Surprise flashed in Hou Huai's eyes. He hurriedly retreated again, raising his saber to block.
When Wu Shuangren launched his first move, the [Match for One Person] entry appeared above his head again.
Of course, only he could see the entry.
Upon entering the [Match for One Person] state, Wu Shuangren naturally understood how to exert his strength, how to chain his saber strikes together, and how to coordinate his footwork.
After several strikes, the ease vanished from Hou Huai's face, and his eyes grew more and more astonished.
Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack!
The wooden sabers clashed repeatedly in the courtyard as Hou Huai gradually increased the speed and force of his strikes.
After seven or eight moves, the rhythm of his breathing changed. He was using internal martial arts!
From the force transmitted back through his wooden saber, Wu Shuangren could tell that the veteran constable was stronger than the bandit from the previous night.
That meant his internal cultivation was higher than the bandit's.
On the twenty-first move, Wu Shuangren accurately anticipated Hou Huai's next move and seized the initiative, thrusting his saber at Hou Huai's left shoulder.
Hou Huai turned sideways in time and swung at Wu Shuangren's wooden saber.
Wu Shuangren turned his wrist, tilting the blade at an angle. Hou Huai's wooden saber struck it just then, giving it a downward push.
At the same time, Wu Shuangren took half a step forward and leaned in, using Hou Huai's force to sweep his wooden saber across Hou Huai's chest.
Swish-
The wooden saber tore a slit across Hou Huai's chest.
Both men stopped.
Hou Huai: "..."
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he looked at Wu Shuangren. "Little Brother Wu, with saber skills like yours, what could you possibly need me to teach you?"
Wu Shuangren was also carefully reflecting on their exchange.
Last night, I defeated that bandit who was on his own in just six moves. Today, it took me more than twenty moves against Hou Huai, and that was only because he defended without attacking.
[Match for One Person] only guarantees that I can win a one-on-one fight. But killing an opponent in a single move counts as a win, and so does winning after a grueling battle of a hundred moves. Even narrowly winning by one move while suffering grievous injuries myself still counts as a win.
The way I win, how long it takes, and the price I have to pay... there's too much "flexibility" in all of that.
For a moment, all sorts of thoughts occurred to Wu Shuangren.
He looked at Hou Huai, whose expression was complicated, and smiled. "Uncle Hou, sparring with you helps me a great deal. I hope we can spar every day from now on."
In the [Match for One Person] state, he naturally knew how to wield his saber and exert his strength.
But without the entry equipped, he no longer knew how to use a saber.
He needed to train those movements into his own muscle memory and instinctive reactions, so that he would still possess a certain level of strength even without the entry equipped.
Besides, since [Match for One Person] changed the course of a victory according to the enemy's strength, changes in his own strength would surely affect that course as well.
Wu Shuangren concluded that if his physique grew stronger and he mastered more and better techniques, the upper limit of what the [Match for One Person] entry could achieve would be higher!
"Uncle Hou, this time you attack and I'll defend."
Wu Shuangren said to Hou Huai.
"All right."
Hou Huai attacked with his saber.
In the small courtyard, the two figures crossed back and forth as the sound of wooden sabers clashing rang out again and again.
7: Martial Examination Ranking
Hou Huai and Wu Shuangren sparred for nearly an hour.
What struck him as strange was that Wu Shuangren's saber skills fluctuated wildly. At times they were so exquisite that even he, a veteran constable, was amazed; at others, Wu Shuangren was as clumsy as a beginner.
If Wu Shuangren hadn't remained serious the whole time, stopping now and then to sincerely ask him for advice on saber techniques,
Hou Huai would even have suspected that Wu Shuangren was toying with him.
In fact, Wu Shuangren was alternating between equipping and unequipping the [Match for One Person] entry. This conserved his physical and mental strength while allowing him to reproduce those methods of exerting force and saber techniques by momentum.
Wu Shuangren had become his own best instructor.
Hou Huai, instead, had become his sparring partner.
Of course, the other man's pointers still helped Wu Shuangren avoid taking unnecessary detours.
After practicing for nearly an hour, Wu Shuangren was exhausted. He signaled Hou Huai to stop and slumped to the ground to rest.
"Uncle Hou, if you went to be assessed, what rank could you reach?"
Wu Shuangren asked.
Hou Huai sat down too and smiled. "I'm getting old. If I'd gone for an assessment when I was younger, I probably could have reached Sixth Rank. Now, Seventh Rank is the best I could manage."
Wu Shuangren thought of his father, who had also said that Seventh Rank was the best he could achieve in an assessment.
It seemed the two were equally matched in martial strength, yet one was a prison officer, while the other was only an ordinary constable.
Clearly, one could not get by in the world on fists alone.
"Uncle Hou, doesn't internal martial arts get stronger the older you get?"
Wu Shuangren asked.
Hou Huai shook his head. "Internal martial arts are a very extreme way of exerting strength. As you grow older and spend more time cultivating, your internal power does indeed grow deeper, but your body declines. An older martial artist can unleash at most two or three moves at the peak of his strength. Any more than that, and his body won't be able to withstand it."
"Of course, the more advanced the internal martial art, the longer a martial artist can remain in his prime. There are also some martial artists in their seventies who can still fight very well."
Clearly, the internal martial art he cultivated was not particularly advanced, so his condition had already declined in his forties, and he was past his prime.
"Uncle Hou, is the gap between Sixth Rank and Seventh Rank very large?"
Wu Shuangren asked again.
Hou Huai thought for a moment. "The biggest difference is actually strength. One part of a martial artist's rank assessment is lifting a stone weight. The weight of the stone depends on the martial artist's own body weight. A Seventh Rank martial artist has to lift a stone weighing twice as much as he does. To pass, he has to raise it overhead ten times in succession within the allotted time.
"A Sixth Rank martial artist has to lift a stone weighing three times his own body weight. To pass, he has to raise it overhead three times in succession within the allotted time."
Wu Shuangren had also practiced weightlifting during his training.
He remembered that even among Olympic weightlifting champions, hardly anyone could lift three times their own body weight, much less do it several times in succession.
Moreover, as Hou Huai had demonstrated, the stone-lifting test required the legs to remain unbent, forcing the candidate to raise the stone overhead almost entirely through strength.
It was unlike the weightlifting competitions in his previous life, where technique could also be used.
"So in martial rank assessments, going from Seventh Rank to Sixth Rank is one hurdle, and going from Fourth Rank to Third Rank is another?"
Wu Shuangren asked.
Hou Huai nodded. "That's right. For the Fifth and Fourth Rank stone-lifting tests, only the number of lifts increases; the weight stays the same. But starting at Third Rank, you're required to lift five times your own body weight. That hurdle stops far too many people. Only those assessed at Third Rank or above are qualified to go to the capital and take part in the final round of the martial examinations, competing for the title of martial champion."
"Five times one's own body weight..."
Wu Shuangren now had a rough idea of what level the first-rate experts Wu Dongrong had mentioned were at.
While Wu Shuangren was practicing martial arts, Wu Dongrong was going about his own work.
In the prison.
The lights were dim, and the air was thick with the foul mingled stench of blood, piss, shit, and rot.
In one cell, the bandit whose hand Wu Shuangren had cut off was hanging with his flesh a bloody mess.
A jailer was viciously lashing him with a leather whip soaked in salt water. Various bloodstained instruments of torture lay nearby.
The cracks of the whip and the bandit's screams rose and fell one after another.
Wu Dongrong sat off to the side, calmly drinking wine and eating dishes that went with it.
Before long, footsteps sounded outside.
"Constable Liao."
The jailer outside led Liao Yu in.
Wu Dongrong turned and nodded to Liao Yu. "You're here."
Liao Yu sat down without ceremony and poured himself a cup of wine. "How's it going?"
Wu Dongrong shook his head. "He's a hard bone. No matter how much we beat him, he won't talk."
Liao Yu frowned and glanced at the bandit. "Have you used the severe tortures?"
Wu Dongrong said, "He lost his hand and too much blood last night. If we use severe torture now, I'm afraid he won't survive it."
Liao Yu took a sip of wine. "The Mo Family has already sent people to the county office several times to press us, and Lord He is pushing us to solve the case quickly too. Now all the pressure has been dumped on me."
Wu Dongrong sneered. "I don't believe for a second that the Mo Family has no leads at all. If they hadn't made enemies out there, why would this gang of bandits have gone after them?"
Liao Yu cursed. "Damn it, the Mo Family claims to know nothing about anything. They refuse to cooperate and only know how to press us again and again!"
Wu Dongrong said, "I heard Third Master Mo nearly died. It seems those men came specifically for him. Third Master Mo has always been in charge of the Mo Family's business dealings outside. If we follow that thread, we might find a lead."
Liao Yu nodded and looked at the bandit being tortured. He signaled the jailer to stop for the moment. "Hey, brother, your life is your own. Why endure all this for someone else? As long as you're willing to talk, I guarantee you a chance to earn merit to atone for your crimes."
The bandit, beaten beyond recognition, took quite a while to recover before he managed to raise his head, his eyes bloodshot. "My big brother... will avenge me... None of you will get away!"
"Fuck your mother!"
The jailer at the side raised his whip to strike, but Wu Dongrong raised a hand to stop him.
"Do you mean your big brother will bring his men back to attack us?"
The bandit gave a savage grin. "Why don't you guess..."
Wu Dongrong did not get angry. He merely scoffed. "The one who cut off your hand last night was my son. He's only seventeen and has never learned martial arts. You couldn't even beat my son, so how capable can your big brother be? Would he even dare come back to avenge you?"
The bandit froze. Somehow finding the strength, he began to struggle violently. "Impossible! There's no way that constable from last night had never trained in martial arts. He's an expert!"
Wu Dongrong and Liao Yu exchanged a glance, then suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hahahahaha-"
Their laughter echoed through the cell, and several jailers joined in.
The bound bandit looked at the mocking faces around him and realized that Wu Dongrong might not have lied.
It felt as though a needle had pierced his heart.
"Aah-!!!"
The bandit suddenly screamed, even louder than he had under torture just now, his expression even more agonized.
"Impossible! You're lying to me! Impossible-"
"He's an expert! He has to be an expert!"
Wu Dongrong looked at the bandit, who had suddenly begun to break down, then turned and gave Liao Yu a meaningful look.
These men of the greenwood usually valued their dignity and face above the heavens. Sometimes, for the sake of so-called face, they were even willing to stake their lives!
Being defeated and captured alive was already deeply humiliating. What had sustained this man through the torture was the possibility that his accomplices, still at large, might come to save him.
But even if he really were rescued, the hand with which he wielded his saber had been cut off, taking half his martial skill with it. He would inevitably be neglected after he returned.
And now he had learned that the person who defeated him was a seventeen-year-old kid who had never practiced martial arts?
If his accomplices learned of this, he could forget ever holding his head high in the greenwood again!
Wu Dongrong understood this change in his state of mind at once.
What puzzled him, however, was how this man could be so certain that his son was an expert.
8: Action
As Wu Dongrong saw it, Wu Shuangren's victory last night had to have been the result of various coincidences coming together-
The bandit's martial skills were not particularly strong to begin with.