Chapter 5: Investigation


    Trantor: As Studios Editor: As Studios


    Chapter Five: Investigation


    In terms of his physique, other than bing Baldy, Xiang Kun’s skin improved, his teeth became whiter, his body fat ratio significantly decreased, and his belly shrunk notably. The most direct evidence of this was the need to buckle his belt one notch tighter than before.


    Yet, his weight did not clearly drop. At the beginning of the year, during thepany’s health check, his weight was 86KG, and now it was 84KG, almost not fluctuating at all. Moreover, since the 11th, he hadn’t eaten properly for almost five days.


    Subjectively, Xiang Kun also distinctly felt that his legs seemed stronger. Walking, climbing stairs, and carrying things all seemed easier.


    Upon realizing this, he started doing push-ups on the floor.


    Ever since graduating university, Xiang Kun had been fully absorbed in work andcked exercise, causing him to gain quite a bit of weight and lose some strength. For example, after he lost a card game at home over New Year’s, he could only do fourteen push-ups in one go.


    But now, Xiang Kun has done thirty push-ups with ease and continued until fifty before he started to feel weak in the shoulders and triceps. He finally lost his posture by the fifty-eight push-up.


    Of course, for those who exercise regrly, fifty-eight push-ups may be easy. But for an out-of-shape Xiang Kun, who weighs nearly 170 pounds and hasn’t exercised regrly for many years, improving from fourteen to fifty-eight push-ups is a significant leap.


    Xiang Kun went back to hisputer and recorded this set of data in a document, then recorded the photos and other physical data he had taken, sorted by date.


    Later, Xiang Kun also did several sets of push-ups, as well as other indoor exercises like crunches and squats.


    In addition to a significantly higher individual limitpared to before, his overall stamina has also improved several grades.


    In the past, after doing fourteen push-ups, he could rest for a minute andplete another set of thirteen. Then, after resting for two to three minutes, he could only do another eleven or twelve.


    But now, afterpleting fifty-eight push-ups, Xiang Kun could rest for a minute and then do another fifty-eight. As long as he had at least a minute to rest, he could finish another set of fifty-eight push-ups. It wasn’t until the eighth set, which he only managed fifty-two of, that his muscles began to feel noticeably weak and sore.


    Up until this point, the physical changes X had brought Xiang Kun were mostly good, beneficial, and advantageous.


    However, the one issue he couldn’t put aside was rted to eating.


    Since the 11th of July, he hadn’t eaten properly and had slept for most of the time. Even though he was awake for some time and even deliberately performed high-intensity exercises, he still felt no signs of hunger. Furthermore, after resting for a while, he bounced back from the fatigue quickly, and his muscr strength almost fully recovered.


    He was sure that his body was notcking nutrition or energy. This condition was not simply due to psychological reasons.


    Could it really be that tiny bit of chicken blood that provided so much energy?


    Or had his stomach undergone drastic changes that allowed him to get enough energy from such a small amount of chicken blood to sustain his energy consumption for so many days?


    At six o’clock in the evening, Xiang Kun left home and headed to the roadside eatery where he had been “Dispelling Worries” with a drink on the 11th of July.


    He found that if he went out after sunset, he seemed more spirited, more animated, as if he was mysteriously driven by the moon above.


    At the eatery, Xiang Kun ordered the same food and drinks he had that day. He poured himself a drink but didn’t drink it, nor did he eat. He sat there pretending to y with his phone while covertly observing his surroundings.


    He was reminiscing about the circumstances of that day, trying to recall if anything unusual had happened. He was trying to remember if there was anything unusual about the food and drinks he had that day.


    At nearly eight o’clock, Xiang Kun got up and went to pay. He told the owner that he hade in for drinks alonest Thursday night and thought he might have left his phone here. He asked the owner if he could check the surveince camera—he had noticed a security camera above the cashier.


    Since Xiang Kun had just had a meal there, the owner did not say much and asked a waiter to take him to check the surveince CCTV.


    Their surveince videos would be stored for a week. If Xiang Kun came a few dayster, it might have been toote.


    Upon reviewing the surveince video from the evening of July 11th when Xiang Kun was drinking, it showed that he had been drinking alone the whole time. Apart from the waiter who came to serve dishes and drinks, no one else approached him.


    Around 8:30 p.m., he got up to pay the bill, then called a ride. Two minutester, the car arrived, and he got in.


    Nothing unusual had urred.


    After viewing the surveince video, Xiang Kun didn’t call for a ride but ran directly back home instead.


    The eatery was actually quite close to his home. It would take just over five minutes by car, and walking would not take much longer. But he deliberately took a long detour and ran a few extra kilometers.


    Under the moonlight, Xiang Kun felt as if he became lighter the more he ran, and his endurance seemed unending. In the end, he sped up, sprinting at what could only be described as full speed, attracting surprised looks from passers-by.


    Of course, his stamina was not infinite. Running at that speed for just under two minutes made him somewhat breathless, so he had to stop.


    Aftering back home and taking a shower, and also drinking a bottle of mineral water, Xiang Kun sat in front of hisputer and recorded his “investigation results” in a document titled “X Reason Investigation 1: Roadside Eatery”. He then transferred the surveince video from the eatery into the same folder.


    That night, Xiang Kun still couldn’t sleep, so he used his time to write a web crawling script. The script automatically grabbed information from search engine results and a few targeted social media tforms that matched the description of his “symptoms”, excluding obvious descriptions rted to movies, TV shows, and other literary works. Although the information was grabbed slowly, it was certainly much more efficient than him searching for it manually.


    And then, every half hour, he would get up to exercise for half an hour. He performed push-ups, squats, crunches, glute bridges, nks, and other bodyweight exercises that wouldn’t make much noise in his room.


    He also intentionally increased the difficulty for himself, like various types of pushups, weighted squats, horse stances, and foundational yoga poses he found online. He even tried to do Russian pushups—but failed, proving that the improvement in his physical strength and coordination still had its limits.


    He wanted to see what his body could handle in terms of energy expenditure, and when he would start to feel hungry again. He still found it hard to believe that just a small amount of chicken blood he had drunk the previous day could support such a long period of intense exercise.


    But oddly enough, no matter how tired he felt after each set of exercises, he would feel almostpletely recovered within twenty minutes and feel neither hunger nor fatigue. It was as if he could “recharge” just by resting for a while.


    This cyclested until the next morning when Xiang Kun finally felt a slight fatigue. But he vaguely felt that it was not because of his non-stop exercising, but it was rted to the dawn.