Dragon Spine Through the Back, Half-Step Crushing Fist

A few more days passed. Here in Tianjin, time was like the wheels of a rickshaw: spinning fast and never stopping.

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

He parked his rickshaw on the relatively level patch of dirt outside Xu Jin's Shanty.

The more Qin Geng ran these past few days, the easier it felt. The strength in his legs seemed inexhaustible.

With a thought, the glowing panel 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)" upgraded to "Endless Breath (Level 2)"]

Qin Geng looked at the words, drew a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.

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

As the talent reached level two, a warm current coursed through his entire body before gathering in the center of his chest.

Even after pulling a two-hundred-pound comprador more than ten li, his heartbeat remained as steady as an old monk striking a wooden fish.

Thump, thump, thump... strong and unwavering.

His endurance, heart and lungs, and recovery had all risen a notch.

Then another line of small text appeared beneath the panel:

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

Qin Geng narrowed his eyes slightly. As expected, the corners of his mouth curved upward.

"Just as Shopkeeper Lu said."

"Level thirty marks the third stage of the carriage-driving trade."

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

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

Qin Geng dismissed the panel, but his brow did not relax. Instead, it creased.

The more he counted, the more alarming the figures became.

"Two jin of braised offal a day, at a minimum. If training gets intense, I need another dozen or so big flatbreads."

"After paying the rickshaw rental and buying food and drink, I don't just come up short—I'm out another twenty-two copper coins."

"I've got fourteen silver dollars left, at most."

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

"And that's before the cost of medicinal decoctions."

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

"Meat alone will be a cup of water thrown onto a burning cart. I'll need Bone-Strengthening Powder to replenish the qi and blood I'm losing."

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

But the more he trained, the more something felt wrong.

Two jin of braised offal left his belly round and taut, yet the hunger did not come from his stomach. It seeped from the cracks in his bones, from every thick tendon.

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

The scant nourishment in pig offal was no longer enough to fill a gap in this increasingly powerful body's teeth.

"I need to hurry."

Qin Geng lay down on his straw mat. Listening to dogs barking somewhere beyond the shanty, he rolled over and forced himself into a deep sleep.

Half a month passed in a blink.

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

Dawn had not broken. Only a pale light edged the eastern sky.

Qin Geng was already standing in the abandoned threshing ground.

Bare-chested, he displayed a lean, powerful physique. Every sharply defined muscle looked like iron tempered by a thousand hammer blows, packed with explosive strength.

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

[Profession: Martial Artist (Level 4)]

[Experience: 39/40]

One final push was all he needed.

"Opening stance!"

Qin Geng spread his feet and dug his toes into the earth. His whole body went still, as though he had become a statue.

Three-Body Stance.

He had practiced this stance countless times, but today it felt different.

As he worked through his breathing method, he drew in lungfuls of frost-laden air that turned into surging warmth.

"Inhale—exhale—"

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

Blood surged through him. His thick tendons trembled.

At last, a crisp 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)]

Text flowed swiftly across the panel, carrying an ancient, desolate air:

[The core of a Martial Artist lies in the waist and stance. Power rises from the heels, is governed by the waist, and issues through the spine and back.]

[Your spine, the great dragon, has transformed, setting you apart from ordinary people.]

[Your vertebrae are thick and flexible; your tendons snap with the force of bowstrings.]

[The muscles of your back will become taut with power. When you exert force, they will roll like a monstrous dragon turning over, then snap into motion. Explosive power and resistance to blows are greatly enhanced.]

The instant the words appeared, heat flared through Qin Geng's back.

Crack!

Crack!

A teeth-grating series of pops started at his tailbone and burst upward, vertebra by vertebra, like firecrackers, all the way to his neck.

Pain!

Agonizing pain!

It felt as though invisible hands were wrenching apart his spine and reassembling it, even stuffing steel bars into his bones.

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

The agony vanished as quickly as it had come.

In its place came an unprecedented sense of being open all the way through.

It felt as if his spine had come alive.

Before, when he held a stance, his lower body was steady, but something always seemed to separate it from his upper body. Some force was lost as it passed between them.

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

He was no longer simply 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 the slightest twist.

Twang!

The thick tendons in his back sounded like a bowstring snapping taut.

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

If he wished, his spine could snap into motion in an instant, gather all his body's strength at one point, and release it through his fists or feet.

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

Awe flashed through Qin Geng's eyes.

In martial arts, there was a saying: "Train the fists but not the waist, and your skill will never reach its height."

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

With this talent, it was as though a powerful spring had been installed inside him. Both the speed at which he could drive a punch and his ability to disperse the force of a blow had leaped to another level.

"Let's test my strength."

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

It was the same stone Yi He Shantytown had used to block the alley and make trouble for everyone half a month ago.

He had estimated it weighed around four hundred jin. Lifting it had looked impressive, but in truth he had used every ounce of strength, veins bulging.

Qin Geng walked over. Without even adjusting his breathing, he gripped a corner of the stone with one hand and straightened his waist and back slightly.

The great dragon of his spine drew taut at once, like a bow pulled to its limit.

"Up!"

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

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

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

He made the heavy look light!

Feeling the boulder's weight on his arms, Qin Geng calculated rapidly.

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

Four hundred jin... too light.

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

I haven't even reached Bright Force, yet my body alone is already this formidable.

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

"My ability to digest and absorb food far exceeds ordinary people's, and my strength is climbing past a thousand jin."

"No wonder Master Zhu Xin bragged that when truly top-tier Martial Artists fought, not even water could penetrate the three feet around them. Some could even use their footwork and instinct to dodge bullets from foreign guns, or survive the shock wave from a foreigner's cannon."

He had thought it was boasting before. Now he was not so sure.

Just as Qin Geng reveled in his soaring strength, a fiercer hunger swept over him like a tidal wave.

"Grrr—"

The sound was frighteningly loud, less like a growling stomach than a rumble of thunder.

This hunger was no longer an emptiness in his stomach. Every cell screamed and demanded sustenance.

The furnace of his body was burning too hot. It was running out of fuel.

"No. Meat alone really won't be enough."

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

But where?

Qin Geng's brows drew tight.

Until recently, he had been a laborer scraping by at the bottom, and illness was what he feared most.

Here in Tianjin, when a poor person fell ill, one foot was already through the gates of hell.

It was not just that medicine was expensive. The waters of the martial world ran too deep.

Tianjin was a jumble of the Three Teachings and Nine Schools, and the Beggar Gate and Thousand Gate among the eight gates of the martial world were notorious for their black hearts and ruthless hands.

The streets were full of traveling physicians flying banners proclaiming "Ancestral Secret Remedy" and "Divine Healer Reborn," along with medicine shops whose storefronts looked respectable.

Eight out of ten practitioners seated inside were swindlers.

If you met one who only wanted your money, he might prescribe little balls of flour, soot from the bottom of a pot, or clay. They would do no good, but no harm either. You could almost call that a good deed.

The worst were those who pretended to know what they were doing, or deliberately prescribed dangerously strong medicine.

"An original-mate cricket as a medicinal catalyst," "eggs boiled in a virgin boy's urine," "human yellow," "human white"...

With those bizarre folk remedies, surviving was a stroke of luck. Damaging your body was the usual outcome.

If he bought fake medicine, he would not only throw his silver dollars away. The foundation he had just built in martial arts might be ruined too.

"I need to ask someone who knows the ropes."

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 his ear closest to the ground.

Qin Geng looked up at the sky. It had only just grown light.

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 the hour when Master Xin and the other idle men, having been up through the night, ate breakfast before going to sleep.

From a distance, Qin Geng spotted Master Zhu Xin squatting beside a table in the corner, heads bent together with an old man in a tattered padded coat. They were deep in a fierce contest.

An earthenware jar sat on the table. The chirps of two crickets came from inside.

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

Master Zhu Xin slapped his thigh in frustration.

"Haha, Old Zhu, much obliged! I win this round!"

The old man opposite him held out a hand triumphantly. "Hand it over. Thirty copper coins. A bet's a bet!"

Looking pained, Master Zhu Xin fumbled slowly in his pocket, plainly reluctant to pay.

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 the thirty coins for Master Xin."

Master Zhu Xin and the old man looked up together.

Qin Geng stood beside them, smiling.

"Oh, 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 opposite Master Zhu Xin and calling out, "Shopkeeper, warm up a pot of good wine for Master Xin! Bring half a jin of spiced beans and half a jin of smashed cucumber too. It's on me!"

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

Add the thirty cash from earlier,

and he had spent sixty cash in one go.

The other diners couldn't help taking a second look. Where did this lavish young master come from?

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

They hadn't met in half a month, and the boy carried himself with even more composure. The confidence and strength radiating from within him were impossible to hide.

Especially the casual way he had handed over the money. That came from knowing he had something to fall back on.

"Tsk, tsk. Xiao Wu's come into money lately."

Master Zhu Xin picked up the hot wine that had just arrived and took a pleased sip. "Spending so freely, eh? 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 didn't beat around the bush. He leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice.

"Master Zhu Xin."

"I've hit a hurdle in my training. I need medicinal decoctions to build up my body."

He paused, a wry smile crossing his face. "But you know what Tianjin's like. It's neither especially big nor small, and its waters run muddy. I'm afraid I won't know what I'm looking at and will fall into the hands of some fake physician from the Thousand Gate or Beggar Gate, then come home with a pile 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 those grand establishments give a poor wretch like me the time of day? They might not sell me genuine, quality medicine."

Qin Geng spoke sincerely, and every word rang true.

Master Zhu Xin set down his cup.

"Heh. You've got a sharp eye, boy. You're right to worry."

Master Zhu Xin raised a thumb and waved it. "Here in Tianjin, medicine worth a damn is called treasure medicine. You can't compare it to a couple of handfuls of roots and bark from a roadside pharmacy."

"If you want treasure medicine, there are only two ways to get it."

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

"The first way..."

Master Zhu Xin pointed toward the land beyond the city. "Dig for it in the Seven Mountains of Tianjin, or dredge it from the bottom of the Tianjin River."

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

"Century-old ginseng, fleeceflower root, dragon-bone grass... If fortune smiles on you, whatever you find is yours, and it won't cost a penny."

Qin Geng's eyes brightened.

That was one possibility.

But then he shook his head.

He knew nothing about medicinal plants. He might as well have been blind.

Even if a century-old ginseng root lay right in front of him, he would probably stew it like a radish. What a waste of a precious gift that would be.

Besides, the mountains were crawling with Zombies and Foreigners, and there were Water Ghosts in the river. Neither place was safe.

Risking his life for a dose of medicine wasn't worth it.

"What's the second way?"

Qin Geng pressed.

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

Master Zhu Xin smiled mysteriously and tapped the table with his chopsticks. "To get by in Tianjin, you need to understand one thing."

"People might get a name wrong, but they never get a nickname wrong."

"Anyone who's made a name for himself and earned everyone's approval has real skill behind it. 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 ears. I know a little about everything, and I've never sold false information."

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

"Clay Figurine Zhang in East City makes clay figures that people put straight into tombs. They guard the graves as well as living people could."

"And Paper Effigy Lu in South City—I haven't met him many times, but I hear his Paper People look just like living people. He's a master of the Yin Trade."

Qin Geng's heart skipped a beat.

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

Shopkeeper Lu really did have quite a reputation in Tianjin.

"Then there's Judge Liu, the coroner in Ping'an County Town. Once a corpse passes through his hands, he can work out everything the person did in life."

Master Zhu Xin didn't notice Qin Geng's reaction. "Or there's Hundred-Bird Feng, who conducts funerals. Even the greatest figures in Tianjin can't secure a performance from him. Only someone truly respected can have Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix played after death..."

"People with names like these have earned their reputation by word of mouth. Everyone knows they're the real deal."

"As for Physicians..."

Master Zhu Xin left him hanging, took another sip of wine, and only then continued at his leisure. "Tianjin has plenty of famous Physicians. Some are brilliant but cold-hearted. Others charge a fortune."

"But for kindness and integrity, you can't beat Hundred Herbs Zheng of Tianjin's Hundred Herb Hall."

"Hundred Herbs Zheng?"

Qin Geng's interest stirred.

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

Respect showed on Master Zhu Xin's face. "He knows hundreds of herbs and has a deep understanding of medicine. More importantly, his master was no ordinary man."

"Oh? Who was his master?"

"Ye Lanzen! The Martial Arts Champion of the Great Xin Dynasty's jiazi year, once hailed as the Tianjin First Fist for his Three Sovereigns Cannon Fist! And Ye Lanzen's own master was Guo Yunshen, whose Half-Step Crushing Fist killed hundreds of Foreigners' boxers during the Broadsword Society uprising."

"Ye Lanzen?!"

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

Guo Yunshen, though—him he had heard of.

The Half-Step Crushing Fist could conquer the world!

Whether his opponent was a Foreigners' strongman or a master from another school of Martial Arts, once they came within striking distance, a blow from that Grandmaster's Crushing Fist would leave them dead or injured.

"A great master produces great disciples. Shopkeeper Zheng may have devoted himself chiefly to medicine, but he comes from a truly illustrious lineage."

"He believes in treating every customer fairly, young or old, and hates anything dishonest."

"So if you want genuine medicine without being cheated, you can't go wrong with him."

At that, Master Zhu Xin sighed, his gaze turning distant. "Years ago, when my old woman fell gravely ill and was at death's door, Shopkeeper Zheng was the one who kept her alive. She still passed away in the end, but I'll remember what he did for her all my life."

Hearing this, Qin Geng finally felt sure of his next step.

Shopkeeper Zheng of Hundred Herb Hall.

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

The deft way he had set Lu Xingmin's bones and tended his injuries had told Qin Geng he was no ordinary man.

He hadn't expected Zheng Tonghe to be the disciple of a Martial Arts Champion, or to be so well regarded throughout Tianjin.

What a coincidence.

Since they already knew each other, this would be much easier.

And by saving Lu Xingmin last time, Qin Geng had formed a good connection with Hundred Herb Hall.

"What? 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 fortunate encounters, boy."

Master Zhu Xin didn't press him. He merely chuckled and said, "Then it'll be even easier to talk to him. Go on. Hundred Herbs Zheng is a man of substance. Unlike those comprador pharmacies that care only about money, he has good things in stock."

"Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, Master Xin!"

Qin Geng stood and gave Master Zhu Xin a respectful cupped-fist salute. "I'll remember this kindness. I'm off to Hundred Herb Hall to buy medicine."

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

Master Zhu Xin waved him away.

Qin Geng strode out of the food stall.

The faint morning light fell across his straight back.

The great dragon of his spine grew faintly warm.

To Hundred Herb Hall.

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

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