Madman!

Chapter 28: Ah Yue Will Be the Death of Me

Chen Wujun woke at dawn the next day.

Ever since he'd started training martial arts, he only needed about five hours of sleep to stay fully energized, never feeling the slightest bit drowsy.

He sat up and reached beside him, his hand finding something soft and warm.

Ah Yue was still fast asleep. A few strands of hair had fallen across her face, stuck to her skin by last night's sweat.

Chen Wujun went to relieve himself first, then washed up. He walked to the window and glanced outside—the rain had stopped—so he threw on his clothes and headed up to the rooftop.

Though the rain had ceased, the rooftop was still covered in puddles.

Chen Wujun started with half an hour of stance training, then ran through Wolf Fist twice.

It wasn't like practicing on the parapet wall, where the razor's edge between life and death made every session yield noticeable improvement, but he'd grown accustomed to that.

Besides, a single day without practice made the hands slow and the feet sluggish. No matter what was going on, he had to train every day without exception.

The only issue was that he felt more drained than usual, his energy not quite what it normally was.Thinking back to last night—the two of them had gone at it three rounds—Chen Wujun mused:

'They say lust is a blade hanging over a man's head, and beauty saps the body. How true.'

'Ah Yue will be the death of me!'

By the time Chen Wujun returned to his place at six o'clock, Ah Yue was already awake, looking for something to cook. She quickly discovered there wasn't a single edible thing in the apartment.

Not even instant noodles.

Chen Wujun hadn't once used the stove since moving in.

"Get ready. We'll eat downstairs," Chen Wujun said.

A short while later, the two went downstairs and found a rice noodle roll shop. Chen Wujun alone wolfed down three servings.

Just as they'd paid and were about to leave, Chen Wujun's foot crossed the threshold—then pulled right back. He ducked behind the door to hide himself.

He'd spotted his father, Chen Hanliang.

"What's wrong?" Ah Yue asked.

"Nothing. Saw someone I know, but I'd rather not run into him." Chen Wujun waited until his old man had passed, then told Ah Yue to head back on her own.

He himself returned to the martial arts hall to train. First, he tucked a crystal stone under his tongue, then settled into the Old Bear Hugging Tree stance.

Ten minutes in, he felt his hips open up. A current of warmth flowed down through both legs, while simultaneously rising upward, spreading across his lower back and spine in a blanket of heat.

His entire body surged with vitality.

The lingering fatigue from before vanished without a trace.

'Old Bear Hugging Tree is a stance for fortifying the body's foundation and replenishing vitality. I absolutely must keep this up every day.'

He then moved to the wooden stake. The hemp rope wrapped around it was already frayed and tattered, ready to snap at any moment. He unwound the old rope and wound a fresh length around the stake.

Moments later, the hall echoed with sharp "Thwack! Thwack!" sounds of strikes.

Chen Wujun's fists, elbows, knees, shins, and the tops of his feet hammered against the wooden stake in relentless succession—heavy, powerful, ferocious beyond measure.

Each blow sent fragments of hemp fiber flying.

At noon, Chen Wujun finally asked, "Senior Brother, I want to learn a weapon!"

"Learn blade and shield."

A short spear was impractical to carry around. Blade and shield only required keeping a short blade on your person.

And shields were everywhere—grab a wooden plank or a stool, and it could serve as a shield.

"Got yourself into trouble?" Senior Brother Li asked. "You're running with Shark Jiu now, right?"

"Yeah. You knew about that, Senior Brother?"

"The Walled City's only so big—I'm not blind or deaf!" Senior Brother Li chuckled.

"You've built a solid foundation in hand-to-hand combat now. Learning blade and shield makes sense. In an environment like the Walled City, raise a shield and nobody's getting through to you. Besides, Wolf Fist evolved from blade-and-shield techniques in the first place, so you'll pick it up faster than anything else."

"Come on, let's head to the warehouse. That's where the weapons are." Senior Brother Li rose and gestured for Chen Wujun to follow.

Before long, the two arrived at the warehouse outside the Walled City. When they opened it up, the interior was spotlessly clean, as if someone had been maintaining it.

"Senior Brother, someone keeps this place cleaned?"

"Of course." Senior Brother Li walked over to one side and flicked on the lights. Once Chen Wujun pulled the main door shut, Li made his way to the weapon rack and picked up a single-edged blade and a rattan shield. He walked back, idly slapping the flat of the blade against the shield as he moved, producing a rhythmic clatter.

"Blade and shield also has twenty-four forms. I'll demonstrate all twenty-four for you first."

"Salute... Opening stance... Horse-riding stance... Whip-the-horse... Immortal Points the Way... Crown Strike..."

Senior Brother Li performed each form in sequence. The names of the moves were identical to the fist techniques, though nearly all elbow and knee strikes had been stripped away.

After the demonstration, Senior Brother Li explained:

"Blade and shield are offense and defense as one. The shield is your foundation for survival; the blade is your instrument of killing."

"But remember—the shield isn't for brute-forcing attacks head-on. It's for deflecting and blocking. You use the angle of the shield's face to redirect the force of an enemy's chop, bleeding away their power and exposing their openings."

"In other words, the shield is the beginning of your offense!"

"Beyond deflecting and blocking, the shield can also ram and smash..."

Chen Wujun nodded thoughtfully. He'd already noticed this while watching Senior Brother Li's demonstration.

The shield was the root of defense—and also a weapon in its own right.

He then took the blade and shield and began slowly working through the forms.

Senior Brother Li corrected his movements as he went, offering continuous instruction:

"Wolf Fist keeps a low center of gravity and a crouched stance. That's for closing in tight, getting under high attacks."

"Same principle with blade and shield. Stay low, hold the shield forward, sink your weight. That way the shield covers more of your body, and your base stays solid—harder to knock over."

Truthfully, Senior Brother Li wasn't the best teacher. His method of instruction was to dump everything on Chen Wujun all at once.

But Chen Wujun didn't find anything wrong with that approach, and he retained every bit of it.

He might have been a poor student in school, but in this domain his memory was exceptional. Two run-throughs and he wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Besides, Wolf Fist's very origin was blade and shield.

All it took was a shift in thinking, and comprehension came instantly.

"I see it now—the fist is the blade. The elbow is the blade. The knee is also the blade!"

"And the shield is just the push, pull, and parry from before..."

"Wolf Fist is fierce and aggressive, and blade-and-shield is the same—except you move with the shield as your center! The shield is protection, but it's also concealment. The blade hides behind the shield!" Chen Wujun held the shield before him, his eyes distant with contemplation.

"Sharp instincts. You grasped the key points that fast." Senior Brother Li gave a slight nod, though inwardly he felt a pang of deflation.

Moving with the shield as center—yes, that was the key point, but it wasn't exactly some profound secret. Plenty of people could figure that out.

Hiding the blade behind the shield was the same.

These were the fundamental core concepts of all blade-and-shield techniques.

Understanding them wasn't hard.

What was hard was that after just two run-throughs, Chen Wujun didn't just understand it intellectually—his body understood it too.

Wolf Fist was aggressive; every movement existed for the sake of attack. People who practiced it were conditioned to close distance rapidly and fight with ruthless precision. Naturally, switching to blade and shield came with some initial awkwardness.

Yet the moment Chen Wujun's mind grasped a concept, his body executed it in perfect coordination, as though he'd been drilling blade-and-shield for years.

All the corrections Senior Brother Li had prepared turned out to be completely unnecessary.

He didn't even want to think about how many times he'd been scolded during his own learning days.

Chen Wujun ran through the forms several more times. His movements grew faster and faster. In motion, the shield covered most of his body, and every now and then the blade would flash out from behind it—swift and vicious.

Senior Brother Li watched for a moment, then picked up a white wax wood staff from nearby. "Defend yourself!" he called out to Chen Wujun.

The words barely left his mouth before the staff was already in Chen Wujun's face.

Thump!

Chen Wujun just barely caught the staff on the rim of his shield. The staff slid off the edge and streaked viciously toward his skull.

Chen Wujun hastily angled the shield upward. The staff hissed past, nearly grazing his hair.

"Don't block head-on! Deflect! Redirect your opponent's force to the side—draw out their opening!" Senior Brother Li barked. He twisted the staff in his grip and sent it stabbing with ruthless precision toward Chen Wujun's exposed right ankle.

Chen Wujun didn't have the slightest thought of retreating. He half-turned his body and swung the shield downward in a sharp parry.

Crack!

The shield's edge caught the staff at an angle, knocking it straight into the ground. The concrete erupted in a burst of fragments where the tip struck.

"Senior Brother, that last one had a bit of personal grudge behind it!" Chen Wujun's heart lurched. If that strike had connected, he probably wouldn't be walking for a month.

"I can pull my strikes. Think anyone else will?" Senior Brother Li replied flatly.

"Heads up!"

The white wax wood staff then darted like a viper emerging from its burrow, jabbing relentlessly at every exposed point around Chen Wujun's body.

Chen Wujun steeled himself, raising his shield to block strike after strike.

He found an opening, deflected the staff to one side, pushed off hard with his foot, and launched himself forward. The blade flashed out from behind the shield, slashing straight for the top of Senior Brother Li's head.

But Senior Brother Li had already shifted sideways the instant Chen Wujun exploded into motion. The staff lanced toward the opening Chen Wujun had left behind and struck him squarely in the waist.

Half of Chen Wujun's body went numb. He stood rooted to the spot for a long moment before the pain finally drew a sharp hiss through his teeth.

"Ssss—!"

"That deflection earlier showed some promise. But you were too reckless—your head was full of nothing but cutting me down, and your whole body was riddled with openings. When you can attack while keeping your defense airtight, that's when you'll have truly mastered it."

Senior Brother Li tossed the white wax wood staff aside.

He felt thoroughly refreshed.

The sky seemed bluer. The air, crisper.

...

After returning home, Chen Wujun applied medicinal salve to his side, then spent the rest of the time replaying that strike from Senior Brother Li in his mind, occasionally pantomiming blade-and-shield movements around the room.

The pain in his waist served as a constant reminder.

He remained thoroughly convinced that Senior Brother Li had definitely been settling a personal score with that hit.

Before bed, Chen Wujun pulled a notebook from under his pillow. The front pages were filled with insights from watching "Crime Watch"—only about twenty-odd pages, but every one was packed with densely written notes in tiny handwriting.

He flipped to the back section, which was similarly covered in cramped text.

He picked up his pen and wrote: November 9th — Got jabbed in the waist by Senior Brother Li's staff.

Above it read: November 8th — Wen Long brought people to start trouble with me...

November 7th — That guy called Brother Hua from Lidong owes me $5,600.

...

August 15th — Master Bing put out a $10,000 bounty for the culprit.

...

August 14th — Got kicked over by Senior Brother Li twice.

August 13th — Got kicked over by Senior Brother Li three times.

August 12th — ...

August 7th — Brother Hao came to collect the debt. (crossed out)

...

It wasn't until the next day, after finishing his Old Bear Hugging Tree stance, that the pain in Chen Wujun's waist finally subsided.