Chapter 88: A New Look

Chapter 88: Chapter 88: A New Look

After dinner, Chen Jingle received a system notification: his strength had increased by another 0.1 kilograms, bringing the total to 40.8 kilograms.

Excellent!

He was one step closer to shattering the void and tearing apart a Gundam with his bare hands.

Coupled with his persistent workouts lately, his appetite had noticeably increased. His rice bowl was already a size larger than normal, yet after putting away three bowls, he was only eighty percent full.

In the past, he couldn’t have even imagined this.

According to the law of energy conversion, a large appetite meant great combat power!

The day he could devour a fat pig in three bites would be the day he reached the pinnacle of body cultivation on Earth.

Chen Qiyun was the same.

Her appetite had also surged recently. At the moment, her little belly was round and bulging as she leaned back against the sofa to digest.

She kept Chen Jingle’s words in mind: she had to eat earnestly to grow taller.

She was already trying very hard in order to reach 1.54 meters as soon as possible.

"I told you, eating until you’re eighty percent full is enough." Chen Jingle frowned, knowing that being too stuffed wasn’t good either.

"It was too delicious. I couldn’t help it." Chen Qiyun waved her hand dismissively.

Could he blame her?

It was obviously Chen Jingle’s fault!

Why did he have to make the food so tasty? The rising obesity rate in the country was all because of him!

He was guilty of the most heinous crimes!

Of course, she only dared to grumble about these things in her head; she absolutely couldn’t say them out loud.

For now, she still couldn’t beat Chen Jingle in a fight.

She would only have a chance when he was eighty years old, with all his teeth fallen out and unable to walk.

By then, she would be sixty-five and definitely still in her prime. Taking care of Chen Jingle would be a piece of cake!

MWAHAHA!

Just as she was caught up in her beautiful fantasy, she suddenly noticed Chen Jingle looking at her with a very strange expression. "What are you giggling like an idiot for? You’re drooling."

Chen Qiyun hurriedly wiped the corner of her mouth. Huh?!

She instantly flew into a humiliated rage. "Where is the drool?!"

This guy was so mean!

He only knew how to bully people. Hmph, sooner or later, she would enforce justice on behalf of Heaven and strike down this great villain!

After Chen Jingle finished eating, he started feeding the cat.

The little thing was getting fatter and fatter too. He didn’t know why it could eat so much, but it felt like it already weighed more than ten pounds.

Logically speaking, a ten-kilogram adult cat would only need to eat about 50 to 60 grams of cat food a day, or at most 100 grams.

But how much did this little guy eat?

Two hundred grams of wet food per meal! Three meals a day!

It would even get upset if given less.

"No wonder you’re as fat as a pig. You’re only seven months old! You’re not even a year old yet, and you’re already this fat! If you were one or two years old, wouldn’t you turn into a literal ball?"

Chen Jingle slapped his large hand against the tiger cub’s hindquarters, letting out a series of muffled THUD THUD sounds.

It was completely solid!

Faced with his actions, the tiger cub, fully fed and lying flat on the floor, didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Every night Tango, Cha-cha.

Rumba, Rock and Roll.

Who asked me to be a kitty~

"Let me pet it, let me pet it," Chen Qiyun leaned over.

No one could reject a cute kitten.

Sensing an unfamiliar scent approaching, the tiger cub immediately raised its head in vigilance.

However, once Chen Jingle let out a MEOW in cat language, it settled down.

"What did you say to it?" Chen Qiyun asked curiously.

"Just told it not to move around," Chen Jingle replied.

"Can I pet it now?"

"Put the back of your hand in front of its nose first and let it sniff. Be careful. Although its temperament is okay, your strength is too small to hold it down, and I haven’t trimmed its nails in a while. You’re not familiar with it, so don’t touch its belly just yet. Just scratch its head and chin."

Chen Qiyun successfully started petting it. She was delighted, yet a bit surprised. "Wow, it’s so fat!"

The tiger cub looked up at the little brat, then went back to lying down.

Chen Jingle felt helpless about this. "Eating well, drinking well, and running all over the place every day—of course it’s fat. Its appetite is several times that of a city pet cat. Fortunately, it’s more robust than excessively obese."

That was why Chen Jingle couldn’t help but want to laugh when Aunt Mei said his cat had snuck into her kitchen to steal food.

After playing for a while, Chen Jingle said, "Alright, that’s enough for now. Stop playing and wash your hands clean before you go back. Even though I deworm it regularly, it runs wild every day. It might even be mingling with other stray cats, so it inevitably picks up some bacteria."

"Oh~"

Chen Qiyun was reluctant to part with the cat.

After the two of them washed their hands, Chen Jingle sprayed her hands twice with rubbing alcohol to prevent any bacteria from tagging along.

This was the only downside to country cats; they couldn’t be locked up, and there were too many uncontrollable factors.

After Chen Qiyun went back home, Chen Jingle did a simple tidying up of the house.

At this moment, a WeChat message from Liang City suddenly popped up.

"Holy crap, you made the news!"

"Huh?"

Chen Jingle was baffled.

Liang City forwarded a link. "It’s that video of the foreigner shooting in your village. I just swiped past it. I only saw it because a local shared it. The most popular domestic repost has almost a hundred thousand likes, and it’s even been reported and reposted by quite a few local official media outlets. When did your English get so good? I remember you only scored a little over 100 points on the college entrance exam!"

"There you go again. The college entrance exam was ten years ago. Comrade, you need to look at the world from a developmental perspective."

Chen Jingle casually found an excuse to brush it off.

He copied the link and opened it, discovering that it was indeed true. It had quite a high popularity on the Doushou platform.

The topics in the comment section mainly focused on three aspects:

The first was that this foreigner was pretty gutsy to dare venture into the countryside, which counted as bravely exploring a high-level map;

The second was Chen Jingle’s looks, as he didn’t resemble a country bumpkin at all;

The third was Chen Jingle’s identity and English proficiency, with people curious about what exactly he did for a living.

Someone in the comments even recognized him. "Isn’t this Teacher College’s Brother Running?"

"What’s the Brother Running meme?"

"It’s this handsome guy speaking English in the video. Every morning, he goes to our Teacher College Jiangbei Campus to jog. When a student interviewed him before, he said he wasn’t from Teacher College and was just there to run."

"Does he go every day? Around what time? I want to camp out and catch him."

"..."

He was thoroughly humbled; he only begged to be spared.

Acting cool at the time had felt great, but he still hoped his life could remain quiet and undisturbed.

If one day his doorstep turned into a tourist attraction like Sister Chan’s, with a bunch of people pointing selfie sticks and cameras at his front door all day long, where even a sneeze would be infinitely magnified by the lens—that would truly be fatal.

"You really are hiding your depths, kid."

Liang City didn’t understand why Chen Jingle felt increasingly unfamiliar to him. The things he knew seemed to be growing in number, and he had never heard him mention any of this before.

Could he have been possessed by some thousand-year-old demon?

Chen Jingle vaguely replied, "Sigh, I just learn whatever is useful. Otherwise, am I really supposed to sit in front of the computer every day playing games and looking at dirty pictures?"

"Are you free to come out tonight? Have a late-night snack?" Liang City asked.

"I’m free, but the question is, what are we eating?"

"How about goose rice? A colleague recommended a spot. They say it’s pretty good, and I want to try it."

"I don’t mind."

Chen Jingle then asked, "What time?"

"A late-night snack obviously won’t be too early. After nine o’clock."

"Let’s make it eight thirty. If we finish eating earlier, we can still walk around to digest. I have to be home before ten."

Under normal circumstances, eating from eight thirty to nine thirty was just about right. He could use the remaining time to go home, take a shower, and sleep, without it affecting his routine.

Liang City was astonished. "Going home before ten o’clock? Does your house have a curfew? I remember your parents aren’t even home. What, are you hiding someone in your house?"

In the south, the nightlife only just began at ten o’clock.

At this age, saying you went to bed at ten o’clock would get you laughed to death.

Chen Jingle replied in annoyance, "Screw off. I have a health-preserving routine. Lately, I’ve been sleeping at ten every night."

"Badass, badass! Alright, then eight thirty it is. See you at Nanyan Street."

"Nanyan Street? Where is Nanyan Street?" Now it was Chen Jingle’s turn to be confused.

Did Jiangbei have a place called Nanyan Street?

Liang City explained, "It’s the former Goose Alley. Don’t you follow the local news at all? The municipal government spent money to renovate that area. Now they want to build a food street to highlight the local special culinary culture, but they felt the name ’Goose Alley’ didn’t sound good, so they changed it to Nanyan Street."

Once he mentioned Goose Alley, Chen Jingle knew exactly where it was.

It was over in the southeast of the city, though he hadn’t been there much.

How should he put it about that place? In the past, children weren’t allowed to go there, and even if adults went, they could easily be pulled into a small alley or a house. Once the door closed, they couldn’t leave without paying at least two hundred yuan.

What Chen Jingle found strange was: "Since they also sell duck rice, why not call it Baifu Street?"

"How should I know! Cut the crap, remember to see you tonight!"

"..."

Having agreed on a late-night snack with Liang City, it looked like today’s shower would have to be delayed. He certainly didn’t want to take a shower only to go out and come back covered in all sorts of smells.

"Then I’ll read a book first!"

He would continue grinding through the book "Logic of Politics" from before. When he got tired of reading, it would be just the right time to go out for a late-night snack, then come back, wash up, and sleep.

Perfect!

At eight thirty in the evening, in the parking lot outside Walmart.

Chen Jingle stopped his little electric scooter next to Liang City and asked in confusion, "Didn’t you say we were going to Nanyan Street? Why did you park here?"

Liang City threw his hands up. "There’s nowhere to park over there."

Chen Jingle was speechless. "...Damn it!"

Liang City was helpless. "We’ll just walk over. Thankfully, it’s not far, just a few minutes."

The two parked their scooters and walked across a bridge and through two alleys before arriving at Nanyan Street.

Looking at the surging crowd, Chen Jingle was somewhat surprised. "There are this many people on this pedestrian street?"

Was this still the Jiangbei he was familiar with?

In his memory, Goose Alley didn’t look like this.

Why did it feel like the outside world had completely changed just because he hadn’t gone out in a while!

Liang City patted him on the shoulder. "I told you to come out and walk around more. You stay cooped up at home all day like a hen laying eggs, not even knowing what the outside has developed into. You need to look at the world from a developmental perspective. However, there aren’t usually this many people. It’s normally only this lively when there are scheduled performances. There’s probably another show tonight."

"It hasn’t been that long. I just came here last year, and it wasn’t like this," Chen Jingle muttered softly.

"Bro, you literally just said last year. The outside world changes by the day now. Do you think it’s still ten years ago?" Liang City chuckled and mocked him.

"Nanyan Street..." Chen Jingle shook his head.

In the past, everyone around here called this place Chicken Alley.

Uh, the non-poultry kind.

Jiangbei had a few spots known to almost everyone: one was Nanyan Lane, another was a certain hostel next to the train station, and yet another was the residential building opposite the long-distance bus station.

Times had changed.

Now Goose Alley had turned into Nanyan Street, the long-distance bus station was deserted, and who knew what it was like over at the train station.