When his parents came home from work, they looked both relieved and worried.
The police officer had told them that the high-tech martial arts program was a scam. They were relieved the money had been recovered, yet worried about what Li Ye would do about martial arts training.
They had been given a legal education session and had truly accepted that there was no master who could handle everything for three hundred thousand. High-tech martial arts training did exist, and its results were no different from a Training Method—only the approach differed—but the costs were hardly small.
"Mom, Dad, don't worry. I was there when the officer went over today, and I even ran into someone I know."
Li Ye smiled. "Because of what happened with Old Man Zhao last time, I got to know someone at the police station named Huang Qingyi. He was there this time too. He said he could give me a few pointers. He's a Six Dragon Gate expert—far more impressive than any master."
"Really?" His parents immediately perked up.
Six Dragon Gate—six Qi Circulations. He was even stronger than the instructors at martial arts schools!
"Really. Here's his number. If you don't believe me, I'll call him right now." Li Ye took out his phone, ready to make the call.
Liu Qingxia hurriedly stopped him. "No, no, no. He's probably eating right now. If we call, he might think we don't trust him. It would be bad if he formed an opinion of us."
"We'll buy some gifts and bring them over tomorrow. We'll handle the preparations," Li Haihua said.
"Don't. He's only politely giving me a few pointers. If we give him gifts, the nature of it changes. Just let me handle this freely."
Li Ye said, "What matters most is my own effort. He saw that I truly could Break Through Dragon Gate, and thought it would be a pity for me to give up martial arts, so he wanted to guide me."
"Then we should thank him even more. If not for him, you would have been dead set on switching to the liberal arts."
Li Haihua thought for a moment, then said, "How about this? We'll transfer you some money. When you think the time is right, you can go give him something."
"We'll talk about it then. There's no rush right now." Li Ye smiled.
In a sense, it really was because of Huang Qingyi.
Without him, this authority would not have been easy to obtain.
He would bring him two boxes of Zhonghua toothpaste later.
After reassuring his parents, Li Ye's time became much easier. Every day, he went out and changed locations as he ate without pause, then continued training. Until the third day, he got up before dawn and headed early to the house he had rented in the suburbs.
The rice cookers had arrived yesterday. He had also bought a large table and several power strips, arranging them neatly.
All that remained was for the rice to arrive today.
At five in the morning, since it was summer and the sky brightened early, Li Ye waited at the door for the truck delivering rice.
There were fourteen hundred pounds of rice, fourteen bags of one hundred pounds each. He needed no one else's help; Li Ye could quickly move them all by himself. He did not even need to stack them neatly, only pile them inside.
After moving them all, he rested for a while. Li Ye even smoked a cigarette, then looked at the bagged rice stacked against the wall. He hoisted a bag onto his shoulder, tore it open, and poured it into the rice cookers.
It did not matter how much he poured in. The rice cookers he had bought were large to begin with, and it did not matter if some spilled. There was enough anyway.
Once every rice cooker had been filled, he turned on the faucet connected to a hose and poured water into them.
There was no need to wash the rice, no need to care about the water quality, and it did not even matter whether all the rice would be fully cooked.
Undercooked rice was edible too!
The authority had given him the confidence to have no taboos when it came to eating.
Half an hour later, the rice was done. Li Ye took out the Five Flavors Chopsticks.
Time to eat!
Li Ye opened the rice cookers, stabbed in his chopsticks, and began eating. Freshly cooked hot rice had no effect on him at all; hot air and cold air were both within the scope of his authority.
After chewing twice, he swallowed. It looked as though he were drinking rice.
The only things that could limit his eating were the size of his mouth and throat.
In roughly half an hour, Li Ye cleaned up all fifty or sixty pounds of rice.
Then he added more rice, poured in water, and cooked again.
During that time, Li Ye switched back and forth between the Guiding Method and the kicking technique, training without pause. He raised the qi and blood he had eaten another level. Once the rice was done, he ate again, repeating the cycle.
His qi and blood continued rising without pause.
83, 84, 85
91, 92, 93
The bags of rice gradually became flattened empty sacks, scattered all over the floor, along with raw grains of rice.
At the center of the scattered grains stood a youth breathing in and out, stretching his sinews and bones, springing with kicks, his legs tearing through the air.
His movements were powerful and graceful, but when he turned around, he could be seen hugging a rice cooker and gnawing away at it. It was utterly bizarre.
Fortunately, the windows had been covered with newspaper in advance. Otherwise, anyone passing by might have thought a wild fox spirit had possessed him or a starving ghost had taken over his body, and they would likely have called the police!
Time gradually passed into the afternoon.
Bang!
A sharp sound tore through the air inside the single-story house. Li Ye's kick struck three times in midair, from low to high, so fast that afterimages appeared. Then he stomped the ground and sprang up, sending a level kick straight into the air.
The kicking technique!
99.9!
He landed once more, breathed in and raised his qi, shaking his spine like a fierce tiger stretching its waist. He spread his limbs wide, strengthening his qi and blood.
The Guiding Method!
99.92!
He pressed forward. After a clear leaping step, his left foot twisted against the ground. Following a fierce side kick, he spun his body and changed angles, hooking the extended leg downward and smashing it heavily into the ground.
Thud!
That strike cracked a seam into the concrete floor.
99.95!
Then he closed his eyes and assumed the posture of a great roc spreading its wings. He stretched his legs forward with all his strength, taut and straight, while leaning his body back as far as possible, stretching his sinews and bones, strengthening his spleen, and thus stirring his qi and blood.
99.97!
Taking advantage of the momentum, he shifted directly into a golden rooster standing on one leg. His arms spread left and right like phoenix wings, his fingertips trembling like quivering feathers. He held his breath and condensed his spirit to maintain balance, raising his leaping foundation and flourishing his qi and blood.
99.99!
Huff!
Li Ye leaped into the air, his legs continuously switching and cutting through the air, kicking forward and backward as though he were traveling with a Lightness Skill. As he descended, he swung broadly. Near the ground, he abruptly spread his stance wide, like a vajra falling to earth, and slammed down.
Thud!!
100!
It was here!
"Ah!!"
Li Ye opened his eyes, and a gleam seemed to shoot from them. The sudden feeling of condensation within his body made him cry out.
There was only a boom in his mind, as though something had burst through his body, releasing a vast ocean that flowed into all four limbs and every bone.
He could feel it.
It was different.
If the qi and blood ordinary people raised through martial arts was like moisture in the air, watering parched ground, or drawing water from the mouth of a well—
Then Li Ye's qi and blood had become tangible, condensing all at once into an unceasing stream!
The qi and blood in his body was no longer the "illusory" thing ordinary people imagined. It had become thoroughly "solidified"!
He took a deep breath, fixed his eyes ahead, pressed forward from his wide bow stance, and thrust out a kick straight into the air.
Bang!
That kick seemed to stir even the air itself, whipping up the sound of rushing wind. A ring of airflow could even faintly be seen around his foot!
Li Ye looked at his arm again. With a movement of qi and blood, a faint vapor actually rose from it.
Not only his arm—his entire body emitted that vapor. It was like a halo, yet also as though he had been steamed cooked.
Within the rising vapor, he could see rhythmic fluctuations. At one moment of ascent, it pulsed once.
This was the mark of entering the Dragon Gate Realm, and the frequency of those pulses was precisely the number of times his qi and blood had circulated.
Dragon Gate Leap!
At three in the afternoon, Li Ye used more than a thousand pounds of rice to break through the Dragon Gate!
Since elementary school, he had practiced the Guiding Method every day without interruption. To understand demons, he had spent his spare time buried in libraries and searching for information online.
After entering a martial arts school in middle school, he trained through the bitterest winter days and the hottest summer days. His legs had been trained black and blue, swollen, and he had even kicked his bones until they cracked. He soaked in costly, foul-smelling medicinal baths that felt as though he were immersed in chili water, never daring to slack off for a single day.
Society's expectations of martial artists, his parents' hopes for him, his own ideals for martial arts—
"Ha, hahahaahahaha!!"
Li Ye paused for a long while, then suddenly grinned. His laughter gradually rose until it became wild laughter.
He had made it!
"Things will only get better and better!"
Li Ye spread out his hand, then clenched it tightly. "Everything in martial arts will be held firmly in my hand, just like my authority!"
Only after being excited for quite some time did he remember something and practice the Guiding Method and the kicking technique for a while longer.
"The Guiding Method and the kicking technique are useless now."
Those two methods had originally been prepared for breaking through the Dragon Gate. Everything had been for making qi and blood circulate and turning it into something tangible.
Now that it had circulated, they naturally no longer had any effect. They had lost the power to raise Li Ye's qi and blood.
He looked at the rice still remaining in the cookers, picked up his chopsticks, and took another bite. His eyebrows rose.
It was only a small bite, but he could sense that his qi and blood had risen by the tiniest thread.
Food was still useful, and the degree of increase was the same.
Only—
"300."
Li Ye thought, If I quantify my own data according to this sensation, then to go from First Dragon Gate to Second Dragon Gate, starting from zero, my qi and blood needs to rise to 300.
No matter. It was only a matter of eating more rice.
Before you continue