Madman!

Chapter 29: Footwork Is the Mother of Fists

Over the next few days, Chen Wujun didn't return to the martial arts school. Instead, he spent every day training blade and shield with Senior Brother Li at the Warehouse.

Master Zhou Qing dropped by once during this period. Seeing them drilling with blade and shield, he didn't bother teaching anything new — just offered a few pointers on technique before strolling off at his leisurely pace.

Bang! Bang!

Inside the Warehouse, the White Wax Wood Staff in Senior Brother Li's hands struck like a viper lunging from its burrow, either stabbing against the shield in Chen Wujun's grip or getting deflected aside by its edge.

Whenever Chen Wujun's attention slipped for even a moment and a thrust found its mark, the struck spot would immediately swell up, bruising purple and blue.

But Chen Wujun was tough. He never cried out in pain, pouring every ounce of focus onto Senior Brother Li.

"Don't watch the staff — watch my shoulders, watch my hands!" Senior Brother Li's White Wax Wood Staff suddenly shot forward. Chen Wujun's vision blurred for an instant, but his body was already half-turning, the shield snapping sideways to deflect. The staff scraped past the shield's edge and slid away into empty air.

"Alright, that's enough for now!" Senior Brother Li tossed the White Wax Wood Staff aside.

"Originally, I was going to teach you footwork and Four Gates Eight Locks first, but since you've started on blade and shield, Four Gates Eight Locks can wait."

"Next, we add footwork training."Chen Wujun's attention sharpened immediately. Finally, he could train footwork.

Four Gates Eight Locks encompassed techniques like seizing, coiling, locking, hooking, twisting, folding, grappling, and pressing — all specialized for close-quarters grappling and brawling.

But now that Chen Wujun had gotten himself into trouble, Senior Brother Li prioritized blade-and-shield work and footwork instead.

"Footwork is the mother of fists. Unsteady steps mean chaotic punches. Slow steps mean slow punches."

"Wolf Fist is all about closing distance for infighting. You need to close the gap at maximum speed with minimum cost — but that doesn't mean charging in recklessly. You need to be deceptive, unpredictable, making your opponent unable to read your direction while you cut to their flank."

"That's why the footwork follows the serpent's path. Your roots must be like an old python's, your movement like a venomous snake's."

As Senior Brother Li spoke, his feet shifted. His body's direction became impossible to track — he stood before Chen Wujun, his body feinted left, yet he appeared on the right.

Then his steps became ghostly, circling around Chen Wujun.

"Make it impossible for your opponent to read your direction."

"When your step lands, your fist lands. Close the gap, then unleash your power. Footwork fools the eyes — only then can you take a life!"

"Understand?"

"I think I'm starting to get it!" Chen Wujun nodded, marveling inwardly. Just moments ago his vision had blurred, and he'd been certain Senior Brother Li was cutting to his left — only for the man to appear from a completely different angle.

In an actual fight, that kind of movement could slice straight into an opponent's opening, followed by a ferocious assault.

Indeed, fist techniques required footwork to complete them.

He'd beaten a few street thugs before, but they were ordinary people — all he'd needed was raw aggression.

Against a skilled fighter, that wouldn't cut it.

Learning footwork now wasn't just for empty-handed combat; it was equally essential when wielding weapons.

"To learn Snake Step, you'll focus on three fundamentals: Shock Step, Triangle Step, and Kneeling Step."

"Shock Step is an explosive burst forward. Triangle Step is lateral movement. Kneeling Step drops your center of gravity to its lowest point. These three form the foundation of Snake Step."

Senior Brother Li explained while demonstrating each of the three footwork patterns.

Chen Wujun only needed a brief study session before he had all three down.

After all, the key points of these three steps weren't particularly complex, and with Chen Wujun's aptitude, they came easily.

Senior Brother Li then drew an equilateral triangle on the ground.

"Start with a Shock Step forward, then use Triangle Step to move between these three vertices. After that, switch to Kneeling Step!"

After an afternoon of practice, Chen Wujun had the small combination of the three steps down pat.

Chen Wujun nodded to himself and, after leaving the Warehouse, first went to buy two pairs of pants. Then, as he carried his things back toward the Walled City, he spotted several burly men through the flowing crowd, loitering beneath the Lian'an Dim Sum and Sundries shop sign at the mouth of an alley. They were smoking, their eyes sweeping the area as if searching for someone.

'Looking for me?'

Chen Wujun had kept his vigilance and awareness cranked to maximum these past few days, and he'd spotted the men from a distance.

After a moment's thought, he took a detour, slipping through the front of a familiar hole-in-the-wall eatery and out its back door. From there he climbed to the third floor, wound through a few turns, and made his way upstairs to his place.

The roads inside the Walled City were like a labyrinth. Those men were only watching the main intersections — avoiding them was easy enough.

Shark Jiu had already given him a heads-up, but he didn't plan on running into those people too soon.

The first batch of men didn't worry him much. But after getting burned once, the second wave wouldn't be so easy to handle.

When the time came, he'd be in the eye of the storm. If his strength wasn't up to par, getting cornered in an alley and hacked to death was a very real possibility.

He set his things down and headed home for dinner first.

The apartment was still filled with that warm, homey smell of cooking — Chen Wujun had always believed that the true scent of home was the aroma of food being made in the kitchen.

His eldest brother sat with a splint on his leg, bored out of his mind, keeping their father company in front of the television.

This was the scene that greeted Chen Wujun when he walked in.

He thought to himself that this wasn't so bad, actually.

His brother was stuck at home recuperating, not out gambling, and their parents had someone around for company.

It was warm. Cozy.

Chen Wuhong spotted Chen Wujun coming through the door and immediately plastered on an ingratiating smile. "Jun's home!"

Chen Wujun gave a nod.

"How's things at the martial arts school?" their father, Chen Hanliang, asked.

"Pretty good. Everyone says I'm progressing fast," Chen Wujun replied.

"We've almost paid off the family's debts. Once that's done, we can cover the school fees properly." Chen Hanliang paused thoughtfully. "Then you can focus on your training instead of working and learning at the same time."

Chen Wujun glanced at his eldest brother with a hint of surprise. Having his leg broken had kept the man home, and he'd finally been willing to cough up some money.

After a moment's consideration, Chen Wujun said:

"I can still train while working at the school. It's just cleaning — the rest of the time is all practice."

"That's your senior brother looking out for you. You can't keep imposing on him forever." Chen Hanliang shook his head. The family had been buried under a mountain of debt, and sending his second son to work had been a last resort.

Over the past few months he'd been steadily paying things off, and with the lump sum his eldest had contributed, more than half the debt was cleared.

What remained, interest included, wasn't much. There was no need for his second son to keep laboring at the school.

He'd never said it aloud, but the guilt toward his second boy had always weighed on his heart.

"Senior Brother Li actually needs someone to keep the place clean. Let's just leave things as they are for now," Chen Wujun said.

After all, working and training at the school was the excuse he used to justify renting a place outside.

Chen Wuhong listened to the exchange between his father and brother, a bellyful of words he couldn't bring himself to say.

He still didn't know exactly what his younger brother was up to these days. All he knew was that Jun was on familiar terms with people from the dance halls, even seemed to hold some status there — and behind those dance halls stood Hetu.

Coupled with the savage ferocity Jun had shown when he'd struck, Chen Wuhong was fairly certain his brother had joined a gang.

But he didn't dare voice that thought.

"Come help carry the dishes!" Huang Meizhen called from the kitchen.

"Coming!" Chen Wujun headed to the kitchen to help bring out the food.

During dinner, their father Chen Hanliang mentioned, "The Sending Winter Clothes festival is in a few days. Your aunt and uncle will be going too. Your brother's leg is broken and he can't help, so come back a bit early that afternoon and go with me."

The first day of the tenth lunar month — the Sending Winter Clothes festival.

They would visit the ancestral graves and burn paper winter clothing for their forebears. It was a matter of great importance.

"Sure," Chen Wujun nodded.

After dinner, Chen Wujun didn't go to Shark Jiu's place or the dance hall.

Instead, he went up to the rooftop and drew an equilateral triangle on the ground, drilling his footwork over and over.

...

The next morning, when Chen Wujun arrived at the Warehouse, Senior Brother Li was already waiting for him.

Seeing him walk in, Senior Brother Li remarked, "Yesterday's stuff was pretty easy, wasn't it?"

"But all you have is the shape, nothing more. Starting today, you train here." Senior Brother Li pointed toward a pool off to the side, filled to the brim with thick, dry, fine sand.

"Flat ground was just to get you familiar with the movements. Mud Wading Step — that's the real training method."

"Mud Wading Step?" Chen Wujun had noticed the pool before and had even poked around in it with a stick. It was roughly sixty centimeters deep.

Only now did he realize it was meant for footwork training.

Chen Wujun kicked off his shoes and stepped into the sand. He immediately sank to his knees.

Taking a single step in here meant fighting the resistance of countless grains of sand pressing in from every direction. Just pulling a foot free required real effort, let alone actually wading through it.

'What a brilliant method, this Mud Wading Step! It's like knee-deep muck — every single step demands enormous effort, every stride a battle against resistance.' Chen Wujun mused to himself.

"Master it in here, and on flat ground you'll be fast and agile as anything!"

Chen Wujun's feet were buried in the sand, and instinctively he tried to yank his leg up.

"Don't pull — wade. Remember, training the Mud Wading Step, your roots must be like an old python, your form like a venomous snake. Not like an ox plowing a field!"

"When you feel the sand gripping your feet, don't fight it head-on. Use your waist and hips to drive your legs — like wringing a towel. You 'draw' the foot out. It's your hip joint leading your leg through the sand. Keep the sole of your foot against the ground at all times, and feel the sand flowing around it!"

"When you can move in here the same as you do on flat ground, then your footwork will truly be complete."

Senior Brother Li dumped all the key points on Chen Wujun at once, then dragged a chair to the side and settled in with his tea.

He left Chen Wujun to figure it out on his own.

Teaching Chen Wujun was no fun at all.

Every so often, when something occurred to him, he'd glance back and toss out a remark: "Wolf Fist trains integrated power. When you yank your leg, that's just your leg working. Drive with the waist and hips — that's what unity of waist and stance truly means."

Chen Wujun stood in the sand pit. The sand enveloped his ankles, his shins, burying him nearly to just below the knees.

He tried a Shock Step first, but unlike on solid ground, all the explosive force was swallowed by the sand. He barely managed an agonizing half-step forward.

But Chen Wujun didn't grow frustrated. He calmed his mind and began slowly rotating his hips, feeling how the hip movement guided his leg into a subtle twist. Immediately he could sense the sand shifting around him. With considerable effort, he managed a single "wading" step forward.

Yet after only seven or eight steps, his legs were already burning with fatigue.

'Wading through this stuff is brutally hard. And this is just going forward — moving laterally would be even worse.' Chen Wujun thought.

He stood in place to rest for a moment, then refocused his awareness on his waist and hips, absorbing the feel of the rotational force.

The sand pit was like an alchemist's crucible, forging all of Chen Wujun's disparate forces into one unified whole.

How to generate power to drive the legs, how to move with minimal resistance...

By evening, Senior Brother Li had left, and Chen Wujun went out to grab two orders of four-treasure rice. After eating, he dove straight back into the Warehouse, first holding an Old Bear Hugging Tree stance, then pulling on a pair of shorts and stepping into the sand pit once more.

Step by wading step, gradually, Chen Wujun discovered a wonderful sensation of "flowing power."

Each step in the sand pit was now guided by a subtle rotation of his waist and hips driving his feet. Though the effort required was still immense, each stride no longer felt quite so exhausting.

"I get it now!" Chen Wujun's bare torso, lined with clearly defined muscle, was slick with sweat that rolled down in rivulets.

But his face was alight with joy.

The next day, Senior Brother Li arrived at the Warehouse at six in the morning and found Chen Wujun hadn't shown up yet.

'Probably wiped out. He stayed later than even I did last night.'

A hint of schadenfreude played across Senior Brother Li's face. Back when he'd trained this wading step, it had taken him ages.

Even with Chen Wujun's talent, it would take at least a few days before he could move through it smoothly.

It wasn't until eight in the morning that Chen Wujun finally strolled in.

Senior Brother Li said nothing, just watched as Chen Wujun stripped off his outer clothes, pulled on his shorts, and stepped into the sand pit.

The next second, Senior Brother Li's eyes went wide and frozen.

A single thought filled his mind.

'What in the hell?!'