Ten Years

That night in late summer of 1845 in Alberta was privately known as the "Wolf Calamity." Governor Fijero Hunter personally sent someone to question and negotiate with Mr. Howlett, and laid down a rule: nothing like that could ever happen again.

Mr. Howlett became famous throughout Canada as a result. Every estate owner knew there was an old madman in the Alberta district who was not to be trifled with.

After the funeral, Lady Elizabeth devoutly converted to Christianity. From then on, the beautiful woman in the prime of her life kept to herself, going to church every day to worship and giving alms in town, caring for orphans and the elderly who had no family.

Without Mr. Howlett, she might have considered remarrying or leaving the area. But both she and Mr. Howlett knew full well that she was the root cause of John's death. Without James, the Howlett Family's sole heir, Lady Elizabeth's fate might well have been no better than Thomas Logan's.

The old man shouldered the burden of the entire family once more. He had been in robust health, and if things had continued peacefully, he might have lived to eighty. But to buy his grandson more time, Mr. Howlett had to grit his teeth and hold on, doing everything he could to help the boy grow up. James was still very young, but the old man was comforted to see that everything he had stood for was so full of promise.

Canada had changed little over the past ten years. A new governor had arrived the year before, a hereditary marquis in his forties. He seemed dissatisfied with how much autonomy the colonial estate owners enjoyed and kept trying to expand the governor's authority.

Since that night ten years ago, Mr. Howlett had come to oversee nearly all of Alberta's farming, ranching, and plantation business. This had also made him the governor's biggest thorn in his side. Howlett's frailty was no secret anymore. His once-straight back had given out years ago, and an eerie calm hung over Alberta before the storm.

Meanwhile, the United States, not yet a century old, was in turmoil. Abolitionists were on the rise, and opponents of slavery within the Democratic and Whig parties had formed the Free Soil Party, whose aim was to establish free states in the western territories.

In 1850, after heated disputes, the two sides reached a compromise, and Congress passed a harsh Fugitive Slave Law. In 1854, Congress abolished the geographic boundary between slave and free states, drawing fierce opposition from the Northern industrial bourgeoisie. That same year, the Republican Party was founded with opposition to slavery as its official platform. A far greater storm was brewing across the vast North American continent.

James Howlett's life had remained uneventful after his father's death. The sturdy umbrella Mr. Howlett held over him had kept him safe. Aside from studying his lessons during the first two years and observing the handling of some family accounts and personnel arrangements, he devoted all his energy to training—and to coping with his increasingly strange body.

Baduanjin was the most widespread and influential of China's ancient health-preserving exercises. It had many schools, with differences between seated and standing forms, civil and martial styles, and northern and southern traditions. Many schools also had their own methods of practice.

In his previous life, James had practiced the rare Ancient Baduanjin. It was difficult because it was so old: many of the acupoints used in its striking exercises had long since become unclear, and no one dared to practice it.

The Yijin Gong he practiced every night was also called Yijin Jing. Stories had once mythologized it as the highest martial art in the martial world, but at its core, it was simply a foundational exercise for strengthening the body. It focused more on stretching the tendons and meridians, improving flexibility, strengthening the bones, and boosting the circulation of qi and blood to promote longevity.

Bai Feng's former mentor had obtained this set of exercises from the Shaoshi Mountain school in exchange for the Ancient Baduanjin, hoping to repair and extend his life. Only through Baduanjin's regulation of the internal organs and its breathing techniques, along with Yijin Jing's strengthening of the tendons and bones and balancing of yin and yang, could he withstand the vigorous practice of boxing. Without these two exercises, he might not have lived to thirty.

By the time he was sixteen, James could perform nearly all the movements required by the two exercises. By the end of his Yijin Jing training, he could do not only what ordinary people called the "splits," the "side splits," and the "coiled snake," but even rotate his entire shoulder joint out of its socket. Ordinary handcuffs and joint locks were no longer a concern. He had also come to deeply appreciate the advantages of training from childhood. In his previous life, his bones had already finished growing by the time he began, and his progress had been very slow. It had taken him seven years of perseverance to reach his current level.

For the next few years, James did not rush to practice the traditional martial arts boxing he had once learned. Instead, he continued to repeat Baduanjin and Yijin Jing every day without fail. Drawing on his previous life's experience and mastery of boxing, he also practiced all kinds of foundational stances and boxing techniques he had never had the chance to try before.

He wanted to build the strongest possible foundation and see whether the soul of a martial arts grandmaster could bring his boxing in this life to the legendary highest realm. But the strange illness he had thought was gone only grew worse.

"Master James! Wait for me!"

Rose O'Hara chased after James on White Dove, who had long since grown into a full-grown mare.

Her bright red hair streamed behind her in the wind like a scarlet ribbon. Her pale skin seemed almost dazzling in the sunlight. Her pretty brows were furrowed, and she lightly bit her full lower lip with pearly white teeth. Her fine, straight nose and cheeks were free of the freckles she had had as a child.

The little maid O'Hara had grown into a great beauty.

"Go back! I'm going for a walk in the woods. I'll bring you a rabbit to play with on my way back. The forest's dangerous, so you can't come with me. Don't be stubborn!" James called over his shoulder to O'Hara, urging "Panda" beneath him to pick up the pace.

Panda was the finest offspring of Black Mountain. His coat was black and white, and he was taller and sturdier than his father. James had named him Panda, though no one knew what the word meant.

O'Hara pulled White Dove to a stop and turned back, grumbling. Her mutters sounded something like "You never take me with you" and "You bastard of a young master."

Sunlight fell through the branches, creating a Tyndall effect like a sheer veil draped softly over the young man leading his horse. He was so tall and well-proportioned that he was strikingly in scale with the oversized steed beside him.

James wore his hair short and neat. He had black hair and eyes, exceptionally broad shoulders that made his head seem small, and long arms that nearly reached his knees. Perhaps because his legs were unusually long, his torso looked somewhat short. As he walked, he moved with the agile, springing gait of a great beast with padded paws.

Once the thick stubble was set aside, his handsome features were even more refined than O'Hara's. His intensely masculine aura made people overlook the fact that his face was somewhat delicate.

James casually tied the horse to a tree, then sprang lightly onto a boulder more than two meters tall. Sitting cross-legged on it, he closed his eyes to rest and pondered the changes in his body over the past few days.

"The episodes are lasting longer, and coming more often. Last month, I spent twelve days in that 'sick' state. If this keeps up, I'll end up completely useless sooner or later..." James kept his eyes tightly shut, his brow furrowed with worry.

For the first two or three years, his body had grown as healthily as that of any ordinary child, with nothing out of the ordinary. As he practiced the two exercises, he developed faster and faster, and his physical fitness steadily improved. His appetite also grew tremendously.

Then, one evening, James suddenly felt feverish and weak all over. He did not recover until the next day. After that, the same thing happened every so often. During an episode, his fever could reach forty degrees. His muscles and bones grew weak, his vision spun, and he struggled to breathe.

Thanks to the strong physical foundation he had built through years of increasingly intense boxing practice, he could just barely carry on with an ordinary person's daily activities. He made excuses to stay in his room, where he could read and rest, and kept the strange illness from anyone else. Nearly everyone on the estate had forgotten that Master James had often been frail and sickly as a child.

James had never expected the doctors of this era to diagnose his condition. He had been a seasoned invalid in his previous life, with an in-depth understanding of both internal and external medicine. Even with a boxing grandmaster's knowledge of his own body, he still had no clue what was causing the strange illness.

He could vaguely confirm that the condition had to be genetic. There was nothing he could do about it. He was twenty-three now and had been practicing combat boxing for five years. Thanks to the unparalleled foundation he had built over those years, when he was not having an episode, he already had the destructive power of an Anjin boxer. In this age, when firearms were still primitive, that was enough to protect himself.

If he ever ended up permanently trapped in this sickly state, he would be able to maintain only the physical condition of an ordinary person—and that was assuming his illness did not worsen. James could feel that the strange disease was becoming harder and harder to suppress.

It was growing stronger by the day, and soon it would break free of its cage.