Chương 15: Body Refinement

Once his mouth recovered enough to speak, Lin Che sat on the sofa beside his wife.

"I've already gone through all of the movements," he said. Shen Yue muted the television but kept her eyes fixed on the subtitles as he spoke.

"The Hollow Bell Technique is like that," she said.

"Very simple to learn, but takes a very long time to go anywhere meaningful with it."

"So I'm stuck at the beginning for a while."

"You're not stuck. The early stages work on you whether you notice them or not."

"Have I noticed them?"

"You've already gone through your first qualitative change," she said.

"You just haven't looked for it." She paused the show, realising just how many questions she'd have to answer.

"When did you last do something physically demanding?" Lin Che thought about this.

"Define demanding."

"Anything. Carrying something heavy, or going on a run, you know, something that would have tired you a month ago." He thought back to his daily activities of sitting down on a train to go to work, then sitting down at work, then sitting down on a train back to work, and more sitting down at the pharmacy too.

"I don't think I've done anything like that recently. Yeah... it's been so long I can't remember." She picked up her phone.

"Book a private gym after work tomorrow. There's one about an hour from here which takes single person bookings." His phone buzzed and she placed hers back on the coffee table.

The gym was a place called Unit 4, which was exactly what it sounded like: a single room in the basement of a converted industrial building forty minutes by train from the office. The booking page advertised it as a private strength facility with a maximum of two persons per session, with no instructors or anything. In essence, it was a room with a mirror, some weights and machines, and some bars to hang off of. He got changed and stood in the middle of the room. His phone buzzed. i sent you a list of workouts.

start with the deadhang without liuhe and time it He went to the pull-up bar and jumped to reach it, the gym clearly catering more for the taller gym bro archetype. He hung off it as he set a stopwatch on his phone, and simply waited. Lin Che had done deadhangs before, albeit infrequently, and recalled them being vastly unpleasant after about thirty seconds, mostly in his forearms, but eventually his hand muscles would also tighten up. He lasted just under two minutes before his hands gave out.

He texted the number back. that's actually not bad for baseline, she replied. now do it again with full circulation He massaged his forearms as he circulated the Liuhe Breathing Method and waited for a minute to fully recover before going grabbing the bar again. The difference was immediate. It didn't necessarily feel like a surge of strength, but more that his Qi bar started to deplete before he had to tap into his own physical stamina bar.

The hang that had felt effortful before now felt effortless, at least until his Qi depleted. After that, he lasted an extra 90 seconds before tapping out. 4: 30 he texted. Shen Yue reacted with 👍 to your message. The next item on the list was the barbell, for which she had set a sequence of weights beside each movement and targets for him to achieve. He loaded the bar and pulled. The weight moved with ease, so he added more.

Still clean, so he worked up the rack in increments, texting each weight back, and receiving a thumbs up in response for each one. He felt that his actual limit was much higher than before, and that was without circulating the breathing method. can you stop sending numbers and just tell me when it gets hard The rest of the protocol was a series of weighted movements: farmers carries from one end of the room to the other, and a static wall sit which genuinely felt just fine.

There were also a series of movements which involved the cable machine, though he wasn't sure if he was completing them properly given the lack of fatigue in the muscles he was meant to target. He looked at himself in the mirror, but he looked the same as he did earlier. He definitely had more strength, but his frame did not suggest it at all. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. He picked up his bag and left the gym.

As soon as he stepped out, he felt a warm sensation across his entire body, but chalked it up to having worked up a sweat. The cool late-afternoon breeze felt nice on his skin. The station was a ten minute walk from Unit 4 through a neighbourhood that consisted mostly of warehouses. Lin Che walked with his jacket unzipped, bag over one shoulder, and kept his eyes peeled for anywhere he could purchase a drink from.

There was a small convenience store just across the street, so he pushed the door open and walked directly towards the drinks section. As he walked past the shopkeeper, a man in his fifties, the man immediately shouted at him.

"You need to leave," he said. Lin Che looked at him.

"I'm just buying a drink."

"You need to leave. There's a smell coming off you, and you're going to put off all the other customers. I can't have you in here." Lin Che opened his mouth.

"I'm not arguing about it," said the man.

"There's a vending machine behind the shop." Lin Che left. He stood on the pavement outside the shop and pulled his jacket up to his nose and gave it a sniff. He was actively aware of himself — he'd been sweating at the gym, but the smell couldn't have travelled that far from sweat alone. Still, he couldn't smell himself properly as his nose had probably gone blind, but he was certain the shopkeeper had no ill intention nor a sensitive nose. He texted Shen Yue. slight problem The reply came immediately. the smell?

how did you know it was faint when you left this morning. i assumed you'd notice eventually stay where you are Shen Yue arrived half an hour later in a small rented car, which she pulled to the kerb and unlocked the doors for. Lin Che opened the passenger door beside her.

"Get in the back," she said. He closed the door and did as she asked. He noticed she had applied a faint white smear to her upper lip which shined slightly in the light from the dashboard. Menthol, from the smell of it.

"It's not that bad," he said.

"It's notable," she replied, and pulled out into the road. They drove back largely in silence, and all of the windows were down. At one point, stopped at a light, she reached forwards and turned the ventilation to its highest setting.

"The smell is the impurities," she said, facing the road.

"You have made significant progress in both techniques, but impurities are pulled out through the skin during exertion. It will be worse before it's better — first major purge is always the worst." He looked out of his window at the passing street.

"How long does it last?"

"It'll be finished by morning, but you'll get out most of the smell with a shower. Just shower again once you wake up." She pulled up outside of their building and they went inside.

"Straight in," she said.

"Don't touch anything and go straight into the shower. I'll have your clothes by the door." He turned the shower on hot and got in, and what happened next made him want to gag. The water was carrying something once it hit his skin, and he could see it gathering at the drain of the shower floor. It was some sort of greenish-black residue, which was faint at first, but eventually built up to a denser and darker goo that was held in suspension on the water.

It came off his skin, seeping through pores, and his body felt warm. It was sort of like having a nosebleed, in that it was a painless but warm sensation, just scaled up to his entire body. The process took the better part of twenty minutes before the water ran clear and the residue at the drain thinned and stopped. He turned the shower off and stood for a moment in the steam. Lin Che felt substantially lighter than before, as though some low-level resistance he'd previously grown accustomed to had been removed.

He dried himself off and looked at himself in the mirror. The body in the mirror was still recognisably his, but the definition of it had changed compared to just hours prior. He wasn't suddenly built, but muscle was clearly defined for once, and he looked like someone who casually went to the gym for their health. He opened the door slightly and brought in the clothes Shen Yue laid out for him through the small gap.

He put on the shorts, and, given that it was his own home and he felt he could go without a shirt as his body still felt rather hot.

He stood in front of the mirror of his wardrobe and, because he was alone in his room and no one was watching, began to flex his muscles. He tried different angles, facing the mirror directly, side-on, so on and so forth. He was simply appreciating the transformation. The door opened. Shen Yue stopped in the doorway. She took in the scene — Lin Che, shirtless, mid-pose, and her face transitioned through all five stages of grief in one swift motion, before she turned her back to him. Her ears were slightly flushed.

"Wait—" said Lin Che.

"It's fine," she said to the wall.

"It's not what it looks like."

"I said it's fine."

"What did you come to say?" asked Lin Che, starting his question with an awkward cough. She straightened back up.

"My uncle's heard about you working in the pharmacy. He wants to meet you, and said he'll be coming here on Wednesday evening." Lin Che lowered his arm.

"In two days?"

"I'd suggest putting a shirt on before then." She pulled the door closed behind her. Lin Che stood shocked in front of his wardrobe for a moment. Then he went to find a shirt.