Chapter 3: 03 – Too fat for Qi?

After meeting with the nurse, Li Yun returned to his homeroom and immediately copied the Liezi. All the teachers were used to his unusual calligraphy obsession, and had given up on asking him to pay attention in class.

In the middle of class, Li Yun dabbled his brush into the ink jar and stroked the last few characters of the Liezi. His parents didn't want to buy him a brush or ink jar because they had already sensed it becoming a distraction. He had to beg Elder Pei to give him an extra set to bring to school.

"Your mom is going to kill me," Elder Pei grumbled.

"Master Pei is the best!" Li Yun used his puppy eyes to thank Elder Pei.

Elder Pei shook his head, already seeing the brat future as a manipulator. In return for the items, Li Yun had to stop calling him Old Pei and had to, at a minimum, have a passing grade.

After six months of continuously copying the Liezi, the characters were ingrained in his heart. He could repeat it backwards if he wanted to. The only thing he needed to focus on was inscribing the characters correctly to the system's liking. With the last stroke drying off, Li Yun lifted the corners of his mouth.

The reward, +5 Qi.

"Qi?" Li Yun thought. "It doesn't seem useless, but why can't I feel anything?"

An alert appeared in his head that since his body was immature and weak, it couldn't grant him the gift. It advised him to get into better shape before his body could receive Qi.

"Haha!!" Fatty Fang and Bufu both laughed when he mentioned this to them after class.

"The system is calling you fat!" Fatty Fang continued to laugh without a bit of self-awareness.

"Well, this system is right, you're like the second fattest in class," said Bufu.

Looking down at his round belly, Li Yun realized that he was only slightly smaller than Fatty Fang, and getting in shape was not a bad thing. It wasn't like he ate a lot, but his mother's side of the family had naturally bigger bones.

"It's telling you that you're too fat to get qi," Bufu continued laughing.

"Nah, I don't think that's it," Li Yun replied.

Li Yun was pretty sure that the system didn't care, and it had more to do with his body still in the growing stage. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that Taoism doesn't discriminate against body type. Just look at all the old masters like Liezi, Laozi, and Zhuangzi. They were all depicted as elderly seniors about to enter the grave, wizened and ancient.

Another example was Jidao, one of the Eight Immortals, who was known for carrying a fan and resurrecting the dead. To Li Yun, he looked more like a large belly bum sitting on the streets after a night of drinking.

"The first rule of being the main character, you must look the part!" Fatty Fang suddenly declared. "We must get into shape."

"We?" Li Yun wondered why Fatty Fang also wanted to get into shape.

"It's probably to get girls," Bufu remarked.

Bufu was already skinny and a bit of a pretty boy, so he didn't care, but Fatty Fang was always picking on girls.

"What's the best way to get into shape?" asked Li Yun.

"Martial arts!" Fatty Fang replied. "Everyone in martial arts is skinny… except Summo Hong."

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Li Yun raised his eyebrow curiously at Fatty Fang, who could barely kick a ball while imitating the folk hero Wang Pei Hung.

"Let's focus on getting into shape first," said Li Yun half-hardheartedly, as he wasn't too motivated. Li Yun took out two wooden talismans and gave them to his friends.

Bufu looked curiously at the wooden talisman charm. The flat rectangular plate, slightly larger than a regular pendant, had a small opening held up by a brown string. The center was inscribed with a strange character that mixed together with the word "luck" and "happiness" like overlapping film negatives.

"What the heck is this?" asked Bufu.

"A big disappointment," Li Yun replied. "It gives the wearer +1 luck."

"No way, that's kinda of cool!" Said Fatty Fang hanging the charm over his neck. "Will I win the sports lottery with this!?"

"I doubt it, my parents didn't win anything," said Li Yun. "My mom even said she lost more in mahjong, although I told her it's probably her poor skill."

"Give me 10 and let me try," said Bufu.

"It doesn't stack up either, that's why it's a big disappointment."

"It still looks cool," said Fatty Fang. He noticed the one Li Yun wore had the shape of a trigram. "Why is yours different?"

"This one is +1 luck and +1 qi," said Li Yun. "After making so many charms, only this one had an extra bonus, so I reshaped it into a trigram to see if it added anything else, but it didn't."

Li Yun had tried the Luck Blessing inscription on many materials found around the house, but wood lumber boards were the best as it was easily obtained from his father and soft enough to etch into. Paper wasn't durable and a slight drop of water would ruin the stat effect. He had to rummage through the storage room to find some of his dad's old tools.

"Are you using tools from your father again?" Asked grandpa Lu Yan.

Li Yun nodded. "Papa doesn't use them anymore," was his excuse.

His father used to make furniture before working in the factory. The factory made furniture, but it was mainly the mass production type furniture.

Lu Yan shook his head. "You shouldn't be using an awl and regular chisel to carve wood."

For Li Yun's birthday, grandpa Lu Yan got him a wood carving set.

After carving numerous planks for a few weeks, Li Yun was excited to create his first artifact with +1 luck. Unfortunately, the excitement died after realizing that it had very little effect on anything. It was as useless as the other gifts he had received. The worst part was that the bonus mission award was also +1 luck.

"Well, don't feel so down, maybe the next mission will give you better stuff," said Bufu.

Li Yun nodded, he was optimistic about the next mission.

Just as they were walking, they heard the middle schoolers picking on a boy. The three friends eyed each other, nodded, and then ran the other way.

The unfortunate thing about having the elementary school, middle school, and high school so close together was that the older kids tended to pick on the little kids. Bufu looked like an easy target, but he was often with Li Yun and Fatty Fang, so the older kids rarely picked on him. Most bullies avoided Li Yun and Fatty Fang just because of their sheer size, but it didn't mean Li Yun and Fatty weren't afraid. They were the sorts who ran away from the first sign of danger.

As old man Sun Tzu used to say, retreat was the best strategy.

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