Chapter 29

In the forest beside the small town.

Seeing Chu Tianshu held the monocular telescope he had taken from the old eunuch's mansion, watching the situation in the town.

"Ma Shu, just as you said, he took that excuse very quickly; the Town Magistrate and his group already look like they've started mourning the old master."

Seeing Chu Tianshu collapsed the telescope and sighed, "But I didn't expect this guy to have a suit of heavy armor; he's truly imposing."

"If I had had a pair of good arm guards earlier, my two arms shouldn't be feeling this sore even now."

Zhong Jinqiu leaned against a pine tree, stretched his neck, and gestured: "Give me another one."

Seeing Chu Tianshu helped him fish a piece of dried radish from the small bag at his waist and let him bite onto it.

Compared to Seeing Chu Tianshu, whose arms only had a lingering soreness, Zhong Jinqiu still hadn't even pulled the silver needles out of his arms.

Ma Shu took the telescope: "The spyglass I played with when I was young wasn't this clear; from this distance, it feels even more useful than my sparrows."

Zhong Jinqiu chewed the dried radish and said: "This thing can only be used from a high vantage point; if you really want to track and infiltrate, you still have to rely on magical arts."

Ma Shu sighed with emotion: "It's hard to say; during the Tang and Song dynasties, only thunder sorcerers were good at using gunpowder, but later, all sorts of gunpowder guns and cannons popped up."

"These machines might one day be more convenient than my magical arts in every way."

Seeing Chu Tianshu became interested and wanted to hear what the sorcerers of this era imagined future technological creations would look like, based on their own guesses.

Shopkeeper Ma was also happy to chat about this.

"For example, cars now burn oil and trains burn coal; they're too clumsy. In the future, will there be something the size of a palm-sized stone that can burn for a long time?"

"Even if the power is a bit small, then the whole thing could be downsized to the size of a skateboard."

"A person could stand on it, and it would run by itself; oh, and there would have to be a handle to make it easy to control the direction, just as swift and effortless as the legendary God-Walking Armor technique..."

The three chatted as they walked deeper into the forest.

The fact that their whereabouts were unknown also served as a hidden deterrent to Deputy Zhou.

It was just that the original town was no longer convenient to return to.

Zhong Jinqiu knew the way, and the three of them carried food and silver dollars, preparing to walk over a hundred miles to another town to stay temporarily.

The mountain roads were difficult to walk, and in some places, there were no roads in the conventional sense at all.

Zhong Jinqiu was fine; his hands were inconvenient, but it didn't affect his ability to stride like a flying man with his two legs.

Although Ma Shu was sturdy, he wasn't an opened-aperture fist artist, so he found it a bit strenuous.

Seeing Chu Tianshu carried the bundle and helped support Ma Shu, while Ma Shu helped him hold an umbrella.

They walked like this until evening.

Zhong Jinqiu led them to an abandoned tea shed.

It had a bamboo and wood frame and a thatched roof.

The tables and chairs in the tea shed were either overturned or broken, and all had accumulated a lot of dust.

The earthen stove in the corner of the shed had collapsed by more than half.

"I used to stop here sometimes when I went back to my hometown to sweep the graves."

Zhong Jinqiu said, "I don't know what year this shed was abandoned; I repaired this roof myself two years ago."

"Let's sleep here tonight and continue our journey tomorrow morning."

Ma Shu sat down on a long bench without even wiping it, panting as he said: "Do we really have to run so far? Aren't there any other villages or towns nearby where we could stay?"

Zhong Jinqiu only said: "Little Chu is still in the stage of growing his skills and needs enough meat; can he stay in an ordinary village?"

"And as for a sufficiently prosperous town, you said it's not good to be too close to Yuannan City, so we can only go there."

Seeing Chu Tianshu agreed with this.

Without enough food, he didn't dare to practice his cultivation to the fullest.

He estimated that he would have to wait until he had mastered both the Dragon Coil and the Shi Wei Xian, and his fist technique progress had greatly surpassed his spirit-communicator attainments, before his cultivation speed would no longer be as violent as it had been this month.

Furthermore, someone who truly achieves "Shi Wei Xian" has more coordinated internal organ function and can absorb and utilize more nutrients from ordinary amounts of food.

His need for food for his fist practice would then be reduced.

"Although I can't practice to the fullest, it's good to familiarize myself with the fist manual."

Seeing Chu Tianshu said, "Uncle Zhong, the sun hasn't set yet, it's too early to sleep; tell me the rest of the content of that fist manual of yours."

Zhong Jinqiu rested for a while and nodded: "That's fine."

Zhong Jinqiu practiced Taiji, but it wasn't the most famous lineage today—the one passed down from Chenjiagou to Yang Luchan, who then made a name for himself in the capital and spread it.

His fist technique came from the Wudang Jinchan Sect, the mysteries of which were pondered by ancient hermits with the artistic conception of "watching the moon and listening to the toad."

The Chenjiagou lineage was mixed with the artistic conception of battlefield and peasant life, making it thicker, heavier, and more rigid and clumsy.

"A person's internal organs are closely related to their emotions; if you want to achieve the best results with fist techniques that train the internal organs, you must grasp that emotional artistic conception."

"When I was young, I felt that the Taiji of various schools all upheld 'the highest good is like water' and 'overcoming hardness with softness'; I thought the Taiji of my Jinchan Sect had a purer intent and was certainly deeper than Chenjiagou's."

"After I got older, I pondered it repeatedly and regretted not going to the capital to see that lineage of Taiji."

"Because the artistic conceptions of soldiers and peasants are easy to cultivate and learn—you can basically see peasants wherever you go—but something like a hermit is truly too hard to learn."

Zhong Jinqiu sighed deeply.

Living in the mountains doesn't make one a hermit; leaving human habitation might just make one a savage.

A true hermit may not be without worries, but they have mostly forgotten them; they have experienced the ways of the world and have been able to free themselves from them.

This is truly too difficult and might even require a natural endowment.

Zhong Jinqiu had also experienced ups and downs and asked himself if he could achieve that state of mind.

"I don't think you look like a hermit either; the efficacy of the Spirit Yang Gall is almost used up, and in the future, you'll have to slowly grind away at practicing my Jinchan Sect Taiji."

Seeing Chu Tianshu listened carefully and smiled slightly.

He certainly didn't count as a hermit, but when he used the token to deduce and optimize, the resulting fist technique might not necessarily follow the hermit's path anymore.

【Red-Tailed Swallow: A blade of cruel punishment, years of red rust, golden energy and bloody resentment, combined into poison; its blade is graceful, choosing people to devour.】

【Characteristics: Sharp enough to cut iron, rust poison that rots bone; it retracts when encountering crystal, and by exhaling it through the lungs using a secret method, one can become its master.】

【Gold-Swallowing Beast Face (Five Demon Spirit Split): Partial wealth to buy life, teasing human souls; the sacrificial ritual conforms to the law and can amuse the gods.】

【The Five Demon God descends a wisp of spirit, imprisoning essence and energy, transforming it into an invisible body armor.】

【Characteristics: Imprisoning essence and energy, as firm and hard as gold.】

After the jade coffin was smashed, there was no harvest; perhaps that magical tool hadn't reached the standard of "having a spirit."

However, the old eunuch's money body armor was an unexpected joy.

This thing was not the kind rumored to be able to transform into body armor by directly absorbing essence and energy from others using dark arts.

The most critical part of it was actually a wisp of the Five Demon God's spirit.

Seeing Chu Tianshu was slightly startled when he first saw the annotation on the token.

But this spirit would only passively take a beating after the old eunuch died, and even after being beaten to death, the Five Demon God had no reaction; it could be seen that although it was called a god, it must have certain limitations, so there was no need to be too surprised.

Relying on this wisp of spirit, plus the Red-Tailed Swallow, he had already gathered enough for one deduction.

After Zhong Jinqiu finished explaining the content of the fist manual, Seeing Chu Tianshu recalled it and asked several more times about the parts that weren't very clear in his impression.

The token displayed the new cultivation method materials as he had hoped.

Seeing Chu Tianshu selected the characteristics of the "Gold-Swallowing Beast Face" as the main focus and began to deduce.

【... Deduction complete.】

【Toad Cultivation Palm-Heart Thunder: The intent strikes the five organs as fast as thunder; the toad's croak is the first sound of the four seasons.】

【This fist technique has an artistic conception like a deep-hidden ore vein, a strange beast hibernating, waiting quietly for the right time; after mastering it, the essence of the five organs and six viscera is guarded within, thick, resilient, and full.】

【Even when exerting internal organ force in the most urgent state, one can remain completely unharmed. After exerting heart and lung force a hundred times, one only needs to adjust their breath slightly to still have endless vitality.】

【Just like a clap of heavenly thunder, startling the toad's croak, followed by the vast arrival of spring.】

Seeing Chu Tianshu closed his eyes, feeling the fist manual in his mind, and a smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

When Uncle Zhong's hands were fully healed, he would find an excuse to tell him some of the improved parts.

At this moment, the sky was stained with night, but strange sounds came from the mountains.

Seeing Chu Tianshu opened his eyes and looked over in confusion.

Ma Shu also looked up, muttering: "Where is that donkey braying from?"

It turned out to be a donkey braying.

Seeing Chu Tianshu remembered that he had also heard a donkey braying in town, but the donkey braying he heard at close range was really quite different from this one heard in the mountains.

The drizzle in the forest had stopped, but the soil was muddy and slippery.

He saw two men in coir rain capes, wearing coarse cloth patched clothes, their trouser legs rolled up to their calves, walking in the forest in straw sandals; one of them even had a sickle tucked into his waist.

That donkey was being led by the two of them.

Sitting on the donkey's back was a man wearing a bamboo hat, his face sallow, his body hunched, looking listless.

They looked like three village farmers, but he didn't know why they were still in the mountains when it was already dark.

(End of Chapter)