085 Chen Anquan, keep going!

Chen Anquan narrowed his eyes, picturing a woman before him: her long, raven-black hair cascading down her back, her face adorned with vibrant, colorful patterns, her body draped in a beast-hide bikini, a wooden longbow slung across her back, and astride a fierce white tiger—a beast-tamer of wild allure and primal strength. What a thrilling sight that would be. Could Chen Juanjuan ever reach such heights?

“Enough of that!” Chen Anquan pulled his thoughts back, his gaze settling on the seven blood-red demon flowers in his hand.

There had been eight, but one had been fed to the mutated wild boar. Now, only seven remained.

Pinching one of the blood-red demon flowers between his fingers, Chen Anquan slowly pushed it into his mouth.

If the mutated wild boar could eat it, why couldn’t he? Turning these treasures into his own strength was clearly the wisest choice.

The palm-sized, blood-red demon flower tasted sweet, with a rich, fragrant scent reminiscent of jasmine. Chen Anquan was puzzled—how could such a strange and enchanting flower taste like jasmine, so at odds with its sinister appearance?

As curiosity flickered in his mind, the demon flower, now swallowed, suddenly blossomed within his abdomen, as if blooming inside his stomach.

An unbearable swelling pain spread through his stomach, like a severe obstruction—but it was different. There was no nausea, no urge to vomit.

A searing, heated current, like molten lava, quickly flooded his abdomen, numbing him to all sensation there. At the same time, his limbs lost all strength.

He collapsed to the ground, limp as an empty, deflated doll, shriveled and boneless, his body a puddle of soft mud. Yet this puddle radiated a red glow, as if he were a chunk of iron heated to incandescence.

Chen Anquan’s consciousness faded completely away at that moment.

The next day, thick fog shrouded the world, and the air was bitterly cold.

Without the comfort of air conditioning, Chen Anquan slowly opened his eyes, startled to find himself lying on the frigid cement floor.

Sitting on a stool, he touched his hands and feet—astonished to find them as warm as a heater pack. On the table, six blood-red demon flowers remained. “So these things are intensely warming, great for restoring vitality, treating weak kidneys, sore waists, limp legs, and premature issues…”

“Damn it! I wasted a whole night of training for this!” Chen Anquan couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

Every day of his cultivation in the mountain village had been diligent and earnest—how else could he have pushed all his attributes above 2.0?

Surely, such a miraculous demon flower would boost his stats by a large margin. At the very least, like something from a fantasy novel, it should enhance his aptitude and comprehension.

Opening his attribute panel, Chen Anquan was dumbfounded:

Name: Chen Anquan
Age: 24
Strength: 4.75
Agility: 4.5
Spirit: 9
Constitution: 5.27
(Others omitted…)

One blood-red demon flower had increased his strength, agility, and constitution by two points each, and his spirit by three!

A single demon flower equaled a whole month of relentless training!

“What a waste, feeding such a potent blood-red demon flower to that mutated wild boar!” Realizing how powerful the flower’s effects were, Chen Anquan felt Chen Juanjuan’s actions had been sheer folly.

Enough thinking. He carefully stored away the remaining blood-red demon flowers, adding a gleaming brass lock to the little drawer for extra security. He shut the room door, grabbed his punch strength tester and peachwood sword, and dashed out of the main house.

After locking up, Chen Anquan ran out of his home, heading for the quarry hill.

Dawn had barely broken, and thick fog swathed the entire Aobei Village.

With all his attributes surpassing four points, Chen Anquan’s eyes were like twin fog lamps, piercing the dense white mist to reveal the path ahead.

Reaching the quarry, he set down his gear and took a deep breath.

After five minutes of warm-up, he revealed his right fist, eyeing the punch strength tester he’d hung on a massive stone.

“Ugh-ha!”

Like a tiger pouncing, his punch split the air with a crack like a bullet’s whine.

Whoosh!

Punch strength: 500 kg!

“My god!” Chen Anquan was stunned. The number on the dial delighted and shocked him more than seeing an alien.

“The blood-red demon flower is incredible!”

Suddenly, a bold idea struck him—Dragon-Subduing Palm!

Placing the punch strength tester on the ground, Chen Anquan leaped—this time soaring ten meters high!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Like a small meteorite, he came crashing down, landing squarely on the punch strength tester.

Bang!

The hard rock surface cracked, and the punch strength tester atop it… was utterly destroyed.

“A two-hundred-yuan gadget just can’t cut it—not professional enough!” He had no idea how much force his Dragon-Subduing Palm had unleashed, but it certainly wasn’t less than five thousand kilograms!

Over five tons of force! What did that mean? A domestic sedan at 4.9 meters long weighed just about 1.5 tons. A 5.2-meter Western sedan, maybe two tons. With his full Dragon-Subduing Palm, Chen Anquan could send two Western sedans flying at once.

Terrifying.

Imagine swatting a car aside with a single slap while walking down the street—what a display of might.

Chen Anquan snapped out of his reverie and pulled out his phone, opening an online shopping app.

He needed to buy a punch strength tester that could withstand at least ten tons.

“Hello, anyone there?”

“Yes, I’m here. We’d like to buy a punch strength tester that can handle ten tons.”

(Shocked) “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Sorry, we don’t have that.”

Chen Anquan was disappointed—no ten-ton punch strength tester.

Undeterred, he pressed on, “Do you have anything that can test eight tons?”

The other end was silent for a full minute.

Perhaps they thought he was pulling their leg.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Sorry, we don’t have that kind of equipment. The strongest we offer can handle up to five tons.”

“Can you custom-make one?”

“Sorry, our manufacturer can’t produce that.”

“Alright, goodbye.” Chen Anquan quietly closed the chat and searched several more shops, but none had a ten-ton punch strength tester.

One merchant explained that it wasn’t a matter of manufacturing, but materials—ten tons would destroy the machine in a single blow. What’s the point of measuring punch strength if the device is scrapped at once?

“I wonder how Uncle Lu and the others measure their punch strength?” Chen Anquan opened his messaging app, looking at Yin Miaomiao’s profile picture.

Their last chat was when she’d said she wanted to visit his village.

He mulled over several ways to start a conversation but dismissed them. He wasn’t ready to reveal his path of cultivation to Yin Miaomiao.

The two videos he’d posted yesterday were still within normal human standards, unlikely to draw attention from Yin Miaomiao or Uncle Lu.

*

“Uncle Lu, did you see that?” Ten kilometers from Yicheng County, in a remote mountain, stood a secretive building. Yin Miaomiao sat comfortably in an ergonomic chair, scrolling through short videos on her phone.

She had just seen Chen Anquan’s latest post and was about to share it with Uncle Lu, who had come by for his rounds.

Today, Uncle Lu wore no sunglasses—his face was resolute, his hair cropped short, looking about forty, not tall but powerfully built.

“I saw it,” Uncle Lu replied softly. “A hundred-meter sprint in 9.58 seconds, punch strength at 265 kilograms—pretty good for a normal person. But for someone expelled from the hospital, there’s no way he could be absorbed into the system.”

“Oh.” Yin Miaomiao sounded disappointed. She watched Uncle Lu walk away and turned her gaze back to Chen Anquan’s video. “Chen Anquan, keep going! I believe you were framed!”

Meanwhile—

Zhao Xuan dragged her exhausted body home from work.

Working as a reporter in the county seat meant frequent trips to the countryside. Sometimes, she’d have to wait hours for a single interview.

She’d encountered several eccentric old ladies in rural villages—she’d go to interview them, but the grannies would insist on leisurely cooking a meal first, inviting Zhao Xuan and her crew to eat with them. Only after eating, cleaning up, and washing the dishes would they finally consent to the interview.

Good heavens, one interview swallowed up an entire morning, delaying countless other tasks!

But Zhao Xuan loved her profession. She never once complained.

It was only her body that grew weary.

Opening the door, she changed into slippers and glanced at the bare dining table.

Turning to the hallway, she saw the master bedroom at the end, its door still closed.

Whoosh!

She turned on the tap and began washing vegetables for lunch.

There wasn’t much time for a midday break—cooking would eat up most of it, so by the time she finished, it was already past one in the afternoon.

“Dad, come eat.” After she finished cooking, she walked to the master bedroom door and knocked.

There was no response.