Chapter 9 : Chapter 9
Chapter 9. A Quarrel
On this day, at the hour of Si,
the servants were gathered together, each practicing their stance training.
Suddenly, Sun Rong stopped. Her face was lit with barely restrained delight. “I... I felt the knack of Qi and blood. It was like a line of warmth, about as thick as a thread, surging inside my body... It’s just that my Qi and blood still aren’t enough to break through...”
She was so excited that her words came out in a jumble.
Li Shan stopped what he was doing when he heard that. There was envy in his eyes, but he still offered his congratulations. “That was fast, Sister Sun. I think I’ll still need some more time.”
Xu Yuan congratulated her as well. There was some envy in his eyes too, but not enough to throw him off balance.
After all, no matter how quickly someone else advanced, it had nothing to do with him. Even if others failed, would that somehow mean he would succeed?
Objective reality could not be changed.
At that thought, the panel in his mind appeared.
[Name: Xu Yuan]
[Skills: Tai Chi Exercise (Minor Mastery 86%) Stone Platform Stance (Beginner 23%)]
[Aptitude: 3 (average talent)]
No rush. I’m about to break through.
Seeing the progress data, Xu Yuan steadied himself once more, calm and unhurried.
Earlier, thanks to the money his elder brother had brought him, he had managed to drink a bowl of Vein-Nourishing Soup as well.
The taste had been hard to describe. The rich herbal flavor was so strong that it stung the nose.
But the effects were undeniably real. After drinking a bowl, heat surged through his body and his strength became abundant, more satisfying than eating three full meals.
And for a fleeting moment, it had seemed as though a faint trace of Qi had surfaced, but no matter what he did, he could not grasp it.
Disappointed, Xu Yuan had no choice but to put all his focus back on his Tai Chi Exercise.
After hearing their congratulations, Sun Rong calmed down, though a trace of joy still lingered at the corners of her eyes. She shot Li Shan an annoyed glance. “If Brother Li did not waste so much time, he probably would have found the knack of Qi and blood long ago.”
Li Shan rubbed his nose awkwardly. Over the past month, Sun Rong had taken quite a few indirect jabs at him, and he was almost used to it by now.
“But what about Brother Xu?” Sun Rong turned her eyes toward Xu Yuan, and there seemed to be an unusual glint in them. “How’s your progress?”
“So-so, I guess.” Xu Yuan shook his head slightly, indicating that he still could not say for sure.
A flicker of disappointment flashed through Sun Rong’s eyes, but the smile on her face did not fade. “I believe in both of you. You’ll reach this step soon enough.”
“Then I’ll accept your blessing,” Xu Yuan replied with a smile as well, though inwardly he sighed. The original owner’s aptitude really was mediocre. Whether it was sensing Qi and blood or simple physical conditioning, he lagged noticeably behind the others.
Take Tian Yang in the dormitory, for instance. That loudmouth who showed off his progress every day had already found his Qi and blood five days ago. When people had asked him about the details, he had simply answered with an easy expression,
“It’s simple. You just have to make your stance work solid enough. After a few days, the knack of Qi and blood comes to you on its own.”
Those words had made plenty of people burn with envy, and naturally they had followed with another round of flattery.
There isn’t much time left. I need to practice as much as I can.
As that thought crossed his mind, Xu Yuan seemed to remember something. He turned to the two of them and warned, “By the way, it’s enough for us to know our own progress. It’d be best not to tell other people, in case someone decides to trip us up.”
“Seriously? There wouldn’t really be someone that rotten, would there?” Li Shan had many friends, so when he heard that, he could not help feeling Xu Yuan was making too much out of it.
“I’m not sure either, but I feel like something like that could happen. There’s no harm in being careful,” Xu Yuan said, shaking his head.
“Brother Xu is absolutely right. I was just about to tell you the same thing...”
But after hearing this, Sun Rong looked deeply convinced.
“Among the people in our side courtyard, there was a maid with very good talent. She found her Qi and blood in less than half a month.
“But she was timid by nature and often got bullied by the others. Once she got ahead of the crowd, she immediately started showing off. She even mocked people while she talked. She was absolutely insufferable... Guess what happened then?”
When she reached that point, she still looked shaken by the memory. Her voice turned cold as she said,
“In the middle of the night, that girl had both her eyes stabbed blind. Later, she lost her mind and was thrown out by the servants. When the matter was investigated afterward, I got dragged into it too and took the blame along with everyone else.”
The two men both sucked in a sharp breath.
“So something like that really does happen?” Li Shan’s expression turned stiff, as though he were realizing for the first time how terrifying human nature could be.
Xu Yuan likewise felt that the story was no less vicious than a palace intrigue.
But when he glanced sideways at Sun Rong’s face, still full of lingering fear, a thought suddenly came to him. Among those “other people” she had mentioned, did that perhaps include her as well?
After all, in her telling, that maid had sounded utterly detestable, and there had been more than a little disgust in Sun Rong’s tone. To an outsider, it was hard to tell truth from falsehood.
Shaking his head, Xu Yuan stopped dwelling on those messy thoughts and silently resumed his stance training.
Seeing that, Li Shan also felt the pressure of time and began practicing again.
Sun Rong watched the two of them quietly for a while before she started moving as well, though her gaze occasionally drifted toward the few servants whose progress was the fastest.
...
In the blink of an eye, night rose like ink.
It was already early winter now, and the weather was growing colder and colder.
The servants stood behind the house, practicing. The hot breath that escaped as they exerted themselves gathered into pale clouds, and the moment it rose half a head above the roof, it quickly dispersed.
Xu Yuan and Li Shan returned to the dormitory together.
Li Shan had moved over to this side ten days earlier.
There was no helping it. In his old dormitory, he had practically been the class monitor. Every night when he went back, people would inevitably crowd around him to ask about martial training details.
He could hardly turn hostile on them, so in the end he had no choice but to change where he lived.
Unexpectedly, the moment the two of them stepped inside, a mocking voice rang out. “Xu Yuan, you two work so hard every single day. So what exactly have you managed to train yourselves into?”
The speaker was Liu Hong. Earlier, while practicing his stance, he had happened upon the knack of Qi and blood by chance. He was so ecstatic that he felt as though his whole body had grown lighter.
Now that he had seen these two, the former favorites who had once received careful guidance from Instructor Feng, he could not resist wanting to compare himself against them.
At that moment, even good-natured Li Shan could hear the ridicule in his tone, and he shot back, “Whether we’ve found our Qi and blood or not, what’s it got to do with you?”
Liu Hong smiled. “I just want to know how far ahead the people who once had a head start over all of us have gotten by now.”
Xu Yuan paused for a moment. As though he had not heard the sarcasm at all, he answered in the same tone as always, “Same as before. I haven’t felt much of anything.”
That light, airy response was obviously not enough to satisfy Liu Hong. He deliberately muttered, “Who are you trying to fool? You only got picked to go up there in the first place because of dumb luck!”
Li Shan came to a stop and turned around. “Say that again if you’ve got the guts.”
Xu Yuan also looked over at him calmly.
When Liu Hong saw the other man’s broad build, the shadow cast by the oil lamp almost swallowed him whole. He felt a jolt of panic, but then, ashamed of his own cowardice, he became even more irritated.
“That’s enough.”
At that moment, Tian Yang suddenly spoke up. Since Li Shan had once given him pointers, he helped him out now by saying, “We all live in the same dormitory. If things turn ugly between us, no one’s going to look good.”
Because Tian Yang flaunted his rapid progress every day, he had already become the number one figure in the dormitory, faintly its center. Naturally, his words carried weight, and Liu Hong took the chance to step down.
“Brother Tian is right. If there’s anything about martial training in the future, you can always come ask us.”
After putting on airs and making that grand declaration, Liu Hong stopped talking. In truth, he regretted it a little himself.
Never mind whether he could beat Li Shan in a fight. Brawling was forbidden in the back courtyard, and if the matter blew up, he would not get off well either.
“Brother Li, want to go practice a bit more?”
Xu Yuan asked, picking up a cloth towel. Once Li Shan nodded, the two of them went back out together to continue training.
Li Shan had clearly been stung quite badly. He was the one who was usually giving guidance to others, yet this time he had ended up being lectured and mocked instead, and it did not sit well with him.
Xu Yuan, however, felt it was nothing worth caring about. The boy was all bark and no bite, just eager to show off after finally making a breakthrough for once. What was there to mind?
The reason he had remained silent earlier was simply that he had been recalling Instructor Feng’s theory of the meridians. To him, martial training was the only thing that mattered right now. Everything else was secondary.