Madman!

Chapter 10: You Can Only Rely on Yourself

"Wolf Fist may not look pretty, but it's practical. Everything Senior Li teaches is useful in a real fight. I wonder why so few people train at the school."

"Even if your talent is average, as long as you stick with it, what you learn should at least be enough to protect yourself."

Chen Wujun was still mulling over this question as he limped out of the martial arts school, wincing with every step.

At the knees of his trousers, threads of blood had seeped through the fabric, staining the cloth red.

"What happened to your legs?" Chen Hanliang spotted him and immediately moved closer to inspect.

"Training injury! It'll heal on its own in a few days!" Chen Wujun dodged away from his father's reach.

That afternoon, he helped out at the dental clinic for a while. A foreigner from the civilian district had come in for a checkup.

The Walled City's dental prices were only a third — sometimes even a quarter — of what clinics elsewhere charged. Because of that, people from all over came here for dental work. Even sailors would make a special trip to the Walled City to see a dentist.

After the patient left, Chen Wujun stood to one side, both palms braced against the wall, driving his knees upward again and again, getting a feel for how to generate force.

His father Chen Hanliang watched him practice with a complicated expression, opening his mouth to speak several times before swallowing the words."Got something to say?" Chen Wujun noticed his father's expression and asked directly.

In his mind, he suspected it had something to do with his older brother or the loan sharks.

Chen Hanliang was silent for a long time before letting out a sigh. "You know the situation at home. That good-for-nothing took out a loan from a shark, and I'm planning to borrow money to pay it off. But borrowed money comes with interest too..."

"So I can't go to the martial arts school next month?" Chen Wujun understood immediately.

Chen Hanliang paused before responding. "The school isn't going anywhere. You can go back in six months."

"The way things are right now, we need the whole family pulling together to get through this. I want to find you a job — fifteen hundred a month, and you put a thousand toward the household. That way we can pay off the debt sooner."

As a father, saying these words did not come easy to Chen Hanliang.

"I understand," Chen Wujun replied, his face expressionless.

"Ah, you've always been the sensible one, Wujun. I'm sorry it has to be this way." Chen Hanliang sighed again. Seeing how simply and without complaint his son had agreed only made the ache in his chest worse.

"But I'll find the job myself. I'll hand over a thousand a month to the family." Chen Wujun added.

Chen Hanliang didn't press the matter. As a father, he was in an awkward position right now and had no desire to micromanage his son.

He decided to let Chen Wujun try. If it didn't work out, he'd step in and help find something.

Chen Wujun turned around and began holding the Golden Rooster Stance.

Though his face was calm, his mind was anything but.

If his eldest brother appeared before him right now, he would absolutely destroy Chen Wuhong.

After holding the Golden Rooster Stance for another hour, Chen Wujun grabbed his bag and left the dental clinic, his thoughts churning as he walked.

'Sure enough, you can't rely on anyone. In this world, you can only rely on yourself.'

'But maybe that's for the best.'

Chen Wujun figured bringing home a thousand a month wouldn't be too difficult.

Making money wasn't as hard as most people thought.

As long as you had the guts, there was cash to be grabbed everywhere.

Shortly after leaving the clinic, he ducked into a stairwell, changed into different clothes from his bag, pulled on a cap, and tucked a short blade into his waistband.

Then he fished two fist-sized pouches from his bag and stuffed them into his pockets, leaving them visibly bulging.

The pouches contained quickite — powdered lime. The stuff was everywhere; he'd scooped some from a nearby construction site.

He stashed his bag in a corner of an alley near his home, then headed to the area around the loan shark's alley to stake out the spot.

But the entire afternoon yielded nothing.

The loan sharks went out to collect debts every day, but they didn't always succeed, and the small amounts weren't worth his while.

After all, he'd only get one shot at this.

......

That evening, after returning home and finishing dinner, he went straight to his room and rolled up his pant legs. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

His knees were a mangled mess of raw, bloody flesh.

He'd toughed it out all day. Now that the bleeding had finally stopped, he carefully smeared medicinal salve over the wounds.

The salve was a gift from Senior Li. The moment it touched his skin, a cool relief spread across his knees, and the searing pain dulled considerably.

Then he climbed to the rooftop terrace. A family was up there hanging laundry by flashlight, so he leaned against the parapet wall and gazed out at the distant city lights, savoring the breeze against his face.

The sea wind also swept away the ever-present stench that clung to the Walled City, leaving the air on the terrace refreshingly clean.

Standing here, Chen Wujun felt the tightness in his chest loosen.

Once the family with their laundry had gone, he pressed both hands against the parapet and hauled himself up onto it.

First he stood upright, the toes of one foot gripping the wall's surface. He drew a deep breath, then slowly raised his other leg.

He had already begun adapting to practicing stances up here. Yesterday he'd held the Charge Stance for half an hour straight, and he felt it was time to attempt the Golden Rooster Stance.

Almost the instant he lifted his leg, his body began to sway. His heart hammered wildly, and cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

Chen Wujun immediately set his other foot back down, both feet clamping onto the parapet surface, steadying himself.

Holding a stance on a thirty-centimeter-wide parapet at the edge of a rooftop was incomparably harder than doing it on flat ground — and the difficulty of the Golden Rooster Stance was worlds beyond the Charge Stance.

When a fall meant being smashed to pieces, something that would come naturally on solid ground became as daunting as scaling the heavens.

Chen Wujun bent his knees slightly, gently patting his thighs with his palms to make himself relax. After a moment, he straightened up again, took a deep breath, and raised one leg.

Everything around him faded away. Every fiber of his being was pulled taut, all his mind and will focused entirely on his own body.

Sweat trickled steadily down his forehead.

A mere few minutes felt like years. Just as he was about to step down from the parapet, his supporting leg buckled. His entire body pitched sideways in an instant, and his face drained of color.

In a split second, Chen Wujun's hands clamped onto the parapet wall. His entire body dangled over the outside edge. Then, with a desperate surge of strength, he clawed his way back up, tumbling onto the terrace floor, where he lay on his back gasping for air.

"That was close. Just a hair's breadth from falling." His body was drenched in sweat, his heart slamming against his ribs so hard it refused to slow down.

A long while later, he finally got up, pressed his hands against the parapet, and looked down into the abyss below. A flicker of hesitation crept into his chest.

But he adjusted his mindset almost immediately.

'If I'm scared off by this little bit of danger, what can I ever hope to accomplish? Spend my whole life as a nobody rotting in the gutter?'

The thought filled him with renewed strength. He climbed back onto the parapet, steadied himself, then slowly raised one knee, pushing his concentration to its absolute peak and shutting out everything else.

A gust of wind came, shoving and buffeting him. This time his form swayed only slightly before he locked himself in place.

After a long time, Chen Wujun sensed his condition declining and immediately leapt backward onto the terrace.

He glanced at his digital watch — ten minutes this time. A surge of accomplishment flooded through him.

Last time it had been five minutes. This time, ten.

Given enough time, he'd be able to do this as easily as if he were on flat ground.

At ten o'clock that night, Chen Wujun returned to his room. He gazed at the poster of Vivian Zhou on his wall for a quiet moment, then climbed into bed and fell asleep.

......

The next morning, Chen Wujun was up at five. He wolfed down a quick bite and headed to the martial arts school.

The school's doors were open unusually early today. Normally they didn't open until six-thirty, but today they were open at five.

When Chen Wujun arrived, only Senior Li was inside, working the wooden stakes.

Seeing that Chen Wujun had come two hours early as instructed, Senior Li gave an approving nod.

What made Senior Li value Chen Wujun, aside from natural talent, was his willingness to endure hardship.

His rate of progress made it obvious — he was putting in grueling practice on his own time.

Achieving the state of As If Facing a Great Enemy was a matter of talent, but everything else could only come through relentless training.

While Chen Wujun held his stances, Senior Li toweled the sweat from his own face and stood nearby, watching.

"Hm?" Senior Li raised an eyebrow.

Every day when he watched Chen Wujun practice, he could feel the young man's rapid progress.

But beyond the progress itself, he sensed something else about Chen Wujun — something different.

He'd been puzzling over it for the past few days. Today, the change was especially pronounced, and it clicked into place immediately.

An aura of unstoppable, forward-charging resolve.

Chen Wujun practiced his stances every day on the edge of an abyss, tempering himself between life and death. One slip meant being shattered on the ground below. Over time, this had forged an aura of fearless, unyielding determination — the spirit of someone who does not fear death.

It had simply been too faint before for Senior Li to identify.

'How is this kid training?' Senior Li wondered, surprise flickering in his eyes.

A teenager who had been practicing martial arts for less than twenty days — how could he have forged this kind of fearless, death-defying aura?

It never occurred to him that Chen Wujun had independently figured out Stealing Heaven's Opportunity and then had the audacity to go straight to the rooftop to practice it.

That was why his progress was so astonishingly fast.

'What a find!' Senior Li thought to himself.

When Chen Wujun shifted from the Charge Stance into the Golden Rooster Stance, Senior Li approached without a sound and kicked the ankle of Chen Wujun's supporting leg.

Chen Wujun's body swayed — but he held firm, as though he'd been nailed to the floor.

"He actually held it!" Surprise filled Senior Li's eyes.

Though he hadn't used much force, it was more than enough to topple an ordinary person.

Balancing your entire body on one leg in the Golden Rooster Stance while absorbing a sudden kick was exceptionally difficult.

Toe strength, sole grip, ankle stability, balance, focus — not a single element could be lacking.

A familiar thought rose in his mind once more:

'What a find!'

Every time he watched Chen Wujun, he felt the urge to bring the boy to meet his master.

That morning, when the other students arrived outside the school, they heard a rhythmic thudding from within — thump, thump, thump.

Pushing open the door, they saw Chen Wujun stripped to the waist before a wooden stake, settling into the Golden Rooster Stance before driving his knee hard into the hemp rope wrapped around the post.

Then he switched legs — the striking leg became the standing leg, and the standing leg struck.

He alternated left and right in a constant rhythm, and the hemp rope was smeared with a layer of blood.

The sixteen-year-old boy stood with sweat beading on his forehead and his gaze locked in fierce concentration. Every time he raised his knee, bone-deep pain lanced through him — the kind that would have made anyone else quit long ago.

But he showed not the slightest sign of retreat. Every single time, he drove his knee into the hemp-wrapped stake with everything he had.

The sight left more than a few of them stunned.

Even the jealousy in their eyes faded noticeably. They bowed to Senior Li in greeting, then hurried off to change.

Senior Li stood not far from Chen Wujun, a thermos cup in one hand, and spoke:

"When you've shredded the hemp rope to nothing and started pounding craters into the wood underneath — that's when your knees can be called passable."