Madman!

Chapter 20: Old Bear Hugging Tree

Chen Wujun listened to Zhou Qing's account, his heart stirring with awe and longing.

For centuries, generation after generation of breathtakingly talented prodigies had stood upon the shoulders of their predecessors, merging the strengths of Old Arts and New Arts, continuously creating new techniques.

Just thinking about it was enough to be shaken by such monumental achievement.

"Master, then why are New Arts everywhere while Old Arts have so little reputation and so few practitioners?" Chen Wujun suddenly asked.

"You'll understand in time," Zhou Qing replied with a faint smile, offering no further explanation. Instead, he shifted topics:

"You carry killing intent. Have you taken a life?"

"Your Wolf Fist has form but lacks spirit. It's missing the mindset of rejoicing at the prospect of battle, of believing yourself invincible. It also lacks genuine killing intent toward your enemy."

"You're young, yet your mind is already cluttered with too many thoughts. The more you think, the slower your fists become."

"Of course, I don't mean you should be reckless enough to charge headlong at an opponent you clearly can't beat. What I mean is that when you engage an enemy, you must hold the mindset of absolute invincibility!"

As he finished speaking, Zhou Qing's spine snapped ramrod straight, his shoulder blades sank, and his heel tapped the ground with a crisp "clack."The air inside the warehouse instantly turned scorching.

Zhou Qing wasn't staring at Chen Wujun, nor did any oppressive aura radiate from him. His posture had merely shifted ever so slightly, yet his breathing now resonated like war drums.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Chen Wujun felt as though he'd been transported to a battlefield. The clash of steel and iron rang in his ears, and the faint taste of iron and blood rose deep within his nostrils.

His toes instinctively gripped the ground, his back arched naturally, and his fists clenched tight at his waist. First he assumed the Golden Rooster Stance, then his raised leg stepped forward, transitioning into the Charge Stance.

Only one thought remained in his mind.

'Kill!'

Yet in a mere instant, Chen Wujun's vision blurred, and everything returned to normal.

All that remained was himself standing in the Charge Stance, fists clenched as though gripping weapons, ready to lunge forward at any second.

"That is what it means to rejoice at the prospect of battle, to believe yourself invincible! On the battlefield, you don't need to consider anything else. All you need to do is kill the enemy standing before you!" Zhou Qing stated calmly.

Chen Wujun's face was a mask of shock.

What was that?

A moment ago, he truly felt like he'd been standing on a battlefield, transformed into a soldier about to charge into the fray. The apprenticeship, the Walled City — all of it had vanished from his mind completely.

"From now on, when you practice your fists, contemplate the state of mind you just experienced."

Chen Wujun unclenched his fists and took a long while to recover. "Master, what was that just now?"

"A minor trick involving magnetic field manipulation. When you reach this level someday, you'll naturally be able to do it too," Zhou Qing replied, utterly nonchalant.

"Today, I'm going to teach you the Old Bear Hugging Tree stance!"

"First sink your root, then raise your spine. Body as though embracing a tree, mind as steady as a mountain." Zhou Qing stood to the side as he spoke.

"Master this stance and it will strengthen your foundation, reinforce your lower back and spine. When your back and waist grow powerful, your entire body's strength increases!"

As he spoke, Zhou Qing assumed a deep horse stance.

"Thighs nearly parallel to the ground. Feet grip the floor at three points. Tailbone slightly tucked inward. Palms resting lightly on the outer front of your thighs..."

"Inhale, count slowly to five, and lift your spinal vertebrae one by one from the tailbone upward, like beads on a string, all the way up to the chest..."

"Then exhale, count slowly to seven, and let your body sink gradually. Focus on feeling your hip joints opening outward to both sides."

"Pause for two beats. Don't move, don't think. Just listen for that spot of 'heat' in the soles of your feet."

"The human body is governed by two systems simultaneously. The first is the autonomic system — it controls your heartbeat, your breathing, your hormone secretion... This is the most ancient system in the human body. It operates independently without your interference, and you have absolutely no control over most of it. For example, your heart rate spikes when you face danger, or how your body decides to secrete hormones..."

"The second system is the voluntary control system, governed by your brain. Thought, planning, attention, imagination... This is also the reason humans became the dominant species on this planet."

"These two systems are mostly disconnected from each other. We can actively reshape the world around us, yet we cannot fully control our own bodies. We can only be passively led around by them."

"But there is one function of our body that belongs to both the autonomic system and the voluntary control system. We can use it to exert a degree of control over our bodies..."

"And that is breathing!"

"The purpose of this stance is to use your breath to interfere with your body — to make your body listen to you."

The concepts Zhou Qing described were things Chen Wujun had never considered, nor had any school ever taught them.

But upon reflection, it made perfect sense.

You could control yourself to raise an arm, but you couldn't control everything happening inside your body.

Only breathing could slightly intervene — for instance, taking deep breaths when nervous could slow your heartbeat.

Zhou Qing corrected a few details of Chen Wujun's posture, then said, "When you stand in this stance, you need to achieve a sense of 'heat and looseness' at the hip crease, and a feeling of the fascia along the outer thigh 'spreading open.' Only then are you doing it correctly."

Chen Wujun had been practicing the Charge Stance for days now. His feet, legs, waist, and back had all grown significantly stronger, and he'd frequently been in the "as if facing a great enemy" state, so sensing his body's condition was nothing new to him.

He silently memorized the breathing pattern while feeling his body, and soon noticed the soles of his feet growing hot and swollen, as though a warm spring was gushing up from beneath the ground.

After another two minutes, Chen Wujun felt a mass of heat gathering at his hips, stubbornly lodged there, neither rising nor falling, growing hotter and hotter. Discomfort spread through his entire body, and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead.

"When the hips haven't opened, the fire is trapped at the rim of the pot. Once they open, the heat pours down along the pot's walls, flowing down the pillars. When the pillars are steady, the body is grounded." Zhou Qing observed the sweat on Chen Wujun's brow and spoke in an unhurried, measured tone.

"Right now you feel a ball of fire stuck at your hips, unable to go up or come down. That's because your hips haven't opened — the heat is pooling in the crotch."

Zhou Qing reached into his pocket and fished something out — what exactly, Chen Wujun couldn't tell.

"Open your mouth!"

Chen Wujun obediently opened wide. Zhou Qing tossed a soybean-sized object into his mouth.

"Hold it under your tongue!"

Chen Wujun didn't know what it was, but he tucked it beneath his tongue. Moments later, a faint tingling sensation prickled across his fingertips and the surface of his skin.

"Visualize an old bear hugging a tree. Heavy, yet never sluggish..."

Chen Wujun imagined himself as an old bear embracing a tree trunk, as though preparing to climb.

Though the body appeared heavy, its movements were anything but clumsy.

Within moments, Chen Wujun felt something at his hips snap open with a distinct "pop." The heat that had been pooling there first slid outward to the edges, then flowed down along the outer sides of both legs, all the way to the soles of his feet.

It was like having a basin of warm water poured over him — from hips to the bottoms of his feet, everything grew pleasantly warm.

Zhou Qing watched the changes in Chen Wujun's expression from the side, nodding slightly.

'He opened his hips that quickly... barely ten minutes from start to finish.'

'He truly does have talent.'

"That's enough!" Zhou Qing called out.

Chen Wujun straightened up and moved his legs around, surprised to discover they felt remarkably light. His stride opened more naturally, and his hip rotation carried a smooth, lubricated sensation — like a rusted machine that had just been oiled.

It was as though a lock had been clasped over his hips before, and now that lock had been sprung open.

Just one session of the Old Bear Hugging Tree stance, in such a short time, could bring about such a dramatic change?

Then he remembered the foreign object under his tongue. He opened his mouth and spat it out onto his palm — a soybean-sized gray crystal, flecked inside with tiny points of brilliant azure light.

Chen Wujun held the crystal in his palm, a suspicion forming in his mind. "Master, is this a Magnetic Field Crystal?"

"Just a sliver of one."

"This piece is yours now. Use it once each day during stance training — it'll last you five days. After that, you'll have to figure out your own supply." Zhou Qing tossed a key to Chen Wujun and turned to leave at an unhurried pace.

"Every Tuesday at two in the afternoon, I'll be here waiting for you."

"Other than that, don't come looking for me if nothing's wrong. And don't come looking for me if something is wrong either. If you get into trouble, don't tell anyone who your master is. On the path of martial arts, the only person you can rely on is yourself."

"Lock the door when you leave."

Chen Wujun looked at the crystal in his hand, then carefully tucked it away.

By the time he reached the warehouse entrance, Zhou Qing had already vanished from sight.

He turned back to survey the warehouse interior. Training equipment of every kind filled the space, and he figured he could come here to use it on his own time as well.

He circled through the warehouse once more, hefting a dumbbell and a barbell from the floor to test their weight, then took a single-edged blade and a shield from the weapon rack.

Blade in his right hand, shield in his left, he assumed the Golden Rooster Stance. His foot dropped and he shifted into the Charge Stance, then immediately transitioned into the Horse-Striking Form.

He'd heard Senior Brother Li mention multiple times that Wolf Fist originated as a soldier's art — one hand wielding a blade, the other carrying a shield.

Testing it now, he found that quite a few movements indeed shared common ground with armed combat.

Though some movements didn't translate as well.

After all, Wolf Fist had gone through who knew how many iterations of evolution. The modern version was primarily designed for unarmed combat. If one wanted to use blade and shield, there was likely an entirely separate training method for that.