The cheat's effects

The warm winter sun felt wonderfully comfortable on his skin. Goudanzi leaned against the sun-facing earthen wall of his home, his whole body bathed in the warmth as he breathed softly.

In the distance, mountain ranges wound across the land like mighty dragons. Here and there, he could make out enormous peaks piercing the heavens. Those peaks were precisely what convinced Goudanzi that this was definitely not Earth. Where on Earth could he have found mountains so magnificent?

Every one of them rose at least ten thousand meters above sea level. Such a sight was simply impossible on Earth.

Today, Goudanzi wore a new padded cotton jacket, the first he had ever owned since his birth. Until now, he had always worn castoffs from Sangouzi, or even Ergouzi.

This year was different. Zhou Hua had made a new padded jacket for each of her two younger brothers. Since marrying Wang Tianlei, she had enjoyed a much better life than she had back at home.

It had to be said that Wang Tianlei was an extremely capable man. His abilities were not limited to his strength, though that was certainly his most outstanding quality.

He was very clever. Within just a few months of his return, he had become the leader of the village hunters-not merely in name, but in practice. Every hunter in the village respected him. Watching him, Goudanzi felt as though he were seeing one of those characters from the webnovels he used to read, men who transmigrated into primitive societies and led entire villages toward prosperity. By his private calculations, since Wang Tianlei's arrival, the village's hunting yield had increased at least five or sixfold. Now his family could eat meat every few days. There was not much of it, but it was far better than before.

Wang Tianlei also organized all the village hunters to sell their pelts at Green Ram Market together. With more game being caught, and a greatly increased number of fierce beasts among it, their returns were much higher than when each family had fended for itself. Every household's standard of living was visibly improving.

Moreover, during their regular training on the large clearing north of the village, Wang Tianlei gradually began teaching the hunters to coordinate with one another, and even drilled them in some rudimentary battle formations. Over these past few months, their hunting yields had risen while casualties had fallen. In fact, only a handful of unlucky hunters had been injured at all, and those injuries had not come from the claws of wild beasts, but from careless falls in the mountains.

Watching everything Wang Tianlei did, Goudanzi felt as though he were reading a settlement-building novel whose protagonist had transmigrated into a primitive society. Sometimes he genuinely suspected that Wang Tianlei was a transmigrator just like him.

With Wang Tianlei so capable, Zhou Hua naturally enjoyed a share of his good fortune. Her life was far more comfortable than it had been at home. Especially after she became pregnant a little over a month ago, Wang Tianlei grew even more attentive toward her, refusing to let her do any rough or heavy work. With nothing to occupy her, she made two padded jackets for her younger brothers. After all, she had practically raised both of them herself, so her affection for them was different. Goudanzi in particular had always been obedient and sensible, and Zhou Hua had more or less raised him as her own son.

Thus, Goudanzi often slipped over to his sister's house to cadge food and drink, taking the opportunity to coax some useful information out of Wang Tianlei.

Over these past few months, he had immersed himself completely in the world of martial arts. Though everything he had learned was crude and elementary, it was still enough to keep him studying for a long time.

His cultivation of Great Strength Vajra Qigong had reached a bottleneck. After all, there was a limit to how much internal qi a three-year-old's body could hold.

And he had not yet grown enough to practice Bear Demon Fist.

Recently, however, he had made an unexpected discovery while practicing Tai Chi Fist: it seemed capable of tempering the body as well.

His strength was gradually increasing.

This was somewhat similar to what Wang Tianlei had described about practicing skin-tempering fist arts such as Bear Demon Fist.

However, the increase was nowhere near as pronounced as it would have been with Bear Demon Fist.

In fact, as far as he could tell, this increase in his physical strength came not from Tai Chi Fist, but from the Great Strength Vajra Qigong he practiced.

Of course, martial cultivation in this world combined the internal and external. Cultivating internal qi was a process that worked from the inside out, and it could strengthen the constitution. But such effects only appeared once one's internal qi was sufficiently deep and one's cultivation had reached a certain level. It was a gradual process, bringing subtle changes over time. The more advanced the internal art, the more obvious its benefits to the body. Great Strength Vajra Qigong, however, was merely the most elementary internal art taught throughout the army. Even if someone cultivated it to an extremely high level, it would be difficult to obtain any physical benefits.

The amount of internal qi in Goudanzi's body was pitifully small and utterly unfit for any serious use. By normal reasoning, he should have counted himself lucky if qi like that did not burden his body. Expecting it to benefit him? He could dream on.

Yet the fact remained that the Great Strength Vajra Qigong within him had indeed begun gradually nourishing his body-not only his muscles, but his bones, sinews, and even his meridians. Anyone who learned of it would surely gape in astonishment. It was simply unimaginable.

Goudanzi had genuinely achieved it. Of course, this was not because he was some extraordinary genius. It was entirely thanks to Tai Chi Fist, which seemed to purify and transform internal qi. After cultivating Great Strength Vajra Qigong, performing a simplified Tai Chi Fist routine not only made its internal energy more resilient, but also wore away that Vajra energy's sharp edges and altered some of its properties, producing a kind of internal qi that was extremely similar to Great Strength Vajra Qigong, yet distinctly different.

Of course, in essence, this internal qi was still Great Strength Vajra Qigong. Tai Chi Fist had merely refined it-a greatly refined form of Great Strength Vajra Qigong.

Shifting slightly, Goudanzi slowly moved away from the wall. The sun overhead was warm, and basking in it felt pleasant. But if he kept sitting there doing nothing, he always felt empty inside. Sometimes, once a person became more diligent than before, he could no longer be lazy even when he wanted to.

The Zhou family home stood at the western end of the village, backed by a small hill. Farther west were a few scattered households, spaced well apart; these were the westernmost homes in the village. Beyond the little hill lay a steep cliff several hundred zhang high. There were no footholds anywhere on its face. Apart from certain crawling creatures, even monkeys would have had to struggle to climb it. Above the cliff lay a stretch of bare old rock, with neither medicinal herbs nor game, so few people ever went there. Even those who did would not climb the steep cliff west of the village. Between the cliff and the hillside was a small hollow, roughly a hundred square meters in area, thick with shrubs. The tallest stood higher than an adult, and even the shortest were nearly a meter tall. Once a three- or four-year-old child like Goudanzi slipped inside, he would be very difficult to spot without a careful search. Since hardly anyone ever came here, he could disappear into the bushes without anyone discovering him.

This was where Goudanzi practiced every day.

In the clearing among the shrubs, Goudanzi sat cross-legged on the ground and cultivated Great Strength Vajra Qigong for two double-hours. When he emerged from his meditation, the warm sun had already begun sinking westward. He stood and slowly performed a Tai Chi Fist routine. His routine consisted of only eight forms, and in his previous life he could have finished it in two minutes at most. Now, however, going from the opening stance to the fifth form, Wild Horse Parts Its Mane, took him nearly half a double-hour. When he reached Cloud Hands in the fifth form, his hands wound around each other, opening and closing as one. It was as though he held an enormous stone sphere weighing over a thousand jin between them. Before he was even halfway through, fine beads of sweat covered his forehead, glistening like translucent pearls in the setting sun. Crossing his hands, he slowly shifted into the sixth form, Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg, before picking up speed again. By the time he reached Cross Hands at the end, tension and relaxation throughout his body had become one, and he was already drenched in hot sweat.

"Ah, who knows whether I'll get anything to eat today? I'm certainly in for a scolding!"

Letting out a long breath, he glanced at the sky. Dusk had already fallen, and Goudanzi could not help grumbling inwardly. Village families ate only twice a day, and the second meal fell around the time he finished cultivating Great Strength Vajra Qigong. At that point, he had just finished cultivating his battle qi and needed to strike while the iron was hot, using Tai Chi Fist to assimilate the results of his practice. Otherwise, if he waited too long, the effects would be much poorer.

"Ah, it's all that girl Er Ya's fault. She's barely any older than a toddler, and already she knows to trail after boys! If she hadn't held me up so long, this wouldn't have happened!"

Cultivating internal qi did require attention to timing. In theory, the best time was early in the morning, just as the sun rose. But that only applied to advanced internal arts. With something as elementary as Great Strength Vajra Qigong, practicing in the afternoon, when the world's vital energy was at its most impure, made no difference.

Such rudimentary internal arts did not require especially pure worldly energy. Even if they absorbed pure vital energy from the world, they only refined it slightly once it entered the body, then merged it with the existing internal qi, making it mixed and impure.

By the time Goudanzi crossed the little hill, he could already hear his mother's scolding. With a wry smile, he could only hurry home at a jog.

"Goudanzi, you've been running wild again! You don't even remember to come home for meals... How many times has this happened now...? If you do it again, don't bother coming back... You're getting more and more out of hand! Keep running around like this, and if a dog-wolf carries you off, no one's going to rescue you...!"

As though granted a royal pardon, Goudanzi chuckled quietly twice, then took to his heels and ran toward the woodshed.

"That little brat is giving me more and more to worry about!" Watching Goudanzi run off, his mother stood behind him with a trace of a smile on her face.

There'll be another chapter in a little while. Little Whale's new book is fresh out of the oven-clicks and recommendation votes, don't leave out either one!!!