Chapter 20: Underestimating My Own Strength!

Su Ning had been lost in nostalgia, reminiscing about the ambitions of youth and the days that never seemed to age.

Back then, Chen Kai used to lie in exactly the same way, in exactly the same spot.

He never expected that someone would actually be lying there.

Not Chen Kai, who stood before him now.

But Chen Kai's second uncle.

The village had two surnames with the largest populations — Chen and Su.

Uncle Chen bore a resemblance to Chen Kai in his features.

So much so that Su Ning had briefly thought he was glimpsing a vision of the past.

He looked more carefully.

Only then did he realize it wasn't a trip down memory lane — there was actually someone lying there.

He moved closer.

Su Ning found that Uncle Chen had already fainted, his face deathly pale. He had clearly been lying there for quite some time.

"Thank goodness he's not dead!" Su Ning let out a sigh of relief.

Somehow, Uncle Chen had ended up pinned beneath a boulder.

One could only say that Uncle Chen was a man of remarkable talent.

To have managed to wedge himself under a rock like that.

No ordinary person could pull off a move like that.

"Uncle Chen, are you alright?" Su Ning gently shook the man's shoulder.

After a few calls, Uncle Chen struggled to open his eyes.

The moment he saw Su Ning, those blank, death-like eyes suddenly lit up.

Like a drowning man grabbing hold of a lifeline.

Then, in a burst of desperation: "Help… help me…"

"Su Ning, save me…"

"I'm pinned under the rock, I can't get out."

"Call someone — call the villagers to come get me out!"

Thud.

Just as Su Ning was about to say something, Uncle Chen, overwhelmed by the excitement, passed out again and lost consciousness.

Su Ning: "……"

Call the villagers?

By the time they got here, you'd probably already be a corpse.

Su Ning thought it over and decided not to call anyone just yet.

He looked at the massive boulder crushing Uncle Chen's lower body like a boot on a grasshopper, leaving him completely immobile.

Su Ning shook his head…

"Should I call you lucky or unlucky?"

"Unlucky because you somehow got yourself pinned under a rock. Lucky because you ran into me… though unlucky again because lately, every time my strength grows, I seem to stumble into all sorts of bizarre situations. It's like I've been wrapped in a protagonist's halo — the stronger I get, the more trouble finds me, and then I have to use my power to deal with it."

"Is this some kind of rule? The law of getting stronger?" After each growth in power, Su Ning always seemed to attract one strange incident after another.

He could barely imagine what would happen if he kept getting stronger — would he end up like the hero of some brainless urban fantasy novel, running into face-slapping showdowns no matter where he went?

Like going to the mall to buy a carrot and having a store clerk sneer at him, saying he couldn't afford it, followed by a round of mockery…

Or walking down the street and having a couple of punks pick a fight just to prove his protagonist worth…

Or even… going out with a girl and having some second-generation rich kid show up to compete for her attention?

In truth, Su Ning was overthinking it.

It wasn't that getting stronger caused these things to happen — it was that when they did happen, he now had the ability to deal with them, and so cause and effect naturally drew him in.

Things happened every day.

But in the past, Su Ning never felt so involved, simply because he was a Weakling who couldn't solve most problems and had no choice but to ignore them… and so those problems never felt like they had anything to do with him.

Now that he had grown stronger, he had the capacity to handle things.

He stepped in and handled them himself — and so it felt as though trouble was seeking him out because of his growing power, rather than the other way around.

If the old Su Ning had come across a situation like this, his first instinct would have been to call for help, and after that it would have been none of his business. He wouldn't have given it another thought.

Naturally, the idea of a protagonist's halo zeroing in on him would never have crossed his mind.

Rumble…

Seeing that Uncle Chen had passed out, Su Ning dusted off his hands and walked over to the boulder, crouching down…

He drove all ten fingers beneath the edge of the rock.

He braced himself into a lifting stance.

"Hah…"

Boom.

He heaved with explosive force.

The veins on his bare arms bulged and writhed like earthworms crawling across his skin.

He looked every bit as powerful as he felt.

Su Ning's face twisted with effort.

He gave it everything he had.

Crack, crack, crack…

The boulder… slowly began to rise from the ground.

If anyone had witnessed this, their jaw would have dropped in disbelief.

What Su Ning was doing was no longer within the realm of human ability.

He was a monster.

What kind of person could lift a rock that size?

He was practically a human-shaped forklift!

Crunch…

Crunch, crunch…

To Su Ning's surprise, his feet… were slowly sinking into the ground.

The earth was not soft — it was hard-packed.

Yet his feet were sinking into it as though he were stepping into wet mud, gradually swallowed up!

It was because the boulder was so incredibly heavy.

"Hrrgh…"

Su Ning's face flushed crimson.

The veins on his forehead stood out sharply.

He was pouring every ounce of strength into it.

"This rock… is heavier than I imagined!" Su Ning assessed.

And yet…

Su Ning's strength was also greater than he had imagined.

The power in his arms was far more than a thousand or two thousand pounds.

He had underestimated himself.

But that was perfectly normal — he was the only cultivator in this world, and misjudging his own energy output was hardly surprising.

Perhaps because some of the pressure had been lifted, the numbed nerves began to recover somewhat.

Uncle Chen stirred and slowly came to again.

His face was still deathly pale…

He looked around.

His mind was not entirely clear.

He was thinking:

Didn't I just see Su Ning?

Didn't I tell him to call the villagers to come save me?

Why can't I see him now… and the rock on top of me — it's gone…

Could this be the final flash of clarity before death? Thinking that I've been saved… when in fact… I'm dying?

He turned his head to look at where the rock had been.

And then he saw it — Su Ning, like an ant, holding up a boulder several times his own size, slowly pushing it away.

Uncle Chen's jaw hit the floor.

"I… I… holy…"

"This really is my dying vision… I… I'm really going to die… what am I seeing?"

"I'm actually… seeing… Su Ning… pushing that boulder… away?"

He felt like his mind was short-circuiting.

Whoosh.

His vision swam, unable to accept what his eyes were telling him.

He passed out again.

Two words summed it all up perfectly: rotten luck!

Su Ning paid no attention to Uncle Chen's dramatic reactions.

"Away you go…"

Step by step, he hoisted the boulder up.

Then gave it a mighty roll.

The rock finally tumbled far away from both Uncle Chen and Su Ning.

Several deep footprints pressed into the earth bore silent witness to Su Ning's terrifying feat.

Huff, huff, huff…

With that done, Su Ning was utterly spent. He sat down on the ground, breathing in great heaving gulps.

After a short while.

He smoothed out the footprints in the dirt.

Only then did he pick up his phone and call his Uncle Su Jianguo.

Su Jianguo was the only person in the village whose number Su Ning had.

The Chen and Su families had always been close — they were from the same village, and naturally intertwined by marriage over the generations. A daughter from one family marrying a son from the other was perfectly ordinary.

Upon hearing that Uncle Chen was injured:

"What? Chen Daniu got hurt? Where?"

"Alright… wait there, we'll bring people over right away!"

Su Jianguo, alarmed by the news of Chen Daniu's injury, dropped everything he was doing. He rushed toward Chen Daniu's location while simultaneously alerting the man's wife and rounding up the strongest men in the village to go to the rescue.

A life was at stake.

When the villagers heard that Chen Daniu was in danger, they dropped whatever they had in their hands and followed Su Jianguo up the mountain.

By the time everyone arrived in a breathless rush, Su Ning had already settled Chen Daniu comfortably and was waiting for them.

"Hello, everyone. Uncle Chen has suffered some serious injuries. He shouldn't be moved carelessly — he needs to be carried on a stretcher to the hospital for treatment. I don't have any equipment here, so I had to wait for all of you." Su Ning greeted them.

Everyone: ???

Utterly baffled!

Weren't they told that Chen Daniu…