Madman!

Chapter 44: Kung Fu Comes Alive

"Look at how they build houses outside—they always lay the foundation first. If the foundation isn't solid, the building collapses before it's even finished!"

"The principle is universal. If you want to raise a tall building from flat ground, you need to lay firm groundwork. In kung fu, Stance Training is that foundation!"

When Zhou Qing learned that Chen Wujun wanted to study Swimming Dragon Palm, his expression didn't change in the slightest. He simply spoke with calm composure.

"Your Old Bear Hugging Tree has taken root. Today, you'll learn another stance—White Crane Exploring Branch."

"Old Bear Hugging Tree descends from the pre-war Baguazhang bear-form stance. It emphasizes thick, heavy power—opening the hips and establishing a central axis."

"White Crane Exploring Branch, on the other hand, originates from the pre-war White Crane Fist's crane imagery. Later practitioners combined it with key elements from Xingyiquan's Santi posture. What it trains is clean force—forward and rear awareness, probing and pressing along a line. The steps are stable yet light, the reactions agile, the body coordinated."

"These two stances, one heavy and one light—the bear establishes the foundation, the crane establishes the form..."

Chen Wujun listened intently to Zhou Qing's explanation.

Old Arts didn't mean clinging to broken relics. After all, those who came after stood on the shoulders of those who came before, seeing farther, innovating and evolving with the times.

The Old Arts as they existed today had all been redeveloped from pre-war martial arts. They bore the shadow of those ancient disciplines, yet were something entirely different."When entering the posture, stand like a crane on a shallow shoal—light but not floating... Three-point support on the sole, heel suspended but not dropped. One hand forms a crane's beak reaching forward, the other presses back behind the iliac crest. The crown hangs as if from a thread, the neck stretches upward..."

As Zhou Qing spoke, he balanced on one leg, the other raised. One hand extended forward in a crane's beak, the other pressed down and back behind his body. His back unfurled, spreading like a crane opening its wings. Then his other leg stepped out, and his leading hand shot forward in a lightning-fast peck.

The instant his leading hand struck, a crane's cry pierced the air, and every hair on Chen Wujun's body stood on end.

It truly resembled a white crane hunting on a shallow shoal—still as a maiden, swift as a thunderclap.

That crane's cry, especially, left him deeply shaken.

"Use sound to transform qi, use sound to drive force. When the sound arrives, your power arrives." After that reaching peck, Zhou Qing's movements shifted seamlessly.

Where his right hand had formed the beak and his left had pressed empty, now his left hand became the beak and his right pressed empty.

Zhou Qing's left hand pecked forward, and another crane's cry rang out.

This time Chen Wujun saw it clearly. Zhou Qing's abdomen first swelled like a ball, then the energy surged upward.

It was as if a mass of air slithered like a python from his belly straight into his chest cavity, and finally his throat rolled, expelling that mass of air outward.

"Did you see it clearly? Without the earth to bear its weight, the crane cannot launch its strike. Without the crane reaching into the sky, the earth remains a dead thing. When the two complement each other—that's when your kung fu truly comes alive."

Zhou Qing withdrew his stance and turned to look at Chen Wujun.

"I grasped a bit of it!" Chen Wujun replied while replaying and pondering what he'd seen.

Zhou Qing didn't rush him.

After a moment, Chen Wujun stood on one leg, gripping the ground with only his toes and the ball of his foot, his head held as if suspended from a string above.

"Good. The form of White Crane Exploring Branch cannot scatter—you must stand along a single line."

"Like a crane on a shallow shoal. On the inhale, the back broadens like wings spreading. On the exhale, the shoulder wells soften, and the force travels to the tip of the middle finger." Zhou Qing nodded slightly from the side.

After just a single demonstration and a few key pointers, Chen Wujun had managed to replicate the movements with fair accuracy.

Though some issues remained, he had grasped the essentials.

Teaching Chen Wujun didn't require much explanation—his comprehension alone was quite impressive.

"Sink the shoulders, drop the elbows. Extend the front hand one more line forward. The rear palm brushes downward like skimming water... It's a press, not a push..."

"Stay still, quiet the mind, listen to the Yongquan point. Find the force in the soles of your feet, not in the shoulders..."

"Inhale four counts, exhale six..."

Chen Wujun felt as though his right arm was gliding along an invisible track, extending forward, while his left palm quietly supported from behind and below...

Before long, he felt something like two pebbles lodged in his shoulders.

"Master, it feels like two buttons have locked my shoulders in place... The more I exhale, the tighter they get. I can't move at all." Chen Wujun paused and couldn't help speaking up.

"Use a crystal to unlock them," Zhou Qing replied unhurriedly.

Chen Wujun fished a Magnetic Field Crystal from his person and tucked it under his tongue, then resumed the White Crane Exploring Branch stance.

He had only been corrected once before, yet his body had already memorized the movements. This time, Zhou Qing couldn't find anything to criticize either.

"Like a crane on a shallow shoal..." With each breath, Chen Wujun's back muscles spread and retracted, again and again, as if a white crane were ceaselessly unfurling its wings.

Soon, the locked sensation in his shoulders returned, growing tighter and more sore, until finally the soreness faded, replaced by a thread of coolness—as if a line had opened from the hollow of his shoulder, running along his arm straight to his fingertips, coaxing his leading hand to reach forward one fraction more.

At last, he understood what Zhou Qing had always meant by "clean force."

The moment that line pulled taut, his body couldn't help wanting to extend forward.

"That's it—that 'thread of coolness.' Once the line arrives, don't chase it. Lock the form in place." Zhou Qing spoke from beside him.

Another moment passed, and Chen Wujun felt his supporting foot planted firmly while his empty foot's forefoot seemed to rest on the surface of water, drifting with the current. His body instinctively wanted to reach forward one more inch.

"Don't be greedy!" Zhou Qing's finger flicked lightly against the back of Chen Wujun's hand, instantly jolting him from that involuntary urge to extend further.

"Clean force means 'advance one line, hold one line.' If you push further now, you're snatching."

Chen Wujun immediately steadied his mind.

He didn't know how long he stood there. He felt a breath of air swell in his abdomen, like water boiling inside a kettle, steam rising ceaselessly. Then that air surged upward from his belly, climbing through his chest, and his throat rolled.

Chen Wujun opened his mouth and released a sound like the whistle of a boiling kettle—a crane's trill.

It was far less clear and sharp than Zhou Qing's cry, lacking that keen edge.

Immediately after, he lunged forward with a fierce step, his hand shooting out in a lightning-fast grab.

The motion itself tore through the air with an audible crack, as if a swordsman had thrust forward and pierced the very air.

Then sweat erupted from his forehead and all over his body, drenching him as though he'd been pulled from a river.

Yet Chen Wujun's expression held no trace of exhaustion. If anything, his eyes burned brighter than before.

He knew he'd gotten it right.

A full two or three minutes passed before his heartbeat settled. He felt as if his shoulders and upper back had been carrying a heavy weight all along—and now that weight had been lifted.

His shoulders, back, and arms all moved with unprecedented freedom.

"Master, what was that breath of air?"

"The old explanation was 'qi gathering in the dantian.' The modern explanation is that the diaphragm descends, the abdominal muscles tighten, and enormous pressure builds within the abdominal cavity. This pressure stabilizes the spine and recruits deeper muscle fibers to contract. During this process, your abdominal cavity essentially becomes a high-pressure air tank."

"So that's how it works..." Chen Wujun half-understood at best.

The key points of stance training and form practice—those he could grasp the moment he heard them and master the moment he tried.

But his master's scientific explanations left him in a fog.

And it was all so... scientific!

"Focus on perfecting this White Crane Exploring Branch over the coming days. Once you do, your kung fu will come alive—then you can move on to other things." Zhou Qing dropped that single remark, turned, and strolled away with his hands clasped behind his back.

Chen Wujun stood in place, loosening his body, then ran through a full set of Wolf Fist. His body had never felt so light and agile. Many movements had greater range than before, and his balance was noticeably better too.

His lower body was rooted like a tree, while his upper body moved with effortless fluidity.

'Before, when I practiced Wolf Fist, it was solid and fierce, sure—but it carried a kind of dead force. Now that White Crane Exploring Branch has opened up my shoulders, back, and arms, every punch carries a living force.'

'No wonder Master said that when the two complement each other, your kung fu comes alive.'

After running through Wolf Fist several times, he finally picked up a towel from the side and wiped the sweat from his body.

Then a thought struck him like a bolt.

'This is bad!'

'Old Bear Hugging Tree already costs five crystals a month. Now that I'm training White Crane Exploring Branch, that's another five crystals.'

'And from what Senior Sister said, I still need to master Tiger Descending Mountain and Spirit Ape Hanging on Beam too. Wouldn't that mean... twenty crystals a month?'

'One crystal costs five thousand dollars, and that's Hetu's internal price. On the open market, it's eight thousand each.'

'Twenty of them... that's a hundred thousand a month!'

Chen Wujun stood with his head bowed, calculating for a long while, his expression growing increasingly grim.

"Old Arts are somehow even more expensive than New Arts... No wonder nobody practices them..." Chen Wujun felt a headache coming on.

Just yesterday, he'd been thrilled about earning fifty or sixty thousand a month.

Now he realized that amount barely covered half his monthly crystal expenses.

And that was only for now.

Down the road, he'd probably need even more.

'Forget it. Worrying won't help. There's always a way to make money.'

'Senior Sister said she'd cover the crystals I need for training during this period. All I have to do is focus on my martial arts.'

'If I lose the arena duel, I won't even make it off that stage alive—so how much it costs won't matter anyway.'

'As long as I win, half that street becomes mine. Add in some of the businesses along it, and even if it's not enough, the gap shouldn't be too large.'

'I just need to put in a little thought, and I can always scrape together the rest from somewhere.'

'Besides, I kept all those loan shark IOUs. That's a slow and steady stream of income—once they've collected some debts, I'll go rob them again.'