The Bottleneck of Ordinary People

Time flew.

Ye An's life was like a wound clock, repeating the same rhythm every day—arriving at the Green Bamboo Martial Arts Hall at dawn, heading home at dark, and dedicating all the time in between to the blue Shi slab.

People came and went in the training grounds; some marveled at Ye An's perseverance, while others mocked his mediocre Bone Structure.

Ye An cared about neither.

What he cared about was the progress bar in his field of vision.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 37/100]

This was the progress of the first day.

Ten days passed.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 49/100]

Yet Ye An's current cultivation speed was lower than when he first started, and there was no helping it.

This was the problem with his Bone Structure.

Ye An calculated silently in his heart; at this speed, he would reach one hundred in around two months.

This was much faster than the normal High-Grade C bone structure because Ye An spent much more time practicing every day than anyone else.

All Ye An could do was invest even more time!

That evening, Ye An finished his practice and unwrapped the cloth strips from his fingers.

"Hey, newbie."

Ye An looked up to see a youth in his mid-twenties standing atop a Shi lock nearby, grinning at him.

The man wore a dusty martial arts short jacket, and his cloth shoes had two holes in the toes.

His face was clean enough, except for the deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, making him look much older than his actual age and somewhat weather-beaten.

"You are?"

"Wang Tie." The youth jumped down from the Shi lock and patted the dust off his trousers. "I came here two years before you, just call me Brother Tie."

Ye An nodded. "Hello, Brother Tie."

Wang Tie looked him up and down, his gaze lingering on the cloth-wrapped fingers of Ye An.

"How long have you been practicing with those hands?"

"A little over a month."

"How many jabs do you thrust every day?"

"Just over a thousand."

Wang Tie let out a whistle. "Vicious enough! If I had practiced like you back then, I wouldn't be in this state now."

"What's wrong with your state now?"

Wang Tie did not answer. He stretched lazily and motioned with his chin toward the martial arts hall entrance. "Come on, I'll treat you to a bowl of tea."

The two left the martial arts hall and found a tea stall by the street to sit down.

Wang Tie ordered two bowls of coarse tea at three wen a cash per bowl; tea dregs settled at the bottom of the bowls, and the tea soup had a yellowish hue carrying a bitter, burnt taste.

"You know," Wang Tie said, holding his tea bowl and looking at the tea dregs floating inside, his voice soft, "I've been at the Green Bamboo Martial Arts Hall for two years."

"When I came in two years ago, I was just like you, High-Grade C." Wang Tie smiled. "No, I was a bit worse than you, grade-C middle."

"The hall master said that with my Bone Structure, if I practiced diligently, I could reach the first Body Tempering stage in half a year. At the time, I thought half a year wasn't long."

Wang Tie took a sip of tea and furrowed his brows, unsure whether he resented the bitterness of the tea or the bitterness of the memories.

"The year before last, I practiced for over an hour every day and my luck was passable. After half a year, I achieved the first Body Tempering. It wasn't fast, but it wasn't slow either."

"And then?"

"And then I wanted to make a push for the second Body Tempering." Wang Tie put down his tea bowl. "Going from the first Body Tempering to the second normally takes a year. I saved up money for over half a year, bought Body Tempering Pills, bought Realm Breaking Pills, and went into seclusion to break through—!"

Wang Tie then made a gesture.

"It shattered."

"Shattered?"

"Mn. The realm breakthrough failed, my accumulation was wiped clean, and I had to start all over again." Wang Tie gave a bitter smile. "Do you know that feeling? After saving for over half a year and spending seven days in seclusion, at the very last moment with a 'pop', everything was gone. Just like letting out a fart."

Ye An was silent for a moment. "So did you try pushing for it again later?"

"I did." Wang Tie's voice lowered. "I prepared for another half a year the second time, borrowed money to buy better pills, and it shattered again."

"And then it came to this?"

"Until now..." Wang Tie looked down at his empty tea bowl, just like his present self. "I'm buried in a mountain of debt. My old man is over fifty and still up in the mountains cutting firewood. My mother's eyes aren't good, and we begrudge the cost of medicine."

Wang Tie raised his head and gazed at the bustling stream of people on the street, lost in what he was watching.

"Sometimes I think, it would have been great if I hadn't taken up martial arts back then. To honestly farm the land at home—though poor, at least without debts. And my parents wouldn't have to suffer along with me."

This was how the world worked; ordinary people thought that becoming martial artists would allow them to earn more money, so they took up martial arts.

The first Body Tempering allowed one to earn money, but then what? What was the next target? The second Body Tempering.

The required resources were greater, and slowly one would discover that while earnings increased compared to before, life did not improve; instead, the need for money became even more desperate.

Ye An did not know what to say.

He thought of the situation back at his own home. His father's grocery store earned twenty taels a month; his second brother's tuition and medicinal ingredients took fifteen taels, leaving five taels to support a family of four. His eldest brother studied at the county academy, and tuition fees had risen once more.

The tuition for Ye An's martial arts was squeezed out from between his father's and eldest brother's teeth.

If he did not possess the Sage of Martial Dao, a failed attempt at the first Body Tempering would mean all that silver had gone down the drain.

"Alright, enough of that." Wang Tie stood up, fished a few cash coins from his sleeve, and placed them on the table. "I've paid the tea money. Practice hard and don't end up like me."

He patted Ye An's shoulder and turned to leave.

Barely taking two steps, he turned back and asked, "Right, how is your Azure Cloud Finger coming along?"

"Three parts out of ten in progress." Ye An concealed two layers of his progress.

"Grade C Bone Structure, a little over a month," Wang Tie calculated. "How long do you practice every day?"

"Four to five hours."

Wang Tie paused, then laughed in a daze.

"If I had your kind of vicious drive back then, things might have turned out differently."

"Brother Tie."

"Mn?"

Hesitating for a moment, Ye An asked, "Do you regret it?"

Wang Tie stood by the roadside, the setting sun casting a very long shadow of him. He was silent for a long time, and finally uttered words that Ye An never expected.

"Regret? No regrets! These two years of practicing martial arts have been the two years I felt most like a human being in my entire life."

Wang Tie smiled, waved his hand, and walked away this time without looking back.

Ye An sat at the tea stall and slowly finished the remaining bitter tea in his bowl.

Wang Tie's words churned in his mind several times over.

Hard work did not guarantee success. Effort did not guarantee a reward. Realm breakthroughs could fail, accumulations could reset, and both time and resources would be wasted in vain.

This was the fate of ordinary martial artists.

Ye An looked at the panel on his chest that only he could see.

He was different.

Ye An did not lack time, nor did he lack perseverance.

What he lacked was something that could grant him a hundred percent success rate.

And that something already existed.

Ye An stood up, returned the tea bowl to the table, and walked in the direction of the martial arts hall.

It was not dark yet, and he could still squeeze in another hour of practice.

In the days that followed, Ye An worked himself to the bone.

Wang Tie's words were like a thorn, piercing Ye An's heart and constantly reminding him—time waits for no man!

Ye An remained as steadfast as ever.

He was the first to arrive at the martial arts hall every day, and the last to leave.

The pit on the Shi slab went from half an inch to an inch, and from an inch to nearly being pierced through.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 55/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 63/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 71/100]

Zhou Yuanlong and Sun Wanqing still occasionally sneered when passing by Ye An's side, but Ye An could no longer be bothered to listen.

Lin Shaoyun occasionally glanced at him, though his gaze no longer held the disdain from their first meeting.

Qian Duoduo would still come over to chat with Ye An and incidentally check on the progress of Ye An's Azure Cloud Finger.

Everything was peaceful.

Until one evening.

Ye An came out of the martial arts hall when the sky had already darkened. He walked along South Street toward Willow Lane, and when passing Drum Tower Avenue, he saw several people gathered at the entrance of a grocery store in the corner.

Ye An recognized this shop; the old man selling groceries was surnamed Chen and ran a small business just like his father.

"Shopkeeper Chen, this month's protection money is due."

A fat man in a brocade robe stood at the entrance, followed by two burly men who looked like thugs.

Shopkeeper Chen stooped over, his face plastered with a flattering smile. "Manager Zhou, business is truly terrible this month, could you grant me a few days of grace?"

"Grace?" Manager Zhou sneered. "You've already delayed for ten days! If you don't pay up now, you can forget about keeping this shop open!"

Shopkeeper Chen's face instantly turned pale.

Ye An stood at the mouth of the alley, watching this scene with a heavy heart.

Ye An recognized the troublemaking manager—he was from the Zhou family. Commercial shops in Ping'an County had to pay a sum of "protection money" to the Zhou family every month; plainly speaking, it was protection fees. If they failed to pay, they could forget about doing business in peace.

The Chen Family had no martial artists.

Therefore, he had no choice but to pay.

Ye An lowered his head and quickened his pace toward home.

Passing by his own family's grocery store, Ye An paused for a moment. The shop door was still open, and his father was inside calculating accounts under the dim lamplight, casting a hunched shadow.

Ye An stood in the alley and watched for a while.

Shopkeeper Chen's shop was subjected to extortion for protection fees, while the Ye family's shop was not.

Not because the Zhou family was kind-hearted, but because the Ye family had Ye Ning.

Mid-Grade B Bone Structure, Black Tiger Martial Arts Hall, second Body Tempering stage.

Sixteen years old, second Body Tempering.

With this reputation, the Zhou family had to weigh their options carefully. For the sake of that meager monthly protection money, offending a martial artist who might reach the third Body Tempering or even meridian opening in the future was simply not worth it.

This was the rule of this world.

If your fists were hard enough, no one would dare bully you.

If your fists weren't hard enough, you could only be like Shopkeeper Chen, stooping and smiling ingratiatingly, leaving your fate to be chopped up by others.

Ye An clenched his fists. The first Body Tempering brooks no delay.