Killing Intent Rampant, The Difference Between Geniuses and Ordinary People, Silently Practicing Fist

The turmoil dissipated.

After paying the Boat Gang their stall fees, management fees, and trash collection fees.

Shi Wen and Old Shi packed up their belongings and returned to Peace Lane.

Peace Lane was one of the larger slums in Black Cloud County, where tens of thousands of people lived on this patch of land.

Despite the name "Peace," poverty breeds treachery; with so many people crowded together, chaos reigned, and all manner of swindling, deception, and strong-arm robbery occurred here constantly.

Along the way, both sides of the path were lined with wooden shacks of varying heights; families in slightly better conditions had high walls built of mud bricks, while the poorer dwellings were riddled with gaps and holes everywhere.

When they reached the intersection near their home.

Shi Wen saw several wandering figures, and the leader was someone he recognized all too well: San Qingzi!

Shi Wen's expression turned grim.

He had heard that this San Qingzi was like a piece of dog-skin plaster; once he stuck to you, it was incredibly difficult to shake him off.

San Qingzi was a low-level thug for the Thief Gang, specializing in buying low and selling high, loan sharking, setting up traps, gambling dens, and honey traps... he was capable of every dirty, deceitful trick in the book!

His reputation was foul!

Yet even now, the depths of San Qingzi's depravity still managed to shock him.

He had only sold his land to San Qingzi at a low price that morning, and the guy couldn't even wait a single day, blocking his path home just to extort every last coin he had?

Seeing San Qingzi approach with two lackeys.

The killing intent deep within Shi Wen's heart spread rapidly; if the opportunity arose, he would absolutely not let San Qingzi off!

"Little Brother Shi, where did you run off to today? I've been looking for you all day and couldn't find you. Let's go to Rouge Lane and have some fun."

San Qingzi walked over with a toothpick in his mouth, looking at him with malicious intent.

But when his gaze landed on the Fist Academy emblem on Shi Wen's chest, his expression suddenly turned ugly, his composure cracking slightly, "You took that hundred thousand Treasure Coin and..."

Halfway through his sentence.

San Qingzi took a deep breath, his gaze turning exceptionally vicious as he glared at Shi Wen, as if he wanted to scrape a layer of flesh right off his body.

He then led his men away.

As he passed behind Shi Wen, he deliberately spat a glob of thick phlegm on the ground and muttered, "Fuck his mother," under his breath.

Shi Wen clenched his fists, his eyes filled with killing intent.

When he saw the panic and unease on Old Shi's face out of the corner of his eye, he didn't lash out and instead headed toward home.

Once they reached the vicinity of their house.

Neighbors sitting at their doorways chatting saw the two return and began making small talk.

When they learned that Shi Wen had gone to join the Fist Academy, their faces all broke into complimentary smiles, praising Shi Wen for being a promising youth and the like.

But as soon as the two entered their home.

The neighbors immediately changed their expressions.

They pointed at Shi Wen as a cautionary tale, telling their own children not to go learn martial arts.

Learn martial arts?

How could poor people like them afford to let their family members study martial arts? Among the poor, who had ever actually succeeded by learning martial arts?

Learning martial arts was just a waste of the family's money, throwing it away on others for nothing!!

It seemed the Shi family boy was truly desperate and grasping at straws; did he really think that by learning to box he could avoid going to Dragon Sorrow Ravine to sacrifice to the River God on the third day of the fifth month next month?

That Red Lantern Gang had immense power!

So what if you became a martial artist? Could you possibly wipe out the Red Lantern Gang?

Shi Wen returned home, where his mother had already prepared a meal and was waiting.

The main course for dinner was the common potato cake, wild vegetables, and a small pot of fatty pork stir-fried with cabbage.

The potato cake was a high-yield crop in this world, somewhat like the sweet potato from his past life, but the yield per acre was several times higher; the texture was poor and dry, and it was food for the poor.

This stuff was simply steamed until cooked, and because of its flat, round appearance, it was called a potato cake.

It wouldn't make you fat, but it wouldn't let you starve to death either.

Shi Wen lowered his head to eat the potato cake, picking at the few pieces of fatty meat and deliberately leaving some for his parents.

"Dad, Mom, I'm finished. I'm going back to my room to rest for a while."

Shi Wen greeted them and returned to his room.

Calling it a room was generous; it was merely a space partitioned off by wooden boards. The bed was an earthen kang, simply covered with a layer of straw and topped with a piece of ramie cloth—that was the bed.

A day of frantic training had left Shi Wen physically and mentally exhausted.

Once he returned to a safe place to rest, his vigilance dropped, and sleepiness and fatigue surged over him like a tide.

He fell asleep very quickly.

However, Father Shi and Mother Shi did not eat this meal with much peace of mind.

Both were very silent; the only sounds in the air were the clinking of chopsticks against bowls and the chewing of potato cakes.

Suddenly, Mother Shi spoke up, sounding as if she were mentioning it casually: "Father of the child, why don't you take something back to the old family home tomorrow to see your father, and while you're at it, get some money back from him?"

"Your father has always favored your younger brother. Everything in the old house goes to him. He's willing to buy clothes worth several strings of cash for your brother's son, A-Liang, yet he hasn't even visited our A-Wen once."

"He divided a few acres of land for us, but the old house, those dozen or so acres, and the shops on the street all went to your younger brother. If I'm not mistaken, the money you've earned from your business over the years has also been taken back to the house by your father under various pretexts, hasn't it?"

"As parents, they don't hold the scales evenly, and it pains me to see it. But as a woman, it's not my place to interfere in you men's affairs. Usually, I don't meddle in what you do or the decisions you make, but now A-Wen is practicing martial arts. How can he have the strength to train if he doesn't eat meat?"

"His only wish right now is to practice martial arts."

"I haven't given him much of a life as his mother, but come the third of next month..."

As she spoke, Mother Shi's eyes turned red, yet her voice remained calm. "I don't care about anything else now; I just want to give him the best of everything."

Old Shi's body trembled slightly, and he continued to chew his potato cake.

That face, weathered by the trials of life, was etched with bitterness and an unspeakable silence.

They waited for a long, long time.

Suddenly, Old Shi took a jar of low-alcohol yellow wine from under the cupboard—the kind he usually couldn't bear to drink—poured it into a bowl, and downed several gulps.

After finishing the wine, he spoke as calmly as if he were discussing something mundane: "I understand. I'll go back and check tomorrow."

"Mm."

Mother Shi said nothing more.

Shi Wen knew nothing of the conversation between the two elders; by the time he woke up, it was the middle of the night.

The soreness and swelling throughout his body made him feel as if he were falling apart.

But Shi Wen gritted his teeth and got up.

Setting aside the trouble with the Red Lantern Gang, the leader of the Thief Gang, San Qingzi, had already been placed on his personal kill list!

"Stance training!"

Shi Wen forced himself to stand, rose, and tiptoed to the backyard.

Under the pitch-black night, he began to practice his basic skills.

But after practicing for a while, his body began to protest.

Clearly, tonight's dinner was nowhere near enough to stave off hunger.

Not to mention the soreness in his muscles and the creaking of his bones, the cramping pain in his gut—as if someone were grabbing his intestines and pulling them taut—made his face turn deathly pale!

Every movement tugged at his nerves.

Hungry!

He was truly, ravenously hungry!!!

Practicing while this hungry was impossible; his body's functions simply couldn't handle such intense training!

What of hunger? What of limits?

I will show you who the true master of this body is!

Shi Wen said nothing, merely gritting his teeth as he increased his proficiency twice over in the darkness.

Only when he could no longer bear the hunger did he run to the stove to gnaw on several raw potato cakes, washing them down with cold water from the vat until the sensation of hunger was less intense. Only then did he return to his room, his face deathly pale.

His whole body was trembling as he collapsed onto the bed, hungry and exhausted.

He drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night, finally curling up on the bed, unable to move.

By the time the next day dawned, Shi Wen woke to find his parents were already gone.

On the table, they had left ten steamed potato cakes, each the size of a palm—his rations for the day.

The air was misty with rain, and the streets were bustling with people.

Shi Wen wove through the crowd and arrived at the Fist Academy, finding a corner to practice his punches.

When hungry, he ate a potato cake; when thirsty, he drank coarse tea.

He gritted his teeth, persisting in practicing his basic skills over and over again until he was too exhausted to continue, at which point he would find a place to rest.

Once rested, he would get back up to train.

His actions, however, drew the disdain of many disciples in the Outer Courtyard.

Who practiced martial arts by blindly grinding away like that kid?

One should either focus on stance training, the Charging Step, or specific techniques. By spending so much time practicing the entire set at once, wasn't the boy just wasting his effort?

Without breaking down the basic skills to practice them individually, it would be impossible to succeed, even in ten years!

Greed.

In the end, one cannot attend to everything!

Shi Wen ignored the strange looks from others and trained in silence; only the increasing proficiency count displayed in the Extreme Seal could bring him a sense of security.

Five or six people came to apprentice that day.

There were youths harboring dreams, as well as young men looking to learn moves for self-defense.

Most of them, like Shi Wen, paid the fees and were sent off by Master Li of the Fist Academy to the Outer Courtyard to practice basic skills.

Yet today, it was surprisingly not Yan Kai overseeing the Outer Courtyard disciples.

Instead, an inner disciple named Zhou Heling had come to supervise them.

Shi Wen felt fortunate that he had encountered Yan Kai when he signed up to practice boxing yesterday, for this Zhou Heling possessed the arrogance of an inner disciple deep in her bones and looked down upon the Outer Courtyard disciples entirely.

She was also perfunctory in her teaching.

After demonstrating the basic skills a few times, she ignored everyone.

If anyone asked a few too many questions, she would point at their noses and berate them; those who dared to talk back were met with a fist to the face, leaving them bruised and swollen.

She had no intention of teaching anyone at all.

Coming to the Outer Courtyard to manage people seemed to be a humiliating chore for her.

Shi Wen practiced his boxing in silence until the afternoon, when they were queuing for medicinal soup, and a sudden exclamation erupted from the Inner Courtyard.

Once the news reached the Outer Courtyard, Shi Wen learned that someone had just come to apprentice and was tested to have an eighth-grade superior bone structure. Master Li had immediately made an exception to admit them into the Inner Courtyard to train alongside the other inner disciples!

An eighth-grade superior bone structure was not a common sight in Black Cloud County!

Even the senior apprentice, Shang An, only possessed a seventh-grade superior bone structure!

It was rumored that those with superior bone structures could smoothly complete the tempering of the blood-refining stage and had a high probability of becoming a Force-Refining expert.

And what kind of existence was a Force-Refining expert?

Legend had it that Lord Situ Nan of the County Office and Zhang Kuian, the leader of the Black Whale Gang—the largest gang in Black Cloud County—were both Force-Refining experts!

Such beings were already prominent figures who dominated an entire region.

They were existences capable of causing a massive earthquake in Black Cloud County with a single thought!

Shi Wen said nothing, only practicing his boxing in silence to raise his proficiency. In these chaotic times, only increasing the proficiency of the Extreme Seal was his capital for survival!

Meanwhile, over at the docks.

Old Shi closed his stall early.

For the first time ever, he went to find a familiar fishmonger to buy two fish, then headed toward the old residence.

Upon arriving outside the gate of the old residence, a sense of timidity rose in Old Shi's heart, and he found himself unable to knock.

After a long, long time, Old Shi finally gathered the courage to knock on the door.

The person who opened the door was his father, who looked at Old Shi with surprise before welcoming him into the courtyard.

Although this residence consisted of only one courtyard and a few rooms, it was located in a safer area, far better than the slums of Peace Lane.

"Heh, Eldest, what brings you to see me today?"

Old Master Shi chuckled and told his daughter-in-law to take the two fish away, then did something unprecedented: he brewed tea and gave a cup to Old Shi.

Old Shi took the teacup, feeling flattered, and hesitated for a long time before saying, "Father, the reason I came this time is actually..."

"Eldest, you've come at just the right time. If you hadn't come, I was planning to go find you in the next couple of days."

Old Master Shi interrupted him, chuckling, "Isn't that boy A-Liang thirteen this year? He went to have his bone structure tested a while ago and was found to have a sixth-grade bone structure. The martial arts master at the South Wind Martial Hall said A-Liang has a great chance of becoming a martial artist, and this age is just right for starting training."

"Practicing martial arts is very expensive; he needs to eat meat, drink medicinal soup, and buy supplements to nourish his body."

"The master at the South Wind Martial Hall said that the process of tempering one's qi and blood requires using the body's energy to nourish that blood. If the nutrition doesn't keep up, the body will become depleted, and by then, forget about tempering qi and blood—he's very likely to cripple himself."

"I was thinking that since you've been doing business at the docks, you must have saved some money. Take out 100 guan, and I'll give it to A-Liang to nourish his body."

"If that's not enough, I remember you still have a few mu of land. I asked around these past few days, and it can sell for about 20 guan. You can scrape that together with the rest to make 100 guan for me. Once A-Liang becomes a martial artist, he will look after your family too. Besides, the money is useless in your hands anyway..."

Old Master Shi spoke on and on.

This made Old Shi's heart turn cold.