Xiao Rou's figure had barely appeared at the street corner when Chen Wuya noticed that her footsteps had grown lighter. The heaviness that had weighed on her shoulders yesterday was gone, and even the straw tie in her braid looked as if the wind had smoothed it out, leaving it neither crooked nor tangled.
He silently rearranged the pebbles in his palm into a row, and his fingertips trembled faintly. Just now, a warm current had stirred deep within his dantian, like someone tugging lightly on a thin thread from far away. The sensation was exactly the same as when his meridians had connected last night.
"Sir!" Xiao Rou hurried forward, her voice brimming with barely restrained excitement. "My father can stand up! This morning, he walked to the courtyard gate by himself and even drank half a bowl of rice porridge!"
Chen Wuya raised his eyes, his gaze settling on her face. Her eyes, which were usually lowered, now shone astonishingly bright. Her lips trembled faintly, as if she wanted to pour out everything in a single breath.
"He said that the blocked-up qi in his chest has dispersed. His hands and feet have strength now, and he isn't coughing at night anymore. He even asked me to ask you... is it really possible for 'water to flow uphill,' and for an illness to reverse along with it?"
The crowd of onlookers had yet to disperse. Several vegetable vendors were squatting nearby, sorting greens, but their ears were clearly turned this way. An old man leaning on a cane slowly edged closer, muttering, "What's this about water flowing uphill? Can a river really run backward?"
Chen Wuya did not answer. He merely nodded slowly, his finger tracing a gentle arc across the tabletop. As he did, the severed end of the long-broken Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian inside him suddenly trembled, as if a warm, moist power were seeping along the meridian into his marrow.
The system stirred.
It was not an illusion, nor a coincidence. It was genuine restoration.
He lowered his head and looked at his hand. The edges of his fingernails had gone somewhat pale—the mark left by true qi surging backward and scouring his blood vessels. Yet this injury left his heart startlingly clear.
So long as someone believed—even an ignorant village woman or a patient bedridden for years—as long as they sincerely followed those "nonsensical words," his cultivation technique could be pieced back together bit by bit.
"How long has your father been practicing?" he asked.
"Since the Rat Hour last night. He's been practicing until now." Xiao Rou spoke eagerly. "He did as you said, imagining black water surging upward from the soles of his feet. At first, he felt dizzy, but later he grew warm all over, like he was basking in the sun."
Chen Wuya closed his eyes briefly.
That route of "Kan Water Backflows to Kunlun" had originally been a dead end he had fabricated out of thin air. If a normal person followed it, they would be bedridden within three days. Yet somehow, an old man on the verge of death had not only avoided disaster but come back to life.
Misaligned Practice Connects to Spirit. It recognized neither life nor death, only "believing it to be true."
He suddenly smiled, the corners of his lips lifting by the slightest degree.
"Add another line to the mantra tomorrow," he said. "Have him silently recite the four words 'Earth Fire Ascends.' The focus isn't on the top of his head, but on the soles of his feet. He must feel a stream of heat rising from the Yongquan Acupoint until the soles of his feet burn hot."
The instant these words left his mouth, a section of meridian within him that had long since stiffened and died gave a violent twitch. A gentle force then slowly poured into it. That was the crucial junction where the Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian met the Thoroughfare Vessel—the place he had been unable to open for years actually loosened quietly after this absurd instruction was issued.
Xiao Rou nodded forcefully. She took a coarse cloth handkerchief from her bosom and carefully wrote down the words. Her hand trembled slightly. Before the ink had dried, she folded it up and clenched it tightly in her palm.
"Sir, what exactly do you do?" she suddenly asked, looking straight at him. "The village physicians all said my father was beyond saving, yet a few words from you brought him back to life. Is this... really fortune-telling?"
The people around them fell silent as well.
The vegetable vendors stopped their work, while the old man with the cane shuffled two steps closer. An indescribable emotion filled the air, seeming part awe and part suspicion.
Chen Wuya did not evade her gaze.
He knew that he could not retreat at this moment. If he showed fear, everything he had built up before this would collapse.
"I'm not a fortune-teller," he said slowly. "I'm a messenger."
Everyone froze.
"Some people fall ill not because medicine has failed, but because no one has told them how to use the bodies they possess. The movement of qi and blood between Heaven and Earth follows its own laws, but those laws may not be something only physicians can explain."
He paused. His voice was not loud, yet every word struck the ground with weight. "You come to ask me about marriage, harvests, and your children's studies, but in truth, you're all asking the same thing—how to make your lives better. What I want to tell you is that the way to improve your lives does not lie in Heaven's decree. It lies within yourselves."
The crowd erupted with a buzzing roar.
Some shook their heads in disbelief, while others pondered his words. A young man even pushed through the crowd and asked, "Then tell me, what should I do about my backache?"
"Pat your Mingmen seventy-two times every morning and evening while imagining hot water flowing down along your spine," Chen Wuya answered casually. "Don't worry about whether it's scientific. So long as you believe the heat is real, it will become real."
The young man was stunned, and the people beside him burst into laughter.
"You really dare say that!"
"Who would believe it? Can you imagine hot water into existence?"
Chen Wuya ignored them and looked only at Xiao Rou. "Go back and tell your father to keep practicing. Within three days, he won't merely be able to walk—he'll be able to carry water and chop firewood."
Xiao Rou bit her lip, a layer of moisture rising in her eyes. She gave him a deep look, then turned and ran, her footsteps ringing crisply over the bluestone slabs.
Only after her figure vanished around the corner did Chen Wuya slowly withdraw his gaze.
He lowered his head and looked at his hands, opening and closing his five fingers. Misaligned Force circulated through his meridians far faster than before, like a riverbed parched for years finally welcoming the spring flood.
So he had been walking a path no one else dared take all along—presenting martial arts as rhetoric and turning cultivation into lies to be passed on. Yet it was precisely those lies that were piecing him back together, bit by bit.
At the academy, his teacher had scolded him for spouting crooked theories, saying that he recited texts without structure and explained meanings through sheer nonsense. But even then, he had discovered that the more outrageous the metaphor, the easier it was for his classmates to understand. Once, while explaining the "haoran qi" in the Mencius, he had casually said, "It's like drinking iced water in summer—it runs cold from your throat all the way to your stomach, then you burp, and your whole body feels comfortable." As a result, even the most old-fashioned instructor had been stunned for quite some time before unexpectedly nodding.
Back then, he had not understood that his mind was simply born without a proper road.
And now, this crooked road had actually led somewhere.
He looked toward the old farmer basking in the sun by the roadside. The man was squinting as he rubbed corn, humming an off-key tune. Normally, Chen Wuya would have regarded him as nothing more than an insignificant passerby. But now, a thought suddenly occurred to him: if this man also began practicing Misaligned Force, even if it was merely to cure his leg pain or sleep better at night, might it reconnect another section of Chen Wuya's meridians?
Once the thought arose, his heart opened wide with sudden clarity.
Why struggle to seek a famed master? Why pin his hopes on a fortuitous encounter? So long as people were willing to listen, willing to believe, and willing to follow his instructions, his Canglang Art could be restored inch by inch.
This was not deception. This was borrowing the strength of all living beings to mend the flaws in his own body.
He picked up another handful of pebbles and arranged them into a new formation. This time, it was no Bagua, but the routes of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels. Each pebble's position corresponded to an unopened acupoint within his body.
"Sir!" A child suddenly ran over, holding up a copper coin. "My mother asked me to come and ask—my little brother keeps getting fevers. Has he been struck by evil?"
Chen Wuya raised his head, the corners of his lips lifting slightly.
"It isn't evil. It's qi stagnating in the lungs," he said. "Tonight, have him stand barefoot on the ground for a quarter of an hour before bed, imagining wind rising from beneath his feet and blowing away the stuffy fire in his chest."
Before his voice had even faded, the Sanyinjiao acupoint on his left arm suddenly grew hot, as if pricked lightly by a needle. Immediately afterward, a dormant hidden branch of the Belt Vessel Meridian began to slowly revive.
He had opened another section.
More and more people gathered around. Some asked about headaches, some about insomnia, and some about why their crops would not grow. He answered them one by one, every reply absurd and nonsensical on the surface, yet concealing routes for reversing the flow of true qi.
When he spoke of "Li Fire Descends to the North Sea," the end of the Ren Meridian throbbed faintly;
When he explained "Taiyin Reverses to Taiqing," the meridians in both arms seemed to be scoured by warm currents;
When he smilingly told a hunched old man, "Your back hurts because your yang qi is stuck at Jiaji. Every night before bed, imagine the sun rising from Weilu," Misaligned Force quietly connected the Hand Yang Meridians.
The midday sun shone upon the blue cloth banner, making it flap loudly. A charred yellow corner of paper still showed from beneath the table's edge, unnoticed by anyone.
Xiao Rou's figure appeared at the street corner once again.
She had practically run all the way there. Her face was pale, and her breathing was ragged. "Sir! My father practiced 'Earth Fire Ascends' as you instructed, but halfway through, the soles of his feet suddenly grew scorching hot. He collapsed to his knees, crying out in pain! Could he have... gone into qi deviation?"
Chen Wuya abruptly rose to his feet, and the chair legs scraped across the ground with a harsh screech.
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