"The Witnessing Art?"
Lian Youming hurriedly wiped the lampshade and narrowed his eyes for a closer look.
But what he read left him puzzled.
According to the writing, he needed to sense the Qi between heaven and earth when yin and yang met, and observe the sun and moon at specific times. For instance, just before sunrise, he had to sense the rising Yang Qi between heaven and earth and gaze at that glimmer of daylight before the sun rose in the east; and in the middle of each month, when the bright moon hung overhead, he had to peer at it, tempering his eyes through the sun and moon.
Unlike those fist-and-foot arts, this art did not require tempering force modeled on physical forms. He only needed to hold a visualization in his mind, condense his Qi dynamics and killing intent into a sword, and injure enemies with his spiritual will. Once he attained sufficient mastery, he would need no movement: a fixed gaze could seize the spirit, his eyes like sharp swords, capable of injuring people even while he sat still.
Lian Youming frowned for a long time. He knew what killing aura was, but how exactly was he supposed to condense his Qi dynamics and killing intent into a sword?
Hold a visualization in his mind?
Visualize what?
Lian Youming read it over and over without understanding, finding it obscure and difficult to grasp.
"I wonder whether Gong Wuer and Xue Hen discovered the coffin beneath this stone bed."
Seeing the oil lamp grow dimmer and dimmer, he had no time to ponder further. He triggered the mechanism and climbed out.
Early the next morning, the male educated youths at the Logging Camp got up one after another and dragged their aching, exhausted limbs toward the logging site amid endless yawns.
But when Wu Kui and the others met Lian Youming, they all jumped in fright. His eyes were bloodshot, tears streamed from them nonstop, and even the rims were red.
"Whoa, captain, why are you crying?"
"Missing that educated girl named Yan Lingyun? Who'd have thought our captain was an iron man with a tender heart? Nothing shows on his face, but he cries alone behind our backs. You have to stay strong, captain. You're the hope of all us comrades now, adding meat to our meals every day..."
Yu Wen and Yu Wu joined in the teasing.
Lian Youming meant to roll his eyes, but the moment his eyeballs moved, the tears flowed even harder, burning painfully. "Quit talking nonsense."
He was not crying at all. This was entirely from staring at the sun.
After leaving the stone coffin, Lian Youming had decided that since he could not figure it out, he might as well try. Then he had stood like an idiot on a mountaintop for half an hour waiting for the sun, and this was the result.
He really could not practice blindly.
Taking the two large steamed buns Wu Kui handed him, Lian Youming bit hard into one, wiping his tears as he thought about the corpse in the stone coffin.
The man probably had not been the tomb's original occupant. After all, although his clothes were somewhat tattered, they were largely intact. They could not possibly be more than a hundred years old.
In other words, he too had been a cuckoo occupying a magpie's nest, only to be killed on the spot by some supreme expert with peerless fist force.
The Mountain-Guarding Old Man and his group had probably come later.
"What the hell is wrong with them? Why does everyone like burrowing into tombs?"
Seeing that the lumberjacks were all up, Lian Youming gathered his thoughts and led the educated youths after them, each carrying their own tools.
Tahe lay in the Greater Khingan Mountains, and its forestry resources were undoubtedly its greatest strength. With the national economy now developing rapidly, timber was needed everywhere. Work like this, felling trees and cutting timber, often continued right through to autumn, around the time they had first come up the mountain last year. Only when the weather turned cold and a few snowfalls came would the workers head down the mountain, giving them a brief spell of free time.
Tiring.
Very tiring.
Yet the more exhausted Lian Youming became, the less inclination he had to think about anything else. Finding pleasure amid hardship, he unconsciously worked his sinews and bones and adjusted his internal breathing whether sitting, lying down, or walking, quietly consolidating his foundations.
Compared with freaks like Xue Hen and Gong Wuer, he lacked both their grounding and someone to guide him. Naturally, he could not slack off.
But he would never be jealous, nor would he envy them.
Gong Wuer had been right. He needed sincerity of heart.
That sincerity lay in effort, in keeping his feet firmly on the ground. Skill emerged from a thousand hammerings and a hundred temperings.
Martial skill was neither talked into being nor gained by watching. It was honed through time. Cutting corners, shirking hardship, and fearing exhaustion only held a person back and, worse, belittled oneself. Such people might scheme their way to a momentary victory, but once they encountered a powerful opponent, sooner or later they would fall beneath someone else's fists.
Nor could fist training be accomplished in a single bound. Lian Youming knew that, in those unseen years of their past, people like Xue Hen must have endured hardships and put in efforts beyond an ordinary person's imagination. Gong Wuer had practiced martial arts to the point of almost abandoning the desires an ordinary person should have. That was sacrifice, and it was also the sincerity of devotion to martial arts alone-a sincerity that bordered on obsession.
Lian Youming felt he could not do the same, nor would he. He only knew to keep walking with his feet firmly on the ground.
What was held in the heart without forgetting would surely find an echo.
That principle held true for both living and practicing martial arts.
Amid the repeated chopping of axes, facing the morning sun and casting aside his wandering thoughts, Lian Youming raised his voice toward Wu Kui, who was panting with exhaustion, and sang, "The sun sinks behind the western hills, red clouds flying; the soldiers return to camp from target practice..."
Yu Wen and Yu Wu pulled long faces at the sound. "We're worked like beasts already, and you still want to sing?"
But then they suddenly exchanged a smile and howled like ghosts and wolves, "The red flowers on our chests reflect the rosy clouds; joyful songs fill the sky..."
Finding pleasure amid hardship, encouraging one another.
With Lian Youming taking the lead, the educated youths picked up the song one after another throughout the sea of forest.
Time flowed like water. Without noticing it, this once impetuous, frivolous group grew increasingly steady under the tempering of such harsh conditions.
Unlike the south, Tahe's summer temperatures reached only twenty-odd degrees at their highest. It was wonderfully cool, sparing the group the torment of scorching heat.
Lian Youming worked during the day and practiced in the hidden chamber at night. Every few days, he would also make a couple of trips into the mountains to hunt and satisfy his craving for meat.
It was just a pity that, aside from the "Witnessing Art," there was nothing else useful in that coffin.
Day by day, his weight grew increasingly astonishing. When he stepped onto the black earth, his footprints sank deeper than an ordinary person's. Even when he walked on sand and gravel, faint, unusual sounds could be heard. His strength also kept increasing; the slightest lapse of attention would leave him crushing a porcelain bowl in his hand or snapping a pair of chopsticks.
Fortunately, as his control over Coiling Silk Force grew more refined, these peculiarities did not persist for long.
This continued until early August, when Platoon Leader Yang gave everyone a day off for Army Day.
Amid ringing military songs, the group who had spent two months working like beasts on the mountain took their wages and rushed downhill like mad, sweeping through both the supply and marketing cooperative and the state-run restaurant.
By now, the educated youth movement was nearing its complete end, and many of the educated youths returning to the cities had families in tow.
They had arrived as youngsters; by the time they returned, their children had grown, and they had established families and livelihoods.
Lian Youming also went down the mountain and paid a visit to Qin Yuhu's home. There had still been no word from Li Da, and he was growing impatient with the wait, thinking the man really had forgotten his promise.
But, afraid Qin Yuhu might read too much into it, he did not dare ask.
As luck would have it, Shen Qinghong brought out several letters, all sent from Guangxi.
As though she had anticipated the unusual changes in Lian Youming's weight, Yan Lingyun explained many things in detail, telling him to let everything take its natural course. She also said these were all normal phenomena, and that later, his accumulated foundations might burst forth in a sudden transformation.
Yan Lingyun had also sent a hand-copied booklet containing a Five-Animal Exercise passed down in her family. It was not an art for attacking, but one for nurturing health, and would help him master his rapidly increasing strength. She told him to practice it more whenever he had time.
Looking at the young woman's graceful handwriting and densely packed words, Lian Youming smiled knowingly. Then, remembering the "Witnessing Art" inside the coffin, he had an idea. He wrote several pages, made a trip to the post office, and bought some things Yan Lingyun liked to eat along the way, intending to send them together.
With the holiday, there were quite a few people in the post office.
Standing in line, Lian Youming happened to glimpse something on the noticeboard, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
"Are those Monkey Stamps?"
Special-issue postage stamps released in 1980.
A full sheet held eighty stamps and cost six yuan and four jiao, making each stamp eight fen.
Lian Youming calculated the wages he had saved over the past half year or so. With practically no expenses, he had close to three hundred yuan. Adding what remained from last year, he had almost five hundred.
But he only entertained the thought. If he really wanted to buy them, he would have plenty of opportunities in Four-Nine City when he returned to the city.
After waiting in line for a while, it was already evening by the time Lian Youming finished mailing his letters and parcel. Outside town, he caught a ride on a timber truck back to the Logging Camp.
Beyond the window, the sun sank in the west, red clouds filling the sky.
Seated in the passenger seat, Lian Youming thanked the driver, then began reading Yan Lingyun's letters again.
There was simply too much written in them for him to remember it all after one reading.
But suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Lian Youming caught two figures appearing in the rearview mirror-a man and a woman, both clinging to the sides of the truck.
He tensed and was just about to warn the driver, but the instant he turned his head, an icy, dazzling glint shot straight toward his throat. A killing move at close range, leaving no survivors.
Looking at the driver's vicious face, Lian Youming raised his thick brows and twisted sharply. He thrust the letters into his clothes as his spine arched backward, and the door behind him burst open with a bang, as though struck by a heavy hammer.
Without the slightest hesitation, Lian Youming pushed off with both feet and propelled himself out of the truck.
The White Lotus Sect?
(End of chapter)
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