"Gong Wuer, Li Da..."
The corner of Lian Youming's mouth twitched. Not one of these names was normal.
"You're Gong Wuer's older brother? But you don't even have the same surname."
He had still wanted to play dumb and bluff his way through, but since the other man had come straight to the point, he abandoned any other thoughts.
The young man who called himself "Li Da" tilted his chin toward the courtyard entrance, suggesting they take a walk outside, and answered, "We made different choices. She joined the Eight Trigrams Sect as a child, while I joined the military. She took our father's surname, and I took our mother's."
So that was it.
Lian Youming followed him out of the courtyard, through the alleys, and onto the street.
Dawn was just breaking, and vehicles were already coming and going.
Li Da wore a gentle expression. Despite being a martial arts expert, his manner somehow gave an impression of innocent exuberance. The longer Lian Youming looked, the more ordinary he seemed. He had brought plenty to eat, too, eating and drinking as he walked and talked.
Lian Youming almost began to suspect he was an ordinary man. A thought stirred in his mind, and he picked up the thread. "Then your mother must be someone important."
For the head of the Eight Trigrams Sect, who also belonged to a martial arts family, to let his son take his mother's surname, the woman's background surely could not be insignificant. And from the way Li Da described it, the parents had clearly clashed over how to raise their children.
Li Da merely smiled without answering.
Lian Youming asked another question. "Do you know Xue Hen?"
"Met him once." Li Da's eyes were exceptionally bright as he spoke slowly. "My sister entered the Eight Trigrams Sect as a child and took the martial artist's path. I practice both Bagua and Baji. Before I was ten, I traveled the north with an elder who had crossed the snowy mountains. I met Xue Hen once in Shanxi. He was following someone too, but he was still little, still wearing split-crotch pants. I gave him a beating."
"Before you were ten?"
At first, Lian Youming thought nothing of it, but looking at Li Da's appearance-short hair stiff as needles, swordlike brows, bright eyes, and short whiskers-he was probably only in his thirties.
By that reckoning, it had happened only twenty-odd years ago.
Seeing Lian Youming standing there in a daze, Li Da thrust a handful of dried sweet potato at him. Eating as he walked, he said, "Mm, I know you have plenty of doubts and questions, but sometimes knowing too much isn't a good thing. Just tell me what you want in exchange for that map."
Lian Youming's eyes shifted. Instead of answering, he asked, "Could I ask who you are?"
He had to establish how much weight the man before him carried before he could judge the map's value.
Li Da pondered for a moment, then suddenly blinked, leaned closer, and whispered, "You've probably read Water Margin, right? Know the instructor of the eight hundred thousand imperial guards?"
Lian Youming's pupils contracted at those words.
Li Da blinked, without the slightest air of self-importance, utterly unlike the stone-faced Gong Wuer. Seemingly guessing Lian Youming's thoughts, he added, "But I should be a little better than him. Some years ago, during the military-wide competition, aside from the firearms events, they held a martial arts contest that wasn't publicly known. My luck was pretty bad. I ran into two freaks and came away with third place."
Lian Youming fell silent for a while, then asked, "What's inside that underground fortress?"
Li Da seemed quite talkative and made no attempt to hide anything. Casually, he said, "Besides the military supplies left by the Kwantung Army, there's treasure they looted back then, and things they dug out of the depths of the mountains. Apparently some sort of heavenly materials and earthly treasures. Rumor also has it there are quite a few lost boxing manuals from the northern martial arts world, along with some little-known secrets from the old days."
Without waiting for Lian Youming to respond, Li Da smiled gently and continued, "You saved my sister, after all. We can't be stingy. For that map alone, I can give you three choices: a job plenty of people would envy, and I can let you choose until you're satisfied; a generous sum of money; or a trip with me to the underground fortress, where whatever you get will depend on your luck... As for the commendations for your uncle and the others, don't worry. Those have nothing to do with your choice."
Once again, it was a choice between an ordinary person's life and the martial path.
Lian Youming was deeply stirred. "Just the two of us?"
Li Da nodded. "Looks like you've already made your choice. But I have something to take care of first, so there'll probably be a delay. Half a month at the earliest, a month or two at the latest. And you'll have to give me the map first."
Lian Youming looked thoroughly suspicious. "You're not deliberately trying to trick me, are you? If you leave and never come back, who am I supposed to take my grievance to?"
Li Da gave him a sidelong, disdainful look in return. "With your temperament, I don't believe you haven't secretly copied down the markings and routes on the map. Keeping this thing does you no good. Every extra day you hold it is another day of danger. If you really care about the people around you, don't be greedy."
Lian Youming chuckled, narrowing his eyes. "Fine. But you'll still have to show me something before we're done. What if you aren't who you say you are?"
Li Da smiled too. "Sharp lad."
As he spoke, he glanced around. Seeing that their surroundings were quiet and deserted, he strolled beneath a luxuriant tree.
Looking at the birds chirping in its branches, Li Da curled his index and middle fingers as though making a fist and lightly tapped the trunk. His every movement seemed untouched by the smoke and fire of the mortal world. A soft thump sounded, and a yellow bird immediately tottered and plunged headfirst from the tree.
Li Da gently raised his hand to catch it, stroked its feathers, then opened his palm and spread all five fingers before Lian Youming.
"Watch closely!"
The yellow bird was unharmed. It shook its head and soon grew lively again, fluttering its wings incessantly.
At first, Lian Youming had no idea what he was looking at. Only when he saw Li Da's feet stepping and turning, and ridges and hollows rising beneath the back of his clothes like writhing dragons and snakes, did he narrow his eyes and stare fixedly at the man's right hand.
Li Da's right hand held the yellow bird, but it was not still. He bent his elbow and turned his wrist, constantly changing its position and drawing in and releasing force. His entire sleeve tightened and contracted with the movements. It was exceedingly strange.
Stranger still, although his fingers were not closed and his palm was not cupped, the yellow bird simply could not take flight, turning around and around like Monkey Sun in the Buddha's palm.
"Since you practice Hua Jin, I'll leave you something to aspire to today. Consider it repayment for saving my sister, and a breath to bolster your martial path along the way."
At the sight of this inconceivable feat, Lian Youming's eyes widened, his expression shifting continually. Hearing the bird's chirping in particular, he kept feeling that it was somehow unreal.
"The Taiji grandmaster Yang Luchan once possessed an extraordinary skill called Bird Not Flying. His Hua Jin reached the very summit of perfection, and his control of force was exquisite down to the finest hair, imperceptible to the naked eye. He needed no movement, only a thought, and his palm became a cage. Flies and insects could not alight upon him, and external force could not touch his body."
Lian Youming instinctively reached out his hand.
But when Li Da passed the yellow bird over, the instant it landed in his hand, it flapped its wings and flew away, escaping his control.
"Thank you!"
Lian Youming gazed at the sky. Only after a long while did he emerge from his daze.
For that demonstration alone, even if the man gave him nothing else, it seemed worth it.
Without hesitation, he took out the map and handed it over.
"You're welcome."
Li Da still had that same innocent exuberance in his expression and tone. Yet paired with the face of a man in his thirties, it seemed not strange at all, but indescribably harmonious, as though this was simply how he ought to be.
Ordinarily, such masters of the martial world were either aloof and proud, with peculiar tempers of their own, or like Xue Hen and Gong Wuer, each different from ordinary people in their own way. Yet Li Da seemed exactly like an ordinary man.
After handing over the map, Lian Youming instinctively glanced at the birds in the tree again, listening to their chirping. But by the time he came back to himself, Li Da was already far away, so far that only his retreating figure remained, waving without looking back.
He truly had come swiftly and departed like a drifting wisp.
I'm numb. Sure, I write about Chinese martial arts, but it's still martial arts fiction. A whole bunch of people keep popping up to talk science. This is a webnovel, not a documentary. What are you all doing?
(End of chapter)
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