Little Baka

Gu Yanzhi shook his folding fan, his brows slightly furrowed as he sighed softly:

"Whether it is orthodox or not is something we say ourselves."

"But power is power."

"The Westerners do not care about Qi or no Qi. They care about efficiency. They can produce a Bright Force expert in a year. Even if seven out of ten die, as long as they have enough money, they can raise an army of Bright Force fighters."

Gu Yanzhi swept his gaze over the crowd, his voice low:

"There may be many martial arts halls in Huaxia, but how many Bright Force experts do we have altogether?"

"I heard that the Westerners in the concessions are brewing a Martial Arts Prohibition Order."

"Once that order comes down, if Huaxia falls and the Westerners' guns and cannons, along with those Beast Blood Monsters, come charging in..."

"Who will care whether you are orthodox then?"

His words were like a bucket of cold water over their heads, instantly silencing the crowd that had been brimming with righteous indignation just moments before.

The days flew by. In the blink of an eye, half a month was gone.

By day, Lu Zhen pulled his rickshaw all over the city, through wind and snow; by night, he shut himself in the courtyard to practice his fists, soaking the dirt beneath him with sweat.

For the past half month, he had been like a tireless machine.

After returning the rickshaw at the depot, Lu Zhen went home.

With a thought, Lu Zhen summoned the Panel.

[Lu Zhen (30 years old)]

Money: 69 silver dollars

Current Occupation: Rickshaw Puller

Level: Daily Settlement Lv.2 (70/200)

Skills:

Rickshaw Pulling Lv.3 (10/800)

Coiling Dragon Stake Lv.3 (20/800)

Iron Wire Fist Lv.3 (15/800)

Physique: Tendon Stretching and Bone Strengthening Lv.3 (500/800)

General Experience: 150 points

Sixty-nine silver dollars.

Half a month ago, that had been a fortune he would not even have dared dream of.

In Pig Cage Alley, that money was enough to buy two small courtyards like his, or acquire several mu of fine farmland.

Then he looked at his skills.

The experience granted by Daily Settlement had pushed his [Rickshaw Pulling] skill to Lv.3.

Now, when he pulled the rickshaw, it was as though wind sprang beneath his feet. His breath ran long and deep; after running dozens of li, his face would not redden and he would not even pant. He could outrun even the horses that pulled foreign carriages.

But that was not his greatest surprise.

The greatest change was in his martial arts.

[Iron Wire Fist] and [Coiling Dragon Stake] had both broken through to Lv.3.

Double Resonance.

Though he was still a step below Gu Yanzhi's Triple Resonance, which fired off like a string of firecrackers, his force had already penetrated the skin and seeped into the flesh.

He was only separated by the last thin layer of window paper from driving his force into the marrow and achieving Triple Resonance.

Then there was the Coiling Dragon Stake.

Lu Zhen bent his body slightly, and his spine wriggled faintly. That sense of sluggish obstruction had almost completely vanished.

Though he had yet to reach the supple liveliness of "a body like a swimming dragon," he was only a thread away from truly entering the gate and grasping the spirit of that "dragon."

"It is time."

Lu Zhen summoned the Panel, his gaze locking tightly onto the 150 points of General Experience.

He had accumulated them over so many days for this very moment.

"Add points! Daily Settlement level!"

With a thought, the 150 points of experience instantly turned into streams of light and surged into the progress bar.

[Daily Settlement Lv.2 (70/200)] → [Daily Settlement Lv.3 (20/800)]

[Level Up: Daily Settlement Lv.3]

[Current Effect: Daily rewards additionally multiplied by X3!]

Triple!

Seeing that line, Lu Zhen's breathing grew heavier.

It meant that from now on, one day of his training would equal three days for others; when he earned one silver dollar, the Panel would make up two more for him.

Whether he was accumulating wealth or tempering his sinews and bones, his speed would be three times that of an ordinary person.

That afternoon, Lu Zhen went out with his rickshaw as usual.

Though he had money in hand now, he had no intention of resting.

To him, pulling a rickshaw had long ceased to be mere hard labor. It was a special kind of cultivation.

Clang—clang—

The tram bell echoed beside him as Lu Zhen pulled his rickshaw through the bustling crowd.

His steps were light. With every stride, his toes dug firmly into the ground, the muscles in his thighs tightening and relaxing like a bow being drawn and released.

His breathing matched his steps: three steps on an exhale, three steps on an inhale, long and powerful.

This was how he blended the force of the Coiling Dragon Stake into his legs and feet.

A fat merchant sat in the rickshaw, and with the cargo, the load weighed no less than three hundred jin.

Yet Lu Zhen felt as light as a swallow pulling it.

Pulling a rickshaw had once drained his life away. Now, it was martial arts practice.

After running for roughly two shichen, the sky gradually darkened.

Lu Zhen was drenched in sweat, yet he felt no exhaustion. Instead, a current of heat seemed to be rampaging wildly through his body.

That current climbed up along his spine, as if it wanted to blast open the crown of his head.

"Something is wrong."

Lu Zhen did not stop walking, but his heart stirred.

The sensation grew stronger and stronger.

It was like a pig bladder filled with air, swollen to its limit. One more needle, and it would burst wide open.

This was the sign of a breakthrough!

"We're here, boss."

Lu Zhen abruptly stopped the rickshaw and let the fat merchant off by the roadside.

The fat merchant had just been about to complain that the rickshaw had stopped too suddenly when he saw the Coachman's face flushed crimson and his eyes shining frighteningly bright. The man tossed out a "Keep the change," then grabbed his empty rickshaw and ran off.

Lu Zhen sprinted all the way into an abandoned dead-end alley.

He flung the rickshaw handles to the ground and, without caring about the mud and slush beneath his feet, planted himself in place.

"Haa—"

He expelled a mouthful of Turbid Qi, shooting through the air like a sharp arrow.

Lu Zhen gripped the ground with his feet and assumed the stance of the Coiling Dragon Stake.

The heat within him found an outlet and surged madly toward every limb and bone.

His spine began to tremble violently.

Crack, crack...

A string of dense, crisp sounds came from inside his body, like beans being stir-fried or taut strings snapping.

His bones were subtly adjusting, and his great sinews were stretching.

The patch of "dead flesh" around his waist and abdomen, which no amount of training had ever reached, seemed to be viciously kneaded open by an invisible hand.

It had opened!

An unprecedented tingling sensation instantly spread through his entire body.

The great dragon along his spine had finally awakened completely.

Lu Zhen felt his whole body grow light, as though he had cast off a burden weighing a thousand jin.

His skin tightened, his muscles became iron, and his bones became steel.

The pain brought by Tendon Stretching and Bone Strengthening vanished in an instant, replaced by an ultimate sense of ease and ascension.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and brilliant light flashed from them.

Without any fancy movements, Lu Zhen merely clenched his fist.

It felt as though even the air had been crushed apart by that grip.

"So this is the Mid Force Refining Realm."

Lu Zhen felt the surging power within him.

Five hundred jin in one arm!

If he had once been a wild bull, then now he was a rhinoceros clad in iron armor.

His strength flowed through his entire body, with no obstruction remaining.

He casually threw a punch at the blue-brick wall beside him.

Bang!

A dull thud rang out.

A shallow fist print had actually been smashed into the hard blue-brick wall, spiderweb cracks spreading all around it as dust sifted down.

If that had struck a person, even through a padded coat, it would have broken several bones.

Lu Zhen drew back his fist and looked at the skin over his knuckles, which was only slightly reddened. Ecstasy surged through his heart.

He had done it.

He had finally crossed this hurdle.

In Ocean City's martial world, Early Force Refining Realm fighters were apprentices as common as the hairs on an ox.

But at the middle stage, one had truly entered the hall and become a skilled hand.

In the Black Snake Gang, these skills could make him a hall master; at the Iron Arm Martial Arts Hall, this was the threshold for an Inner Sect disciple!

If he wished, he could display his skills before Yan Tieqiao tomorrow and openly put on that black Inner Sect uniform, never again worrying about being driven out of the martial arts hall.

More than half a month of wind, snow, and bitter hardship, of relentless day-and-night training, had finally brought him this solid, tangible reward.

"Hahahaha!"

Lu Zhen's hearty laughter echoed through the dim alley.

After adjusting for a while.

Lu Zhen picked up the rickshaw handles and was just about to leave the dead-end alley.

Suddenly, a faint cry drifted through the wind.

"Don't..."

Then came a stiff, vicious curse.

"Baka..."

Lu Zhen's gaze turned cold. Without stopping, he followed the sound.

Turning the corner, he saw clearly by the faint glow reflected off the snow.

A short, sturdy yellow-skinned man wearing wooden clogs was pinning a woman dressed like a refugee to the ground.

The man wore a lecherous grin as his large hands roughly tore at the last scraps of clothing on the woman's body.

The woman struggled desperately, yet she could not move the beast at all.

In a filthy pile of snow nearby, there was also a child of three or four.

"Stop!"

Lu Zhen shouted.

In recent years, the world had gone completely to rot.

The great powers had rammed open the nation's gates with their mighty ships and cannons, forcing the signing of a pile of unequal treaties.

The concessions had become the Westerners' territory, and thugs and scoundrels from every country had flooded in.

They oppressed Huaxia people in broad daylight and committed every evil imaginable, never treating the people of this land as human beings.

The man was startled by the shout, his movements freezing.

He straightened up and whipped around, vicious light spilling from his triangular eyes.

But then he saw what Lu Zhen looked like.

A coarse cloth outfit, with one hand still holding a half-worn rickshaw.

So he was just some stinking rickshaw puller.

The panic on the man's face instantly vanished, replaced by deep contempt.

"Zhi... na..."

With a savage grin, the man drew a gleaming dagger from his waist. He pointed the blade at Lu Zhen, his face full of disdain.

Lu Zhen said nothing. He merely released the rickshaw handles.

He strode forward.

Having just broken through to the Mid Force Refining Realm, his great sinews stretched open and the immense force of five hundred jin in one arm surged through his body.

Whether in speed or reaction, he had long surpassed ordinary people.

Only five steps separated them.

Before the man could even swing his blade, his vision blurred and a vicious wind rushed at his face.

Too fast!

"Crack!"

Lu Zhen's fist smashed squarely into the man's Adam's apple.

A crisp crack of bone rang out.

The man's eyeballs bulged violently, and the curse he had not finished was forcibly choked off in his throat, leaving only the wheezing leak of a broken bellows.

Lu Zhen did not stop.

He followed through by raising his leg and driving a heavy kick viciously into the man's chest.

"Bang!"

That kick carried the full force of five hundred jin.

The man's chest visibly caved in, and his heart burst instantly.

His corpse flew away like a battered sack, slammed into the wall, and slowly slid down.

Expressionless, Lu Zhen walked over.

He raised his foot and stomped down hard on the head that was still twitching.

"Pfft."

Red and white matter splattered across the ground.

The alley fell completely silent.

Lu Zhen bent down and searched through the man's kimono.

His fingers found a cold silver dollar.

He pocketed the silver coin, turned around, and looked at the disheveled woman.

Cowering in the corner, the woman stared wide-eyed at the scene, scared witless.

"Hold your child."

"Get in the car. Leave, now."

Only then did the woman snap out of it. She hurriedly crawled over, picked up her child, and staggered into the car.