Chapter 26: Identification Barrier

Since inheriting Wu Mianfeng's martial arts cultivation, apart from fighting that scoundrel in the ruined house and occasionally using inner force to ease the pain in his left leg, Wu Chengyu had basically never seriously practiced the Bibo Heart Technique.

Wu Mianfeng had mediocre aptitude, and in order not to disappoint his Aunt, he had cultivated extremely hard for five years, laying an extremely solid foundation; his basic martial arts knowledge and understanding of the meridians saved Wu Chengyu a lot of effort, and logically Wu Chengyu only needed to follow the gourd and draw the ladle to practice.

But Wu Chengyu always lacked spirit, especially after surviving the life-and-death crisis, his inner force cultivation progressed even more slowly, with complex internal reasons.

Wu Mianfeng's resistance to everything on Peach Blossom Island affected Wu Chengyu's emotions, and Wu Chengyu himself looked down on this kind of basic martial arts, being somewhat overly ambitious, always thinking of obtaining some high-end internal energy heart techniques like Nine Yin, Nine Yang, or Dao Heart Planting Demon.

But the deepest reason was Wu Chengyu's modern mindset; in that society of extremely advanced technology, even traditional martial arts were regarded as flowery embroidery, and no one believed in real kung fu anymore. Internal energy and inner force belonged to pure fantasy; everyone once dreamed of possessing them, but after growing up, no one believed anymore.

So Wu Chengyu subconsciously always felt as if viewing flowers through mist when cultivating inner force, unable to understand it; every time he circulated the heart technique, he could feel inner force flowing within his body, even if this inner force was very weak, he knew from Wu Mianfeng's memories how to circulate it, but every time after finishing cultivation, he felt he had done nothing.

Clearly he could feel inner force truly existed, but Wu Chengyu always felt this was a kind of idealistic power, inexplicable, and doubted it from the bottom of his heart.

This belonged to a kind of obstacle in martial arts cultivation, Identification Barrier, with too many miscellaneous thoughts in his mind, and subconsciously resisting believing in the things before his eyes.

In Wu Mianfeng's memories, the human body's meridians were divided into two major categories: the Twelve Regular Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

The Twelve Regular Meridians were: Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian, Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian, Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian, Hand Taiyang Small Intestine Meridian, Hand Shaoyang Triple Burner Meridian, Foot Yangming Stomach Meridian, Foot Taiyang Bladder Meridian, Foot Shaoyang Gallbladder Meridian, Foot Taiyin Spleen Meridian, Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian, and Foot Jueyin Liver Meridian.

The Twelve Regular Meridians internally connected the five zang and six fu organs, externally connected the body surface, and circulated throughout the whole body.

And the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were not affiliated with the organs, nor did they have exterior-interior coordination; they traveled on their own extraordinary path, hence called Extraordinary Meridians.

The eight meridians were respectively: Ren Meridian, Du Meridian, Chong Meridian, Dai Meridian, Yang Linking Meridian, Yin Linking Meridian, Yang Heel Meridian, and Yin Heel Meridian.

The Eight Extraordinary Meridians and the Twelve Regular Meridians were like the relationship between rivers and lakes; the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were the river veins, cultivating inner force obtained the water source, inner force traveled through the rivers repeatedly circulating, and finally injected into the lakes of the Twelve Regular Meridians.

When the Twelve Regular Meridians were full of water, they nourished the flesh and organs; when the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were full, they drove the strength of the whole body; the two complemented each other.

Martial arts under heaven mostly focused on cultivating the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, using the Eight Extraordinary Meridians to drive the Twelve Regular Meridians, because the Twelve Regular Meridians connected to the organs, and a little carelessness could endanger life.

Only the Taoist School paid more attention to nourishing life and improving body functions; some internal energy techniques took the Twelve Regular Meridians as the main body of cultivation, with lake water full flowing into the rivers, going against the usual path.

From this perspective, Wang Zhongyang's Innate Skill focused on cultivating the Twelve Regular Meridians; thus, after cultivation went wrong, he could never recover, and the grand Taoist School grandmaster fell early.

Someone once speculated that Peach Blossom Island martial arts should have obtained part of the inheritance of the Xiaoyao Sect of the Taoist School in Tianlong, because Peach Blossom Island martial arts were as graceful as the Xiaoyao Sect, especially Falling Petals Divine Sword Palm like falling petals in profusion, Jade Flute Sword Technique and Bihai Chaosheng Melody just from the names one could tell Huang Yaoshi was showing off.

But at the Second Mount Hua Sword Discourse, the Qimen Five Turns Huang Yaoshi used was his supreme skill created after many years of cultivation and innovation, gathering the great accomplishment of Peach Blossom Island martial arts, with strange and unpredictable force, secretly containing array techniques and calculations; this Qimen Five Turns actually followed the category of Confucianism's Zhouyi.

That is to say, Peach Blossom Island martial arts were a rare Confucian School supreme art, having nothing to do with the Taoist School, and cultivation also took the Eight Extraordinary Meridians as the main trunk.

If it truly belonged to the Taoist category, Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng under Huang Yaoshi's sect for many years would not even know the most basic Taoist terms.

But besides the Twelve Regular Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians, there were many hidden meridians in the human body; every sect with long inheritance or someone as talented as Huang Yaoshi could discover some hidden meridians and combine them with their own techniques, thus creating vastly different supreme secret arts for each school.

But hidden meridians were each family's untransmitted mystery, so it was never possible to count exactly how many hidden meridians there were in the human body.

The Peach Blossom Island lineage martial arts secretly contained six hidden meridians, each with different functions; Huang Yaoshi named them after the Southern Dipper Six Stars: Tianfu Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian, Tianliang Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian, Tianji Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian, Tiantong Meridian Meridian Meridian, Tianxiang Meridian Meridian Meridian, and Qisha Meridian Meridian Meridian.

The Bibo Heart Technique, as the basic heart technique of Peach Blossom Island, only connected the three great hidden meridians of Tianfu Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian, Tianliang Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian, and Tianji Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian.

The Tianfu Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian was like a sea of qi, assisting the dantian in nurturing true qi; the Tianliang Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian connected the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, building a brand new path between them; the Tianji Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian Hidden Meridian was tough and unobstructed, inner force could turn a thousand times within it, so Peach Blossom Island martial arts were famous for changing moves and strange force.

But all this was illusory to Wu Chengyu; Wu Chengyu had once read a report where one of the arguments Western medicine used to attack Traditional Chinese Medicine as pseudoscience was that using various advanced Western medical instruments, they could never find the existence of meridians spoken of in TCM within the human body.

It was precisely this report's influence on Wu Chengyu's subconscious that when he circulated the Bibo Heart Technique, he could feel the path of inner force circulation, but could never sense the meridians.

Until Wu Chengyu broke his leg again and applied Black Jade Bone-Healing Ointment; for the first month he had to lie in bed and could do nothing, and out of extreme boredom he thought of cultivating martial arts again.

At first it was the same problem; once Wu Chengyu circulated the technique, his mind was immediately filled with thousands of thoughts; even the young ladies from videos he had watched couldn't resist loneliness and came out to dance a belly dance, or that man called Xiaoshuai, who couldn't pay his mortgage but could buy a thousand mu of jungle, run into the forest to build a wooden cabin and hunt to survive the winter.

In short, having watched too many videos, as soon as he closed his eyes all sorts of demons and monsters popped up; Wu Chengyu simply could not focus his attention.

After Wu Chengyu with great difficulty focused his spirit and felt the inner force circulating, his brain started making snide remarks again: little chickens don't pee, each has their own way, but what exactly is the way this inner force flows? He could only feel something moving, and like an old woman with bound feet, it hadn't moved a few steps in half a day.

Perhaps because he really had nothing to do, Wu Chengyu did not, as before, taste a little and stop, randomly running one cycle and giving up; this time he patiently, according to Peach Blossom Island's requirements, forcibly circulated the Bibo Heart Technique thirty-six cycles, counting it as giving himself an account.

And at this time, the bamboo slips in Wu Chengyu's consciousness trembled again; the handwriting on them changed, no longer poems and prescriptions.

This time a diagram appeared on them, a diagram of meridians for inner force circulation, clearly marked with text indicating which meridian and acupoint the inner force passed through during circulation. The meridians were blue, the acupoints were red, and there were small arrows indicating direction.

Not only that; upon seeing the meridian diagram, Wu Chengyu unconsciously used his Supernatural Five Senses, using touch to feel the barely perceptible friction when inner force passed through the meridians, using hearing to feel the slight trembling between organs when inner force circulated within the body, and finally the unfathomable intuition began to function uncontrollably.

In Wu Chengyu's mind gradually appeared a Divine Sense Three-Dimensional Dynamic Image of all the structures within his own body, including bones, organs, blood vessels, and the meridians he had searched everywhere for but could not find.

The meaning of the bamboo slips was very clear: you cannot feel it, I will let you see it.

Signing the contract is good; suddenly quite a few collections were added, finally a good start.

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(Chapter End)