Challenge Impossible to Complete?

“Brother Hua, I’m heading out now!”
As someone who’s half socially anxious, Chen Jue instinctively wanted to dodge the glaring livestream camera held by the photographer.
He had always worn a mask as the “Master of Unique Skills,” so showing his real face made him feel quite uneasy.
This is, in truth, the normal reaction of any ordinary person. Except for those with extraordinary social confidence, most people on the street would never willingly expose themselves in front of a camera.
These days, fame isn’t always a blessing; there are countless cases online of people suffering social ruin from being caught on camera.
As for the netizens flooding the livestream with comments, ninety-nine percent are just keyboard warriors. Even if some have actually trained, none would show up in person to challenge Chen Jue to an arm wrestling match.
In reality, everyone is just a regular person weighed down by stress, logging on to watch a livestream and scroll through videos for a bit of fun. Who has the idle time to seek out someone for an offline showdown?
Seeing Chen Jue determined to leave the stage, and recalling his earlier request to have his face edited in the video, Brother Hua guessed he was an introvert. He joined the crowd in cheering, “Let’s give a round of applause to the handsome guy who succeeded in his challenge twice!”
Amid a burst of enthusiastic applause, Chen Jue slipped off the stage, planning to leave early while the crowd was still thick.
At that moment, Hu Feifei, who had been promoting among the audience, eagerly approached him, eyes sparkling. “Jue, you’re amazing! That silver brick is so heavy—few of my colleagues can hold it for so long!”
Being so highly praised, Chen Jue quickly waved his hand. “It’s nothing, really. I just happened to train my grip recently, so I could hold it.”
He knew his own limitations; his success tonight was thanks entirely to targeted hand exercises beforehand.
Though the silver brick challenge seemed to require the whole arm’s strength, the secret was in the grip and explosive power of the forearm muscles.
Breaking the thirty-second silver brick record was only possible with some “panel upgrades”—a form of cheating.
And cheating came at a price. His left hand was now strained, aching with every movement. He was anxious to go home and rest, not wanting to linger with Hu Feifei.
“That’s still impressive!”
“A few male coaches I know went up and failed the challenge,” Hu Feifei said with a smile.
Perhaps noticing Chen Jue’s eagerness to leave, she didn’t press further, inwardly complaining, “Did I forget to put on makeup today? Am I less charming? Why does he seem completely uninterested in me?” Outwardly, her voice was sweet and playful: “Jue, if you’re free this weekend, come to the club and train Lin Ling and me in darts~”
When faced with his perfunctory “Next time, for sure,” she sent him off with a plaintive look as he climbed into his domestic SUV and drove away.
...
On the drive home, Chen Jue recalled the two times he’d met Hu Feifei—once at the darts club for a friendly match, and once at the silver brick challenge surrounded by spectators.
He suspected Hu Feifei was the type who thrived on attention, perhaps due to her profession, growing more excited the more spotlight she received.
Once those lights and gazes were gone, she lost interest in him.
Just like the internet’s craze for frisbee girls and fitness influencers, paired with a hint of artificial, squeaky voice, it was enough to disgust a young man like Chen Jue, nearing thirty.
“It’s got to be someone generous and beautiful, someone who doesn’t seek fame—like Teacher Wu, who fits my taste!” Chen Jue grumbled inwardly.
Once back at the talent apartment, he treated his left hand with alternating hot and cold compresses, applied spray and massage, and stuck on a pain-relieving patch.
When the soreness lessened a bit, he placed the two large red envelopes he’d won that evening on the table.

He spread out the five thousand yuan he’d pulled from inside, gazing at the earnings made in just a few minutes, grinning with a sense of accomplishment.
“This should count as my first planned income from exercise, earned with my own body,” Chen Jue said, tapping the stack of red bills before him.
Although the amount wasn’t much—just enough for five days’ salary at his current job—
For Chen Jue, it marked his first step toward earning money from a side hustle.
“Who comes up with these challenges? Hold a silver brick and win two thousand—do they really have money to burn?”
“In the pursuit of clicks, people spare no expense these days!” Chen Jue sighed to himself.
He’d won five thousand from Brother Hua’s pocket tonight, but Hua could edit a video and post it online, recouping the cost in minutes.
He marveled at the wealth and audacity of these internet celebrities, and at the fast-paced, attention-driven age.
As long as one catches the wave of a trending gimmick, even a pig can take flight.
Some top influencers make enough from livestream sales to earn what an ordinary family, a small business, or a shop would make in a lifetime.
With such a money-driven mindset, who can settle into a regular job anymore?
Even Chen Jue felt restless inside, hoping his “Master of Unique Skills” ID would become an overnight sensation, so he could escape the nine-to-five grind.
“I wonder if my account can hit a million followers eventually.” Chen Jue opened his phone and checked the backend.
The two previous skill videos had plateaued, each stuck at a few tens of thousands of views.
His follower count had reached eleven thousand and stopped growing.
If he wanted to keep attracting viewers from Bilibili and Douyin, he’d need to come up with more novel skills.
But tonight’s silver brick challenge had strained his left arm, so he’d have to rest for a couple of days before filming any new videos.
...
Scrolling through his phone, Chen Jue saw all sorts of imitation silver brick challenges online.
The original idea for the silver brick challenge came from a gold museum in Da Cong Province.
This museum, in partnership with the local tourism bureau, launched a gold bar challenge: pick up a twenty-five kilogram pure gold bar under their rules, and you could take home a bar worth over ten million yuan.
Chen Jue watched several fitness influencers, including Brother Hua, attempt the challenge at that museum, but all failed.
What struck him most was that participants had to wear special nylon gloves and grip a ladder-shaped gold bar placed flat.
Chen Jue exclaimed, “Absurd!”
He’d just tested a similar twenty-five kilogram silver brick that evening. Its surface was slick, with almost no grip points.
The gold bar in the video, worth millions, was even more finely crafted and polished.
No one could lift it barehanded, let alone with slippery nylon gloves.
The museum’s challenge rules were clearly designed to frustrate people.
“If anyone manages to take it, I’ll change the ‘Jue’ in my name to ‘Jue’!” Chen Jue joked.

Yet, thinking of his own miraculous panel, Chen Jue couldn’t help but imagine: once his strength stat was high enough, would he have a shot at the gold bar challenge?
So what if there were nylon gloves?
If his hands were strong enough to leave an imprint in the gold, the grip and friction would be more than enough.
The more he thought about it, the less tired he felt.
Just because others couldn’t succeed didn’t mean someone with his “cheats” couldn’t.
And the gold bar challenge wasn’t unique to that museum in China; several large tourist-friendly gold mines abroad had similar contests.
Some had glass cases with a hole for timed grabs, others offered fifty-kilogram ladder-shaped gold bars.
All sorts of gimmicks, designed to attract tourists and grab attention.
If he really managed to develop such powerful grip strength, he could casually take a gold bar—and wouldn’t that mean financial freedom for the rest of his life?
“Maybe I should try some targeted training?”
“You need a dream, or you’re just a salted fish,” Chen Jue mused, opening Taobao to search for gold bar models.
A real twenty-five kilogram gold bar cost millions; he clearly couldn’t afford one.
Nor could he make daily trips to Da Cong Province’s gold museum—the cost of tickets and lodging would drain his savings. He needed another way.
Thankfully, Taobao had similar gold bar models.
But to get a twenty-five kilogram replica, close to a real gold bar’s shape, ordinary metals wouldn’t do.
Since gold, as the element AU, has a molecular weight of 196.967, the closest match in appearance and weight would be brass.
He found a specialty brass ornament shop and asked about the price of a twenty-five kilogram imitation gold bar.
The seller sent a link, and Chen Jue saw it was over 3,700 yuan, with an astonishing ten units sold monthly!
Clearly, some influencers were buying them to film imitation silver brick challenge videos.
“Even fake gold bars are this expensive?”
Chen Jue hesitated at the price.
His usual spending habits were frugal, but since awakening the panel, he’d experimented more, bought a car, and spent freely at Jing Tang Hui massages.
But seeing the fresh five thousand yuan he’d just won, and imagining himself lifting a million-dollar gold bar, Chen Jue decided to splurge and placed the order.
“Screw it!”
“At worst, I’ll cut back on visits to Jing Tang Hui!”