually exhausted his upper body strength. He didn't linger at the bench press, but instead moved to the leg strength area to test his limits with a free-weight barbell squat.
Previously, when his strength was at 0.9, Li Wei could only bench 50-60 kilograms. Now that his strength had increased to 1.0, he could lift his own body weight.
And his squat, which involves the full strength of his legs, had also jumped from his previous 65 kilograms by a full 30 kilograms, reaching 95 kilograms.
Michael, standing to the side, couldn't understand it at all. Why was Li Wei panting and out of breath pressing 50 kilograms just a moment ago, and now he was also panting and out of breath pressing 80 kilograms?
'Next time I see him, will he be panting and out of breath pressing 100 kilograms too? He's got to be sandbagging, right?'
"I'm gonna grab some water then hit the showers," Li Wei said as he walked over to Michael. "I have to go back and study this afternoon."
"Alright," Michael could only bump fists with him. "I'm gonna train a bit more."
His unassuming classmate had shattered his resolve on the very first day, making Michael, who had also been planning to leave, decide to train a little longer.
Li Wei walked to a corner, picked up his fully charged phone, and took out the extra-large 1.5-liter water bottle he had bought from the dollar store a couple of days ago. After filling it to the brim with mineral water from the water cooler, he entered the locker room showers, completely satisfied.
He had already figured it out: the gym had a great environment, he could charge his phone and take a shower, and he could even get two large bottles of mineral water for free each time.
He had already checked: the same 1.5-liter bottle of mineral water sold for 0.99 USD in the supermarket. Every time he worked out here, he'd fill his bottle, drink it, then fill it up again to take with him when he left. By doing this, he saved 1.98 USD a day.
As long as he came to train every day, the money he saved in a month—including electricity and water for showering—would, after rounding, be almost enough to cover his monthly gym membership.
With his family's fortune having fallen and now living in a basement, Li Wei felt he had to embody the traditional virtues of the Celestial Dynasty: diligence and frugality.
By the time he finished showering and washing his clothes in the public laundry room next door, the sky was already getting dark.
On his way back, Li Wei bought a discounted carton of 12 eggs nearing their expiration date, a bag of chicken thighs, and a jar of Lao Gan Ma. After returning to the basement, he took the leftover rice he had cooked yesterday out of the fridge.
Seeing it was still early and there was some time before Don Quixote would be back, Li Wei continued studying his AP Macroeconomics textbook.
With his Spiritual Power at 1.2, not only was his memory significantly stronger than when it was at 1.0, but his ability to comprehend complex concepts had also greatly improved.
He had managed to memorize nearly a quarter of the thick, 200-plus-page AP Macroeconomics textbook in just over a day.
...
CREAK—
The basement door was pushed open, and Don Quixote walked in, cursing a heartless foreman.
He threw himself heavily onto the worn-out sofa, grimacing as he kneaded his shoulder with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
"How was your day?" Li Wei asked, closing his book and looking at Don Quixote, who looked like a stray dog with a cigarette in his mouth. "Hurt your shoulder?"
"It's an old injury. It always acts up for a few days after it rains..." Don Quixote looked at Li Wei's clean face and snorted. "You've got it easy, you brat. Just like some young master from the Upper East Side."
"It was alright," Li Wei shrugged, moving to the stove to start cooking. "I worked for three hours, served a beautiful, wealthy lady, and made 102 USD after taxes."
"Fuck, don't talk about it! I haul bricks on a construction site all day or wash dishes all day and only make that much. Just because you're better looking than me? When I was 17, I was a handsome devil in my prime, so how come no one offered me 100 USD for that kind of work?"
Li Wei glanced over at Don Quixote while beating the eggs.
"I have my doubts about that," he said. "If you were as handsome as me when you were 17, you would've died of an STD long ago."
As the Lonely Knight, Don Quixote subconsciously scratched his crotch after hearing Li Wei's words, then thought about it carefully. "You've got a point."
"Hurry up and eat. Don't you have to go wash dishes later?" Li Wei said, holding up a large, glistening bowl of egg fried rice mixed with chicken and Lao Gan Ma. "This whole portion only cost 5 USD to make. It's a much better deal than ordering takeout."
Don Quixote grunted, forced a rotation of his right shoulder, and took the bowl from Li Wei, burying his head in it to eat.
After he finished eating, Li Wei was surprised that Don Quixote actually chose to wash the bowl. What astonished Li Wei even more was that he also took out the kitchen trash on his way out. This was a rare occurrence—when Li Wei first arrived, the basement had been piled high with trash, and it was always Li Wei who took it out every morning.
That night, Don Quixote didn't sleepwalk, which made Li Wei feel both relieved that he was getting a good night's sleep and a little disappointed.
Early the next morning, Li Wei once again arrived at Leon's shop.
Unexpectedly, he found that besides himself, there was someone else in the shop ahead of him, arguing heatedly with Leon about something.