CHAPTER 40: CHAPTER 40: EVEN THE PRODUCTION TEAM’S DONKEYS AREN’T AS DRIVEN AS YOU

The school forum debate was something Zhang Beixing was still unaware of, as he kept running relentlessly.

Time also silently slipped away during his run.

In the blink of an eye, it was already half-past four in the afternoon.

The sun was slowly setting in the west.

The temperature started to feel refreshing too.

Zhang Beixing slowed down his pace.

He glanced at the System.

And found that after an afternoon of training, the progress of the "Weighted Running" task had only reached six kilometers!

If it had been any other day, Zhang Beixing would have berated himself for being lazy. Running only six kilometers in an afternoon was slower than a tortoise.

But now, no matter how he looked at it, Zhang Beixing felt freaking awesome!

Because those six kilometers were run with a fifty-pound weight on his back!

Fifty pounds—can you even imagine?

It’s a whopping twenty-five kilograms!

Like having half a 100-pound girl sitting on you!

An ordinary person carrying such a weight could run three kilometers, and that would already be pretty badass!

Zhang Beixing did double that.

That was definitely badass!

Of course, such high-intensity exercise had caused great damage and taken a huge toll on his body.

Right now, Zhang Beixing felt like he had hit rock bottom: exhausted, with pulled muscles in his legs.

If it weren’t for his quick reflexes, allocating the remaining 0.8 Ability Points evenly between Power and Constitution the moment he stopped, he probably wouldn’t be standing right now. Instead, he’d be lying on the ground, waiting for a doctor’s rescue.

This weighted task is downright inhuman! Damn, why is it so freaking hard!

Feeling the tingling aches spread through his body, Zhang Beixing was in no mood to savor it. He stood still, took a few deep breaths to compose himself, and then cursed inwardly.

After busying himself all afternoon, he had not only used up all his Ability Points, but to make matters worse, he hadn’t completed a single one of the System’s recommended tasks. Worse still, while attempting these tasks, Zhang Beixing had nearly wrecked himself.

This made him very pissed off.

"Lao Zhang, are you okay? Do you want a drink to quench your thirst?"

Just as Zhang Beixing was cursing the System’s ancestors in his mind, Lin Siqi came over, handing him a bottle of water.

Hearing her, Zhang Beixing didn’t stand on ceremony. He simply thanked her, then grabbed the water and gulped it down.

Lin Siqi stood by, waiting until Zhang Beixing finished the water. Seeing him drenched in sweat, she handed him a pack of tissues, saying, "About today... thank you."

"Hey, no need to thank me; we’re classmates, after all. Helping each other out is what we should do, right?" As he spoke, Zhang Beixing took the tissues, tore them open, and began to wipe his sweat. Looking at Lin Siqi, he asked, "But about you, Sister Qi, after what happened today, you still set up your stall? Don’t you want to take a break?"

After all, she had been cornered in a classroom by a group of people from outside the school. Encountering something like that, not just a girl, but even a guy would need at least a couple of days to recover.

But Lin Siqi was different; she was hassled in the morning, and by the afternoon, she was out at her stall again.

That level of composure wasn’t something most people could match.

Lin Siqi just shrugged her shoulders and said, "You think I don’t want to take a break? It’s all because of you."

"Because of me?" Zhang Beixing was taken aback, completely puzzled. Seriously? Whether you take a break or not is entirely up to you, isn’t it? What the heck does that have to do with me? "What do you mean by that?" he asked, still baffled.

Then he heard Lin Siqi say, "It’s just as it sounds. I was planning to give myself half a day off to rest. But then I remembered you had no classes this afternoon and would probably be out on the track running again. I got worried, so I came to check on you. And it turns out I guessed right. Lao Zhang, I’m really curious, what are you training so frantically for?"

Lin Siqi had been pondering this for over a week. Zhang Beixing, a self-professed homebody, had suddenly started running, and he’d keep at it all day long. He never complained about soreness or fatigue from such high-intensity training; instead, he just gritted his teeth and pushed through. Lin Siqi already found that incredibly impressive. But to her surprise, today Zhang Beixing had apparently found even that intensity insufficient and had voluntarily added weights. This... she thought.

"You work harder than a rented mule, Lao Zhang," Lin Siqi continued. "Tell me, you’re not actually... lacking, are you?" she asked, her expression peculiar.

She remembered browsing the school forum earlier, where many people were debating whether Zhang Beixing was ’lacking’—in *that* particular way. At first, she hadn’t paid it much mind. But now, seeing his frenzied approach to exercise, Lin Siqi felt increasingly uneasy. The more she thought about it, the more she recalled that evening a few days ago, when Zhang Beixing sat in the stands with that dazed, faraway look. Could it be... he really was trying to compensate for something?

"What are you talking about? Who’s lacking here? I’m a 24K pure gold tough guy, okay! I work out to get stronger!" Zhang Beixing retorted, flushed and agitated, feeling his dignity had been insulted. "If you don’t believe me, come and try me! I’ll show you what a real human dynamo I am!"

As a man, you could say he was skinny, you could say he was shameless, you could even say he was poor.

But you could never say he was lacking!

That was his bottom line!

Seeing Zhang Beixing practically thumping his chest, so worked up he looked ready to drop his pants to prove his point, Lin Siqi’s mouth twitched, and she was left speechless.

Although she had heard that men tended to have an inexplicable obsession with proving themselves in this regard, she hadn’t expected her offhand comment to provoke such a strong reaction.

Noticing that the commotion had drawn the attention of people nearby, Lin Siqi felt a wave of social suffocation.

Therefore, to avoid dying of embarrassment alongside Zhang Beixing, Lin Siqi quickly spoke up to soothe him, "My bad, my bad, I misspoke. You’re not lacking at all; you’re the toughest, okay? You’re the world’s number one tough guy! Anyone else might be lacking, but not you!"

Hearing this, Zhang Beixing just harrumphed. "Hmph. As long as you know." He then continued to wipe his sweat with a tissue.

Seeing his reaction, Lin Siqi had the urge to tease him for being ’such a tsundere,’ but recalling how Zhang Beixing had helped her that morning, she thought better of it. Instead, she pondered for a moment and then asked, "Speaking of which, Lao Zhang, are you free tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? I should be. Why?"

"Nothing big. Just that since you helped me out today, I felt I should return the favor. How about this—tomorrow at noon, at the university cafeteria, I’ll treat you to a meal!"

"Treat me to a meal? That sounds great! In that case, I’ll be sure to pick the most expensive dishes and make you bleed!"

"You wouldn’t dare!"

...

Laughing and chatting, Zhang Beixing and Lin Siqi talked until five o’clock in the afternoon.

Seeing that it was time for the scheduled fight, Zhang Beixing stretched his body. He found that despite feeling weary, he had somewhat recovered.

He bid Lin Siqi goodbye until the next day and headed toward the small woods, the location of the arranged fight.

He planned to test his skills through actual combat with a professional to see whose Martial Arts were superior—his own or Karate.