"You certainly know how to pick, Young Master."
Dou Xiaowen lowered his head for a look, an odd expression crossing his face.
"This martial art is among the very best in there. The fellow who practiced it cost me a great deal of effort..."
Lu Sui knew Uncle Wen was about to reminisce about his past glory, so he hurried to pick up the thread:
"What happened? Please tell me all about it, Uncle Wen."
The young master really knows how to play along. He's growing more like his father in his younger days.
Dou Xiaowen took a couple of puffs on his pipe, then said leisurely:
"Martial arts at the Internal Nourishment level, whether moving or still, for training or fighting, all come down to three things."
Lu Sui blinked, making his expectant expression even more sincere.
"Nourishing the breath, strengthening Qi and Blood, then tempering force to bolster the whole body."
Dou Xiaowen was thoroughly satisfied. How could those wooden heads in the courtyard be as obliging as the young master?
"The difference in quality is simply that superior martial arts nourish a plentiful breath and pure Qi and Blood, encompassing the inside and outside, cleansing the sinews and bones.
"Inferior ones, well, have mediocre results and lay shallow foundations."
Lu Sui could not help nodding. Put that way, the Turtle-Snake Stance certainly deserved the "high-grade aptitude" the shrine had assigned it.
From breathing to nourish Qi to stance training to build strength, it was balanced in every respect.
"But martial arts of different approaches naturally emphasize different things.
"The external body-hardening art I practice, for instance, starts with toughening the skin on both palms until a thick layer of calluses forms.
"Only when you can thrust your palms rapidly into two sacks of iron sand ten times within a single breath, without the slightest external injury, do you meet the standard."
At the end, Dou Xiaowen added:
"That's also why I don't want to teach it to you, Young Master. Too much suffering, too much vitality spent. There's no need.
"I've lived to sixty partly thanks to my health-nourishing art, and partly because I haven't fought or lost my temper in seven or eight years. I've lived like a clay bodhisattva in a temple, without the slightest fire in me.
"Otherwise, I'd have gone to meet King Yama long ago."
Lu Sui looked at Dou Xiaowen's palms. Not a single callus showed; instead, they had a faint jade-like hue, their luster shifting.
Had Uncle Wen brought his body-hardening art to the realm of perfection?
"All told, practitioners at the Internal Nourishment level mostly choose one discipline involving fists, palms, legs, or feet."
Dou Xiaowen pointed his pipe stem at the thread-bound booklet.
"The Heavenly Sight and Earthly Hearing Great Art takes an unusual path. It trains the eyes and ears.
"Who knows where that fellow got this martial art? At great mastery, he could hear sounds from over a dozen li away. He had an even stranger trick: once he became familiar with your breathing and heartbeat, no matter where you went under heaven or amid the boundless sea of people, he could sense you whenever you came within ten feet of him."
Lu Sui listened, spellbound. Could such an inconceivable ability still count as a "martial art"?
"And that's only Earthly Hearing. Mastering Heavenly Sight is even more frightening. You can see through skin and flesh to the circulation of Qi and Blood and the depth of someone's force. Once you fight, it means being checked at every turn."
Lu Sui clicked his tongue. How was that any different from using cheats?
After digesting this, he quickly caught on and cleared his throat to ask:
"Uncle Wen, how did you bring down such a difficult opponent?"
Seeing how considerate Lu Sui was, Dou Xiaowen felt comfortable all over and said with an air of indifference:
"Though that fellow's martial art was uncanny, and he once came and went freely through the Nine Ridges and Ten Mountains, committing plenty of crimes with no one able to stop him...
"He still fell into my hands in the end..."
Uncle Wen, if you keep pausing like this, it'll be hard for me to keep giving you that emotional payoff.
Lu Sui sighed.
"Ahem... That fellow had keen ears and eyes. Like a cicada sensing autumn before the golden wind stirs, he sensed danger early. Even experts stronger than him had trouble finding his trail."
Seeing the young master's eagerness, Dou Xiaowen stopped keeping him in suspense:
"But everyone has their likes. First, I made inquiries and learned who his lover was, where he kept his mistress, and when he went there, then laid an ambush ahead of time.
"Lime thrown as he entered, a pit dug inside the room. With his eyes blinded and his leg broken, he was a turtle in a jar, unable to escape the net of the law."
The corner of Lu Sui's mouth twitched. He had thought it would be some earth-shaking, exhilarating battle.
So it was just throwing lime, clubbing him from behind, and springing an ambush!
"Young Master, you've never traveled the jianghu. You lack experience."
Dou Xiaowen tapped his pipe bowl.
"Grudges in the martial world aren't arena matches fought face-to-face with gongs and drums. Victory isn't decided out in the open, much less by being honorable.
"If you can ambush someone, don't fight them head-on. Only the living have martial virtue."
Lu Sui thought it over and felt there was reason in that.
Why bother with jianghu codes of honor when dealing with lawbreakers?
"Young Master, this Heavenly Sight and Earthly Hearing Great Art is incomplete. It's missing crucial content, making it dangerous to practice."
Dou Xiaowen pressed his pipe bowl down on the thread-bound booklet and advised:
"Without the prescription to nourish the eyes, Heavenly Sight can't be mastered.
"That fellow said he'd steeled himself and pierced his own ears with needles, learning Earthly Hearing by sheer accident.
"It was precisely because he'd strayed too far down the wrong path and failed to grasp its true essence that I managed to take him down."
Uncle Wen, you don't understand cheaters.
Lu Sui gently moved the pipe aside and smiled.
"You said yourself, Uncle Wen, martial arts at the Internal Nourishment level are much the same. One that trains the eyes and ears is so rare.
"Let me borrow it for a couple of days and broaden my horizons."
Dou Xiaowen stared at Lu Sui and found that the young master was not joking. He was quite serious.
He had no choice but to withdraw his pipe.
"Since you put it that way, Young Master, just take it. Why speak of 'borrowing'?"
Dou Xiaowen felt the young master could hardly be stupid enough to blindly practice from an incomplete text like that fellow and end up piercing his ears deaf.
The Lu Family had no such fools.
Besides, even taking ten thousand steps back, he had possessed this martial art for so long without learning it.
Could the young master possibly master it without a teacher?
"Thank you, Uncle Wen."
Lu Sui tucked the thread-bound booklet into his robe.
Watching the young master leave in high spirits, Dou Xiaowen took the packet of tobacco from his robe, shook some out, and pressed it into his pipe bowl bit by bit.
He lifted the curtain and sat down in the courtyard's wicker chair.
Heiwa hurried over and replenished his pot of tea.
He asked tentatively:
"Did the young master run into some obstacle in his training and come to seek your guidance so early this morning?"
"An obstacle?"
Dou Xiaowen scoffed.
"He thinks the Turtle-Snake Stance is too simple and intends to find a few other martial arts."
"..."
Heiwa smiled bitterly. Practicing the Subduing Tiger Stance every day already left him as exhausted as a dead dog.
Yet the young master actually thought the intensity was not enough.
When it came to diligence, he was still far behind the young master.
Dou Xiaowen raised his eyelids and glanced at Heiwa.
"You've been fairly diligent lately, lad. Your breath has grown considerably.
"The young master will be hanging the curtain at a martial arts school in a few days. Be smart about it."
Heiwa froze, failing to catch his meaning.
Dou Xiaowen said:
"Once he hangs the curtain and learns training methods, he'll need someone to feed him moves, exchange punches, and serve as a training post."
Heiwa's eyes rolled, and he caught the meaning.
Was Master Dou hinting that he should become the young master's sparring partner?
"Thank you for the guidance, sir!"
Heiwa immediately bowed with his hands clasped.
Dou Xiaowen waved a hand, gently closed his eyes, and began humming a wildly off-key tune.
"I was but an easygoing man of Shaqing Pass~"
"In years gone by, these two fists subdued the outlaws of the greenwood~"
"And now, a pot of tea in the back courtyard, sleeping till the sun sinks in the west..."
[Recorded: Incomplete Heavenly Sight and Earthly Hearing Great Art]
As night deepened, lamps lit up one after another beneath the covered walkway.
Lu Sui thought:
This recording actually took a full ten hours.
He impatiently closed his eyes, sending his consciousness into the ancient temple.
Above the main shrine, the pitch-black wooden plaque changed again.
The lettering blurred slightly, only becoming clear again after several breaths.
[Lu Sui] [Martial arts: Turtle-Snake Stance (Mortal * Perfection), Incomplete Heavenly Sight and Earthly Hearing Great Art] [Methods: None recorded] [Talent: Hibernation]
It has "Great Art" in its name, yet it's still classified as a martial art.
Lu Sui felt a little regretful.
Setting that feeling aside, he fixed his gaze on the illuminated shrine.
A stick of incense began burning. Amid curling smoke, radiance gathered and took the shape of something.
"This time, it's..."
Lu Sui's eyes flashed, revealing his surprise.
Inside the palm-sized shrine crouched a little monkey.
His fur was fluffy, his round eyes gleaming gold and darting about, brimming with intelligence.
But most striking of all were the six thin, pointed ears growing on either side of his head.
"A six-eared little monkey!"