Reborn as a high school freshman with an awakened system, a fat boy transforms into a male god.

Lin Bei turned on his computer and glanced at the novel's backend. The number of favorites had increased by several hundred, and there were a few more comments. He didn't linger long; he closed the page, opened a document, and began writing today's two chapters.

At 10:30 p.m., Lin Bei finished writing two chapters of his novel, closed his laptop, and did four sets of push-ups and three sets of crunches. His abdominal soreness was still there, but it was much better than yesterday; at least the crunches didn't hurt so much he wanted to curse.

He lay on the floor catching his breath for a while before getting up to take a shower. After drying himself off, he returned to the bedroom and collapsed onto the mattress.

The mattress made a muffled thud, much gentler than it had been two months ago. Of course, it wasn't that the bed had become softer; it was that Lin Bei had become lighter.

He reached for his phone on the bedside table; the screen lit up, showing the time as 10:47.

Three unread messages.

Zhou Ziheng sent two screenshots, which were data from his novel's backend. The number of favorites had increased by over two hundred, and there were several more comments urging for updates. One of them was from "Old Zhou Who Loves Reading," and it only contained two words: "Update."

Following closely behind was Zhou Ziheng's own message: "Brother Bei, look! My dad's urging me to update! He used to only urge you, now he's urging me!"

Lin Bei's lips curved slightly, but he didn't reply immediately and scrolled down again.

Wang Jun's message, sent half an hour ago, consisted of only one sentence: "Brother Bei, I jumped rope 120 times today! I've improved!"

A minute later, she added another comment: "Although my calves were so sore after I finished that I almost knelt on the ground, and it took me five minutes to straighten up, I didn't kneel. I can still jump tomorrow."

Lin Bei smiled and replied, "I'll add twenty more tomorrow. Keep it up, I'm talking about jump rope."

Then he exited the dialog box and opened the third message.

Next to Su Wantang's profile picture was no text, only an image. He clicked on it, and it was a handwritten breakfast menu. The handwriting was neat and tidy, listing three lines: Monday: multigrain porridge + poached egg + lemon water; Tuesday: pumpkin and millet porridge + boiled egg + cold black fungus salad; Wednesday: oat milk + fried egg + fruit platter; Thursday: sweet potato porridge + boiled egg + cold cucumber salad; Friday: brown rice porridge + fried egg + chopped walnuts; Saturday: millet and pumpkin porridge + fried egg + stir-fried seasonal vegetables; Sunday: yam porridge + boiled egg + cold seaweed salad.

At the bottom of the menu, a line of small print in light gray pen reads: "Tentatively for one week. If you have any food you don't want to eat here, please let me know in advance."

Lin Bei stared at the small print for several seconds, then long-pressed the image, saved it to his phone's album, and made a copy to save to his memory palace. After saving, he looked at it again before turning his phone over and placing it face down on the bedside table.

He rolled over and pulled the blanket up to his chin. The soreness in his abdomen was still there, but much less than in the morning. It felt like the slight warmth deep within his muscles after a crunch, as if reminding him: You've trained today, I haven't forgotten, let's do it again tomorrow.

He closed his eyes, and the surroundings became quiet, with only the occasional rustling sound of the wind blowing through the bare branches outside the window.

He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

On Thursday morning, Lin Bei finished his run and had breakfast at room 502. Su Wantang had prepared it today, as Su Yuan had left very early.

When Zhou Ziheng arrived at school, he was slumped over his seat with an English textbook open in front of him, flipped to the middle. But under the textbook was his phone, the screen lit up, displaying the comments section of his novel.

"What are you looking at?" Lin Bei put down his schoolbag.

Zhou Ziheng suddenly looked up, the movement so abrupt it was as if he'd been electrocuted: "Brother Bei! You've come at the perfect time! Look at this, I received a long review last night!"

He handed over his phone. Lin Bei took it and glanced at it. It was a long review written by a reader, about three hundred words long, analyzing everything from character development to plot pacing. The last sentence was: "Keep it up, author."

After Lin Bei finished reading, she handed the phone back to him: "It's fine."

"Right! I think so too!" Zhou Ziheng put his phone back in his pocket. "Besides, this reader said that at first they thought my writing was awkward, but it got smoother and smoother later on. Brother Bei, do you understand that feeling?"

"I understand. It's the same with anything you do; the beginning is the hardest, but once you get past that hurdle, it's fine."

"Yes, yes, yes! That's exactly what I mean!" Zhou Ziheng nodded vigorously, turned around, and a smile still lingered on his lips. He opened his English textbook, his gaze fixed on the pages, but Lin Bei could see his shoulders twitch slightly, as if he were savoring something. Several seconds later, he finally began to actually memorize the vocabulary, his lips moving much faster than usual.

Lin Bei sat down behind him, looking at the thin figure, and suddenly remembered how badly he was criticized when he first started writing novels. Looking back at those comments now, Zhou Ziheng had finally survived.

As he was thinking, he heard hurried footsteps coming from the other end of the corridor, one after another, like someone sprinting. Then the back door of the classroom was suddenly pushed open, and a bright orange sleeve was flung in first.

Wang Jun slammed on the brakes and stopped in the aisle, almost crashing into the corner of the table in front of him. He regained his balance, quickly pulled the backpack strap that had slipped to his elbow back onto his shoulder, and then came to a steady stop next to Lin Bei's seat.

"Brother Bei!" he exclaimed, pulling a food storage container from his backpack. Inside were neatly arranged pieces of apple and pear.

He opened the lid and pushed it towards me: "Brother Bei, have some fruit. Get some vitamins. You can't build abs just by relying on protein. That's what my dad said."

Lin Bei smiled, picked up a piece of apple, put it in his mouth, chewed it, swallowed it, and threw the core into the trash bag on the corner of the table.

Seeing that he had eaten, Wang Jun contentedly put the lid back on and returned to his seat.

The first lesson was Chinese.

Chen Deming walked into the classroom as the school bell rang. His reading glasses perched on his nose, and the corners of the stack of corrected composition books in his hand were already curled. He stood on the podium, adjusted his glasses, and slowly scanned the room with his gaze.

"The argumentative essays from last week were generally better than the previous ones. But there's one issue I'd like to address separately."

The classroom fell silent.

"Some students like to use phrases like 'The wind howls, the Yi River is cold' when writing essays. Using it well can earn you points, but using it poorly is just adding unnecessary details."

As he said this, his gaze landed precisely in Zhou Ziheng's direction.

Zhou Ziheng's back was noticeably straightened.

Chen Deming didn't name names, but continued, "Also, you must be careful when using the title 'Brother Jing Ke' in your essays. Jing Ke is a historical figure, not your neighbor's older brother."

Zhou Ziheng: "..."

The classroom was silent for about two seconds. Then, someone burst out with a "pfft," and the laughter spread out in concentric circles from the center of the classroom like a drop of ink falling into water.

Some people were leaning on their desks, shaking their shoulders, while others were covering half their faces with their textbooks but couldn't hide their smiles. Zhang Mingyuan in the back row was laughing so hard his chair was shaking, and Wang Jun was even more exaggerated, leaning back so much he almost tipped over with his chair.