Capítulo 10: 10 - Jing Qi Shen
Jing Qi Shen awarded.
Next mission: Achieve the state of Zuowang .
An image of a translucent and bright pyramid appeared, followed by a dark shadowy pyramid. The two structures overlapped and rotated around each other.
Li Yun was slightly surprised the system had awarded him with something interesting. The Jing Qi Shen could be considered the first real reward. Albeit, it was still something no one else could see.
Li Yun understood that the two pyramids represented the two Yin and Yang. Each corner of the pyramid represented Jing, Qi, and Shen. Jing was the essence of a person, an attribute that represented mortality and Earth. The simplest gaming equivalent would be HP and strength. If a person's Jing was drained, then a person was dead.
Qi, a common element of many fiction novels, was a type of energy that protects the jing from damage and connects it to nature. It was often associated with air and breath, hence a lot of breathing techniques focused on regulating Qi. Since it was easily manipulated, MP was the best way to describe Qi.
Shen was a person's spirit or soul. A person's body and jing hosted the shen. Without a good jing, the shen would weaken. A person with good shen could easily manipulate Qi. Although rare, it was possible to see shen manifest in the body, such as a person who is said to be glowing or bright.
In Li Yun's mind, each of the three corners of the pyramid representing Jing, Qi, and Shen could be selected and extended. The three elements, like stats, required action points in order to extend outward.
Li Yun had zero action points available.
He scanned through the mental list of side-quest missions available to acquire action points. The list was both long and short. It was long in a sense that there were endless ways to accumulate action points, but short in terms of what was feasible.
For example, 1 action point was awarded by making 10 people genuinely cry after eating a delicious meal.
It seemed reasonable and easy to achieve in novels, but it was extremely difficult to do. Even for a Michelin chef, how many people had genuinely cried after eating their meal? The system didn't give him any magical fried rice or recipes. If he could cheat by putting ghost peppers, he would, but he intrinsically knew that the system would not approve of such a method. Also, Li Yun had no cooking skill. He could barely cook fried eggs.
There were a couple of possible routes that he could take, like reaching a certain level of fame and wealth, or achieving certain tasks. However, the vast majority of tasks were not repeatable.
He found a task that could be repeated 100 times, which was reading and memorizing 10 textbooks. He had seen people with speed reading and memorization ability on TV. Although it may take some practice, it was possible to do this task.
Unfortunately, even for the long term, it was not sustainable enough since there was still a limit on the possible action points.
Scanning through the list, he saw a task that didn't have a limit. It was to save a person's life. Needless to say, he avoided the ones that could put him in jail.
"Well, even without my cute little sister, think about Uncle and Auntie," Wu Bin continued. "They will be disappointed if you don't get into college. Hey, are you listening?"
"Yeah, yeah, what score do you need to get into medical school?" asked Li Yun.
"Uh? Well... What!?" Wu Bin blinked bewilderingly. "Are you serious? There's only two months left before the gaokao."
Wu Bin looked at Li Yun's focused face. He had almost forgotten that this was the same guy who was copying Taoists texts like a madman for several years.
For Li Yun, going to a medical school served another purpose, to study meridian. After comprehending the mien shiang, the system had instructed him to comprehend the meridian.
This task was not a simple task to achieve. Mien shiang was at least rooted in concepts that could be physically explored and studied. However, meridian was thought by many to be imaginary lines of qi energy or flawed systems theorized by early physicians.
The key to understanding meridian lies in understanding anatomy and medicine.
It didn't take him long to narrow his future path down to either medicine or surgery.
TCM seemed like the natural progression, but for Li Yun there were several reasons why he preferred modern medical training over TCM.
First, there were many flaws in modern interpretation of TCM. Original texts from antiquity had been lost or revised over the course of several millenniums. Although it seemed counterintuitive to think that classical Chinese medicine was better than modern TCM, it was true that TCM had regressed rather than evolved over the years.
One example was Cao Cao's ambition to monopoly Hua Tuo, leading to his early death and lost legacy. Other examples include religious cult leaders, some claiming to be reincarnation of Luozi, altering texts to fit their power hungry agenda or emperors burning books that undermined their dynastic rule.
Second, he had already read all the Taoist texts on Chinese Medicine. One could not learn Tao without coming across Taoist texts on medical knowledge. Medical treatises and classics were deeply entrenched in Taoist teachings. It was not too arrogant to say that he knew more than most so-called TCM doctors. To find a great TCM doctor was much harder than finding a great Western medical doctor.
Lastly, job prospects for modern medicine were better according to Biado. He still needed to eat in order to survive.
Over the next two months, Wu Bin noticed the zombie-like state of Li Yun and all the other students. Their shoulders slumped and their head drooped to the side as they dragged their feet to their classrooms. All their eyes were devoid of any emotions as if their souls have escaped to the great beyond. This was a typical scene in many high schools right before a gaokao, but Wu Bin was surprised that his little cousin was in the same state.
Not only in the high schools, but the atmosphere of the entire nation changed during the week of the gaokao. The air was tense, and everyone could sense the hope, fear, and restlessness in the air.
Other than the national holidays, no other event was as much anticipated as the two days of the college entrance exams. A random stranger would yell out good wishes and encouragements to high school students and roadside vendors were unusually benevolent with free drinks and snacks.
On the last day of the gaokao, Li Yun walked back inside his home. He saw four big blobs playing mahjong in the living room. He stared at them briefly with his soulless dark eyes, highlighted by deep puffy circles. He walked past them, ignored their existence, and crashed onto his bed.
"Has he been like that all week?" asked Aunt Xu while playing mahjong.
Li Fan nodded as he closed the door from behind him and approached the couch.
"Is the kid going to be okay?" asked Bu Chi, Bufu's mother.
"Who knows," replied Lu Suyin. "All of the sudden, he announced that he wanted to attend med school."
"I always thought he was going to join a Taoist temple after high school," Aunt Xu remarked.
"Well, at least it has rubbed off some positive influences on my little Fang," said Wang Fang's mother, Wang Li. "He also wants to get into Binchu University."
"Oh ho, that's not too far from here, half an hour by train?" asked Bu Chi. "My little Fu also wants to go there."
The three mothers chatted happily. During the beginning of high school, their expectations of their children were extremely low. If their children had exhibited any bit of genius, they would have ended up becoming tiger moms. But instead, their children performed poorly in school and seemed to have no future advancing to a higher education.
The mothers were simply happy that their children didn't end up arrested before the end of high school. Who would have known that instead of entering the workforce right after graduation, the three kids would be entering a university.
A month later, everyone was overjoyed when the results came out. Bufu was naturally gifted in math, and scored 570. Fatty Fang somehow got 541, and Li Yun got 536, surprising everyone by acing the Chinese portion of the test. They naturally got into college as the minimum requirement was 500.
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
chocomug
chocomug Next gaokao is June 7th, 2021. Wishing all the students best of luck!
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