The iron stake was buried in the mud, its tip no longer trembling. Chen Wuya's fingers moved away from the crack, his palm resting against his knee as his breathing grew steadier than before.
Old Wu Tou walked back and sat down beside him, gently leaning his cane against the base of the wall. Half a step lay between them. As before, they remained silent, but the atmosphere had changed. The tremors of footsteps from far away still rolled through the ground, their frequency unchanged. It seemed the other side was still lingering several miles away.
"You said just now that your force was too wild, so wild that you couldn't even suppress your own people." Old Wu Tou suddenly spoke, his voice low and steady. "What did you mean?"
Chen Wuya turned his head and glanced at him, the corner of his mouth twitching. "My force doesn't follow the meridians. It charges against them. Other people focus on making their power flow smoothly and continuously, but I insist on twisting it. The system accepted it as valid and filled in the qi pathway. The force took shape, but my body couldn't bear it."
"So after you beat someone up, you're practically falling apart yourself?"
"More or less." He smiled. "It's like trying to scoop water with a bamboo basket. All your strength leaks away, and the basket ends up split."
Old Wu Tou frowned. "Martial arts emphasize a solid foundation, with force born from within. How can anyone rely on crooked theories and fool around? Your method sounds impossible from the start."
"But it works." Chen Wuya spread his palm, then closed it again. "Seven people surrounded me, bringing their blades down together. I didn't block a single strike head-on. I made all of them shatter their own weapons. This isn't clever force. It's counterforce—the fiercer they are, the heavier the rebound."
"Going against the flow..." Old Wu Tou murmured, his gaze growing distant, as though he were recalling something.
Noticing his odd reaction, Chen Wuya continued, "Look at a current. If it rushes straight into a rock, it gets blocked. But if it curls around behind and surges back, it can scour out the mud and sand beneath. My force is meant to burrow in from directions no one expects. Don't believe me? Think about how you controlled the reins when a horse bolted during an escort mission. Pulling forward would only get you dragged along, right? You had to draw it back, yank it sideways, or even loosen one hand before pulling sharply again?"
Old Wu Tou's body stiffened.
Something from thirty years ago rose to the surface—during that Silver Escort Mission through the mountain pass, a sudden downpour had frightened the lead horse into a mad sprint. In his panic, he had not clung desperately to the reins. Instead, he had loosened them with the motion, then sharply twisted against the turn of the horse's head, using its momentum to bleed off the force. That was the only reason the carriage had not overturned and plunged off the cliff.
At the time, his master had cursed him for acting recklessly, but afterward he had said, "A crooked move can save your life. That means it has its own reason."
Looking back now, that feeling of "this shouldn't work, but somehow it does" faintly matched what the young man before him had been saying.
"You mean force doesn't have to be unleashed according to the usual rules?" Old Wu Tou slowly asked.
"Rules are dead." Chen Wuya leaned back against the wall and looked up at the night sky. "People are alive. When you practice until you reach the end and discover the proper path won't work, are you supposed to resign yourself to fate? I don't believe that. A mistake is still a path. If it gets you where you need to go, then it's right."
Old Wu Tou said nothing. His right hand slowly rose, pushing at empty air. The motion was extremely slow, but he deliberately twisted his wrist, turning his palm downward first, then flipping it upward in circles, like wringing out a wet cloth.
He closed his eyes. The last thread of inner breath in his body flowed slowly with his thoughts. Suddenly, a faint resistance rose along the outside of his forearm, as though a stream of qi were trying to push upward against its normal course. It vanished in a flash, but still left his fingertips faintly numb.
His eyes flew open.
"This force... it isn't being sent outward. It's being drawn inward? No, that's not it either. It's twisting upward in circles?"
"That's it." Chen Wuya smiled. "When ordinary people throw a punch, their force travels from shoulder to elbow to wrist and is pushed straight out. I'm teaching you to think in reverse—let the force spiral inside your arm, storing itself like twisted dough, then explode when it touches something. You had no true qi supporting that movement, but you grasped the idea."
Old Wu Tou stared at his own hand as if seeing it for the first time.
"I've practiced flowing force my entire life. I was taught to make 'force reach the fingertips' and 'connect it in a single line.' No one ever said it could move like this." His voice trembled slightly. "But that instant just now... it truly felt different. Not stronger. More alive."
"That's the point." Chen Wuya nodded. "The orthodox path values rules. Misaligned Force values change. The more impossible you think it is, the more likely it is to work. Your opponent can't defend against it—he doesn't even believe anyone in this world would fight like that."
Old Wu Tou lowered his head and looked at his cane. Suddenly, he said, "You said the academy expelled you, and everyone mocked you as a good-for-nothing?"
"Mm."
"Then now... would you still count as a good-for-nothing?"
"I don't know." Chen Wuya gazed at the broken blades scattered across the ground. "But I do know those broken knives don't lie."
Old Wu Tou was silent for a long while before asking, "Can you teach me?"
Chen Wuya froze.
"I'm not trying to learn how you fight people." The old man lifted his eyes to him. "I want to know whether this kind of force can heal injuries."
"Heal injuries?"
"I was left with a body full of old ailments after an escort mission years ago. My meridians are badly blocked, and medicine can't reach them. Later, I barely managed to keep going with needles, tapping, and hot compresses. But if true qi can move against the current, could it break through the places that are stuck?"
Chen Wuya was stunned.
He had never considered that question.
The essence of Misaligned Force was the system rationalizing an error and filling in the path for it to run. If someone's meridians were blocked and conventional circulation could not pass through, could moving in reverse instead bypass the obstruction?
"In theory... it might be possible." He spoke slowly. "But no one has tried it. Who would dare gamble with their own meridians? If you practice it wrong, you'll be paralyzed at best, and die suddenly at worst."
"I've already been paralyzed once." Old Wu Tou's tone was calm. "Ten years ago, I was traveling through a snowy night in winter. The cold sank into my bones, and my left leg was useless for three months. The physician said that if I suffered another bout of cold, I'd need a cane for the rest of my life. But I can still walk now, and I can still patrol at night. That means Heaven left me a crack."
Chen Wuya looked at him and suddenly felt that the old man was tougher than he had imagined.
"You want to try?"
"I don't want to live an entire life for nothing." Old Wu Tou tightened his grip on his cane. "When I was young, I only knew how to obey the rules. Now I understand that sometimes rules can't save your life. Your crooked theory may be precisely the crack I need."
Chen Wuya drew a deep breath and straightened his back.
"All right. I can tell you how to think and how to do it, but you bear the consequences yourself. And you're old. Your meridians aren't as flexible as a young person's. If something goes awry..."
"I know." Old Wu Tou cut him off. "As long as I don't die."
Chen Wuya laughed. "Good. Then let me ask you—what direction is 'pushing'?"
"Forward."
"Wrong." Chen Wuya shook his head. "Pushing can also mean backward. For example, if you push against a wall and the wall doesn't move, the recoil pushes you back. If you turn your wrist while pushing and press your force downward, that rebound will become rotational force. You don't need to exert force yourself. You only need to guide it."
He extended his right hand, palm facing forward, then slowly turned his wrist until his fingertips gradually pointed toward the ground.
"The force isn't in your hand. It's in that instant of turning. You have to learn to sense the 'sticking point,' then let it break open on its own."
Old Wu Tou followed him, his movements clumsy but earnest.
Once, twice, ten times...
With each turn of his palm, he tried to catch that subtle sensation of force surging backward. At first, there was no reaction at all. Then, on the thirteenth attempt, he suddenly felt the Jianjing Acupoint twitch, as though a thin thread had been violently tugged.
"I've got it!" he cried softly.
Chen Wuya's eyes lit up. "Again, but slower."
The old man raised his hand once more, pushing outward with his palm before slowly turning it. At the instant his wrist reached the limit of its twist, he deliberately slowed down, concentrating his mind on the inside of his arm.
A faint stream of qi rose from deep within the crook of his elbow, rushing upward against the Triple Burner Meridian by an inch before dispersing.
But he had felt it clearly.
It wasn't an illusion.
It wasn't a trick of the mind.
It was true qi, flowing in a manner he had never experienced before.
"So... force can move like this too!" He looked at Chen Wuya, his eyes no longer filled with doubt but with shock. "You brat, there really is something real hidden inside all that nonsense!"
Chen Wuya flashed a wide grin. "I told you. A mistake is still a path."
Old Wu Tou panted, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. That instant had clearly taken a tremendous toll on his mind. But he did not stop. Instead, he raised his hand again.
"Don't rush." Chen Wuya pressed down on his shoulder. "You can only try three times a day. Any more will harm your spirit. You aren't practicing martial arts right now. You're relearning how to use your body."
The old man nodded and finally stopped.
The two fell silent again, but something invisible had entered the air—like a spark dropping into a pile of dry grass, waiting only for the wind to rise.
The tremors in the distance remained regular. The enemy army had yet to draw near.
The camp was sparsely lit, with only the silhouettes of sentries swaying about near the watchposts.
Chen Wuya leaned against the wall and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing. Old Wu Tou sat beside him, his fingers continually tracing arcs across his knee as though practicing some newly learned language.
After a long while, Old Wu Tou suddenly said, "If this crooked theory of yours gets out, I'm afraid it'll cause a great deal of trouble."
Chen Wuya opened one eye. "Why?"
"The people of the martial world have no room for outsiders." The old man lowered his voice. "They'll say you've broken the rules and shaken the foundations. At best, they'll surround and attack you. At worst, they'll execute you."
"But I've already broken them." Chen Wuya closed his eyes again. "Besides, I think rules were made by people in the first place. If they can be made, they can be changed."
Old Wu Tou said nothing more.
He merely raised his right hand slowly and once again traced that twisted path through the air.
Palm facing downward, then turning upward, like wringing a hemp rope or untying a dead knot.
Just as he completed the final circle, his fingertips suddenly trembled.
A stream of qi, clearer than before, surged upward against the inside of his forearm and shot straight to his shoulder blade.
His entire body shook, and both eyes flew open.
Chen Wuya sensed it at once and abruptly sat upright.
Old Wu Tou's hand still hung suspended in midair, trembling faintly. Yet his face revealed an expression he had not shown in decades—
like a lost man who had finally seen the light.
Before you continue