The Daily Life of a Hardcore Gamer

In the third week, Su Xinpei noticed that his pants were too tight.

He wasn't fat. He stood in front of the mirror, turned to look at himself, and noticed that his thighs were bulging out of his pants, but his waistline hadn't changed. He pinched his arms; the muscles in his upper arms were firmer than before, feeling like pressing on taut rubber. He lifted the hem of his shirt, and while the outline of his abdomen wasn't yet clear, there were already some blurry lines on the sides.

In two weeks, he gained three kilograms. He quickly did the math in his head—his meals, morning and evening, remained unchanged in both content and quantity; the pickled vegetables in his lunchbox were still pickled vegetables, and the instant rice noodles were still instant rice noodles. The only variable was his standing meditation. He stood for one hour at the Iron Bone Hall every day, and then practiced for an extra half hour to an hour at home. Over the two weeks, he accumulated approximately forty-five hours of standing meditation.

On the panel, the progress bar for the Hunyuan Stance rose from zero to ninety-three, just one step away from breaking through to the beginner level.

Su Xinpei lowered his robe and looked at himself in the mirror for a while. The person in the mirror had a bit of long hair, and his cheekbones showed signs of fatigue from last night's standing meditation. His lips were habitually pursed down. But his eyes were a little brighter than before, not in terms of his mental state, but in some indescribable way—like a light bulb that had been wiped clean of dust, the brightness remained the same, but the light was cleaner.

He threw the towel into the laundry basket, put on his coat, and went to work.

The morning at the neighborhood office was the same as usual: the fluorescent lights were still flashing, the printer was still stuck on the third sheet of paper, and the red light on the water dispenser was still on. Su Xinpei sat at his workstation, eating breakfast while flipping through today's to-do list—five low-income assistance renewal reviews, two low-rent housing applications, and a new task that Aunt He had approved last night: compiling the files of abnormal complaints from the Beihe old district for the entire year of last year.

"Abnormal Complaint File." Su Xinpei stared at the words, his steamed bun frozen in mid-air. Aunt He peeked out from the inner room, holding a cup of hot water, her glasses perched around her neck: "Xiao Su, don't be lost in thought. Those files are in the bottom shelf of the third row of metal cabinets in the archives room, in blue file boxes, numbered from NK-last year-001 to NK-last year-047. Write the organization requirements on sticky notes and attach them to the inside of the box lids."

"Aunt He, these files—" Su Xinpei thought for a moment, "Weren't we not allowed to transfer them outside the region before?"

"We're not asking you to transfer anyone out yet," Aunt He said, taking a sip of water. "It's just organizing. Once it's done, give me a catalog, and put the originals back where they belong."

After she finished speaking, she retreated into the inner room, leaving Su Xinpei staring blankly at the line of tasks. He quickly stuffed the steamed bun into his mouth, got up, and went to the archives—as he passed Aunt He's door, he found it open, and she was tidying up the clivia on the windowsill. She was wiping the leaves one by one with a damp cloth, and next to the flowerpot was an old enamel cup that had been used for many years; the cup didn't contain tea, but plain water.

The archives were at the end of the corridor, their iron doors always locked. Su Xinpei swiped his key card to open the door, and inside came that distinctive smell—a mixture of old paper, dust, and dehumidifier. The fluorescent lights were dimmer than in the office, casting a bluish-gray glow on the metal filing cabinets. He found the third row of cabinets, crouched down, and located the row of blue file boxes on the bottom shelf.

NK - Last year - 001 to 047. Forty-seven unusual complaint files.

Su Xinpei carried the file boxes out one by one, back to his workstation, and stacked them on the table. He took a deep breath and opened the first box.

The first file is a complaint from January of last year: A resident in the Beihe old district reported hearing a slow, dragging sound in the corridor at night, but the corridor was empty when the door was opened. The file included the subdistrict office's reply—the property management had been notified to increase patrols. The complainant's signature: Unresolved.

Second complaint: An elderly person living alone reported to the community that "someone is talking in my ear in the middle of the night, but I can't hear what they're saying, and this has happened at the same time for three consecutive nights." Response: Suggests seeking medical attention for a hearing test. Complainant's signature: Unresolved.

Third complaint: A tenant complained that "the clothesline on the balcony swings on its own even when there is no wind, with a regular amplitude, as if someone is flicking it with their fingers." Response: We have suggested checking the airtightness of the doors and windows. Complainant's signature: Unresolved.

Su Xinpei flipped through the files one by one, his heart pounding faster and faster. The complaints varied in wording, but they shared several commonalities: they all occurred at night, could not be explained by conventional principles, and had not been resolved. Most complainants wrote "unresolved" or "no improvement" in the signature column, while a few left their files unsigned, only adding a handwritten note at the end: "I'm not reporting it anymore, it's useless anyway."

When he turned to the seventeenth page, he picked up the cup to take a sip of water, only to find it was dry. He then turned to the thirty-first page, where there were blurry water stains on the edges of the paper, as if someone had placed a cup of hot tea without a coaster on it. He couldn't figure out who it was.

A thought suddenly popped into his head: Aunt He's request for him to organize these files wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. She knew about it. Having worked as a clerk for thirty years, she'd seen every complaint and written every reply; she knew better than anyone what was recorded in these files. But she'd never mentioned a word to him until this morning.

This means she thinks he can watch it now. Or rather, he should watch it.

Su Xinpei put down the file and picked up a cup to get some water. As he passed the doorway to the inner room, Aunt He was writing something with her head down, not looking up. After getting the water, he returned to his workstation and continued flipping through the files.

The thirty-ninth complaint caught his attention. The complainant was a resident of the old Beihe district. The complaint wasn't about strange noises or unusual sounds, but rather "an extra step that shouldn't be there in the stairwell." The complainant described how one day, while going downstairs, he missed a step and fell, injuring himself. When he looked back and counted the steps, he found there was one more than usual. He counted three times, and there was indeed one extra step. The next day, when he counted again, the steps were back to normal.

Attached to the file was a photograph taken by the complainant of the stairwell steps. It was poorly washed, but a slightly lighter-colored, blurry mark could be seen on the side of the concrete steps—like a trace left by some liquid flowing down the wall, but its shape was too regular, almost a straight line. Su Xinpei held the photograph close to the light for a long time, his fingers feeling slightly cold when he put it down. It had an intrinsic similarity to the feeling of the curved wall in the corridor that night—a sensation of the material boundary being slowly dissolved. He mentally labeled this entry with the term: spatial distortion.

He sorted all forty-seven files chronologically and performed a simple quantitative analysis. The frequency of complaints peaked twice last June and November. He also investigated meteorological records at the time: June coincided with an anomalous geomagnetic storm that disrupted some communication frequencies, while November saw the Subspace Research Forum held in a nearby city, a period of concentrated operation for numerous military and civilian monitoring devices. Although a causal relationship cannot yet be confirmed, this at least indicates that the activity level of anomalous events was not random.

Su Xinpei folded the statistical table and tucked it into his work notebook. Then he turned on his computer and began searching for similar complaints from this year in the street office's electronic file system. There were no specific categories, so he had to scroll through them one by one. After about twenty minutes, he found some—this year's complaints were significantly more numerous and the wording more aggressive. Some said, "I'm afraid to go home at night," others said, "My neighbor moved away, so I'm moving too," and still others directly asked, "Does your street office even care?" The response templates for these complaints were almost identical to last year's, different handlers, the same clichés.

Su Xinpei leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. It was already dark outside, and he was the only one left in the office. Aunt He's workstation was neatly tidy, with a small succulent plant next to the keyboard and a handwritten note under the plant: "Xiao Su, remember to turn off the air conditioner after get off work."

He turned off his computer, the air conditioner, and locked the door. When he reached the subway entrance, he turned a corner and walked north into an alley.

The gate to Tiegutang was ajar. When Su Xinpei pushed it open, Old Tietou was squatting in the corner fiddling with an old radio, from which came a crackling electrical sound. Hearing footsteps, he didn't turn around: "I'm late today."

"Working overtime." Su Xinpei took off his coat and hung it on an old nail on the wall, beginning his preparations for Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation)—moving his joints, adjusting his breathing, and clearing his mind of to-do items. He noticed this in the second week of Zhan Zhuang: when his mind was preoccupied, he couldn't stand steadily, not because his feet were unsteady, but because his mind was unsettled. Therefore, before Zhan Zhuang, he had to pack up all the trivial matters from the neighborhood committee and temporarily leave them outside.

He assumed the stance, this time without consciously adjusting his foot spacing or height. Two weeks of practice had ingrained the basic stance parameters into muscle memory: feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hips back, spine straight, head feeling as if gently suspended by a thread. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

My knees started to ache after five minutes.

Ten minutes later, my thighs started to tremble slightly.

After fifteen minutes, he noticed a strange phenomenon—his fingertips were slightly numb. It wasn't the kind of numbness caused by pressure on a nerve, but rather a slightly warm, tingling sensation, like something was seeping out of his fingertips. He opened his eyes and looked at his fingers, but there was nothing unusual. He closed his eyes and continued standing. Twenty minutes later, the soles of his feet also began to feel warm, the warmth extending from his ankles down his calves, like stepping in warm water.

Su Xinpei didn't stop. He maintained the stance, focusing his attention on his breathing. Inhale—exhale—exhale—exhale—the warmth rose from his calves to his knees, paused at the knee joints for a moment, then continued upwards, reaching the inner thighs, then drawing into his lower abdomen, finally stopping about three fingers below his navel. That spot felt slightly swollen, as if something was gently throbbing inside, the temperature not high but persistent, like being gently pressed down by an invisible hand.

He suddenly remembered something the veteran had said last year when he was helping a retired soldier apply for a preferential treatment certificate. The veteran had pointed to a spot three fingers below his navel and said, "Do you know what this is called? It's the Guanyuan acupoint. Back when we practiced internal martial arts, we'd stand here and feel heat; that meant our Qi was sinking to the Dantian. You young people today don't understand this; you only know about heart rate monitoring from biochemistry class."

Su Xinpei just smiled at the time, mentally attributing "qi sinking to the dantian" to an old man's obsession with health preservation. But now, standing in this dilapidated courtyard, his knees slightly bent, his fingers numb, and a slight warmth was spreading three fingers below his navel. The warmth was different from that of a hot water bottle—a hot water bottle is given from the outside, while this warmth felt like his body was dissipating heat outwards and then gathering again under his skin.

He glanced at the panel subconsciously.

[Hun Yuan Zhuang Experience +1]

[Hun Yuan Zhuang has passed the entry level]

Two lines of notifications hung silently in the lower right corner of his vision, then vanished without a sound. Su Xinpei paused, startled. The way the panel displayed when his eyes were closed was different from usual—normally, he had to actively open the panel to see the complete list, but those two lines of text just now appeared directly in the darkness behind his closed eyes, like a reflection on water, disappearing as soon as it rippled. He reopened his eyes to check, and the Hunyuan Stance entry on the panel had been updated: [Beginner: Progress Unlocked]. He didn't close his eyes to practice more, but instead closed his eyes again, assumed the stance, and maintained his breathing rhythm—about ten seconds later, the second line of text reappeared, extremely faint, almost synchronized with his exhalation, and then quietly disappeared.

He took a deep breath and put the stake back in place.

Old Tie Tou had put down his radio sometime earlier and was leaning against the wall drinking his cheap liquor. Seeing Su Xinpei finish his work, he raised his eyelids and said, "Oh, I've got it."

Su Xinpei, panting, wiped away his sweat: "What? You're pregnant?"

"A feeling of energy." Old Tie Tou placed the wine jug on his lap, his tone as calm as if he were discussing today's vegetable prices at the market. "Your soles felt warm just now, then it traveled up your legs and finally settled in your lower abdomen. It felt bloated, didn't it?"

Su Xinpei nodded.

"That's the sensation of Qi. It's not some mystical thing—you've been standing for almost three weeks, your muscles are relaxed, your blood and Qi are flowing smoothly, your peripheral nerves are activated, and your body's energy pathways start to sink downwards on their own." Old Tietou gestured on his knee with his index finger. "This location is the Guanyuan acupoint. In ancient times, it was called the Dantian. You'll feel it every time you practice standing meditation. You won't feel it every time, but you'll feel it more and more often."

What are the practical applications of Qi sensation?

"It'll help you avoid making foolish mistakes." Old Iron Head glanced at him. "If you can consistently feel that area of ​​your body is warm, you won't be easily influenced by other things. Some things—you might have read about them in the files—specifically target people who are insecure."

Su Xinpei fell silent. Old Tie Tou's words carried a tremendous weight of information. He was clearly telling him: those complaint files you went through during the day were related to what was happening in the world, to how you could smash that thing with a single punch in the apartment building, and to the fever you were experiencing while standing in the yard. He already knew.

And he just said he felt "a little scared"—Su Xinpei recalled his state when the person in the mirror appeared; his heart rate soared, his palms sweated, and his mind went blank. If that thing came again, he felt he would probably still be afraid. But he was no longer the person who would just crouch in a corner and wait to die. He now possessed a martial art, a pair of hands that could generate a slight warmth, and a night when he didn't run away after seeing something he had seen shatter before his eyes in the apartment building.

Old Tie Tou stood up, picked up a worn-out dumbbell from the corner, and casually placed it in front of Su Xinpei: "Starting tomorrow, practice standing meditation for half an hour, then add this. Dumbbell presses, three sets of twelve reps each. After that, practice standing meditation for another half hour, then we'll finish."

Su Xinpei looked down at the dumbbells. They were rusty, with blackened tape wrapped around the handles, and weighed about ten kilograms. He put the dumbbells back in the corner and picked up the enamel cup next to the bench—Old Tie Tou hadn't given him water, but he had poured himself a cup of cold water and left it there before he started practicing his stance.

"Master, I have another question."

"ask."

"What exactly was that thing you broke in the apartment building that day?" Su Xinpei carefully chose his words.

Old Tie Tou was silent for a few seconds, then took a sip of wine and slammed the wine jug down on his knee. The bottom of the jug hit his bone with a dull thud.

"The Man in the Mirror," he said. "Something that crawled out of a warp rift. The lowest kind. It feeds on fear; the more afraid you are, the stronger it grows. If you're not afraid, it's just a pile of broken glass. That day you were standing in the corner on the fourth floor, your face as white as paper, but you didn't scream or run around. You may be a coward, but you've got guts."

Su Xinpei kept those words in mind and didn't reply.

"And one more thing." Old Tie Tou stood up, turned off the radio, paced back and forth in the yard, then suddenly turned around. "Did you find something?"

Su Xinpei was stunned.

"That ring on your work ID." Old Tie pointed to his chest—Su Xinpei looked down and saw the metal-like ring he had picked up was on his keychain, half of it peeking out from the edge of the transparent card holder on his work ID, reflecting a faint, cold light under the courtyard lights.

"When you picked it up, did your fingers get cold?" Old Iron Head asked.

Su Xinpei nodded. He didn't know when the ring had slipped to the edge of his work ID. When he was squatting in the archives searching through the file boxes, the card holder had bumped against the corner of the metal cabinet, and that's probably when it slipped out.

"That's something my master left behind. I won't mention his surname, I just called him Old Madman. Before Old Madman disappeared, he wore this ring on his wrist." Old Iron Head sat back down in his wicker chair, looking at the old elm tree in the yard, and remained silent for a long time. Finally, he said, "This thing recognizes people. Things left behind by Old Madman, you can't pick up what you shouldn't recognize. You picked it up, and it didn't break, so you probably have to return this stuff to him."

Su Xinpei opened his mouth, a bunch of questions swirling in his throat—what was that old madman talking about? What else? How? But looking at Old Tietou leaning back in his wicker chair, a posture that suggested he didn't want to say another word, he swallowed his questions and only said, "I understand." Meaning he wouldn't ask any more, but he wasn't entirely clear on what he was going to be responsible for. He simply put the keychain into his pocket and zipped it up.

It was already 10 p.m. when Su Xinpei returned to his apartment. After taking a shower, he sat on the edge of the bed, took out his notepad, and turned to a new page.

Today's observation record:

1. Standing meditation for approximately seventy minutes. Breakthrough to the beginner level. The first clear sensation of Qi appeared—warmth in the soles of the feet, tingling in the fingertips, and a continuous warmth in the Guanyuan acupoint. The master confirmed this as "Qi sensation" and hinted that it was related to defending against abnormal entities. The principle is unclear, so I'll make a note of it for now.

Second, my mentor proactively mentioned "The Man in the Mirror," providing a formal name for the events I experienced. He also confirmed that this type of entity is a product of a subspace rift, feeding on fear. Important information: Psychological state is directly related to its perceived threat level.

Thirdly, the relics left behind by my grandmaster—whom my master called "the old madman"—were found by me. It's speculated that this is the medium connecting the panel to the "Iron Bone Forging Technique (Fragment)". My master said "it recognizes people," without further explanation. My grandmaster's disappearance is related to the subspace. More details are currently unavailable.

The notepad is almost empty. I need to go to the secondhand market tomorrow to buy a new one, and maybe see if there are any cheap notebooks there too. Su Xinpei put the pen on the bedside table and turned off the light.

In the darkness, he lay on the mattress, eyes closed. A spot three fingers below his navel still felt faintly warm, like the heater was on its lowest setting. He gently placed his hand on that spot, feeling a tiny, weak pulse beneath his palm, rhythmic with his own heartbeat.

He thought, this isn't qigong. It's just that after standing in a stance for forty-five hours, his body has finally learned to be still.

I'll continue standing tomorrow.