Dragon Spine Through the Back, Half-Step Crushing Fist

A few more days passed. In Tianjin, time spun like the wheels of a rickshaw, fast and never stopping.

By the time Qin Geng finished his last fare to the foreign concession, dusk had fallen.

He parked his rickshaw on the patch of dirt outside Xu Jin's Shanty that could just about be called level.

The more Qin Geng ran these past few days, the easier it felt. No matter how he used the strength in his legs, it never seemed to run out.

At a thought, the glowing screen of the Book of a Hundred Trades, visible only to him, slowly unfolded before his eyes.

[Profession: Carriage Driver (Level 20)]

[Talent "Endless Breath (Level 1)" advanced to "Endless Breath (Level 2)"]

Qin Geng looked at the words, drew a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

The breath went on and on. His lungs felt like a new bellows in a blacksmith's forge, strong and powerful.

As the talent reached level two, a warm current traveled through his limbs and bones before gathering in the hollow of his chest.

Even after pulling a two-hundred-jin compradore more than a dozen li, his heartbeat remained as steady as an old monk striking a wooden fish.

Thump, thump, thump... strong and unhurried.

His endurance, heart and lungs, and ability to recover had all risen by a notch.

Then another line of small text appeared beneath the others:

[Raise the Carriage Driver profession to Level 30 to unlock profession talents: Old Horse Knows the Way and Step-Sensing Danger]

Qin Geng narrowed his eyes slightly. His lips curved, just as he had expected.

"Sure enough, it's exactly as Shopkeeper Lu said."

"Level thirty means reaching the third tier of the Carriage Driver trade."

"At my current pace and rate of taking fares, barring some disaster beyond my control, I should cross that threshold in a little over a month."

Then he would have a way to bring in those thirty silver dollars.

Qin Geng dismissed the panel, but the advancement did nothing to ease his frown. If anything, it deepened.

The more he worked out the numbers, the more alarming they became.

"Two jin of braised offal a day is the bare minimum now. If I train hard, I need another dozen or so big baked buns on top of that."

"After the rickshaw rental and a day's food and drink, there's nothing left. I'm twenty-two copper coins in the hole."

"All told, I have fourteen silver dollars left on hand."

Qin Geng sighed and tucked his money pouch close to his body.

"And that doesn't include medicinal tonics."

"Martial Artist is nearly at level five. Once I pass it and unlock [Dragon Spine Through the Back], my body will become an even more terrifying bottomless pit."

"Trying to fill it with meat alone is like pouring a cup of water on a burning cartload of firewood. I'll need Bone-Strengthening Powder to make up for the drain on my blood and vitality."

He had not dared miss a single day of practicing Xingyi Dragon and Tiger.

Yet the more he practiced, the more he sensed something was wrong.

Two jin of braised offal left his belly round and swollen, but the hunger did not come from his stomach. It seeped from the gaps between his bones and every tendon in his body.

Like cracked earth thirsting for rain, his body was howling for energy.

The blood and vitality in pig offal alone could no longer begin to feed his increasingly powerful body.

"I need to hurry."

Qin Geng lay down on his straw mat. Listening to a few distant dogs barking outside the shanty, he turned over and forced himself into a deep sleep.

Half a month passed in a blink.

It was the fifteenth of October. The late-autumn cold had grown biting, and a layer of white frost coated the grass in the early morning.

The sun had yet to rise. Only a pale strip showed along the eastern horizon.

Qin Geng was already standing in the abandoned threshing ground.

Bare-chested, he revealed a body of lean, formidable muscle. Every muscle looked like tempered iron, sharply defined and packed with explosive strength.

He had risen so early because he had checked the panel before going to bed the night before.

[Profession: Martial Artist (Level 4)]

[Experience: 39/40]

Just one final step remained.

"Opening stance!"

Qin Geng spread his feet and dug his toes hard into the ground. In an instant, he went still as a statue.

Three-Body Stance.

He had stood in this stance more times than he could count, but today felt different.

As he worked through the breathing method, he drew lungfuls of frosty air into his chest, where they turned into surging warmth.

"Inhale—exhale—"

His breathing was heavy, like an old ox dragging a weighty plow. His chest rose and fell sharply.

Blood and vitality surged within him. His tendons trembled.

At last, a clear ding sounded deep in his mind.

It was music to his ears.

[Profession: Martial Artist (Level 5)]

[Talent unlocked: Dragon Spine Through the Back (Level 1)]

The words on the glowing screen shifted rapidly, bearing an ancient, desolate air:

[At the heart of a Martial Artist are the waist and stance. Force begins at the heels, is governed by the waist, and is released through the back.]

[The great dragon of your spine has undergone a change, making you different from ordinary people.]

[Your vertebrae are thick yet flexible, and your tendons snap with the power of bowstrings.]

[The muscles of your back will gain tremendous tension. When you exert force, they will roll like a monstrous dragon turning over, snapping in an instant. Your explosive power and ability to withstand blows will increase greatly.]

The moment the words appeared, a sudden heat flared through Qin Geng's back.

Crack!

Crack!

A teeth-grating series of cracks began at his tailbone and burst upward, vertebra by vertebra, like a string of firecrackers, all the way to his neck.

Pain!

Agonizing pain!

It was as though a pair of invisible hands had wrenched his spine apart and put it back together, even packing it with iron and steel.

Qin Geng clenched his teeth. Veins bulged across his forehead, but he did not make a sound.

The pain passed as quickly as it had come.

In its place came a feeling of connection unlike anything he had known.

It felt as though his spine had come alive.

Before, his lower body had been solid when he held a stance, but the connection between his upper and lower body had always felt obstructed. Some force was lost as it traveled through him.

Now the great dragon of his spine reached up to the crown of his head and down to his tailbone, linked through his legs and straight into the earth.

He no longer felt like a man holding a stance. He was a thousand-year-old pine rooted in a crack in the rock, unmoved by wind or thunder.

Qin Geng tried moving.

He gave his waist a slight twist.

Twang!

A tendon in his back sounded like a bowstring snapping taut.

He could clearly feel every muscle in his back, even every vertebra, answering to his will.

Whenever he chose, his spine could snap into motion, gather the strength of his whole body into a single point, and unleash it through his fists or feet.

"So this is Dragon Spine Through the Back..."

A flash of awe crossed Qin Geng's eyes.

Traditional martial arts had a saying: "Train your fists but not your waist, and your skill will never rise high."

The great dragon of the spine was the body's central axis, the channel through which strength flowed.

With this talent, it was as though a powerful spring had been fitted inside him. Both the speed with which he could drive a punch and his ability to absorb a blow had taken a leap forward.

"Let's test my strength."

Qin Geng turned his gaze to a block of bluestone at the edge of the threshing ground.

It was the very stone Yi He Shantytown had used to block the alley and spite everyone half a month earlier.

He had estimated it weighed around four hundred jin. Though lifting it had looked impressive, he had actually used every ounce of strength, veins bulging with the effort.

Qin Geng walked over. Without even taking time to steady his breathing, he hooked one hand around a corner of the stone and straightened his back and waist slightly.

The great dragon of his spine drew taut in an instant, like a mighty bow pulled to its limit.

"Up!"

There was no low growl, no face red with effort.

He lifted the four-hundred-jin boulder clean off the ground with one hand!

Then he caught it with both hands and raised it over his head.

It was as if the heavy stone weighed nothing!

Feeling its weight on his arms, Qin Geng calculated quickly.

"In my hands now, this stone feels about as heavy as a bucket of water used to."

"Four hundred jin... too light."

"If I put everything into one arm, with Dragon Spine Through the Back behind it, I'd have at least a thousand jin of strength!"

"I haven't even reached Bright Force, and my body alone is already this fearsome."

Qin Geng tossed the boulder aside. It landed with a dull thud.

"My body absorbs and uses food far better than an ordinary person's, and my strength has climbed past a thousand jin."

"No wonder Master Zhu Xin used to boast that when truly top-tier Martial Artists fought, water splashed within three feet of them couldn't get through. He even said they could dodge foreign guns' bullets through footwork and instinct, or survive the blast from a foreigner's cannon head-on."

He had once taken it for bragging. Now, he was not so sure.

Just as Qin Geng was reveling in his surge of strength, a fiercer hunger swept over him like a tidal wave.

"Grrr—"

The sound was frighteningly loud. It was less like a stomach growling than a roll of thunder.

The hunger was no longer an emptiness in his belly. Every cell seemed to be screaming, demanding more.

The furnace of his body was burning too fiercely. It had run short of fuel.

"No, meat alone really can't keep up."

Qin Geng clutched his stomach, his face pale. "I have to buy medicine today."

But where?

Qin Geng knitted his brows.

Until recently, he had been a poor laborer at the bottom of society. What he had feared most was falling ill.

In Tianjin, a poor man who fell ill had one foot through the gates of the underworld.

It was not just that medicine was expensive. The waters of the underworld were too deep.

All walks of life mingled in Tianjin, and the Beggar Gate and Thousand Gate of the eight underworld trades were notorious for their black hearts and ruthless hands.

The streets were full of wandering doctors flying banners that proclaimed "Ancestral Secret Remedy" or "Divine Healer Reborn," along with pharmacies whose storefronts looked respectable.

Eight out of ten practitioners inside were swindlers.

If you met one who only wanted your money, he might prescribe balls of flour, soot from a pot, or clay. None would help, but none would hurt either. You could count that as an act of mercy.

Worse were those who pretended to know what they were doing, or deliberately prescribed powerful drugs.

"An original-pair cricket as a medicinal catalyst," "eggs boiled in a young boy's urine," "human excrement," "human urine sediment"...

Surviving such wild folk remedies took luck. Having your health ruined by them was commonplace.

If he bought counterfeit medicine, he would not only throw his silver dollars away. The foundation he had just built in martial arts might be destroyed with them.

"I need to ask someone who knows."

The first person who came to Qin Geng's mind was Master Zhu Xin.

Master Zhu Xin had spent his whole life in Tianjin. He was a true local fixture, with an ear for every bit of news.

Qin Geng looked up at the sky. Daylight had only just broken.

Without delay, he pulled on his jacket and hurried straight to the familiar braised-offal stall in South City.

Steam billowed from the braised-offal stall.

This was when Master Xin and his fellow idlers, having been up through the night, came for breakfast before going to sleep.

From a distance, Qin Geng spotted Master Zhu Xin squatting beside a table in the corner, head-to-head with an old man in a ragged padded jacket. The two were engrossed in their contest.

A clay jar sat on the table, with the chirping of two crickets coming from inside.

"Bite him! Bite his leg! Hey! You useless little thing!"

Master Zhu Xin slapped his thigh, his face full of frustration.

"Haha, Old Zhu, thanks for the match! This round's mine!"

The old man opposite him stretched out his hand triumphantly. "Come on, hand it over. Thirty copper coins. A bet's a bet!"

Master Zhu Xin fumbled in his pocket with a pained expression, dragging his feet. He clearly hated to part with the money.

Thirty copper coins would buy two good meals.

Just then, a hand reached over and set a stack of copper coins on the table.

"I'll cover those thirty coins for Master Xin."

Master Zhu Xin and the old man looked up together.

Qin Geng stood beside them, smiling.

"Well, if it isn't Xiao Wu."

Master Zhu Xin's eyes lit up. The sting of parting with his money vanished, and he straightened his back.

The old man across from him took the money and left, beaming.

Qin Geng made himself at home, sitting across from Master Zhu Xin and calling out, "Shopkeeper! Warm a pot of good wine for Master Xin, and bring half a jin of spiced beans and half a jin of smashed cucumbers. My treat!"

The wine and two dishes would cost at least thirty wen.

Add the thirty wen from earlier.

That was sixty wen in one sitting.

The other diners could not help taking a second look. Where had this lavish young master come from?

Master Zhu Xin narrowed his cloudy old eyes and looked Qin Geng up and down.

They had not seen each other for half a month, and the boy seemed steadier than ever. The confidence and strength radiating from within him could not be hidden.

Especially the casual way he had handed over the money. That was the ease of someone with resources to spare.

"Well, well. Xiao Wu's come into money lately."

Master Zhu Xin picked up the warm wine that had just arrived and took a slurping sip, looking thoroughly pleased. "Spending so freely, are you? Come on, what big question have you got for me today? I'm in a good mood. I might tell you a little more than usual."

Qin Geng did not beat around the bush. He leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice.

"Master Zhu Xin."

"I've hit a wall with the martial arts I'm practicing. I need medicinal decoctions to nourish my body now."

Qin Geng paused, a wry smile crossing his face. "But you know how it is around Tianjin. It's not all that big, but its waters are muddy. I'm afraid I'll be taken in by some quack from the Thousand Gate or Beggar Gate and come home with a heap of fake medicine."

"Losing the money would be one thing. If the medicine ruined my body, I'd be finished."

"I know the big pharmacies are more reputable, but would places that cater to wealthy households give a poor wretch like me the time of day? They might not sell me the genuine good stuff."

Qin Geng spoke earnestly, and every word rang true.

Master Zhu Xin set down his cup.

"Heh. You're sharp, kid. You're right to worry."

Master Zhu Xin raised a thumb and waved it. "Around Tianjin, medicine worth a damn is called Treasure Medicine. It's nothing like the handfuls of roots and bark you can buy at some street-corner pharmacy."

"There are only two ways to get your hands on Treasure Medicine."

Qin Geng perked up. "I'm all ears."

"The first way..."

Master Zhu Xin pointed toward the outskirts of town. "Dig for it in the Seven Mountains of Tianjin, or fish it out of the Tianjin River."

"Those are gifts from heaven. They belong to no one."

"Century-old ginseng, fleeceflower root, dragon-bone grass... If fortune favors you and you find it, it's yours without spending a single coin."

Qin Geng's eyes brightened.

That was one way to do it.

But he shook his head a moment later.

He knew nothing about medicinal herbs. He would be groping around in the dark.

Even if a century-old ginseng root were right in front of him, he would probably mistake it for a radish and stew it. Wouldn't that be casting pearls before swine?

Besides, there were Zombies and foreigners in the mountains now, and water ghosts in the river. It was far too dangerous.

Risking his life for a dose of medicine was not worth it.

"And the second way?"

Qin Geng pressed.

"The second is to find a physician with a name people know."

Master Zhu Xin gave a mysterious smile and tapped the table with his chopsticks. "If you're going to make your way in Tianjin, there's something you need to understand."

"A man might be given the wrong name, but never the wrong nickname."

"Anyone who's earned a name in these circles and won everyone's thumbs-up has real skill. You can count on that."

"People have called me Master Zhu Xin for fifty or sixty years. What have I relied on? These eyes and these ears. I know a little about everything, and I've never sold a scrap of false information."

Master Zhu Xin paused, then went on. "Take Ping'an County Town. We've got quite a few famous craftsmen."

"Clay Figurine Zhang in the east of town makes clay figures that people put in tombs. They might as well be living people guarding the graves."

"Then there's Paper Effigy Lu in South City. I've only met him a few times, but I hear the paper figures he makes look just like real people. He's a master of the Yin Trade."

Qin Geng's heart gave a jolt.

Paper Effigy Lu... Wasn't that Lu Xingmin?

It seemed Shopkeeper Lu really had made a name for himself in Tianjin.

"And Judge Liu, the coroner of Ping'an County Town. Once a corpse passes through his hands, he can tell what that person did in life."

Master Zhu Xin did not notice Qin Geng's expression. "Then there's Hundred-Bird Feng, who performs at funerals. Even the greatest figures in Tianjin can't simply ask for a performance. Only someone truly respected and revered can have Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix performed after their death..."

"Anyone with a nickname like that has abilities people recognize and pass along by word of mouth."

"As for physicians..."

Master Zhu Xin left him hanging and took another sip of wine before speaking at a leisurely pace. "Tianjin has plenty of famous physicians. Some are skilled but coldhearted. Others charge outrageous prices."

"But for a kind heart and an upright character, you can't beat Hundred Herbs Zheng of Tianjin's Hundred Herb Hall."

"Hundred Herbs Zheng?"

Something stirred in Qin Geng's mind.

"That's right. Zheng Tonghe, Shopkeeper Zheng."

Respect showed on Master Zhu Xin's face. "Not only can he identify hundreds of herbs and understand their properties, but his master's background is remarkable."

"Oh? Who was his master?"

"Ye Lanzen! The Great Xin Dynasty's Martial Arts Champion in the jiazi year, once hailed as Tianjin's finest fist, the master of Three Sovereigns Cannon Fist! And Ye Lanzen's own master was Guo Yunshen of Half-Step Crushing Fist. Back when the Broadsword Society was causing a stir, Guo Yunshen beat hundreds of foreign fighters to death on his own."

"Ye Lanzen?!"

Qin Geng had never heard the name, but titles like "Martial Arts Champion," "Tianjin's finest fist," and "Three Sovereigns Cannon Fist" were enough to inspire awe.

Guo Yunshen, though, was a name he had heard.

Half-Step Crushing Fist had conquered the world!

Whether foreign strongmen or masters from other schools, anyone caught at close quarters by that grandmaster's crushing fist was left dead or injured.

"Great masters produce great disciples. Shopkeeper Zheng may focus on medicine, but he comes from a renowned martial lineage."

"He does business honestly, treating young and old alike. He hates fraud more than anything."

"So if you want real medicine without getting swindled, he's the man to see."

At that, Master Zhu Xin sighed, his gaze turning distant. "Back when my old woman fell gravely ill and looked ready to go, Shopkeeper Zheng was the one who kept her alive. She passed away in the end, but I'll remember what he did for us as long as I live."

After hearing all that, Qin Geng felt completely reassured.

Shopkeeper Zheng of Hundred Herb Hall.

Wasn't he the short, stout shopkeeper who had treated Lu Xingmin last time?

The deft way he had set Lu Xingmin's bones and treated his injuries had made it clear he was no ordinary man.

He had not expected Zheng Tonghe to be a Martial Arts Champion's disciple, or to have such a good reputation in Tianjin.

What a coincidence.

Now that he knew the man, things would be much easier.

And since Qin Geng had saved Lu Xingmin last time, he had already forged a connection with Hundred Herb Hall.

"What's this? You know him?"

Master Zhu Xin glanced at him in surprise.

"We met once by chance," Qin Geng said.

"Heh. You've had your share of lucky encounters, kid."

Master Zhu Xin did not press him. He just chuckled. "If you know him, that makes it even easier. Go on. Hundred Herbs Zheng is a good man, nothing like those compradors in the medicine trade who care about money and not people. He has good medicine."

"Thank you for the guidance, Master Xin!"

Qin Geng stood and respectfully cupped his hands in salute. "I won't forget this favor. I'll head to Hundred Herb Hall and buy the medicine now."

"Go on, then. Don't let me hold up your training."

Master Zhu Xin waved him off.

Qin Geng strode away from the food stall.

The first light of morning fell across his straight back.

The great dragon of his spine gave off a faint warmth.

To Hundred Herb Hall.

Qin Geng returned to his shack, took his entire savings of fourteen silver dollars from the chest beneath his bed, and headed straight for Jinmen City.

Once he had Bone-Strengthening Powder, he would truly have set foot on the martial path—and have a chance to climb higher!