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

Lin Bei opened his eyes and turned to the next page.

In the second game, "Ma Die E Shi" (马蹀阏氏), Red faces a checkmate and must sacrifice both rooks to checkmate Black's palace with a knight and cannon.

In the third game, the move was called "The Ram Butts the Fence." The red side pressed forward relentlessly, while the black side, like a ram hitting a fence, was caught in a dilemma. Lin Bei stared at the chessboard, paused for a moment, and inexplicably felt that the black side looked familiar... uh... just like himself in his previous life, when he was being thoroughly humiliated by the opponent.

He watched and saved each game one by one. Each game had its own emphasis on different attacking strategies, but he could sense that these ancient game records contained the wisdom honed by countless players over hundreds of years.

This memory palace is truly amazing. It doesn't help him "become smarter," it helps him "not forget." What he sees, once stored, will never be lost. It's like having a hard drive in his brain, with incredibly fast read and write speeds and unlimited capacity. As for the processor... that's a matter of intelligence.

His current IQ score is 72, which isn't particularly high, but it's sufficient.

[Host detected systematically learning chess. The first 20 games of "Suitable Pleasures" have been stored. At this rate, at least the first 100 games will be stored before going to the Shen family this weekend. At that time, even if Grandpa Shen makes a random move, the host might be able to recall a similar checkmate from the memory palace... Although it may not be useful, at least the loss won't be too humiliating.]

Lin Bei ignored the system and continued flipping through the book.

For dinner, Wang Xiulan made braised pork ribs, stir-fried seasonal vegetables, and tomato and egg soup.

Lin Bei sat at the dining table, picked up his bowl, and took a bite of rice.

"mom."

"Um."

"I reserved an apartment in Liudi Lane today. It's 116 square meters, the asking price was 48 yuan, but I estimate I can negotiate it down to 45 yuan." He picked up a piece of pork rib, chewed it a couple of times, and said, "The apartment will be registered in your name."

Wang Xiulan's chopsticks paused for a moment, hovering in mid-air.

"Write about me?"

"Yes. Dad and I both have them, now it's your turn."

Wang Xiulan looked at him for several seconds, her eyes slightly reddening, but she quickly blinked a few times to suppress the tears. Then she lowered her head, reached for the dish with her chopsticks, picked up a piece of pork rib, and put it into Lin Bei's bowl.

"Eat more." Her voice was a little hoarse, but the corners of her mouth were curved.

Lin Bei looked down at the piece of pork rib in the bowl.

Braised, glossy red, with a perfect balance of lean and fat.

"Mom, you're putting meat on my plate again. I'm on a diet."

"What are you trying to lose weight for? You need to eat more meat to have the energy to lose weight." Wang Xiulan said, putting another piece into his bowl. The way she did it was more like she was building a wall than picking up food. "Look at you, you run every day, and your face is getting smaller. If you keep losing weight, you'll fall over in the wind."

Lin Bei looked down at his belly, which still provided shelter from the wind and rain.

"Mom, that wind has to be from a typhoon. No, a regular typhoon won't do; it has to be the kind with a red alert."

Wang Xiulan rolled her eyes at him, her chopsticks pausing in mid-air as if she were hesitating whether to pick up another piece, before finally putting them down: "Then you should eat a couple more pieces, build up your weight, so the typhoon doesn't blow you away."

Lin Bei sighed silently to himself, "What a stumbling block on the road to weight loss!"

After finishing his meal, he helped his mother clear the table, then returned to his bedroom to continue studying the chess game.

I watched another twenty games of "Suitable for Elegant Pursuits" and stored them in my memory. Then I opened "Basic Chess Checkmate Techniques".

Unlike ancient game manuals that tell stories game by game, this book categorizes killing techniques. There's a category called "White-faced General," another called "Hidden Horse," and yet another called "Eight-horned Horse," and so on.

Lin Bei suddenly felt that the chess game record in his mind became clearer.

He began organizing in his memory palace, relabeling those twenty-odd games... this one was categorized as "Horse Crouching in the Grove," that one as "Two Rooks Threatening the Advisor," and several others as "Two Ghosts Knocking on the Door"...

After organizing it, when I brought it up again, my mind was no longer filled with a jumbled mess, but rather a neatly organized folder.

Lin Bei leaned back in his chair, a slight smile curving his lips.

So that's what "learning by analogy" means. No wonder top students can solve problems so quickly... their minds are like categorized folders, while his used to be like a recycle bin.

He suddenly had a thought: With this thing, when playing chess with Grandpa Shen in the future, wouldn't the outcome depend entirely on his mood?

To win, you might pull out a "White Horse with Hooves" or an "Eight-Horned Horse" to seal the victory. To lose...

Lin Bei tapped his fingers on the chess notation.

The key is to make the old man happy and feel that he played well.

[The host is being detected contemplating how to "lose gracefully." This is harder than winning. If you win, your opponent is unhappy; if you lose, they think you're not good enough. A true master of Go is someone who can make their opponent feel, "I'm in great form today." What the host needs to learn is not just game records, but also "the art of losing."]

[The system reminds the host that playing chess is like life: sometimes you win the battle but lose people's hearts; sometimes you lose the game but win people's hearts. Figure it out yourself.]

Lin Bei's lips twitched, but he had to admit that the system was right this time.

He stored the system's message in his memory palace. The tag was "A golden quote; the system rarely speaks so sensibly."

At 9:30 p.m., he did a set of 40 push-ups, divided into four sets. He rested for 30 seconds after each set. His arms were shaking badly during the last two of the fourth set, but he gritted his teeth and finished. He lay on the ground panting for a while before getting up to take a shower.

Standing in front of the mirror, he glanced at himself.

Her round belly had shrunk a bit, like a balloon deflating. Although it was still far from "flat," she could already see her toes when she looked down. The pimples on her face had decreased, and the oiliness had lessened.

He raised his arm and glanced at his biceps. It wasn't very noticeable, but he could feel it had hardened. Not the bulging kind of hardness, but the firmness that was no longer limp.

[Host's weight is 94.8kg, body type is 15, and appearance is 6. He's gone from a "round fat guy" to an "oval fat guy." While still quite a distance from "humanoid," at least he's stopped rolling around.]

Lin Bei brought up the system attribute panel and glanced at the numbers. His weight had dropped again, and his body type and appearance had both increased.

He smiled slightly, turned off the control panel, dried himself off, and put on his pajamas.

Lin Bei lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.

The light in apartment 502 across the street was still on, and light seeped in through the gap in the curtains, casting a thin beam of light on the windowsill.

He rolled over and pulled the blanket up to his chin.

The scene from dinner automatically flashed through my mind. My mother's hand, holding a rib, froze in mid-air, her eyes red but she held back her tears, and her words, "Write about me?"... Her tone was full of surprise!

She blinked the dampness back, but Lin Bei saw it.

In his previous life, he had never bought anything for his mother. For the first few months after starting work, his entire salary went to rent and online loans. It took him three months to save a little over 1800 yuan to buy himself a new phone. His mother said, "Your old phone still works," but he didn't even look up: "This one runs faster." His mother didn't say anything more and turned to go to the kitchen to cook.

She left, but he kept that old phone, placing it at the very back of his drawer. It wasn't that he couldn't bear to throw it away; it was that every time he thought about throwing it away, he would remember her words, "Your old phone still works."

Lin Bei pulled the blanket over his head.

After a while, I lifted it again.

The light in apartment 502 across the street is already off.

Lin Bei stretched his hand out from under the covers, spread his fingers in the darkness, and then slowly clenched them.

There's still time in this lifetime.