Spiritual Pivot Acupoint Striking Method

As the saying went, techniques were neither good nor bad; people were good or evil.

That was the first thing Jiang Kui, Uncle Jiang, had told Su Ziyang when he began his lessons.

"Raise your head three feet and there are gods above. Heaven's justice is clear, and retribution never misses!"

After a day of learning, Su Ziyang sat cross-legged on his bed in meditation. As he thought back over Uncle Jiang's lessons that day, his heart couldn't help giving a twitch.

Su Ziyang's body was no longer in serious trouble, but his lungs still felt a little uncomfortable after strenuous activity.

When Mr. Mengfei called Jiang Kui that morning, Jiang Kui had told him everything that had happened to Su Ziyang, from beginning to end.

First, he asked whether Mr. Mengfei had any enemies. Second, he apologized for failing to take proper care of Mr. Mengfei's disciple.

Mr. Mengfei was no ordinary man. Once he understood what had happened, he wasn't angry.

At noon, Mr. Mengfei told Su Ziyang that when he trained, he could use his intent to lead his qi to wherever he felt discomfort, which would help his body recover.

Su Ziyang did as instructed, and sure enough, his lungs, which had been aching faintly, felt much better.

Since Su Ziyang hadn't fully recovered, Uncle Jiang started by teaching him only theory. Jiang Tian listened at the side, offering Su Ziyang explanations to help him understand.

Uncle Jiang's family had passed this art down through the generations, and it originally had no name.

His family's art was extremely similar to some of the acupoint striking arts circulating in the jianghu. Both worked on different acupoints according to the flow of qi and blood through the meridians and the changing hours of the day.

At first, the Jiang family had studied it solely to treat illness. But as generation after generation developed it, they gradually added elements of martial arts. It eventually became an art that combined healing and self-defense. It wasn't until the generation of Jiang Kui's father that this unique Jiang family art received a name-the Spiritual Pivot Acupoint Striking Method.

Jiang Kui's father was a learned and versatile man who had also studied the family art from childhood. As he grew older, he gradually realized that his family's art was more than sufficient for self-defense and fighting, but far too limited when it came to treating illness.

After all, since it was a martial art, it naturally focused on fighting. And the healing methods passed down alongside it were mainly intended to support training in the art.

The Jiang family's art was naturally no exception. Thus, the healing acupoint techniques passed down in the family had only been intended to treat injuries such as bruises and strains.

By the generation of Jiang Kui's father, this problem had been completely resolved.

Jiang Kui's father was a famous local doctor, skilled at treating all manner of internal ailments. What he relied on was the Spiritual Pivot Acupoint Striking Method, which he had created by combining his family's inherited secret art with the daoyin and massage techniques passed down in ancient books through the ages.

One volume of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon was called the Spiritual Pivot Classic.

That volume focused on acupoints and acupuncture, so Jiang Kui's father named the method he had created the Spiritual Pivot Acupoint Striking Method.

At this point, Su Ziyang had a question. "Uncle Jiang, there's something I don't understand. Logically, even if acupoint striking can't immobilize someone like it does in the movies, shouldn't it at least knock them down?! How did I fall victim to it without knowing a thing?"

"Ah! That's one of the characteristics of this art!" After saying that, Jiang Kui wore an expression that was both proud and helpless.

"Why is that?" Su Ziyang asked.

Jiang Kui continued his explanation. "At first, training really is aimed at striking people. As long as you hit an acupoint, you can briefly paralyze an enemy and leave them unable to move from the pain. But that's only the beginner stage of this art."

"When our family's art reaches an advanced level, you can use the hidden force cultivated through internal training to pour qi into a person's meridians, obstructing their qi flow. In lighter cases, they'll be seriously injured; in severe cases, they'll die."

Jiang Tian had already explained it to Su Ziyang yesterday, and hearing Uncle Jiang explain it again today suddenly left him at a loss for words. Learning how to treat people was fine, but his master had sent him to learn this. What if he learned it and accidentally hurt someone? This... this was a society governed by law.

But since he was here, he might as well make the best of it and grit his teeth through the lessons!

The most important hurdle in learning the Spiritual Pivot Acupoint Striking Method was memorizing every acupoint in the human body and the paths of its fourteen primary meridians.

The fourteen meridians consisted of the twelve primary meridians and the Conception and Governing Vessels.

The twelve meridians were:

The hand taiyin lung meridian,

The hand yangming large intestine meridian,

The hand shaoyang triple burner meridian,

The hand jueyin pericardium meridian,

The hand taiyang small intestine meridian,

The hand shaoyin heart meridian,

The foot yangming stomach meridian,

The foot taiyin spleen meridian,

The foot jueyin liver meridian,

The foot shaoyang gallbladder meridian,

The foot shaoyin kidney meridian,

The foot taiyang bladder meridian.

The twelve primary meridians, together with the Conception and Governing Vessels, were collectively known as the fourteen meridians.

Su Ziyang was very familiar with the meridians. After all, he had studied acupuncture and tuina as an undergraduate. That saved him a great deal of trouble.

When Jiang Tian saw Su Ziyang effortlessly recite the acupoints and paths of the fourteen meridians, envy showed in his eyes.

From the look in Jiang Tian's eyes, Su Ziyang could tell that he had probably taken quite a few beatings memorizing them back then.

As for whether they were easy to memorize, Su Ziyang could only say that whoever had memorized them would know! Back then, studying for his final exam in meridians and acupoints had turned two of his hairs white.

Fortunately, there was no downside to knowing them, and Su Ziyang had benefited greatly from it in his subsequent medical studies.

Besides knowing the locations of these meridians and blood vessels, he also had to know which meridian flowed at which hour.

A mnemonic went:

Lung at yin, large intestine at mao, stomach at chen,

Spleen at si, heart at wu, small intestine at wei,

Bladder at shen, kidney at you, pericardium at xu,

Triple burner at hai, gallbladder at zi, liver at chou.

This verse was called the Song of Meridian Flow by Hour.

It meant that the lung meridian flowed during the yin hour, the large intestine meridian during the mao hour, and so on for the other meridians. But knowing this was not the most important mnemonic.

Uncle Jiang taught Su Ziyang another verse. Memorizing it meant understanding the fatal acupoint for each of the twelve hours.

During the corresponding hour, striking that acupoint could leave a person dead or injured.

The verse went:

The blood throughout the body has one head; day and night it flows, never resting.

If harmed at the matching hour and acupoint, life will end at once without treatment.

At zi it travels to the heart's hollow; at chou seek the spring well.

The well mouth is yin, the mountain root mao; at chen it reaches heaven's heart, at si the phoenix head.

At wu it meets the central plain; the left and right toad palaces belong to wei.

The phoenix tail belongs to shen, the bent well to you; the cinnabar kidneys both lie at xu.

The six palaces wait until hai arrives; do not pass this on carelessly, for that is what makes it precious.

Su Ziyang had understood the previous verse as soon as he heard it, because he had learned something about the relationship between the hours and meridians at school.

But this verse left him completely bewildered. The heart's hollow might be a part of the human body, but what was the spring well? What was the well mouth? And what was the phoenix head?

What was this, what was that, what were any of them?

Seeing the bewildered look on Su Ziyang's face, Uncle Jiang burst out laughing. "Haha! Xiao Su, that's one characteristic of traditional things. As the saying goes, 'Even if your wit surpasses Yan Hui and Yan Min, don't force a guess without a true master.' Even if you're smarter than Yan Hui, all right? If a master doesn't teach you, you'll never learn it or puzzle it out!"

Su Ziyang frowned at Uncle Jiang's words. He had only one thought: The ancients really knew how to keep people in suspense! They were even better at it than my master, Mr. Mengfei!

But Uncle Jiang's next words completely dispelled that thought. "Haha, Xiao Su, you're thinking the ancients really knew how to keep people in suspense, aren't you? Wouldn't it be better if they just spoke plainly?"

"That's really misunderstanding the ancients! In ancient times, transport and communication weren't as developed as they are today. Secret arts passed down in families like ours generally weren't set out in books; they were handed down orally and taught from heart to heart, generation after generation. But something could always go wrong with that kind of inheritance, such as family upheaval or war in the country. So some of our literate predecessors wrote these things down. But think about it: if just anyone learned an art like ours, what would happen then? It would be fine if they were kindhearted, but what if they were a bandit who killed and set fires?"

Hearing this, Su Ziyang nodded. That was indeed true.

Seeing Su Ziyang nod, Uncle Jiang continued, "The ancients naturally thought of what we've thought of, so they generally turned these things into metaphors or used coded language. Just like the mnemonic I recited, it leaves people unable to make head or tail of it at a glance. That keeps out those who steal secret manuals and harbor evil intentions! Without a master, even if you obtain the mnemonic, there's no way you can master it!"

At that point, Su Ziyang understood completely! Sure enough, nothing the ancients did was superfluous. If someone thought it was, there really had to be something wrong with their brain.

Su Ziyang admitted that there had been something wrong with his brain just now...

"Uncle Jiang, shouldn't you tell me what the mnemonic means? Haha." When Jiang Kui finished speaking, Su Ziyang asked with a smile.

"Haha, no need to rush! You only need to memorize it thoroughly. When the time comes, I'll naturally tell you! Now isn't the time yet." Uncle Jiang looked at Su Ziyang mysteriously, then left him in suspense.

Damn!

Black lines covered Su Ziyang's face.

Sure enough!

These people-

Love-

Keeping people in suspense!

He had just been overthinking it.

Jiang Tian sat to the side, covering his mouth and snickering as he watched Su Ziyang's thwarted expression.

"What the hell are you laughing at?! I'm telling you, you're not allowed to tell Xiao Su the secret of that mnemonic, or I'll beat you to death!" When dealing with this nephew of his, Uncle Jiang was practically like a hooligan.

Jiang Tian immediately stopped laughing.

At that moment, Su Ziyang slowly turned his head toward Jiang Tian. "Tian..."

Jiang Tian waved his hand at Su Ziyang. "Brother Ziyang, I really don't know what that mnemonic means either! Don't ask me. My uncle hasn't passed it on to me!"

With that, he got off his backside and bolted out like a gust of wind...

Su Ziyang watched Jiang Tian's retreating figure rapidly shrink, the helplessness on his face growing. He turned back to Uncle Jiang. "Uncle! You're not going to make me memorize another mnemonic without knowing what it means, are you?!"

Uncle Jiang waved his hand. "There aren't any more! Even if you wanted to learn another, there isn't one. That's all for today's lesson. I have to go up the mountain to gather herbs in a bit. As for you, don't come along. Just stay home and recover from your injuries!"

With that, Uncle Jiang took broad, square strides and swaggered out as well.

"Oh, right, your master said he'll come see you tomorrow!!!" Uncle Jiang's voice came from the doorway.

Sitting cross-legged, Su Ziyang thought that when his master came tomorrow, he would make sure to complain to him about Jiang Kui and Jiang Tian...