Learning Martial Arts

Gu Shenwei stayed behind that very day to learn martial arts from Xue Niang.

They were neither master and disciple nor friends, yet one taught with great care, and the other studied with fierce diligence.

Gu Shenwei knew full well that Xue Niang and her mistress did not intend merely to provide Golden Peng Fortress with apprentice killers. They had a firm hold on his weakness, so they must have something else in mind. But until they made their final demand, he would enjoy a measure of safety.

It was a strange combination indeed. Gu Shenwei called himself Yang Huan, and the target of his revenge was very likely Eighth Young Master Shangguan Nu. Yet Luo Ningcha, the Eighth Young Madam, seemed unconcerned, while Xue Niang had not probed further and had readily accepted his story. And he, a young killer harboring murderous intent, had to rely on two women with hidden agendas to keep himself safe.

Another thing took Gu Shenwei by surprise: he was not the only one learning martial arts from Xue Niang.

The Golden Peng Fortress named its female slaves much like its male servants, choosing a character from the Thousand Character Classic. The only difference was that the word "girl" was added afterward.

The girl learning alongside Gu Shenwei was called He Nu. She was one of the ten young girls whom Great Head God had bought by the roadside.

She was a taciturn girl. She might have been called beautiful, if not for her overly serious expression. She always seemed lost in thought, wary of everything around her. She paid particular attention to every word Xue Niang said and every movement she made.

From Xue Niang's perspective, He Nu was an excellent pupil.

Gu Shenwei had never heard Yao Nu mention her.

The sharp-faced boy had talked about the other girls, but never He Nu. For someone who liked to boast and chatter, that was an exceedingly rare omission.

Xue Niang's way of teaching martial arts was completely different from the Gu Family's. On the first day, she didn't demonstrate a single move. Instead, she had her two "pupils," a boy and a girl, fight each other—not just to test their skills, but with all their strength.

Gu Shenwei was knocked down by a sudden kick on the very first move. Only then did he realize He Nu was fighting in earnest. He also understood why Yao Nu had so often been injured.

He Nu had no martial arts foundation. It was only thanks to her keen aptitude and fierce determination that, in just a few dozen days, she had learned a whole range of punches and kicks under Xue Niang's instruction.

At first, Gu Shenwei had tried to conceal his strength, but in the end he had to give it everything he had, unleashing all the power of the first level of Hehe Jin just to force a draw.

He Nu had never practiced Internal Force. She simply had far more combat experience than Gu Shenwei.

They had sparred for less than half an hour, yet Gu Shenwei was already drenched in sweat. His breath surged in his dantian, and he could barely keep going.

Xue Niang offered pointers from the sidelines, but most of them were aimed at He Nu. She waited until the very end to advise—or perhaps command—the newly arrived Huan Nu:

"Forget that lousy fist technique you learned. Focus on your Internal Force. If you want to enter East Fortress and survive long enough to become a killer, you'll have to start from scratch."

That afternoon, Xue Niang went to attend to her mistress, leaving He Nu to teach Huan Nu Tiger Subduing Fist.

Losing to a girl his own age was humiliating enough. Having to learn the fist technique from her move by move was even more mortifying—especially since He Nu was so cold and said barely a word, as if she were deeply unwilling to teach him.

But when Gu Shenwei returned to Kindling Courtyard that evening, he found himself treated in a way he never would have expected.

For the first time, the new courtyard chief spoke to Huan Nu of his own accord and even encouraged him a little, telling him he no longer had to look after the injured in the courtyard.

The other five boys welcomed their "sworn brother" back with awkward smiles. Lei Nu even helped brush the dirt from his clothes. Their sudden change in attitude left Gu Shenwei at a loss for a moment.

The one he paid closest attention to was Qian Nu.

Qian Nu was as he had always been. He, too, tried to be friendly, but he didn't say much. Just when the conversation was about to die, he would offer a remark, giving the impression that he was the leader of the little group.

Gu Shenwei decided to set White Silk aside for the time being. He would concentrate on learning martial arts, both to enter East Fortress as an apprentice killer and to protect himself against those two women.

Golden Peng Fortress seemed like an immense iron mountain, impregnable from afar. But up close, one could see tiny cracks. Gu Shenwei had already found a few, but they were nowhere near enough for his revenge. He had to keep digging deeper, until he reached the point where all the cracks converged.

Now Gu Shenwei could practice martial arts in the open. Apart from eating and sleeping, he devoted nearly all his time to training. Even after returning from Xue Niang's, he went to Ghost Cry Cliff to practice Hehe Jin. He meant to reclaim every one of the ten-odd years he had wasted.

Xue Niang was eager for the two boys she planned to recommend to distinguish themselves in East Fortress, so she supervised them with great severity. She even interfered with Huan Nu's Internal Force training, afraid that Yao Nu's tragedy might be repeated.

Unlike Gu Lun, who had taught Internal Force gradually and patiently, prioritizing stability over speed, Xue Niang pushed Huan Nu to improve with something close to brute force.

Every day, Gu Shenwei had to practice Hehe Jin in front of her. From time to time, she jabbed a finger into him, striking a different acupoint each time and injecting a fierce stream of heat to help open his meridians.

This naturally did wonders for his Internal Force training, but it was excruciating as well. Within a few days, Gu Shenwei was covered in bruises, and at night he could hardly find a comfortable position to sleep.

The daily sparring with He Nu only added to the pain. From the very beginning, the silent girl had inexplicably resented Huan Nu. When Xue Niang began helping him practice Internal Force on his own, He Nu started treating her fellow pupil as an enemy.

Gu Shenwei had never before been hated so intensely.

He was bewildered by it, and soon anger and defiance followed. He wanted to get the better of He Nu.

That was difficult to achieve while learning Tiger Subduing Fist. Gu Shenwei had never been particularly good at hand-to-hand combat, and he had joined Xue Niang's tutelage nearly two months after He Nu. But ten days later, when Xue Niang began teaching saber techniques, things changed.

The date when East Fortress would accept its new apprentices for the year was fast approaching. To make up for lost time, Xue Niang had to teach them as many martial arts as possible in a short period. She reminded Huan Nu and He Nu:

"For anyone who practices martial arts, punches and kicks are the foundation. Once your body is light and strong, learning other weapons comes naturally. But punches and kicks are only a foundation. Don't expect to rely on them when fighting someone. No matter how good your hand-to-hand skills are, holding a sharp blade will only make you stronger. If someone defeats swords, spears, sabers, and halberds with bare hands, it's because the difference in strength between the two sides is too great—not because fists and feet are better than weapons. Remember, you're going to be killers, and killing is your trade. You don't choose your opponents; your clients choose them for you. So never think you can beat a saber with your fists. You can only beat a saber with a saber, and fists with a saber."

Xue Niang practiced Iron Finger Skill herself, which didn't quite fit her theory. But she wasn't a killer, nor did she want to be one. And after years of serving her mistress in the seclusion of a grand residence, she had little need for sabers or swords.

Gu Shenwei knew the Gu Family Saber Technique by heart, but he had already said that he had not mastered it, so he deliberately concealed his skill.

Fortunately, Xue Niang didn't care. She taught them a practical saber technique with no fixed forms: eighteen moves in all, each simple—chopping, hacking, thrusting, or parrying, with few variations. But once they had mastered them, she wanted them to combine the eighteen moves on their own, creating countless new techniques.

Xue Niang said the technique was called Iron Mountain Saber Technique, one of the martial arts that had allowed the Iron Mountain Gang to dominate the desert.

Gu Shenwei thought the Iron Mountain Saber Technique was less refined than his family's, but it was easy to learn and understand, with many variations. When he occasionally slipped a move or two from the Gu Family Saber Technique into a combination of the eighteen moves, they flowed together smoothly and sometimes produced unexpected results.

For He Nu, though, the saber was a formidable obstacle. Until then, she had never even held a real one. It took her several days just to get used to her grip and learn how to apply force. As a result, she fell far behind in their sparring. Sometimes the gap was so wide that Xue Niang had to step in herself and face Huan Nu.

He Nu grew even quieter and more gloomy. Every time Gu Shenwei arrived, he found her already practicing with her saber; when he left, she still had not put it down.

Gu Shenwei's Hehe Jin also advanced at an astonishing pace. After a month, he broke through two barriers, bringing both the yin and yang forces to the second level.

Since entering Golden Peng Fortress, Gu Shenwei had never felt so good. His confidence in taking revenge grew considerably. Though he was still separated from his ultimate goal by mountains upon mountains, he could already glimpse the highest peak in the distance.

He would become the strongest killer, then take revenge on the killers.

When Great Head God's daughter was bored, she would come watch Xue Niang teach martial arts. Of course, she still watched from behind a screen. She had been forced to give up many of the habits she had picked up in Iron Mountain, but she clung ever more fiercely to this one: no man except her husband was allowed to see her, and even the women inside the fortress were barred from seeing her true face.

They said that the young mistress even wore several layers of veils when she paid her respects to her mother-in-law each day. It was no wonder the relationship between them was so poor.

When Gu Shenwei and He Nu practiced Iron Mountain Saber Technique, the young mistress sometimes offered a few comments. Her four personal maids, Chenxin Suiyi among them, would seize on the opportunity to reminisce with her about the happy days of old.

From these long-winded recollections, Gu Shenwei learned that the young mistress knew no martial arts at all, and that Iron Mountain wasn't a real place name, either. Wherever the gang set up camp was called Iron Mountain. Xue Niang wasn't truly her wet nurse, either; she had joined the gang only when the young mistress was a few years old.

The day East Fortress accepted its new apprentice killers happened to be the first day of autumn. The first frost of the year had fallen the night before. The sky was gloomy, but the air atop the sheer peak was crisp.

Xue Niang personally led Huan Nu and He Nu to East Fortress.

There were countless buildings and crisscrossing lanes inside the fortress, like a maze. Without a guide, an outsider could hardly take a step. Xue Niang had not been inside long, yet she already knew the complicated paths by heart. Gu Shenwei was not surprised.

Like West Fortress, East Fortress had countless courtyards. Xue Niang led them into a tiny one. Like so many places in Golden Peng Fortress, the little courtyard had begun to crumble after a hundred years of wind and rain. Yet the registrar behind the long table retained his air of authority, making it seem that Golden Peng Fortress's strength lay in its people, not its buildings.

The registrar looked up at the newcomers. They were the first new apprentices to arrive, and his register was still blank.

"Which courtyard?"

"Eighth Young Master's."

"Name?"

"He Nu."

The registrar asked a wide range of questions, recording every martial art they had studied. Xue Niang answered all of them; Gu Shenwei and He Nu only had to wait quietly to one side.

Everything went smoothly. He Nu became the first apprentice killer officially entered in the register that year.

Two or three more groups of new apprentices arrived, and the little courtyard grew somewhat crowded.

When it was Gu Shenwei's turn, everything went smoothly at first. Huan Nu's name had already been written in the register, with only the final few entries remaining, when they reached the question about the martial arts he had studied and ran into trouble.

"He has studied Internal Force?"

"Yes, he's learned a little of the basic method." Xue Niang answered for him again, her brows furrowing slightly.

The registrar lowered his head and crossed out every entry under Huan Nu's name. Then he looked up and said:

"He cannot enter East Fortress."