Taiji Mountain-Leaning Strike

Five days passed in the snap of a finger.

For Dingguang, those five days were no different from the past few years, save for one thing-

The little monk squatted behind the temple, his brows knotted in worry.

For the past few days, his senior brother had been like someone suffering from Qi Deviation, ramming trees in the mountain woods behind the house every day. He repeated every move and stance without end, as though he bore an irreconcilable grudge against those old trees.

He turned and glanced over, only to find that the newcomer also seemed possessed. Every day he sat in the courtyard doing nothing but staring up at the sky in a daze.

The little monk wondered if his senior brother had caught it from him.

That day, Dingguang couldn't hold back and asked:

"What are you looking at?"

Li Jingxuan gradually came back to himself and turned around, his expression gentle and a faint smile on his lips.

"I'm contemplating the Dao."

"Oh." The little monk pursed his lips. Sure enough, he was crazy too.

Their master was always saying he contemplated the Dao in his dreams, but his snores were louder than anyone else's.

Several powerful, piercing rooster crows suddenly rang out in the distance. Dingguang braced himself as if facing a formidable enemy, hurriedly grabbed a broom, and charged toward the vegetable garden.

Several exceptionally majestic wild chickens were strutting toward the garden, holding their heads high. They peered about three times with every step, alert and cunning, nothing like ordinary creatures of the mountain wilds.

The rooster in the lead was as tall as Dingguang, with exceptionally gorgeous plumage in five colors.

Seeing Dingguang charging over with a raised broom, the lead rooster tilted his head. Was this little fellow all there was today?

How boring. Where was the other, taller human?

Bang-

Dull thuds came intermittently from the woods.

The rooster turned his head and looked over warily.

When they made out the figure in the distance repeatedly ramming a tree, the wild chickens were visibly stunned for a moment. Then they began clucking one after another, laughing as though they had spotted a fool.

The rooster was even more high-spirited, his swagger greatly increased. He signaled the hens behind him to deal with that little monk first.

Several hens attacked from both sides. After battling them fiercely for a few rounds with his broom, Dingguang realized he was no match for them. Unable to summon his senior brother, he hastily dropped the broom, covered his head with both hands, and darted back into the house.

Having seen the vegetable garden taken so easily, the rooster flapped his wings and jumped onto the fence around it. He held his head high, stretched out his neck, and crowed loudly, looking every bit like a king claiming his territory.

In five days, Yu Tunzhou's Spark Instruction had broken through two levels, barely reaching the fifth the previous night. His Qi vortex had grown nearly twice as large as before.

The power of his Inner Qi's eruption had likewise surged by several tenths.

Over the past few days, he had repeatedly gathered and released his Inner Qi, trying to find the best moment to strike. In the end, he found that the Great Spirit Courtyard route really did work best.

Gather Qi in the Dantian, sink twice and rise twice, then follow the great dragon of the spine upward, layer by layer...

This route happened to fit the principle: "When the whole body moves, every bone moves with it."

During this time, Yu Tunzhou had used the trees behind the house as posts, honing his Taiji Mountain Lean by day. He had gained new insight into the transition between motion and stillness-

Within the transition between motion and stillness lay endless variations.

For instance, a stance could be steady as a mountain, its force unleashed like thunder.

At this moment.

Yu Tunzhou still held a rounded stance and guarded his center, his lower body rooted to the ground. But his shoulder was lower, his Qi steadier, and his intent more focused. It was as though he had become a reclining mountain, unmoving and unshaken in stillness, yet also like a deep pool, beneath which not the slightest trace of force or intent escaped.

When his Inner Qi passed through the Great Spirit Courtyard and its surging flow reached the great dragon of his spine, he abruptly stepped forward.

The first two steps were small, steady as hammered wedges;

The last two were large, force rising from the ground.

Each time his toes pushed off the ground, a surge of force rose from beneath his feet, passing through his legs, waist, and spine, building layer upon layer.

As the final step landed, Yu Tunzhou's spine changed from storing force to releasing it. In an instant, that force became powerful enough to shatter mountains and topple peaks, fierce beyond compare!

Truly, his force erupted like thunder!

The four steps flowed together in one breath. One moment he was still as an empty mountain; the next, he erupted like a thunderclap. The trunk before him gave a dull roar under the strain and shook violently, nearly breaking!

Not far away, the rooster stood with his head high and chest puffed out, surveying the vegetable garden with an imperious gaze. His feathers instinctively stood on end as the dull, almost mournful reverberation startled him, and he looked over warily.

When he saw that the tall human had rammed a sturdy tree until it leaned and nearly fell, he tucked in his neck and quickly looked around. Then he glided down from the fence, folded his wings, and tiptoed away without a sound, plunging deep into the woods.

Time to run, time to run.

The hens behind him, already badly frightened, fled blindly after him.

But as soon as they entered the woods, a tiny white blur darted out like lightning and caught the vital point on the lead rooster's neck in its jaws.

The tiny creature had bitten into the rooster's vital point, and he fell to the ground twitching without even a chance to struggle.

"Cluck, cluck-"

The hens following him were scared out of their wits at the sight. They scattered in terror and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Beneath the tree.

Yu Tunzhou gathered his Qi and regulated his breathing, frowning slightly.

After days of repeated attempts and refinement, he had found the Qi circulation route and timing for releasing his force that suited him best.

A breath of Inner Qi flowed like rushing thunder, crossing mountains and rivers and churning through seas as it traveled his meridians, accumulating all its strength. When it finally erupted, it plunged straight down like a waterfall; its tremendous power was only natural.

The explosive force of this strike alone was swift and overbearing. Used properly and by surprise, it was sure to smash through an opponent's defenses like splitting bamboo and secure victory in a single blow!

This already matched his original conception.

Yet in his heart, he always felt it lacked a trace of something vital.

The strike was fierce and overbearing, but it was more like the Mountain-Leaning Strike of Bajiquan: it had ferocity and dominance to spare, yet lacked the smooth, effortless harmony of Taijiquan.

He felt this move could reach a higher level, but for the moment he couldn't feel his way through that thin layer of window paper, nor did he know where to begin improving it.

He recalled every detail of what he had just done, then considered it as a whole.

A Mountain-Leaning Method like Bajiquan's had one flaw: once it missed, the user would fall into a disadvantage, with the old force just spent and new force yet to arise, leaving an opening for the enemy to seize.

The fiercer the force, the more this held true.

Thus, once someone was prepared for the move, it would fail, and the opponent would seize the opportunity instead.

But Taijiquan shouldn't be like that.

Taiji emphasized releasing force in an instant and relaxing it in an instant, like the Yangtze or a great river, rolling on without end.

Yu Tunzhou couldn't help thinking of that fellow in the river.

Its body was as vast as a mountain, and when it burst forth in a sudden attack, it was as swift as a thunderclap. Yet once it slipped back into deep water, it could grow still and conceal all trace of itself, leaving not a ripple, as though it had never appeared.

How did it manage to release and withdraw so freely, leaving no gap between motion and stillness?

He didn't continue practicing. He relaxed his stance and rested for a while; it was nearly time to prepare lunch.

Just then, Dingguang came to report what had happened. Yu Tunzhou hurried to inspect the vegetable garden. Fortunately, there were no signs of damage, only the wild chickens' claw marks outside the fence.

This strengthened Yu Tunzhou's resolve to get rid of the chickens.

After the meal, Yu Tunzhou went to the creek not far behind the house to clean the bowls and chopsticks.

The creek was clear and shallow, flowing with a gentle murmur over smooth pebbles.

A fallen leaf drifted down from a branch, lightly touched the water, and went with the current. It turned gently amid the spreading ripples, without hindrance, graceful and natural.

Yu Tunzhou squatted beside the creek. At some point, his hands had stopped washing the bowls and chopsticks.

He stared blankly as the leaf spun in the creek, following the current rather than resisting it, turning with each bend and circling each stone. Every turn and every revolution followed the natural course of the Heavenly Dao.

In an instant, it was as though inspiration had struck, as though clouds had parted to reveal the sun.

He stood, too preoccupied to retrieve a bowl even as it floated downstream, and walked barefoot into the creek.

The water covered his ankles, its coolness seeping into every limb and bone, yet it could not suppress the Inner Qi within him, which was like a flood dragon coursing through water.

This time, his Inner Qi still sank twice and rose twice. As it sank, it poured straight down like a waterfall, rushing a thousand miles with tremendous force. But as it rose for the last time, it gained a smooth, effortless turning, like a leaf in flowing water...

Yu Tunzhou took four steps in succession, creek water splashing around his feet. The move looked no different from before, but the flow of Qi within him now transformed old force into new, no longer carrying a single breath of force through to the end.

Still as a mountain, moving like thunder, Qi turning like water.

Yu Tunzhou stepped barefoot through the water and walked back to the bank, his eyes shining.

He had mastered the move!

Next, he would put all his strength into breaking through to the sixth level, in preparation for four days from now!