Terror

"Chu-zai, I'm heading to the set first. I don't know what time I'll finish tonight, so I won't be coming to pick you up."

Fish Head Xu's loud voice rang out from inside the battered Toyota parked in front of the Municipal Building on Bo'an Road.

Yang Chu stood outside the car and gave a small wave. After watching Fish Head Xu drive off, he turned and hurried toward the Municipal Building.

He went all the way upstairs. The Bo'an Road Library inside the Municipal Building was fairly quiet. It was around half past one in the afternoon, and there weren't many people reading.

When Yang Chu arrived at the library, he saw several staff members chatting by the entrance. He had met them before, but didn't stop to talk. Once inside, he headed straight for the rows of shelves in the book section.

Yang Chu's gaze swept over the books on the shelves: The Story of the Human Body, The Meaning of Human Existence, Understanding the Body, The Disappearing Microbes, Medical Human Anatomy, Deconstructing the Human Body... He quickly pulled books from the shelves, flipped through them, then moved on to the next one.

"Couldn't find anything to read today?"

A familiar voice suddenly sounded beside him.

"Not exactly. Most books cover much the same ground. A quick look is enough."

Yang Chu didn't even raise his head. He kept flipping through the books. Just from the voice, he knew it was Xu Xi.

But today he wasn't hauling a big stack of books over to the reading area. He'd found that he could read much faster than before, and carrying books back and forth was a waste of time.

Many books were obscure to ordinary readers and took time to fully understand, but Yang Chu encountered almost no obstacles. Whatever he read, he could quickly remember, absorb, and comprehend.

What was more, he could compare the different arguments in each book with his own understanding of the body's entire movement system, draw inferences, and arrive at more accurate conclusions than some of the book's still uncertain theories.

To an outsider, it looked as though he simply riffled through each book before shoving it back. But Yang Chu had already committed the key points to memory.

He flipped through the last few pages of the book he was holding, Understanding Human Form, then finally looked up at Xu Xi.

Xu Xi was pushing a small cart, his face still wearing that signature, shy smile.

"What kind of books are you reading this time?"

Xu Xi glanced at Understanding Human Form in Yang Chu's hands, a hint of surprise in his eyes. "This is human science. Your reading interests are gradually expanding!"

"The mysteries of the human body are fascinating. There are so many books here, and yet there are still so many fields we haven't explored."

Yang Chu looked along the rows of books, then turned to Xu Xi. "Do you have any recommendations?"

"Try Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy."

Xu Xi smiled and pulled a book from the shelf. "He wrote a whole series. They're aimed at art students, but they're classics when it comes to human structure and anatomy."

"Thanks."

Yang Chu took the thick copy of Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy and began to read.

"Take your time. I'd better get back to work."

Seeing Yang Chu open the book and seem to lose himself in reading, Xu Xi greeted him with a smile, then pushed his cart toward another part of the book section.

After Xu Xi left, Yang Chu stood by the shelf and immediately began leafing through Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy.

He read quickly. Once he finished the book, he moved on to others of the same kind or on related subjects. As he rapidly worked through them, his mind formed an understanding that moved from the whole to its parts, then to the microscopic level, before returning to the whole.

"The human body has 206 bones, connected to form its framework—the skeleton. They are divided into three main groups: the skull, the trunk, and the limbs. There are 29 bones in the skull, 51 in the trunk, and 126 in the limbs..."

"...The human body has 639 muscles, made up of roughly six billion muscle fibers. The longest muscle fibers are 30 centimeters long, while the shortest are only one millimeter. The largest muscles weigh two kilograms, while the smallest weigh only a few grams. They are divided into the muscles of the head, trunk, and limbs..."

As he read deeper, more and more ideas began to surface in Yang Chu's mind.

At the park, before leaving, Xiahou Wu had said, "Hands and feet coordinate, elbows and knees coordinate, shoulders and hips coordinate." Yang Chu understood this intuitively as the coordination between a person's limbs and body.

More specifically, it meant mobilizing the bones and large and small muscles in different parts of the body to generate a combined force—the integrated strength of the whole body.

The idea of "uniting the waist and horse" likewise involved making the lower body, waist, back, and arm muscles explode with force all at once. This way of exerting strength could let the body unleash power beyond the ordinary.

In a sense, it removed some of the body's limitations without pushing it to the breaking point, making it less likely to overload the body to its limits and cause injury.

Yang Chu could make his body explode with force at its absolute limit, but he still couldn't mobilize and control it with such smooth coordination.

Then there was the saying, "A seize is dead; a hold is alive." This referred to the bones and joints. It could be called a joint lock: control one part of the body to control the whole person. Similarly, the pressure points used in grappling targeted the body's nerve centers. Once a nerve center was disrupted, the brain lost control of the area connected to that nerve.

Yang Chu read as he worked through these ideas in his own way.

Some of his insights came from gaining greater control over the systems of his own body. Others came from his fights, the stunt performers' movements, and watching Xiahou Wu and Shark Yan spar.

As for the "three internal harmonies"—"the heart and intent unite, intent and qi unite, qi and force unite"—he had only a hazy notion of them. Despite his understanding of the body, he knew nothing about how they worked.

Even so, Yang Chu had gained a deeper understanding of the punches and kicks, force-generating techniques, footwork, and body movement involved in kung fu. He could even construct scenes in his mind.

He had also begun to form some vague ideas about how to train and improve his physical fitness.

The body's more than two hundred bones and six hundred muscles included some whose training could produce results beyond imagination.

For example, the grip of the fingers, the grasp of the palm, and the strength of the wrist—combined with the coordination of the whole body's bones and muscles—could unleash an astonishing degree of force.

The afternoon passed in the blink of an eye. Yang Chu's actions in the library naturally drew quite a bit of attention.

But this was a public library. As long as he didn't damage the books, no one, not even a staff member, would disturb him.

"It's dark."

Only when Yang Chu closed the last book and narrowed his eyes to take in and digest what he'd read did he notice the sky outside had dimmed. Evening had already fallen.

He returned the book to the shelf and walked out of the book section. From a distance, he heard someone talking by the library entrance. "You checkmated me again. Sigh, didn't you say you wouldn't leave me with no way out?"

"Again, again!" Xu Xi's voice rang out.

"I'm starving. Hurry up and get off work. I still have to go back to the station later," another man said.

"You're still playing chess!"

Yang Chu walked over and saw that the man playing chess with Xu Xi was Chen Guibin, the Serious Crimes Unit officer he had met at the library last time.

"You finally finished reading?" Xu Xi saw Yang Chu and stood up with a smile. "I was waiting for you to lock up!"

"I didn't know you were such a bookworm!"

Chen Guibin, seated and looking down as he gathered up the chess pieces, seemed to grumble at him too. He put the pieces away, looked up at Yang Chu, and was about to say something.

Suddenly, his face changed. He stumbled backward and toppled to the floor.

His eyes were fixed on Yang Chu, as if he'd seen something terrifying.