The silver craft sliced silently through the pre-dawn darkness, soaring towards Giant Tower City, which lay like a steel behemoth sprawling on the horizon. Xiang Lie sat by the porthole, watching the wilderness blur past, his heart a tempest of mixed emotions.
Behind him lay 'The Ark,' the vast underground base, that dreamlike sea of flowers, and the faces of countless silver-haired girls—some cool, some lively, some shy. Involuntarily, his mind replayed the scene just before he left. When the unexpected "tea party" in his room concluded, he had retrieved his "return gifts" from his gym bag: meticulously vacuum-sealed, uniformly sized… chunks of meat.
He'd acquired these in the dead of night, using the sharp shortblade Mo had given him, carefully carving them from his majestic trapezius, his powerful biceps, and his solid quadriceps. At the time, every girl's expression, upon seeing the still-warm "gifts," had been utterly priceless. Shock, disbelief, heartache, emotion… all eventually melted into reddened eyes and a profound, silent understanding.
"I hope… you'll like them," Xiang Lie thought to himself, gazing out the window. Though the act of cutting his own flesh felt strange, even a little perverse, it was the most precious and practical gift he could conceive of for them.
The craft touched down at a hidden location outside Giant Tower City. Mister Yi personally saw him off at the exit, smiling. "Well, Classmate Xiang Lie, we'll meet again."
"Yes, we'll meet again." Xiang Lie nodded, then turned and walked into the familiar, secret passage leading into the city.
When he finally returned to his small dorm room, permeated with the scent of sweat and rust, a feeling of having crossed a vast chasm of time washed over him. Everything in the room was exactly as he had left it. Arnold Schwarzenegger posters adorned the wall, empty protein powder tubs lay scattered on the floor, and an open textbook, Muscle Bodybuilding, rested on his bedside table. It was as if his days in 'The Ark' had been nothing more than a bizarre yet vivid dream.
He walked to his desk, where a message device blinked incessantly with a red light. It displayed 99+ unread messages. He knew, without a doubt, they were all from the same person—Gao Fei. Xiang Lie could almost visualize the boisterous muscleman, discovering his unexplained disappearance, furiously blasting his comms while pounding his desk and cursing.
He took a deep breath, as if making a momentous decision, then reached out and pressed the call button, dialing Gao Fei directly. The call connected almost instantly.
Then, Gao Fei's storm-like roar erupted from the receiver, nearly blowing out Xiang Lie's eardrum! "Xiang Lie! You finally decide to show your face! Where the hell have you been?! I sent you over a hundred messages and you didn't reply to a single one! Do you even know the professional assessment is in two days? I thought you'd gone mad training your traps and ascended directly into the heavens!"
"If you hadn't picked up, I swear to God I was going to call the Public Security Bureau and report you missing!" A barrage of questions, devoid of expletives, yet filled with the purest, most unadulterated concern and anxiety that only brothers in the gym could share.
"My apologies, Gao Fei." A warmth spread through Xiang Lie as he listened to the familiar voice. "There was an unexpected incident. I made you worry."
"An incident? What kind of incident could you possibly get into?" On the other end of the line, Gao Fei's tone softened considerably, though a hint of suspicion lingered. "Were you secretly attempting some anti-human weightlifting record behind my back again?"
"Something like that," Xiang Lie replied with a wry smile.
A few seconds of silence passed on the phone. Gao Fei's voice softened noticeably. "Alright, stop pulling my leg. You're in the dorm, right? Wait there, I'm coming over."
"Okay."
Hanging up, Xiang Lie changed into the custom training shirt Mo had given him. The wide collar gave his 'Throne' an unprecedented sense of respect and liberation, immensely comfortable.
Soon after, the dorm door was violently twisted open with a key. Gao Fei burst in, a whirlwind of motion. He looked Xiang Lie up and down, confirming all his limbs were present, then let out a long, relieved sigh.
"You, you're something else." He flopped onto Xiang Lie's bed, pulled a protein bar from his pocket, tore open the wrapper, and took a huge bite, mumbling indistinctly, "You scared the living hell out of me." He chewed a few times, then couldn't help but complain. "You being gone these past few days, I had no one to spot me on back day. Almost got crushed by the barbell. Seriously, what were you doing? Eloping with a girlfriend?"
"No, just… went to a very far place for some spiritual training," Xiang Lie explained, half-truthfully.
"Oh, cut the crap," Gao Fei rolled his eyes, clearly not believing a word of it.
He finished the protein bar, accurately tossing the wrapper into the trash can, then leaned back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, suddenly falling silent. The atmosphere in the dorm, which had been noisy with reunion, grew somewhat solemn.
"Hey, Brother Lie," Gao Fei finally said after a long while, his voice tinged with a rare hint of uncertainty. "What do you think… what rank will we get in this assessment?"
"I've been training my ass off these past few days. My bench press just hit 150, squat 180, deadlift just over 200. These numbers are decent for our academy, but across the entire Giant Tower City, they probably won't even make a ripple."
"My dad pulled some strings to ask around. He said someone like me, if lucky, might get a C-rank evaluation, assigned to some regional patrol team, patrolling the streets every day, exposed to wind and sun. If unlucky, it's a D-rank, guarding city gates, or being a security captain in a factory in the lower districts." He sighed, his eyes filled with the ordinary man's uncertainty about the future. "What kind of life is that, huh? We've trained so hard for so many years, and in the end, the best outcome might just be a high-level security guard."
He turned to look at Xiang Lie, speaking in a cautionary tone. "Seriously, buddy, stop thinking about your 'Throne Philosophy' all day, and that idea of becoming a fitness coach. My dad told me that this year's assessment has quite a few spots in the mechanical engineering department. How about… I ask my dad to pull some strings for you too, see if he can get you a warehouse manager job? The work's not hard, it's stable, better than nothing, right?"
Xiang Lie listened quietly, saying nothing. He knew this was the best arrangement Gao Fei could think of for him. In the world of ordinary people, stability was the greatest happiness. But he had already seen another sky.
"Fitness coach sounds pretty good," Xiang Lie replied earnestly.
"Good, my ass!" Gao Fei exploded, sitting up abruptly and pointing at Xiang Lie's muscles, ranting. "Look at yourself in the mirror! You, a coach? What student would dare let you teach them? You stand there, and people will think you're here to collect protection money! Your arms are thicker than their legs, and your trapezius… holy crap!"
Mid-sentence, Gao Fei's voice abruptly cut off. As if he had discovered a new continent, he lurched forward to Xiang Lie, eyes wide, staring intensely at Xiang Lie's neck and shoulders. He reached out a hand, incredulously pinching Xiang Lie's two 'Thrones,' then went around behind him, examining them meticulously for a long time.
"No… something's wrong…" he muttered, his expression shifting from confusion, to shock, and finally to outright horror, as if he'd seen a ghost.
Xiang Lie felt his skin crawl under Gao Fei's scrutiny. "What is it? Did I grow flowers?"
"Xiang Lie…" Gao Fei's voice trembled. He pointed at Xiang Lie's neck, staring at him as if he were a prehistoric creature, stuttering: "How come I feel like… your Ah Zuo and Ah You… don't seem as big as before?"