The old monk Kongming was stunned—truly stunned.
He hurried to his feet, forgetting all about his bearing.
Why?
Because he was the head of Arhat Hall.
Arhat Hall, Arhat Fist, Arhat Gong: three parts of one whole.
And yet now, although plenty of people in Arhat Hall practiced Arhat Fist, not a single person practiced Arhat Gong.
When people mentioned Arhat Hall, what profound martial arts did the martial world think of?
Great Tablet-Shattering Hand, Wind and Cloud Hand, Arhat Life-Taking Spear.
Bah!
Tell me, just tell me.
Other than the last one having "Arhat" in its name, what did any of those three have to do with Arhats?
Take the Arhat Life-Taking Spear, for example. It wasn't actually a traditional martial art of Shaolin Temple at all, but the secret spear art of a famous spear master named Dai Yi, who had come to the mountain back in the era of chaos among the Five Barbarians. He had been a bandit, though given the circumstances of that time, he could hardly be called a true criminal. So he had entered the temple and left behind his martial art. But that spear technique was truly vicious, every move meant to take a life.
Shaolin Temple did have fierce martial arts, such as the Formless Calamity Finger, which was as powerful and brutal as they came. Anyone struck by its middle finger was sure to be left with a body charred black, as if burned by fire.
But the Arhat Life-Taking Spear was different. Its cruelty lay not in its force, but in its heart and its moves. It did whatever it took to kill.
If you could stab someone in the lower body, you didn't stab them in the upper body.
If you could stab them from behind, you never stabbed them head-on.
That long spear displayed the art of taking a life to the fullest, utterly at odds with the Buddhist Sect's image of profound mystery.
So although it occupied a place among the temple's secret arts, it was rarely taught to the disciples.
Monks were meant to be compassionate. Using a staff was already a bit much; using a spear truly didn't suit their station.
Only a lay disciple surnamed Yang, who had recently left the mountain, had been taught the art. His family had served in the military for generations and fought for the Song Dynasty, making him a suitable successor to the spear technique. His father and grandfather had also studied at Shaolin, so his family had deep ties to the temple.
Although Arhat Hall was merely where disciples began their martial training at Shaolin Temple, and most of them would eventually move on to Bodhidharma Institute to continue their studies as their skills deepened, that didn't mean Arhat Hall lacked the heart to seek the heights of martial arts. In fact, its desire to pursue martial excellence far surpassed that of Bodhidharma Institute. After all, its disciples were young and full of spirit.
The old monk had a heart just as steadfast. For someone trained in Arhat Hall to be unable to master its divine art was, without a doubt, a tremendous regret.
He seized Li Su's hand and sent his inner force into it.
As soon as it entered, before Li Su could react, the Arhat Divine Art true qi that he had already converted could no longer hold back.
The Arhat Divine Art was converted from Arhat Fist true qi. It was already a hard-style martial art, and after refinement, its force became hard on top of hard—overbearing beyond measure.
In an instant, a surge of true qi rebounded like steel needles, stabbing back.
Had it been someone of the same age, they would have felt the prick at once and been unable to hold on.
But what sort of person was the old monk Kongming? His forty or fifty years of skill were no joke. With a burst of force, he immediately dispersed that hard qi.
And that wasn't all. His true qi poured out in waves, probing from every direction, front, back, left, and right. In the time it took to draw a breath, it entered Li Su's body again and again, back and forth seven or eight times.
The more he probed, the happier the old monk became.
There was no mistake.
That prickly force was undoubtedly Arhat True Qi.
Meanwhile, with a man old enough to be his grandfather gripping his hand and sending true qi in and out of his body, Li Su's face had gone a little green.
What was this old man doing?
Ahem!
Realizing that he had gotten a little carried away, the old monk let go of Li Su's hand, somewhat reluctantly. Arhat True Qi! He had heard his master talk about it so often that his ears were practically calloused. Now, at last, he had seen it for himself.
No wonder it was a martial art capable of cultivating an Arhat's golden body. Though it couldn't compare with the profound mysteries of the Muscle Tendon Changing Classic or the vast, weighty power of the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art, it had a quality without equal.
A powerful physique.
The Arhat Divine Art's true qi was formidable, but its subtlety didn't lie in the sheer hardness of its force. It lay in how it tempered the body.
Moving qi felt like needles piercing, knives slicing, spears stabbing.
The higher one climbed, the harder it became and the more painful the training. But once the goal was reached, the body's strength would advance by leaps and bounds. At the art's peak, one would truly have a body like an Arhat, impervious to a hundred kinds of force.
And with this as a foundation, switching to the Muscle Tendon Changing Classic or the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art would make the cultivation twice as effective with half the effort.
"Xuankong, wait here for a moment."
The old monk drew a breath, flashed away, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Sitting where he was, Li Su rubbed his wrist. At that moment, he truly wanted to get up and leave. He was full of regret, convinced he'd made a mistake coming here. The intense ordeal had stirred his true qi again and again. It had felt as if he'd been thrown into an iron maiden, a torture device from the West. The spot where the old monk had gripped him was especially bad, as if a steel blade had been scraping it.
If the other man hadn't let go so quickly, Li Su would have wondered whether he was about to die right there in the meditation room.
Yet the worse it felt, the more uneasy he became. He couldn't help wondering whether he'd been practicing the wrong way. Why else would it hurt so much?
After about the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the old monk returned, carrying a waft of fragrance.
Li Su's mouth began to water. He stared blankly at the old monk, bewildered and incredulous.
That smell?
Meat???
"Come and eat!"
The old monk beamed. He wasn't surprised by Li Su's reaction. Raising a hand, he produced a huge, three-to-five-pound pork knuckle, its skin a bright red, the fat almost dripping off it.
Li Su stared at him in shock. This was Shaolin Temple, and the old man was the head of Arhat Hall.
Where had a pork knuckle like that even come from? And more importantly, given who they were, was this appropriate?
They weren't the Esoteric Sect.
No, the Esoteric Sect seemed to eat meat because they had no vegetables, so the Buddha had specially permitted it. Li Su was rather skeptical of that explanation. After all, their monks could marry too. The excuse was that their population was small and everyone had become a Buddhist; if they didn't marry, where would the Buddha's sons and grandsons come from? Maybe the Buddha had agreed to that as well. Besides, the Buddhist prohibition against meat had been imposed by Emperor Wu of Liang. In the past, what they called abstaining from pungent foods meant things like garlic, which gave people noticeable bad breath—not meat.
But rules were rules.
Besides, what did this old monk mean? Li Su had mastered the Arhat Divine Art, so now he was supposed to break the precept?
The old monk said, "Arhat Gong was created before the Tang Dynasty. It's a rare body-cultivation method, and practicing it requires nourishing medicine. The temple has a full stock of medicinal ingredients, but we haven't yet devised the corresponding pill formula. For now, meat is the only substitute. Even so, you mustn't practice the visualization method for a while, or you could damage your foundation. Later, once you have the corresponding pills, you can continue your training alongside them.
"Now that you're practicing, you must feel your inner qi moving as if needles are pricking you, and the pain grows harder and harder to bear. That's a sign your body is being tempered. Your body would soon adapt on instinct, but because it lacks what it needs, the sensation only grows more intense, until it becomes unbearable."
Hearing this, Li Su finally understood what was going on with his body.
So that was it.
No wonder his qi felt like it was going berserk. His body wasn't getting enough nourishment to keep up.
"Eat," the old monk said with a smile, holding the pork knuckle out to Li Su. "Eat it for a week first. That should ease the pain when your true qi moves. Once the pills are ready, you can use them to continue your training."
All right, since the old monk had explained it that far, there was no point in Li Su being polite.
After all, he'd been eating pickled vegetables and radishes for more than two years. There were stir-fried dishes too, but the food was bland, seasoned with neither scallions nor garlic, and there was no MSG either. If he hadn't been drawn in by martial arts, he would have run off ages ago.
Without a shred of ceremony, he took the pork knuckle and opened his mouth to bite into it.
But after a moment's thought, he picked up his brush and wrote, "Master, would you like some?"
The old monk smiled. Meat... Amitabha Buddha. To say he didn't want any at all would be a lie. Unfortunately, he truly couldn't eat it. Li Su had no choice because of complications left by the martial art; if he ate it, he would really be breaking a precept.
"From now on, come to my quarters every day until the pills are ready. Once you've finished eating, leave the bones in the room. I'll collect them later."
With that, the old monk rose. "I'll step out for a moment."
After watching Li Su nod and start gnawing on the pork knuckle, the old monk smiled and headed out again.
He went straight to Mahavira Hall.
"Senior Brother Abbot!"
At the sound of Tianming's voice, the old monk Tianjian frowned. It wasn't that the other man had come again; it was that he smelled meat.
To be honest, even Shaolin Temple hadn't cut itself off from meat entirely. If you had a way to get some, you might occasionally indulge, so long as you didn't overdo it and become corrupted by it. In any case, in the end, they would abstain completely.
As for the compassion that forbade killing? Since when did not killing count as compassion? The resentment of living beings? They were already cooked—where would the resentment come from? Their souls? The Six Paths of Reincarnation might be recited, but there was no need to take it that seriously. The old monks who had lived through the chaos of the Five Barbarians had seen the world become a hell. They had killed plenty of the Hu people back then, and no resentment had haunted them.
Eating meat wasn't a big deal.
But come on, you were a dignified hall head! You were supposed to set an example!
What was the point of rubbing that pork-knuckle stench in everyone's faces?
Lately, talent had been growing scarce. Though a new generation had recently produced a fine disciple named Xuancheng, thinking of the martial world as it stood still made Tianjian feel sick with worry. Now the old monk couldn't help snapping, "Junior Brother, you..."
"Success!"
Tianming was so excited that he completely ignored the issue of the pork knuckle. His greasy hand shot out and grabbed both of Tianjian's hands.
Feeling the grease smeared across his palms, Tianjian's face went dark. The three junior brothers seated beside him were staring at them strangely too. Success? What had succeeded? Braised pork knuckle? Or steamed pork knuckle? Anger surged up in him, ready to burst out.
"Success at what? Grabbing and tugging at each other like this—is this any way to behave?! Tianming, you've been cultivating Buddhism for decades. Just look at yourself! What have you turned into?!"
Tianming froze and looked down at his greasy palms. At once, he understood what the abbot meant. But the next moment, he stopped caring. After all, he'd be surrounded by this smell for a while to come.
"Senior Brother Abbot, it wasn't me. It was Xuankong! He succeeded!"
"What do you mean, it wasn't you, it was Xuan... Wait, Xuankong??" The abbot Tianjian had been about to wrench his hands free. They were greasy, and how long did the other man plan to hold on? But his arms stopped halfway up. He looked at Tianming in disbelief.
"Which Xuankong?"
"The one I came to register with you a month ago!"
"The disciple learning Arhat Gong? You mean he succeeded—the Arhat Divine Art reached the entry level and he produced Arhat True Qi?" Tianjian's pupils contracted as he instantly connected it to a host of other things. He couldn't help crying out.
"Yes! He succeeded. I just confirmed it myself!"
"Hiss!"