Long'er wore a look of disdain and said, "He gorged himself on fish balls just to force his way onto the second floor—there's no value in recruiting him. Among the disciples on the martial arts hall's second floor, in my view, only that big idiot Ao Jiu is worth pulling over. Chen Jia and this newcomer both won't cut it... It's just a pity Ao Jiu is so pigheaded; there's no dealing with him. If we could recruit the Three Paragons for the family to serve as our company's 'gang leaders,' the master's business would be far more secure."
Lu Yu chuckled softly. "The Three Paragons are extraordinarily arrogant and deeply unfathomable. For now, they're out of our reach. We'll revisit that once we enter the Academy."
Looking out over the filthy, cluttered streets, Long'er sighed helplessly. "Sis, this Walled City stinks to high heaven. If not for Mr. Ming's reputation, I'd never set foot here! Once you enter the Academy, let's move back home and stop living in the Walled City. The Academy gives you plenty of freedom anyway, and all you need is their martial arts legacy."
Lu Yu scolded, "You silly girl, you always wear your emotions on your sleeve. When will you ever grow up? If you want to achieve great things, you can't go around letting every little thought show on your face. I wanted to lecture you this morning—when that newcomer went to shake your hand, why did you refuse? What right did you have to refuse him?"
Long'er scoffed, "Sis, learning boxing here is already pushing my limits. Making me shake hands with a man from this Walled City? You might as well kill me."
Smack!
Lu Yu suddenly slapped Long'er across the face.
Clutching her cheek, Long'er fell silent, her eyes rimmed with red, clearly stunned that Lu Yu had struck her.
After a pause, Lu Yu sighed. "You're still too young and haven't suffered enough hardships, and I've spoiled you a bit. In time, you'll come to understand many of these things."
With that, Lu Yu turned away, watching Li Xiuwen's back vanish around the cramped street corner.
With a faint smile and a hint of melancholy, she said, "Long'er, this new junior brother... when you think about it, he's a pitiful soul. His innate physique is mediocre, his family circumstances ordinary. He emptied an elder's pockets, stuffed himself with fish balls, bled and sweated, wading out of the mud with his peasant feet into our world—only to find there is no place for him here. After wasting a few aimless years, he'll have no choice but to slink back to his own world in defeat, bragging to his neighbors about the days of his youth."
Standing from the vantage point of an onlooker, Lu Yu saw Li Xiuwen's future.
This was the epitome of most martial artists' lives in the Walled City.
...
Guangwang Street, an abandoned factory, the headquarters of Leigong Shed.
Daoyou Ming was bare-chested, his face flushed crimson. The nine great pythons tattooed across his back rippled with the motion of his muscles as though coming to life.
His subordinate Forty-Nines held wooden clubs, steel rebar, and blunt blades, striking continuously against his back and chest with dull, resonant clangs like tolling bronze bells.
Such a fierce assault left nothing more than faint red and white welts across his flesh.
"Brother Ming's hard qigong is seriously ferocious."
"Yeah, impervious to blades! If he takes it another step further, won't even bullets bounce right off?"
"Wouldn't he be invincible in a street brawl?"
"I want to learn hard qigong too. Brother Ming, when will you teach me?"
Daoyou Ming ignored their flattery and chuckled. "Hard qigong requires either an extraordinary innate physique or bottomless wealth... Ordinary folks can't afford to play this game."
What he cultivated was the renowned Golden Bell Shield, a hard qigong art famous throughout Xianghai's body-hardening circles.
This was a second-gate martial art, not some run-of-the-mill technique like the Iron Cloth Shirt of the Skin and Membrane Gate.
From his vantage at the peak of the Flood Dragon Muscle realm, viewing the technique from above, it had still taken him five full years to bring it to perfection.
The money spent on accompanying secret medicines was enough to buy several prime-location apartments outside the Walled City—ordinary martial artists couldn't sustain such costs.
Unfortunately, hard qigong body-hardening methods capable of reaching the Tiger and Elephant Gate were exceedingly rare.
If he had such an art, Daoyou Ming could hardly fathom how strong he might become.
At some point, a man had appeared on the training grounds in a sharp suit. It was Za Jiu.
Daoyou Ming casually pulled out a stack of banknotes and tossed them to the Forty-Nines who had been helping him train, dismissing them.
"Found Ah Ji's killer?"
"I've got a lead."
"Can you handle it? Do you need me to step in?"
"Brother Ming, why would we need to trouble you? Leave it all to me!"
"Then I won't concern myself with it. You take full charge. I want him alive... But if the enemy proves too strong, drop it. I really don't care whether Ah Ji lives or dies."
"Understood!"
"You've followed me loyally all these years. Once this is done, I can privately reward you with a Flood Dragon Great Medicine to help you advance from [Snake Muscle] to [Python Muscle]. Beyond Python Muscle, even I won't be able to help you. Great medicines that allow a martial artist to step into the third stage, Flood Dragon Muscle, are far too scarce... Still, with your aptitude, reaching the Python Muscle stage is already fortune enough."
"Thank you, Brother Ming!"
Za Jiu beamed with joy.
He had volunteered for this assignment precisely to curry favor with Daoyou Ming.
The second gate was called "Flood Dragon Muscle," but "Flood Dragon Muscle" was actually the designation for the second gate's third stage.
Prior to that were two major stages: Snake Muscle and Python Muscle.
A snake sheds its skin to become a python; a python transforms into a flood dragon!
Za Jiu had risen from humble beginnings. Possessing only inferior aptitude, he had climbed step by step to Snake Muscle entirely by reading people's expressions and pleasing his superiors.
Yet his potential had hit its limit. Without the backing of a big shot, he might never enter Python Muscle before his qi and blood went into decline.
...
The early hours of the morning, several days later.
The bustling Walled City had gradually fallen quiet, broken only by the occasional crow of a rooster, the bark of a dog, or the footsteps of a passerby.
At Chen's Noodle Factory, Li Xiuwen tossed and turned in bed, utterly unable to sleep.
From the inside out, an intolerable itch consumed him.
Unable to see the inside of his body, Li Xiuwen could nonetheless feel millions of tiny granulations sprouting, coursing through his limbs and bones like electric currents.
"It's been a long time since I felt such agony." Li Xiuwen couldn't help scratching at his skin.
*Riiip.* As if tearing old cloth weathered by years of exposure, he accidentally ripped away a patch of human skin...
"Am I molting?"
Li Xiuwen's pupils shrank. His current state was genuinely eerie.
Without him realizing it, beneath the weathered old skin membrane, a tender white new membrane had already grown in.
Old and new membranes overlapped in layers, almost like... scales.
As time ticked by, more dead skin peeled away, unveiling the fresh layer underneath.
Eventually, except for his head and a few sensitive spots, almost his entire body had grown a new layer of skin.
"The commotion from reaching minor success in the Armor-Binding Art is absurdly huge."
Li Xiuwen was both shocked and delighted, which only further proved how extraordinary the Armor-Binding Art was.
He gazed at his jade-like skin, delicate and smooth, showing none of the appearance of a trained fighter.
In his impression, body-hardening masters were all burly, thick-skinned behemoths of pure muscle, but the Armor-Binding Art did the exact opposite.
Looking like this, he showed not the slightest trace of hard qigong cultivation; instead, he carried the refined air of a handsome scholar or a pale, sheltered dandy.
After thinking it over, Li Xiuwen decided he would find a tanning salon to darken his skin.
Otherwise, such a drastic change in appearance would easily arouse suspicion.
As for his height, that hadn't changed—he was still 1.8 meters tall.
Yet when he lifted his foot and brought it down, he could feel a distinct tremor through the floorboards.
"My physical density has increased, and my weight has gone up. Right now, I'm at least a hundred and eighty jin."
"Before I started practicing martial arts, I didn't even weigh a hundred and thirty jin."
"If physical density keeps increasing like this, wouldn't truly powerful martial artists weigh over a ton?"
Chapter 54