Nine Dragons Patriarch (Please Read On)

"Such a pity, such a pity... At Awen's age, his ceiling probably isn't very high." Uncle sighed regretfully. "If only he'd started learning martial arts earlier."

"Not necessarily. We may not understand it, but we've read the papers—there are still people who bloom late." Aunt had already begun fantasizing.

A grand house, a huge swimming pool, servants from the south... cosmetics she could never use up.

Uncle took out a stack of bills. "Take this thousand. Once Awen makes it, he'll have to help... What a pity, I'm out of money. Money's been hard to earn lately."

Aunt smiled. "I'll give it to Awen. It should cover next month's fees. He needs to eat well now; from now on, I'll try to make some hearty dishes in the evenings."

"Learning martial arts really burns through money. Just feeding him feels like it'll eat me bankrupt." Uncle's heart ached, yet he was happy.

"You should be secretly delighted. So many rich people spend fortunes trying to get their children trained up, only to find they don't have the talent. They just can't do it... Admit it! Awen is a martial arts prodigy!"

The eleventh day after joining the academy.

Li Xiuwen took leave from Brother Jun and arrived at the martial arts academy early.

Today, he would learn fighting techniques, and he felt somewhat excited.

Stance training was the foundation, the root, but it was ultimately only a method of training. It could only strengthen one's physical constitution.

How to use one's strength well, how to kill with the least effort, the greatest efficiency, and the utmost safety... that was fighting technique!

Both were important.

If one mastered fighting techniques, there was hope of defeating the strong while weak and turning the tide of battle.

At the center of the first floor stood a shrine, within which was an ancestral statue of the Sea Sand Style.

The statue depicted an old Daoist with a pointed head, dressed in a dark robe, broad-backed and long-bodied. His feet stood on a shark, and he held a wine gourd in one hand.

The old Daoist had a huge mouth. His broad grin looked rather strange, and his bearing closely resembled that of a shark.

He was worlds apart from the immortal, sage-like master Li Xiuwen had imagined.

Huang Sihai lit three sticks of incense in the burner, while Li Xiuwen watched quietly.

"Awen, come kowtow!"

"Alright!"

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

Three resounding kowtows shook the floorboards.

"Master, what was our Patriarch's name?"

"I don't know. I only know that he was an expert of the Great Ying Dynasty more than five hundred years ago. He was born in Wu Prefecture in Jiangnan and called himself the Nine Dragons Daoist."

"Our Patriarch was such a master. Could he still be alive?"

"Of course."

"What realm would one need to reach to live five hundred years?"

"I mean he lives in our hearts."

"..."

After the grand rites were complete, Huang Sihai finally said leisurely:

"What I am passing down to you now is the simplest, yet most practical, fighting technique created by our Patriarch.

"All profound fighting techniques to come are extensions built upon this foundation.

"It is called... Sand-Turning Palm!"

The name left Li Xiuwen feeling rather powerless.

It really was plain and unadorned.

"A palm technique?" Li Xiuwen asked.

Huang Sihai said, "That's right. Palm techniques are best suited for beginners and are also the most comprehensive fighting techniques.

"Fist techniques are somewhat more powerful, but injuries come easily.

"Finger techniques use a point to break a surface. Their upper limit in lethality is even higher, but the threshold is extremely high. Only top experts can practice them.

"Palm techniques combine offense and defense, ever-changing in their variations. They can push, press, chop, slap, pierce, and scoop. They are the most balanced.

"Once you learn palm techniques, learning fist techniques, finger techniques, and later weapon combat will all become easier."

Huang Sihai took out a booklet and said, "This is a copied manual of Sand-Turning Palm. You are not allowed to take it out of the academy. It would be best to commit it to memory."

"Alright!" Li Xiuwen opened it and found that the mnemonic verses consisted of only a few sparse lines in the general outline on the first page.

"Waves Sifting Sand, rounded and flawless.

Surging Tides, ten thousand tons gathered and concealed.

Shark Shadow Strike, touch it and explode.

Giant Whale Swallows the Sea, overturning without constancy."

The rest contained detailed illustrated methods of practice, including seemingly complicated diagrams of forms and acupoints.

Huang Sihai said, "Keep these thirty-two characters in your heart. Pair them with the essentials of the Sea-Sand Stance, and you will grasp the soul of the Sea Sand Style!"

"This disciple understands."

Then Huang Sihai took a rather exquisite little cloth pouch from his pocket and said blandly, "Take it. This is also the essence of my Sand-Turning Palm."

Li Xiuwen accepted it with both hands. "Master, is this a secret medicine meant to be used alongside palm technique training?"

"Open it and see," Huang Sihai said.

Li Xiuwen opened it and discovered a packet of fine white sand, giving off a faint briny stench of seawater and a sharp, pungent odor.

He gently rubbed some between his fingers, but could not see anything unusual about it.

Huang Sihai said, "This is the Sea Sand Style's unique hidden weapon: Soul-Crushing Powder."

"What is it good for?" Li Xiuwen asked eagerly. He had not expected Old Huang to possess such a good thing.

"The Sea Sand Style is the school among this stronghold's hundred clans that places the greatest emphasis on real combat. With cultivation like yours, when fighting someone, scatter it unexpectedly at their face as you strike with your palm. It can blind their eyes, and at critical moments, it can let the weak defeat the strong... Of course, don't do this when sparring with fellow disciples or competing in the grand arena," Huang Sihai said.

"Is it against the rules?"

"It's embarrassing."

"..."

Li Xiuwen had nothing to say. So the old man knew shame after all.

Huang Sihai stood with his hands behind his back and sneered. "Don't underestimate this stuff. I compounded it from lime, chili powder, and dozens of other spicy, irritating substances using the Sea Sand Style's ancestral secret method. It was refined over seven times seven, forty-nine days. This packet is a newcomer's benefit. If you want more afterward, it's ten dollars a packet. Someone once bought ten packets from me in one go."

"Thank you, Master." Li Xiuwen smiled, inwardly cursing the old miser for selling sea sand as though it were gold dust.

"When using sea sand, remember to watch the wind direction. Don't blind your own eyes..." Huang Sihai reminded him.

"You're so thoughtful, Master." After training for so long, Li Xiuwen finally understood why the Nine Dragons Patriarch had named it the "Sea Sand Style."

It meant "sea sand" in the most literal sense—plain and unadorned.

Next, Huang Sihai explained a whole pile of essentials for Sand-Turning Palm. In short, there was only one sentence:

"It's all important! Everything will be tested!"

Reading the manual while training under Huang Sihai's guidance, Li Xiuwen officially began cultivating fighting techniques.

For ordinary people, fighting techniques were clearly more complicated than training methods.

The difficulty of training methods lay in the need for patient, grinding effort. They also depended more on one's natural endowment—that was, one's innate physique.

Fighting techniques, on the other hand, involved many profound and unfathomable techniques, placing extreme demands on comprehension and understanding.

After practicing all day, Li Xiuwen finally managed to learn most of the forms and sequences of Sand-Turning Palm before exhausting himself.

At the same time, a third stick of incense appeared atop the [Incense Burner].

[Li Xiuwen]

[Martial Arts]

[Sand-Turning Palm: Beginner (1%)]

"Entering the beginner stage in fighting techniques isn't difficult. Training methods took seven days, while fighting techniques only need one."

"Entering the beginner stage in training methods brings a qualitative change in cultivation, so it is harder. Entering the beginner stage in fighting techniques merely means remembering the forms. There's no qualitative change."

"If a fighting technique is to display its power, it must at least reach the Minor Accomplishment realm."

It was already late at night.

Li Xiuwen ate three large bowls of fish ball noodles at the martial arts academy, along with an extra duck leg.

Having entered the beginner stage in fighting techniques, he had to reward his Five Viscera Temple and replenish some nutrition while he was at it.

Another reason his martial arts training progressed slowly was that he ate poorly.

Without money, he could only stuff himself with carbohydrates for energy. He rarely ate much fish or meat, which affected his body's rapid development.

Uncle had given him another thousand dollars. After paying next month's fees, he would still have four hundred dollars left to improve his meals.

Of course, this was not a long-term solution. He still had to find a way to make money.

Now that he had entered the beginner stage in fighting techniques, Li Xiuwen decided that in a few days, he would go find Brother Jun and discuss that matter.

While everyone was eating, Liu Da arrived with his head lowered and his luggage on his back.