Yongxing Escort Agency

He came over to Wang Er, who was practicing in front of a wooden post.

"Your arm strength is sufficient, but your force is too straight and too fully committed. It lacks variation."

"Try using seventy percent of your strength when striking, holding back the remaining thirty percent in your wrist and arm. The instant you make contact, suddenly tense up. Imagine your palm isn't slapping against it, but driving deep into it—nailing itself in."

Wang Er attempted as instructed. The first strike still landed with a thunderous boom, making the wooden post sway violently.

Jiang Qinghe shook his head.

"Too hasty. Slow down! Find the feeling of concentrating your strength at a single point."

On the second attempt, Wang Er slowed his initial movement. When his palm was halfway through its path, Jiang Qinghe suddenly barked:

"Concentrate your wrist—drive it through!"

Crack!

A crisp sound rang out. A palm print nearly an inch deep had been left in the wooden post. Wang Er stared at his own palm in astonishment, an almost unbelievable ecstasy rising in his eyes.

"Yes, that's the feeling."

Jiang Qinghe nodded. "Concentrate your force in the wrist, then penetrate the object with it!"

He moved among the practicing Martial Disciples, sometimes pinpointing the precise timing of someone's exertion, sometimes personally adjusting another's wrist posture, explaining how to mobilize the greatest core strength with the smallest range of motion.

Jiang Qinghe's guidance struck straight at the heart of the matter, clearing away the fog from everyone's minds.

Watching the others immerse themselves in training, the initial awkwardness of not knowing where to begin gradually faded from him.

His understanding of the Rock Crushing Palm even seemed to deepen slightly. The progress that had stagnated these past days actually increased a little.

[Martial Skill: Rock Crushing Palm (Minor Accomplishment—4/10)]

Jiang Qinghe suddenly saw the light, as though he had pushed open a new door to understanding the martial path.

Teaching a man to fish was not merely giving—it was also the deepest tempering of one's own martial path!

In the process of analyzing, teaching, and guiding others, those subtle truths that had once lain hidden deep in instinct—things he knew but could not explain—were repeatedly sorted through, verified, and even elevated.

This was no simple sharing of experience. It was a path where teaching promoted learning, where teaching and learning reinforced each other, leading directly toward deeper realms of the martial path.

That entire morning, a frenzy of cultivation seemed to ignite within the Martial Academy.

Under Jiang Qinghe's guidance, all the Martial Disciples benefited greatly.

Only after noon, when their qi and blood had nearly run dry, did they finally leave in twos and threes.

At that moment, Zhao Guangyi walked over, clicking his tongue in wonder.

"Junior Brother, you really have been hiding your depths! Not only is your talent astonishing, you're even skilled at teaching. You've truly made me see you in a new light!"

Hearing his Senior Brother's teasing praise, Jiang Qinghe spread his hands and feigned helplessness.

"You flatter me, Senior Brother. I was only forcing myself through it and talking nonsense."

Hearing this, Zhao Guangyi burst into laughter.

"Master truly has sharp eyes. He took in such a fine disciple—astonishing talent, yet humble and modest, neither arrogant nor impetuous. Such temperament is even rarer!"

As usual, he gave Jiang Qinghe's shoulder a heavy slap, making the latter's body sway slightly.

Then, seeming to have other matters to attend to, he strode out of the training grounds. His burly figure soon vanished beyond the courtyard gate.

"He has to do that signature move every time."

Jiang Qinghe rubbed his slightly numb shoulder and muttered softly,

"Good thing he didn't put any strength into it. Otherwise, this shoulder of mine might have been ruined."

"Qinghe! What are you spacing out for?"

Gong Jie's voice rang out.

"Want to spar a few rounds?"

"Sure."

Jiang Qinghe smiled faintly.

The two began sparring again. After more than a dozen exchanges of attack and defense, sweat had appeared on Gong Jie's forehead, and his breathing had become slightly disordered.

He abruptly withdrew his palm and leaped back, opening the distance between them. With a long sigh, he spoke in a tone full of tangled emotions.

"Qinghe, I said back then that in a few more months, I probably wouldn't be able to keep you down anymore. Who knew that after only a little over a month, you'd already surpassed me—and left me far behind."

He wiped away his sweat. His eyes held sincere joy for his brother, but also a faint, almost imperceptible loss and self-doubt.

To watch with his own eyes as a companion who had once trained shoulder to shoulder with him, and who had even been slightly inferior to him, pulled so far ahead at an inconceivable speed—

The feeling was truly beyond words.

"Ahem, A-Jie, there are always greater people beyond people, and higher heavens beyond the sky. Comparisons never end; they only bring needless worries."

Jiang Qinghe advised him.

"You should compare yourself with who you were before. Improve by one fraction each day, and over time, you will surely gain a great deal."

Gong Jie spoke as if resigning himself to fate.

"Fine. I really can't compare myself to a monster like you. Otherwise, I'd be compared to death alive, and that would be truly unfair."

Seeing that he had let it go, Jiang Qinghe breathed a sigh of relief before asking:

"Right, A-Jie, do you know where I can get a body-tempering cultivation method?"

Hearing this, Gong Jie raised his thick brows in surprise.

"What? Aren't you already preparing for Tendon Transformation? Why do you still need those?"

Jiang Qinghe pondered for a moment before explaining.

"I was too eager to succeed before and didn't properly comprehend things. Now I want to settle down and consolidate my foundation. At the same time, I want to find another body-tempering method to compare against, to see how different approaches temper the body alike or differently. Perhaps I can draw inferences from one instance to another and make up for my previous oversights."

"Hmm..."

After hearing Jiang Qinghe's explanation, Gong Jie nodded thoughtfully.

He did not ask further. He only hesitated for a moment before seeming to make some decision.

"Qinghe, there's still plenty of time today. Come back to the Escort Agency with me."

Gong Jie paused, then lowered his voice.

"I'll lend you the handwritten copy of the Panshi Jue cultivated by the Agency's escort captains. Don't pass it around. Just return it to me when you're done."

"Alright!"

Warmth rose in Jiang Qinghe's heart, and he nodded solemnly.

He knew very well that cultivation methods—especially those that served as the foundation of a faction—were always cherished like one's own broom and never shared with outsiders.

Though the Panshi Jue was no peerless art, it was still one of the foundations upon which the Yongxing Escort Agency survived.

The Yongxing Escort Agency stood at the southernmost end of Anren Ward.

It had once produced a Great Martial Master and had been a resounding name in Lin'an County, one of its foremost powers.

But as the Escort Agency was passed down through later generations, the aptitude and fortune of its descendants seemed to grow worse with every generation.

By the generation of Gong Jie's father, Gong Yongxing, although his name carried the high hopes of reviving the family business,

his strength was rather awkwardly limited to the peak of Tendon Transformation.

At that realm, if he became a lone wanderer and worked alone, he would certainly be a formidable expert whom others feared.

But if he wished to support the vast Escort Agency legacy left behind by his ancestors, facing bandits and bold outlaws from every quarter as well as the complex, treacherous storms of the trade,

the strength of peak Tendon Transformation alone seemed inadequate, leaving him stretched thin and unable to do as he wished.

Without the deterrence of top-tier martial strength, the Yongxing Escort Agency did not dare casually accept many escort routes that were highly profitable but equally dangerous.

Thus, the Escort Agency now relied only on the little prestige accumulated by its ancestors, along with the loyalty and connections of old clients.

It barely maintained a modest business escorting relatively safe short-distance shipments, operating neither prosperously nor poorly.

It was far from the flourishing state of its former days.

The Martial Academy and the Escort Agency were not far apart to begin with. The two followed the main road for roughly half an hour.

After turning several more street corners, they saw from afar the imposing yet somewhat desolate gates and tall courtyard walls of the Yongxing Escort Agency.