"Wait up, won't you?!"
An anxious shout shattered the quiet of early morning.
Among rolling slopes, ridges, and mountain ravines, the youth strode forward on both legs, running at full tilt to chase the figure ahead. Along the way, forest birds took flight.
Lian Youming had never dreamed in his wildest imaginings that their way of traveling to the Kwantung Army underground fortress would be so unconventional.
They were relying entirely on their two legs.
Yet Li Da seemed completely deaf to his shouts. With his hands shoved into his pockets, his stride rose and fell in a seemingly leisurely rhythm, yet his pace was astonishingly fast. Walking in front, he looked as if he were taking a casual stroll through a courtyard, his two legs like springs—a single bend and extend carrying him a full step forward.
"Move faster. At your speed, we won't even get there in three or four days."
Lian Youming cursed under his breath. "Three or four days? Easy for you to say! All the gear's on my back!"
Li Da chuckled. "You still don't have enough control over your own body. Look at how you exert force with your feet—plants and brush are crushed wherever you pass, and gravel flies beneath your soles. It looks fierce and powerful, but most of your strength is leaking away, while what you actually utilize is minuscule. What is too rigid easily breaks. You must learn to constantly gather and restrain it. Restraint isn't weakness; it is gentleness, tolerance, containment."
Lian Youming carried the rucksack. Besides several jin of dried meat, inside were numerous flatbreads plus two military canteens filled with water—while Li Da, infuriatingly, had completely empty hands.
The location of that Kwantung Army underground fortress was somewhat peculiar, near the Changbai Mountains. Traveling from Tahe to Jilin was no mere one or two hundred li—it was over two thousand li! Yet this grandson of a bitch surnamed Li actually wanted to run there on two legs.
What utter nonsense.
Still, hearing the man's words, Lian Youming silently committed them to memory and pondered them carefully.
Li Da said unhurriedly, "Back in the late Qing and early Republic, do you know what kung fu the martial artists under heaven trained first? Foot power. Foot power isn't about working the feet, but training the lower body, emphasizing the waist and stance so that you're as steady as Mount Tai. Take Broadsword Wang Wu, for instance. He wasn't just a hero who roamed the north; he was also a legendary armed escort whose name shook the martial forest. Legend has it that traveling from Gansu to Beijing and Tianjin, on foot power alone, took him only a dozen two-hour periods—a little more than a day and a night. He could almost match a green-skinned train."
Lian Youming was thoroughly exhausted. Anyone running non-stop for a whole night would probably lose half their life. He casually pulled out a strip of dried meat and began chewing it with water.
"I also know why they trained the lower body first," Lian Youming said.
Li Da glanced back. "Why?"
Lian Youming took a couple of quick, panting breaths. "Because they were escorting goods! If they didn't run fast, wouldn't they starve to death?"
Li Da didn't argue. Instead, he pulled some pine nuts from his pocket, eating as he spoke. "That's because the northern martial forest specializes in wrestling techniques. The southern martial circles mostly focus on close-quarters short strikes, but in the north, ever since the Manchu entered the pass, they brought the wrestling styles of the Manchu, Mongol, and various other peoples into the Central Plains, which later merged into many schools. Thus, various northern sects and schools today all carry traces of wrestling arts."
Lian Youming grew somewhat interested. "Is it very formidable?"
Li Da sighed. "Very formidable. In the late Qing, if an expert from a martial school crossed paths with a wrestling adept of equal strength, he would lose far more often than he won. The little Japanese's judo has a few traces of our wrestling techniques, though it has become a distorted imitation. Back in the day, I ran into someone who practiced wrestling arts paired with an extraordinary force from the Xingyi Sect. Seizing tendons and locking bones, neutralizing a thousand jin through the waist—after getting thrown by him, a person would end up like a pool of limp mud. A mist of blood would burst from every pore; externally, they looked intact, but inside, their sinews and bones were shattered to pieces, their five viscera rotted through."
Lian Youming clicked his tongue in wonder. What he lacked most right now was an understanding of this martial world.
Then he saw Li Da halt his steps and say with keen interest, "The grandmaster of tai chi, Yang Luchan, was an expert at wrestling. Paired with tai chi, extraordinary force infused his being—he stuck and coiled with soft force, then threw and smashed with hard force. Whenever an ordinary expert stepped onto the sparring platform, few could stay standing for a single breath; lasting half a breath was already as rare as phoenix feathers or unicorn horns. Often, the moment hands crossed, the opponent was sent flying, injuring and killing countless foes."
A keen gleam entered Lian Youming's eyes. "So to counter wrestling arts, one has to train the lower body?"
"More than that." Li Da simply sat cross-legged on a large slab of green stone and said deliberately, "Fists and kicks, strikes and footwork—fist comes first in name, but feet are the foundation. If you can't even stand steadily, what kind of fist are you training? An unstable lower body is like duckweed without roots; no matter how high your boxing skills, one throw and you collapse. Moreover, when the lower body is firm and steady, agility follows naturally. With the fists attacking and the feet shifting, ten thousand variations arise. That is why they say: southern fists, northern kicks."
Lian Youming caught his breath, sneakily took another bite of Solomon's seal, and asked out of curiosity, "Can you outrun guns and artillery? I saw that Xue Hen could even dodge my submachine gun—creepy as hell."
Hearing this, Li Da fell unusually silent for a moment, as though pondering deeply, before countering with a question, "When you hit someone, do you think before hitting, or hit before thinking?"
Lian Youming was bewildered. He was about to ask for clarification when his thick brows furrowed; he sensed something extraordinary in those words. Subconsciously throwing two punches into the empty air, he began puzzling it over by himself.
"Reaction speed?"
Seeing this, Li Da said softly, "Yes, and no. No matter how fast a person's reflexes are, whatever they want to do, a thought usually arises before the action follows. But in the end, humans are also animals. As animals, we ought to possess animal instincts. When floods surge or the earth dragon turns, isn't it always insects and snakes that sense it first? Xue Hen is still weak."
"Xue Hen is weak?" Hearing that almost sigh-like remark, Lian Youming rolled his eyes hard.
As if he had sat long enough, Li Da stepped down from the boulder, his expression still gentle and innocent as ever. "Right now, you have only caught a preliminary glimpse of the martial path and have yet to see the towering mountains; you look upon me as an ordinary mortal. Once you are qualified to trade blows with Xue Hen, looking upon me will be like standing before Mount Tai itself."
Lian Youming wanted to ponder these words further, but he saw Li Da set off again, already pulling away.
"Aiya, can't we rest a little longer?!"
He hurriedly broke into a quick pace to catch up.
Li Da talked as he walked, his clear, resonant voice drifting back lazily. "You must understand one truth: the wise always seek strength from within; only the unwise seek it from without. Training in boxing and cultivating skill was never primarily about killing. Many people pick up a smattering of half-baked kung fu, and the moment they encounter something disagreeable, their minds are bent entirely on killing to vent their wrath. Those are fools. The way of kung fu comes down to two words: 'attack' and 'defense.' Defense is not merely guarding against others; it is guarding yourself—guarding your original heart. If you cannot guard that, even if given planes and cannons, you remain useless."
Lian Youming looked at him with deep suspicion. "Are you taking a roundabout jab at me? Xue Hen's the one who slaughtered innocents."
Li Da nodded. "And that is why he will die. I am a martial artist, but even more, a soldier. I never interfere in jianghu grudges. Trace those people back, and which of them does not have blood on their hands? Whether they beat others to death or are beaten to death by others, it is all their destined lot. But there is one absolute rule: none may bring turmoil to the nation. Whoever harbors such thoughts will find no escape in heaven or on earth—only death."
The morning sun rose on the horizon, casting down golden rays.
As Li Da spoke, he sped up again. Lian Youming groaned aloud, yet reminded by the man's words, he felt less impetuous and turned his gaze toward his own legs.
Then he looked at Li Da's legs. Earlier, the sky had been dim and the light poor, so he hadn't noticed much. Looking now, those legs seemed to hold an implicit rhythm as they kicked and strode forward.
He hadn't observed for long before a morning breeze swept through the woods, filling the air with fluttering fallen leaves.
Beside him, Lian Youming, who had been adjusting his walking posture, suddenly froze in place as if witnessing something utterly shocking.
Within his line of sight, Li Da strolled through the woods, weaving left and circling right, meandering at will. Yet though the fallen leaves drifted down piece by piece all around him, not a single leaf touched his body.
When Lian Youming focused his gaze and looked closely, he discovered that not only were the man's stride and legs hiding something peculiar, but even his waist, hips, and spine seemed to undergo extraordinary shifts. His upper body swayed slightly left and right with each rising and falling step, anchored by the spine like a pendulum clock. Then, with a twist of his waist and hips, that swaying force was transmitted down to both feet. Yet as his legs bent and extended, using the recoil, that descending swaying force returned through the waist and hips right back into his upper body.
Repeating this cycle again and again, borrowing force to neutralize force, using force to drive force, the exertion of a single step carried him an immense distance.
So that was how he conserved his strength!
Yet in the brief span of that daze, Li Da had already pulled far ahead.
"Not again! Wait for me!"
Snapping back to his senses, Lian Youming imitated the bending and extending motion, awkwardly chasing after him.
In this manner of chasing and running, resting and marching, two days and three nights slipped by.
Lian Youming's legs went from awkward and clumsy to numb, swollen, and aching. The insides of his thighs burned with raw pain, likely chafed bloody, and even his shoes wore out and tore away during the run, leaving him bare-footed in the end.
However, he had also realized that this man was deliberately guiding him. He could only endure the agonizing pain while channeling his inner breath; after all, such an opportunity was rare, and he did not dare slack off in the slightest.
Yet he had not expected that running all this way would bring a revelation: under such high-intensity stimulation, the channels and sinews in both feet developed a transparent clarity. Not only did his Golden Bell Shield naturally break through the first barrier as water flows to form a channel, but the second barrier also faintly showed signs of force coursing through.
The twelve barriers corresponded to the twelve meridians: the three yin of the hand, the three yang of the hand, the three yin of the foot, and the three yang of the foot.
The heart and lungs belonged to the three yin of the hand, while the spleen, kidneys, and liver belonged to the three yin of the foot.
These six meridians were the very foundation of the Three Yin Earth Fiend Force. Combined with these days of running and marching, plus over half a year of tempering, it was no surprise that his lung meridian had cleared. As for the second barrier, it seemed on the verge of clearing the kidney meridian.
The moment his lung meridian opened, Lian Youming felt a sensation as if cold water had poured into his lungs with each breath taken and exhaled. Shivering with a jolt, his originally shallow, hurried breathing suddenly stretched noticeably longer and smoother.
As if sensing the change in the youth's breathing, Li Da's voice drifted back from afar once more.
"Don't read too much into it. Since you received that senior's true transmission, even without formal apprenticeship you count as half a disciple of the Taiji School. As an outsider, there's no way I would teach you any profound arts. This leg technique of mine evolved from a set of springing legs passed down by Broadsword Wang Wu. It's just a basic method for training foot power that strengthens the kidneys and waist. Walk like this often when you have free time—even if you don't walk the jianghu path, once you marry in the future, it's guaranteed you'll hold two babies in three years, and eight in ten."
Lian Youming was thoroughly immersed in his body's marvelous transformation when this sudden remark nearly broke his composure.
But he had no mind to reply. With his breath lengthened, his whole person felt vastly lighter. Staring ahead at the back of the man whose rear end was all he ever saw, he quietly gathered his strength, intending to catch up.
Yet as Lian Youming accelerated, Li Da sped up as well.
The two kept chasing and pressing forward like this, scaling mountains when met with mountains, wading rivers when met with rivers, specifically picking deserted paths.
Through several days and nights, Lian Youming's lower body gradually steadied, and his leg technique grew ever more proficient. But the price was finishing off all the Solomon's seal Yan Lingyun had left him, and both of his legs grew so numb they almost lost all feeling.
By the time the two entered the borders of Jilin, it was already the morning of the fourth day.
Chapter 40