"The art of visual intimidation?"
Lian Youming hurriedly wiped the lamp chimney and squinted to take a closer look.
Yet reading through it only left him confused.
According to the inscription, one had to sense the qi between heaven and earth at the junction of yin and yang, and observe the sun and gaze upon the moon at specific times. For instance, right when the morning sun was on the verge of breaking through, one had to sense the rising yang qi between heaven and earth and fix one's gaze upon that first streak of dawn light before sunrise. Likewise, in the middle of each month when the bright moon hung high in the sky, one had to peer up at it, drawing on the sun and moon to temper the eyes.
Unlike ordinary fist and kick techniques, this art required no tempering of pictographic force. It called only for holding visualization in one's mind, condensing inner impetus and killing intent into a sword to harm the enemy with the spirit. Once fully developed, no movement was required—a focused gaze alone could cow the soul. Eyes like sharp swords, one could wound a person while seated motionless.
Lian Youming frowned for a long time. He knew what killing intent was, but how exactly did one condense inner impetus and killing intent into a sword?
Holding visualization in one's mind?
Visualize what?
Lian Youming read it over and over without grasping its meaning, finding it thoroughly obscure.
"I wonder if Gong Wu'er and Xue Hen ever discovered the coffin beneath this stone bed."
Seeing the oil lamp growing dimmer, he had no time to dwell on it. Triggering the mechanism, he vaulted back out.
***
Early in the morning, the male educated youths at the forest farm got up one after another, dragging their sore, exhausted limbs and yawning incessantly as they trudged toward the logging grounds.
But the moment Wu Kui and the others ran into Lian Youming, they all jumped in fright. Lian Youming's eyes were bloodshot, tears streaming from them without stopping, and even his eye sockets were red and inflamed.
"Whoa, Captain, why are you crying?"
"Pining after that female educated youth named Yan Lingyun? Who knew our captain was a tough guy with a tender heart! Acting fine on the outside while crying all by himself in secret. Captain, you've got to hold it together! You're the hope of every single comrade here now—getting us extra meat every day..."
Yu Wen and Yu Wu chimed in, stirring up trouble.
Lian Youming wanted to roll his eyes, but moving his eyeballs only made the tears gush faster, burning with stinging pain. "Cut the crap."
How was this crying? It was entirely from staring at the sun.
After leaving the stone coffin, Lian Youming had figured that since he couldn't make sense of it, he might as well give it a try. So he had foolishly stood on a mountaintop waiting half an hour for the sun, and this was the result.
Sure enough, one couldn't just blindly practice things.
Taking the two large steamed buns Wu Kui handed him, Lian Youming took a hearty bite. Wiping away tears, he pondered the corpse inside the stone coffin.
That person probably wasn't the tomb's original occupant. After all, though the clothing was somewhat tattered, it was largely well-preserved and definitely couldn't be older than a century.
In other words, that person had likewise usurped another's nest, only to be struck dead on the spot by peerless fist force from some supreme master.
Meanwhile, the Old Man Who Guards the Mountain and his group must have arrived later.
"What kind of twisted habit is this? Why does everyone love crawling into tombs?"
Seeing that the logging workers were all up, Lian Youming reined in his thoughts and led the educated youths forward, each carrying their tools.
Tahe was located in the Greater Khingan Range, where forestry resources were undeniably the richest. Coupled with the nation's rapid economic growth and the widespread demand for timber, logging work like this usually continued straight through autumn—just like when they had first arrived on the mountain the previous year. Only when the weather turned cold and a few snowfalls blanketed the land would the workers head down the mountain, giving them a brief respite.
Exhausting.
Deeply exhausting.
Yet the more exhausted he was, the less Lian Youming had the idle mind to fret over other things. Finding joy in hardship, whether sitting, lying down, or walking, he would subconsciously work his muscles and bones, regulate his internal breath, and quietly hone himself.
Compared to freaks like Xue Hen and Gong Wu'er, he lacked foundation and a guiding mentor, so he naturally could not afford to slack off.
Yet he felt neither jealousy nor envy.
Gong Wu'er was right: one had to be sincere.
This sincerity lay in hard work, in keeping one's feet planted on solid ground, and in forging true skill through relentless tempering.
The word "kung fu" was neither spoken nor merely observed; it was ground out over time. Shirking work and fearing hardship only sabotaged oneself and showed self-contempt. Such people might gain a fleeting upper hand through scheming, but facing a true master, they would sooner or later fall under another's fist.
Mastering martial arts was never achieved overnight. In the unseen past, Lian Youming knew that people like Xue Hen had undoubtedly endured hardships and put in efforts ordinary folks could scarcely imagine. Gong Wu'er had practiced martial arts to the point of nearly renouncing all ordinary human desires—a sacrifice born of a sincerity devoted solely to martial arts, a sincerity bordering on obsession.
Lian Youming knew he could never be like that, nor did he wish to be. All he knew was to keep walking forward with steady, grounded steps.
Keep it in mind, and an echo will answer.
Both in life and in martial arts, the principle was the same.
Amidst the rhythmic thuds of axes chopping timber, facing the morning sun with all idle thoughts cast aside, Lian Youming belted out a song toward Wu Kui, who was panting heavily: "The sun sets behind western hills, rosy clouds take flight, soldiers return to camp after target practice tonight..."
Hearing this, Yu Wen and Yu Wu made sour faces. "We're already worked like beasts of burden, and you're still singing?"
Yet suddenly exchanging smiles, they howled along: "Red blossoms on our chests reflect the rosy clouds, joyful songs fill the sky..."
Finding joy in hardship, encouraging one another.
It was a special era, passionate and sincere.
With Lian Youming taking the lead, voices rose and fell across the vast sea of trees as group after group of educated youths took up the song.
Perhaps decades later, when their temples turned grey, this very moment would become an unforgettable, precious memory for each of them.
Time flowed like water. Unbeknownst to them, the once rash and frivolous youths grew increasingly steady under such harsh conditions.
Unlike the south, summer in Tahe reached at most around twenty-odd degrees Celsius—exceptionally cool—which spared them the torment of sweltering heat.
Lian Youming worked by day and practiced his martial arts in the hidden chamber by night. Every few days, he would take a couple of treks into the mountains to hunt game and satisfy their cravings.
The only pity was that aside from the text on the art of visual intimidation, the coffin held nothing else of use.
Day after day passed, and his weight grew increasingly astonishing. Stepping onto the black earth, his footprints sank deeper than an ordinary person's; stepping on sand and gravel produced faint crunches. His strength grew greater as well; a moment of carelessness would shatter a porcelain bowl or snap a pair of chopsticks.
Fortunately, as his mastery over the silk-reeling force deepened, these anomalies did not last long.
Thus time passed until early August, when, for Army Day, Platoon Leader Yang granted everyone a day off.
Amidst the resounding military anthems, the youths who had worked like pack animals on the mountain for two months took their wages and rushed down like madmen, sweeping through the supply and marketing cooperative and the state-run restaurant.
By this time, the send-down movement was drawing near its absolute end, and many educated youths returning to the city were bringing families along.
They had arrived as mere youths and were returning with grown children, having settled down with families and careers.
Lian Youming also went down the mountain and visited Qin Yuhu's home. Li Da had made no move for so long that Lian Youming had grown impatient, wondering if the man had truly forgotten his promise.
Yet fearing Qin Yuhu might overthink things, he dared not ask.
As luck would have it, Shen Qinghong produced several letters, all sent from Guangxi.
As though anticipating that Lian Youming's weight would undergo unusual changes, Yan Lingyun explained many things in detail, telling him to let nature take its course. She reassured him that these were normal phenomena, and that with sufficient accumulation, a sudden transformation would eventually follow.
Moreover, Yan Lingyun had sent along a handwritten booklet containing her family's Five Animal Frolics. It was not a combat art but a health-cultivation regimen, meant to help him master his burgeoning strength, and she urged him to practice it whenever he had free time.
Looking at the girl's delicate handwriting and dense lines of text, Lian Youming smiled knowingly. Thinking back to the art of visual intimidation from that coffin, an idea struck him. He penned several pages in reply, headed to the post office, and bought some treats Yan Lingyun liked to eat, intending to mail them together.
Being a holiday, there was quite a crowd at the post office.
Waiting in line, Lian Youming suddenly caught sight of something on the bulletin board, and his eyes lit up.
"Is that the Monkey Stamp?"
A special commemorative stamp issued in 1980.
A full sheet had eighty stamps in total, costing six yuan and forty fen, with each stamp worth eight fen.
Lian Youming calculated the wages he had saved over the past half year. Having spent very little, he had nearly three hundred yuan, which, added to what was left from last year, came to almost five hundred.
Yet he merely toyed with the thought; if he truly wanted to buy them, there would be plenty of chances in Beijing once he returned to the city.
After waiting in line for a while, it was already evening by the time Lian Youming mailed the letters and parcel. Outside the town, he hitched a ride on a lumber truck heading back to the forest farm.
Outside the window, the sun was sinking in the west, painting the sky with brilliant crimson clouds.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Lian Youming thanked the driver and began flipping through Yan Lingyun's letters once more.
She had written so much that one reading simply wasn't enough to commit it all to memory.
Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, Lian Youming spotted two figures in the side mirror—a man and a woman, both clinging to the edge of the truck.
His heart tightened. He was about to alert the driver, but the moment he turned his head, an icy, piercing glint of cold steel thrust straight toward his throat—a lethal strike meant to leave no survivors.
Looking at the driver's vicious, snarling face, Lian Youming raised his thick eyebrows and spun his body in an instant. Tucking the letters into his bosom, he arched his spine outward, and with a resounding crash, the truck door behind him was blown open as if struck by a heavy sledgehammer.
Without the slightest hesitation, Lian Youming kicked off with both feet, using the momentum to leap clear of the truck.
The White Lotus Sect?
Chapter 38