Second Gate

On the second floor. By the window, Lu Yu and Long'er watched Li Xiuwen, deep in thought. Long'er murmured low by Lu Yu's ear. "Sis, I already told you there was no need... Taking medicine every single day—he really has no potential to speak of." Lu Yu said with faint disappointment, "I originally took him for someone diligent and hardworking, with decent comprehension and even a few shining qualities... Who'd have thought he'd be so impetuous and restless. He'll never amount to much." She would not recruit this sort of man for her father—drawing a fat salary yet liable to suffer qi deviation at any moment, harming himself and others, damaging the Lu family's good name. ... The next day, Li Xiuwen did not go to the martial hall; he simply couldn't be bothered to explain too much to the others. He trained alone on the rooftop, sweat splashing everywhere. [Sea Sand Stake proficiency increased by 1%...] [Sea Sand Stake proficiency increased by 1%...] In the end, even that final 2% of proficiency was run through. Four days later, Li Xiuwen looked at the [incense burner]. The incense belonging to [Sea Sand Stake] had burned away to nothing. Yet after burning out, no new one formed—only a floor full of ashes, and a shifting haze of golden qi smoke. [Sea Sand Stake: Perfection (Limit reached)] "This day has finally come." Li Xiuwen suppressed his restless heart and felt out that mass of "golden qi smoke." Somewhere in the unseen, a kind of intuition settled over him. This mass of golden qi smoke was the entire crystallization of over four months of bitter cultivation of Sea Sand Stake—the refinement of the martial path, its very essence! Once the golden qi smoke entered his body, he could smoothly pass the second gate and complete a second transcendent transformation, shedding the ordinary! The skin membrane across his whole body was like a balloon stretched to its limit, glowing with a red-black luster. His qi and blood had reached the limit of the Skin and Membrane Gate and could not rise by the slightest bit, or he would die with his body bursting apart. Only by crossing a gate, breaking his shackles and chains, stepping into a higher realm, and then cultivating more advanced training methods, could he further accumulate qi and blood! "The Skin and Membrane Gate focuses on raising defense and the ability to take a blow, and only then on strength and explosive power and the like." "The Flood Dragon Muscle Gate does the opposite, focusing on transforming strength from snake to flood dragon. Defense rises too, but it won't be an earth-shaking qualitative leap the way the Skin and Membrane Gate was." "At this stage, to sharply raise defense and the ability to take a blow, one mainly relies on... hard qigong!" "Let's begin. In my dictionary, there's no word for failure!" In a single thought, the golden qi smoke drifted from the incense burner into his limbs and bones. The full circuit of his hundred apertures and his eight extraordinary meridians all began to transform at once. Li Xiuwen held his breath and focused his mind, guiding his qi and blood like a tide to wash again and again over the gnarled cords of muscle and sinew beneath his skin membrane. Muscle and sinew split inch by inch, and were reborn. Blood seeped out and crusted over on the surface of his body. And so it went, tempering from the faint light of dawn to the blood-red dying sun; a whole day passed. The blood scabs on Li Xiuwen's body shook off and fell to the ground in a heap. The layer of red-black skin membrane across his body, under the flushing of his qi and blood, shattered completely, melted into his flesh, and no longer showed itself. This skin membrane, tempered a thousand times, had not vanished—it had returned to its original simplicity. To look at, it was no different from an ordinary person's, but in truth it was as hard as wood and stone, difficult for fists and feet to injure. Li Xiuwen lowered his head, raised his arm, and clenched his fist hard. His new muscle was like a swarm of snakes, visibly writhing and gliding beneath the skin membrane, coiling and wrapping around one another. When struck, the swarm of snakes tangled and knocked together. The feel of it was just like striking a rubber tire with a pair of pliers—neither soft nor hard, tough and indestructible. He suddenly threw a punch, and white waves of qi rolled back and spread outward, one after another. "My strength's grown by who knows how much. A second gate expert—though their qi and blood is only four times an ordinary person's, their actual force... is more than tenfold." "A second gate martial artist already has a physique beyond ordinary humans." "Could a Tiger Elephant expert truly, as the rumors go, have the strength to wrestle an elephant?" After resting a long while, Li Xiuwen rose and gathered up the "relics" shed during his transformation, sending them into the stove downstairs. "The Miscellany of the Martial Tomb says these skin-membrane blood scabs shed when passing the second gate are medicinal ingredients for refining certain secret medicines—worth quite a lot..." "But I've no such taste, and I'd certainly never hand over my own body, hair, and skin for someone else to refine into medicine." He looked at the [incense burner]. [Sea Sand Stake: Perfection] [Stage: Snake Muscle (1%)] "This Sea Sand Stake has been trained to its end. To go any further, I'll have to find my master and seek out the training methods for the Flood Dragon Muscle Gate." Li Xiuwen went downstairs, where his uncle and aunt were busy in the factory. When they saw him, they took it as nothing out of the ordinary, never guessing that Li Xiuwen's strength had already undergone an earth-shaking change. After advancing to the second gate, his skin membrane had returned to simplicity, so that even without his loose training uniform, ordinary people couldn't tell the difference. The power of Snake Muscle lay in the great mass of muscle and flesh beneath the skin membrane, like a swarm of coiling snakes—restrained, its edge sheathed. When two Snake Muscle experts faced off, so long as neither struck nor deliberately unleashed his aura, they couldn't gauge how deep the other's strength ran. Whether one could win could only be found out by testing it. If he could cultivate some breath-concealing secret arts, then even a Tiger Elephant expert probably couldn't see his true depth at first glance. It was just that such secret arts were as rare as hard qigong. Li Xiuwen planned to ask Huang Sihai about them when he had the chance—handy for future murder and pillaging and the like. Of course, in front of Old Huang, there was no need to hide his strength. He still had to display his talent, to inch his way step by step into Old Huang's heart. Coming to the landline, Li Xiuwen dialed Xiao Laba's number, and a girlish voice tinged with childishness came from the other end. "Handsome, you actually found it in you to call me?" "When are you going to brawl with Leigong Shed?" "What's the matter, can't wait to make some money?" "Yeah, I can't even keep the pot boiling... A thousand isn't enough to spend." "I just got word. In three days, our people will fan the flames at Jinghai Casino and find some excuse to go at it with Leigong Shed. If we fight it off nicely this time and beat their people into submission... we can negotiate with Leigong Shed to take back that place in your hometown of Longjin Road, and I'll take over when the time comes." Xiao Laba laughed. "That'd be just grand. Then the folks back home in Longjin Road can live in peace too... By the way, how many people are being sent out this time?" "Below the Red Poles, about half the Straw Sandals will be deployed." "What about Daoyou Ming? Isn't he the strongest Straw Sandal? Do we have anyone on our side who can go up against him?" "Rest easy—do you really think our Hesheng Tu is short on experts? Sister Fo commands the Four Heavenly Kings, and their leader Shi'er Niang is at the peak of Flood Dragon Muscle too! I'll let you see them for yourself someday." "I've got one more question. What happens if someone accidentally gets beaten to death during a gang fight? Fists and feet have no eyes—there must've been cases of accidental killing before, right?" "There's an unwritten rule in the underworld: soldier against soldier, general against general. As long as it's not the strong bullying the weak, there's no problem. In a fight, losing control of your hand is only normal. But we all fly the Changle banner, after all. The higher-ups let us fight to compete for territory, but if the other side begs for mercy, gives in, then you still have to spare their life—just cripple them halfway and be done." Li Xiuwen let out a breath of relief. So if he couldn't hold back his hand and "accidentally" killed the man before Za Jiu could beg for mercy, that would be perfectly normal too. On the other end of the line, Xiao Laba reminded him: "By the way, it's best to wear a mask that day. After all, you're off the roster—Hesheng Tu doesn't know you, and won't cover for you." "Don't worry." "If you fight it off nicely, the credit's all mine. I'll go claim the merit from the boss and cut you a share of the proceeds. If you lose, you only get your labor fee." "I know." "And if you accidentally kill someone, rest easy on that count too. Xiao Laba's word is her bond—I'll just say I did it. Anyway, there aren't many over at Leigong Shed who'd dare touch me." This boss of his, Xiao Laba—not bad at all. Quite the loyal one, really. And so the matter was settled. In three days, they'd raise a huge ruckus at Jinghai Casino. The reason Li Xiuwen was so eager to fight was naturally that he feared Za Jiu's arm would heal and add to his own trouble. Strike first and settle it early—better than letting a long night breed endless dreams.