A Humble Man's Ambition Cannot Be Hidden, Seeking a New Path in Martial Arts

The three of them left the Fengtian Division office and walked along the street toward Pear Blossom Alley.

Wei Datong walked in the middle, his mouth never stopping. He pointed at a three-story tavern on the street corner, above which hung a sign with the gilded characters "Drunken Immortal Tower" written in a flamboyant script. In front of the door, carriages and horses bustled, and everyone coming and going was dressed in fine clothes, clearly from wealthy families.

"See that? Drunken Immortal Tower." Wei Datong smacked his lips, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "I hear one dish of 'Buddha Jumps Over the Wall' in there costs two taels of silver. Our whole month's salary wouldn't even be enough to fill their teeth."

He looked up at the tall building and let out a long sigh. In that sigh was envy, resentment, and a sour, self-deprecating bitterness.

Xiong Tiezhu carried his thick-backed broadsword on his shoulder, walking with his head down, not even glancing at the tavern.

Ye Qingxuan followed behind the two, taking out the three assignment tokens from his chest. These were the identity credentials for patrol constables in Pear Blossom Alley. Made of iron, they felt heavy in the hand. On the front was carved the character "Constable," and on the back were their respective names. Besides the tokens, there were also three standard-issue short blades. The scabbards were made of sharkskin, and the hilts were wrapped in coarse cloth, though they were old and worn, polished smooth and shiny.

This was the entire kit for temporary constables like them, who weren't on the official roster.

Wei Datong pulled his gaze away from the Drunken Immortal Tower and started talking about the ins and outs of the job again. "By the rules, our patrol squad should have four people, with one official constable leading. Our squad is still one short."

Ye Qingxuan asked, "Who's the captain leading us?"

"Who else could it be?" Wei Datong curled his lip. "Captain Hong, of course. Hong Qingshan, the veteran constable."

"Where is Captain Hong?" Xiong Tiezhu interjected in a muffled voice.

"Captain Hong?" Wei Datong chuckled and jerked his chin toward a teahouse across the street. "Right now, he's probably inside the Yi Xin Teahouse, listening to a storytelling session, nibbling on aniseed peas, and sipping Pre-Qingming Longjing tea that costs two coppers for an ounce."

Ye Qingxuan followed his gaze. The teahouse was buzzing with noise and lively activity. Hong Qingshan was nearly sixty, one of the most senior constables in the office. After a lifetime of service, he had learned to steal moments of leisure. He'd check in for duty, then vanish without a trace, only reappearing at the end of the shift. Chief Constable Zhang and the others turned a blind eye, treating it as a courtesy to an old colleague.

"So, in the end, this job is still just the three of us brothers." Wei Datong tugged at his own faded black uniform, the cuffs frayed and revealing a bit of the coarse linen lining.

"Look at those official constables," he said, pointing ahead. Two patrolling constables were walking toward them. The two stood straight and tall, their uniforms made of brand-new fine cotton, black with a glossy sheen, perfectly tailored. They wore wide leather belts at their waists, with standard-issue long blades hanging from them, but a red silk tassel dangled from the hilt. As they walked, the tassels swayed, looking quite imposing.

The two official constables passed by them without even a sideways glance, as if Ye Qingxuan and his companions were nothing more than stone posts by the roadside, not worth a single look.

"See that? That's the difference." Wei Datong waited until they were half a street away before lowering his voice again. "Same job, we get five hundred coppers, they get two taels of silver. We're temporary constables, they're official officers registered in the Fengtian Division roster. These clothes we're wearing are hand-me-downs from the last batch; theirs are custom-made new uniforms from the division."

The more he spoke, the stronger the sourness in his voice became. "When will I ever get to wear a set like that, with a long blade with red tassels hanging at my waist, and walk through the Southern District? Then let's see which bastard dares to look down on me!"

These words spoke the heart of every temporary constable in the yard. In this muddy world, a decent job and a sharp official uniform were dignity, face, and the backbone to stand tall.

Xiong Tiezhu, listening on the side, suddenly spoke up. "To get promoted, you need to earn merit. To earn merit, you need skill."

He stopped walking and slammed the thick-backed broadsword on his shoulder onto the ground. The bluestone slab let out a dull thud. He reached out with a hand as big as a winnowing fan, gripped the hilt, and with a burst of strength from both arms, he slowly lifted the iron blade, which weighed at least fifty catties, with one hand. The muscles on his arm bulged, veins coiling like twisted tree roots.

"My old man said, in the martial path, tempering the body comes first. Tempering the body means training this strength. When I can swing this blade around like a windmill, three or five ordinary thugs won't be able to get near me." Xiong Tiezhu lowered the blade, a simple stubbornness on his face. "When that happens, if there's a bandit-suppression mission, I'll go. Chop off a few heads, earn the merit, and won't I get promoted?"

Wei Datong looked at his brute strength, then at his own scrawny, monkey-like frame, and deflated. "You big oaf, born with Divine Power. I can't do that. I've practiced some farmhand martial arts for a few years, and I still can't even smash a whole brick."

He shook his head and let out another long sigh. "How hard is it to enter the martial path! No talent, no connections, what can you use to compete with others? People like us, we're destined to roll around in the mud."

Ye Qingxuan hadn't said a word.

He listened to Wei Datong's complaints and watched Xiong Tiezhu's brute strength, but his mind was clear.

Wei Datong was both right and wrong. This world was indeed a mud pit. But not everyone in the mud pit had to roll around in it.

He could clearly sense the change in his body. After two nights of hard training, a new power was flowing slowly beneath his skin and flesh, warm and full of resilience. The soreness from last night's practice had turned into a numb, tingling itch, like thawing earth in spring, with countless new shoots about to break through from the depths.

The merit for his Indestructible Vajra Body had already accumulated to two points.

This was his path.

Wei Datong and Xiong Tiezhu saw only the wall before them, so high its top was invisible, and the narrow single-log bridge that only one person could cross sideways. They struggled and wandered on this path, one venting with his mouth, the other charging ahead with brute force.

But Ye Qingxuan, when he looked down, it was as if a road invisible to others had spread out beneath his feet. This road might be covered in thorns at first, but as long as he was willing to walk, to sweat, to endure pain, there would be light ahead.

That feeling was solid and certain.

It was as if others were still groping in the dark, trying to figure out how to start a fire for warmth, while he already held a spark in his hand.

As long as his blood and qi could keep up, as long as this body could withstand night after night of tempering, the markings on the scroll would grow inch by inch.

If the Indestructible Vajra Body could reach the first stage, achieving the completion of the first inch of the scale, he wondered—would that count as officially stepping onto the path of martial arts cultivation?

This thought quietly surfaced in his mind, like a pebble dropped into still water, rippling out in circles.