"Wait for me, will you!"
An urgent shout shattered the quiet morning.
Among rolling ridges and mountain ravines, the youth ran with long strides, chasing the figure ahead of him and sending forest birds flying high along the way.
Never in his dreams had Lian Youming imagined that the journey to the Kwantung Army's Underground Fortress would be so unusual.
They were actually going on foot.
Li Da seemed deaf to him. With both hands in his pockets, he walked ahead as though strolling through a courtyard. His steps looked leisurely, yet his pace was astonishingly fast. His legs were like springs, each bend and extension carrying him another step.
"Move faster. At your speed, we won't get there in three or four days."
Lian Youming grumbled, "Three or four days? Easy for you to say. I'm carrying everything."
Li Da chuckled. "Your control over your body is still lacking. Look at how you exert force through your feet. Plants snap wherever you pass, and loose stones fly beneath you. It looks fierce, but most of your strength is leaking away. Very little is actually being put to use. Excessive rigidity breaks easily. You must learn to keep drawing yourself in. Restraint isn't weakness. It's softness, accommodation, containment."
Lian Youming carried a pack containing not only several catties of dried meat, but also plenty of flatbread, along with two military canteens filled with water. Li Da, meanwhile, carried nothing at all.
The Kwantung Army's Underground Fortress was in a rather unusual location, near Changbai Mountain. Going from Tahe to Jilin meant traveling not a hundred or two hundred li, but over two thousand. And this bastard Li actually wanted to run the whole way on two legs.
Wasn't that complete bullshit?
Still, he silently committed the other man's words to memory and pondered them carefully.
Li Da spoke unhurriedly. "Do you know what martial artists trained first during the late Qing and early Republican years? Their legs. Training your legs didn't mean working on your feet alone. It meant training your lower foundation, emphasizing the waist and stance, until you were as steady as Mount Tai. Broadsword Wang Wu, for instance, wasn't just a hero who roamed the north. He was also a renowned armed escort in the martial world. They say he could travel from Gansu to Beijing-Tianjin on foot in just over a dozen double-hours, a little more than a day and a night. That was almost as fast as a green passenger train."
Lian Youming was exhausted. Anyone who ran through an entire night without stopping would probably lose half their life. He pulled out a strip of dried meat and chewed it with some water.
"I know why they trained their lower foundation first, too."
Li Da glanced back. "Why?"
Lian Youming hastily caught a couple of breaths. "Because they escorted cargo. If they didn't run fast enough, wouldn't they starve?"
Li Da did not argue. Instead, he took some pine nuts from his pocket and ate as he spoke. "It was because the northern martial world excelled at wrestling. Southern martial artists mostly practiced close-range strikes, but after the Manchu Qing entered the passes, the wrestling arts of the Manchu and Mongolian peoples spread into the Central Plains. They later blended with a hundred schools, so traces of wrestling can now be found in every northern school and sect."
Lian Youming grew interested. "Was it that formidable?"
"Very formidable," Li Da sighed. "In the late Qing, a martial expert facing an equally skilled wrestler would lose more often than he won. The little Japanese devils' judo bears some traces of those wrestling arts, but it's already something that only resembles them. I once met a wrestler who combined his art with a peculiar force from the Xingyi Sect. He could seize tendons and lock bones, using his waist to unseat a thousand catties. One throw from him left a person like a puddle of sludge, blood mist pouring from every pore. The outside looked intact, but the tendons and bones inside were shattered, and all five viscera were ruined."
Lian Youming clicked his tongue in wonder. What he lacked most now was an understanding of this martial world.
Then Li Da stopped and said with interest, "The Taiji grandmaster Yang Luchan was an excellent wrestler. Combined with Taiji boxing and its extraordinary force, he used soft force to adhere and entangle, and hard force to throw and strike. Ordinary experts who stepped into the ring rarely lasted a full breath against him. Even those who lasted half a breath were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. Most were thrown the moment their hands touched his. Countless people were injured or killed."
Lian Youming's eyes gleamed. "So to counter wrestling, you have to train your lower foundation?"
"Not just that." Li Da simply sat cross-legged on a large bluestone and spoke at an easy pace. "Fists and feet. Fists may come first in the phrase, but feet are the foundation. If you can't even stand steadily, what business do you have practicing boxing? With an unsteady lower foundation, you're like rootless duckweed. However fine your boxing, one throw brings you down. And when your lower foundation is firm, your movement naturally becomes nimble. Your fists attack while your feet move, giving rise to countless variations. That's why people speak of southern fists and northern legs."
Lian Youming caught his breath, secretly took another bite of Yellow Essence, and asked curiously, "Can you outrun guns and cannons? I saw Xue Hen dodge my submachine gun. It was downright uncanny."
At that, Li Da fell silent for a rare moment. As though he had carefully considered the matter, he answered with a question. "When you hit someone, do you think first and then strike, or strike first and then think?"
Lian Youming was confused and was about to ask for clarification, but his thick brows drew together. He had already sensed something extraordinary in those words. Instinctively, he punched the air twice and began pondering it himself.
"Reaction speed?"
Watching him, Li Da said softly, "Yes and no. However fast someone reacts, whatever they want to do, the thought usually comes first, followed by the action. But humans are animals, when all is said and done. Animals should possess animal instincts. When floods sweep through or the earth dragon turns over, when have insects and snakes not sensed it first? Xue Hen is still weak."
"Xue Hen is weak?" Hearing that almost sighing remark, Lian Youming rolled his eyes hard.
As though he had sat long enough, Li Da stepped down from the rock, still wearing that innocent, warm expression. "You've only glimpsed the martial path. You haven't yet seen the lofty mountains, so you look at me as an ordinary man. Once you're qualified to fight Xue Hen, looking at me will be like standing before Mount Tai."
Lian Youming wanted to ponder those words further, but Li Da was moving again and had already gone far ahead.
"Oh, come on. Can't we rest a little longer?"
He hurried after him.
Li Da spoke as he walked, his clear voice drifting back unhurriedly. "You must understand something. The wise always seek strength within. Only the unwise seek it outside themselves. Practicing boxing and martial arts has never been about killing first. Many people learn a few paltry tricks, then think only of killing to vent their hatred whenever something displeases them. Those are fools. The martial way comes down to two words: attack and defense. Defense isn't only guarding against others. You must also guard yourself, guard your true heart. If you can't hold on to that, you'd be useless even with planes and cannons."
Lian Youming looked thoroughly suspicious. "Are you insulting me in a roundabout way? Didn't Xue Hen slaughter innocent people?"
Li Da nodded. "That's why he'll die. I'm a martial artist, but more than that, I'm a soldier. I never interfere in the feuds of the martial world. Trace those people's histories back, and which of them doesn't have blood on their hands? Whether they kill someone or get killed themselves, it's all the working of fate. But there is one rule: they must not throw the country into chaos. Anyone who harbors that thought will find no escape from death, in heaven or beneath the earth."
The morning sun rose in the east, spilling sunlight across the land.
As he spoke, Li Da increased his speed again. Lian Youming complained aloud, but after that reminder, some of his restlessness had faded, and he turned his attention to his legs.
Then he looked at Li Da's legs. The light had been dim earlier, and he had not noticed much, but now he saw that even the push and stride of those legs seemed to hold a certain rhythm.
Before he could observe for long, a morning breeze suddenly stirred through the woods, filling the air with falling leaves.
Beside him, Lian Youming, who had been adjusting the way he walked, suddenly froze as though he had seen something that defied all worldly understanding.
Before his eyes, Li Da strolled through the woods, his feet moving left and right as he wandered freely among the trees. Leaves fell all around him, yet not one touched his body.
Only when Lian Youming focused and looked carefully did he realize that the strangeness was not confined to Li Da's steps and legs. Even his waist, hips, and spine seemed to undergo extraordinary changes. His upper body swayed slightly from side to side with every step, like a pendulum pivoting on his spine. Then his waist and hips twisted, transmitting the swinging force to his feet. Yet as his legs bent and extended, the recoil sent that downward swinging force back through his waist and hips into his upper body.
The cycle repeated endlessly, borrowing and transforming force, using force to drive force. The strength required for a single step could carry him a considerable distance.
So that was how he conserved his strength.
But in that brief moment of distraction, Li Da had already gone far ahead.
"Again? Wait for me!"
Coming to his senses, Lian Youming copied the other man's bending and extending movements and chased after him awkwardly.
Running and chasing like this, stopping and starting, they spent two days and three nights on the road.
Lian Youming's legs went from awkward and unaccustomed to numb, swollen, and aching. His inner thighs burned, probably rubbed raw. Even his shoes had come flying off during the run, and in the end, he simply went barefoot.
Still, he had realized that the man was deliberately giving him guidance. He could only endure the intense pain and circulate his internal breath. After all, such an opportunity was rare, and he dared not slacken in the slightest.
What he had not expected was that, after running all this way, he would suddenly discover a sense of openness in the tendons and channels of his feet under this intense stimulation. Not only had his Golden Bell Cover naturally broken through the first gate, but there also seemed to be faint signs of force beginning to flow through the second.
The Twelve Gates corresponded to the twelve meridians: the Three Hand Yin Meridians, the Three Hand Yang Meridians, the Three Foot Yin Meridians, and the Three Foot Yang Meridians.
The heart and lung belonged to the Three Hand Yin Meridians, while the spleen, kidney, and liver belonged to the Three Foot Yin Meridians.
These six meridians were the very foundation of the Three Yin Earth-Baleful Force. With these days of running added to more than half a year of training, it was no surprise that his Lung Meridian had opened. This second gate seemed to involve opening the Kidney Meridian.
The instant his Lung Meridian opened, Lian Youming felt as though a stream of cold water had rushed into his lungs as he breathed in and out, making him shudder. His formerly shallow, rapid breaths abruptly grew longer.
As though sensing the change in the youth's breathing, Li Da's voice drifted back from afar again.
"Don't overthink it. Since you received that senior's true teachings, even if you never formally became a disciple, you still count as half an heir to the Taiji Gate. Naturally, an outsider like me can't teach you any advanced methods. This leg technique of mine evolved from a Springing Leg routine passed down by Broadsword Wang Wu. It's a basic method for training the legs, strengthening the kidneys and waist. Walk more whenever you have time. Even if you don't travel the martial world, once you marry, it'll guarantee you two children in three years and eight in ten."
Lian Youming was absorbed in the wondrous changes within himself. Hearing those words out of nowhere, he nearly lost his composure.
But he had no attention to spare for a reply. As his breathing lengthened, his whole body seemed much lighter and more nimble. Looking at the figure ahead, of whom he could never see anything but the backside, he secretly exerted himself, intent on catching up.
But as Lian Youming sped up, Li Da sped up too.
The two kept chasing along like that, crossing mountains when they met mountains and fording water when they met water, choosing only places where no one lived.
After several days and nights, Lian Youming's lower foundation gradually steadied, and his leg technique grew increasingly practiced. The price was that he had eaten all the Yellow Essence Yan Lingyun had left him, and both his legs were almost completely numb and without feeling.
By the time the two entered Jilin, it was already the morning of the fourth day.
(End of chapter)
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