Madman!

Chapter 53: Turtle Back, Crane Form

When Chen Wujun walked out of Jindi Finance, he was carrying a small bag containing sixty-three thousand dollars.

The two gambling dens had netted a combined total of two hundred sixty thousand this month. He'd handed over a hundred thirty thousand to Shark Jiu and paid out just over sixty thousand to the foot soldiers.

Everything left was his.

'So that's why everyone wants to climb higher. Once you're at the top, the money just flows in while you sit back and relax.'

'Now that I've climbed this far, there's no way in hell I'm going back down. Whoever blocks my path can go die.'

'Ji Xiang acts friendly toward me on the surface, but underneath he's got problems with me. Maybe it's pure personal dislike, or maybe he thinks the same way I do — that I'm standing in his way.'

'After all, Senior Sister and I are from the same school, which makes us closer than anyone else... and she's helped me plenty. If I were useless, it wouldn't matter, but if I keep performing well, I'll eventually threaten his position.'

Chen Wujun mulled this over as he walked back, turning the thoughts around in his mind.

Ever since he'd internalized the lesson of pulling weeds by the roots — never giving others a chance — his perspective on the people around him had shifted once again.

Back at his place, Chen Wujun pulled out the cash and counted it once. Then counted it again.He really enjoyed counting money.

"Keeping a hundred thirty thousand in cash here is way too risky. I should get a bank card... but opening an account requires my parents to co-sign..."

"Better to get a few cards through the foot soldiers and split it up across different accounts. Though once the money grows, splitting it won't cut it either. I've heard banks flag large deposits from unverifiable sources... I should ask Senior Sister how to handle it."

After carefully hiding all the cash, Chen Wujun pulled out his notebook and flipped to the back pages, which were packed with dense scribbling.

January 19th. Ji Xiang and his people have issues with me...

...

"Anything going on at the martial arts hall tomorrow? Your mom needs to buy spring couplets and stock up on New Year supplies. If you're free, go with her." Chen Hanliang asked Chen Wujun during dinner.

"Sure!" Chen Wujun nodded.

His main training right now revolved around the four stances — Bear, Crane, Tiger, and Ape — and missing a day at the hall wouldn't affect his practice.

Besides, shopping wouldn't take the whole day.

"Straighten your back. Stop hunching your chest like that — it looks terrible. You never used to slouch." Chen Hanliang reached over and slapped Chen Wujun's back twice, but instead of hitting flesh, it felt like slapping a slab of stone.

His face immediately filled with surprise.

"Why is your back so hard?"

"It's from martial arts training. My back is thick, not hunched," Chen Wujun replied flatly.

As his training progressed, his physique had been gradually developing into what was known as Turtle Back, Crane Form — the muscles across his back were extraordinarily thick and full, with his shoulder blades spreading wide to each side in a slight arc, while his neck had grown somewhat longer and appeared slender.

"And another thing — how are your arms growing faster than your height? Your sleeves are all too short now." Huang Meizhen chimed in.

"They have grown a bit," Chen Wujun nodded. This was the change the Spirit Ape Hanging Beam stance had wrought on his body. Over the past month, both arms had lengthened by roughly a fist's width.

His thighs and waist were now tremendously powerful, while his upper body embodied the Turtle Back, Crane Form. His arms carried evenly distributed muscle, appearing long and lean yet possessing frightening strength.

Sitting still, he radiated the immovable stability of a mountain. But when he exploded into motion, it was like a volcanic eruption — raw, devastating power.

Chen Wujun had tested his punching force at the Hetu Martial Arts Hall yesterday. Channeling every ounce of strength in his body into a single unified stream, he'd registered a reading of 570 kilograms.

Three weeks ago, he could only manage 513.

And this wasn't even the phase where Tiger Descending Mountain produced the fastest strength gains.

According to his master, the first four weeks of this stance were about twisting the body's entire force into one cohesive current, coiling the body like a compressed spring storing energy.

Weeks four through eight were when strength growth would truly accelerate.

The next morning, Chen Wujun threw on a dress shirt and slacks to accompany his mother Huang Meizhen on her New Year shopping trip. The temperature hovered around fifteen degrees Celsius, but in just a shirt, Chen Wujun felt no chill at all — another change brought about by his training.

"How about this one? It'd look great on you!" His mother snatched a blue-and-white jacket from a street stall and held it up against him.

"I'll buy my own clothes later," Chen Wujun replied.

Nothing on these stalls cost more than fifty bucks. He didn't wear that kind of stuff anymore.

A single dress shirt of his ran several hundred.

"Don't let the price fool you — the fabric's actually decent, and it's warm. Wear your dress shirt underneath with this over it, and you'll be nice and cozy." Huang Meizhen still thought the jacket suited her son perfectly.

"Fine, that one then." Seeing how set Huang Meizhen was on buying it, Chen Wujun let her have her way.

"Boss, how much for this one?"

"Great eye! That'll look fantastic on him — only thirty bucks!" The vendor was so busy his feet barely touched the ground, sparing only a distracted compliment before rushing off.

It was nearly noon before the two of them, laden with bags of every size, made their way toward the dental clinic. The streets were packed with people, the crushing flow of bodies stoking an irritable buzz in Chen Wujun's chest.

Bags in hand, Chen Wujun simply plowed forward, using his shoulders to part the crowd like a wedge.

Some people felt an irresistible force shove them aside and whipped around with furious glares — only to take one look at Chen Wujun's build and swallow their words.

Chen Wujun stood only about five foot eight, but beneath his shirt, his back was extraordinarily broad.

Despite being only five-eight, he projected the presence of someone six-four.

"Don't walk so fast! You're bumping into people!" Huang Meizhen called out from behind.

"They were just stepping aside on their own — cleared the way, so I sped up!" Chen Wujun swept one arm outward, casually brushing the person ahead more than half a meter to the side, while turning his head to answer.

Two bystanders crashed into each other.

"You blind or what?!" a young man spun around and snapped.

Chen Wujun stared at him, expressionless, his eyes blazing with an unnerving intensity.

The young man took one look at Chen Wujun's frame, and his gaze promptly sailed right past him to land on a small child standing on Chen Wujun's other side. "I'm talking to you, kid! What are you shoving for? Where are your parents?!"

Chen Wujun bulldozed a clear path straight through the packed crowds of Longjin Street, and the two of them arrived at the clinic.

Huang Meizhen grabbed a fistful of loose change and handed it to Chen Hanliang.

"Small bills!"

"Every holiday, those junkies come around begging for handouts!" Chen Hanliang grumbled.

"Those shameless addicts — a dollar or two is enough to shoo them off, but you've always got to have plenty of change ready."

Chen Wujun knew about this too. Every holiday without fail, the addicts would go door to door hitting up every shop for money.

The shopkeepers didn't want trouble, so they'd toss them a buck or two and send them on their way.

"I'll go grab some Four Treasure rice." Chen Wujun strolled off and came back with several boxes. The three of them ate, and afterward he helped carry everything home before heading to the martial arts hall to train.

...

Two days later. The Warehouse.

Chen Wujun stripped off his outer shirt, revealing a body packed with muscle. The Turtle Back, Crane Form was even more pronounced now.

His arms were also noticeably longer than average.

When he practiced his punches, both arms moved with extraordinary fluidity, lashing out like twin steel whips. Each strike cracked forward swift as wind and thunder, every motion trailing a gust of displaced air.

And when his feet shifted, his movement was stable yet never clumsy.

Though this past month and a half had been nothing but stance training, the difference from where he'd started was night and day.

Chen Wujun had now cultivated the upper-tier skills of Body Forging. Stance work alone had brought about a staggering transformation.

Zhou Qing walked in and noticed Chen Wujun drilling his punches. He watched with an appreciative gaze for a few moments.

Then Chen Wujun pulled his power back and stopped.

"Master!"

"Not bad. Your Stance Training has reached a solid level — you're ready to learn something new."

Hearing those words, a surge of excitement shot through Chen Wujun's heart. At last, it was time to learn Swimming Dragon Palm.

"Before the war, there was an internal martial art called Eight Trigram Palm — also known as Roaming Body Eight Trigram Palm, or Continuous Eight Trigram Palm. It was widely practiced. Unfortunately, after the war... very few who knew this art survived, and most of its core teachings were lost."

"Thirty years after the war, someone reconstructed the forms of Eight Trigram Palm and used them to create a new style called Swimming Dragon Eight Trigram Palm."

"Over the years, through successive generations of refinement, practitioners built upon Swimming Dragon Eight Trigram Palm — discarding what was useless, integrating elements from the New Arts that emerged after the war — until it evolved into the art we know today: Swimming Dragon Palm."

"Swimming Dragon Palm blends softness with hardness, yielding and explosive in equal measure. The body flows through walking, threading, twisting, and flipping — but when the palms strike, they detonate with savage force!"

"Swimming Dragon Palm prioritizes movement above all. It consists of eight steps and eight palms! The palms follow the body's changes; the steps follow the palms' rotation. The principle is: one step, one palm change. Every step can be a strike. You can hit from anywhere!"

"For Swimming Dragon Palm, your feet must glide as though wading through mud, your lower body steady as a millstone, your upper body light as a swallow — and you're already close to meeting those requirements!"

As Zhou Qing explained, he settled into the Swimming Dragon Palm stance. His feet turned slowly, tracing a circle in eight steps, his palm techniques flowing in tandem with his footwork — every step bringing a new change.

Chen Wujun's eyes lit up. The Mud-Wading Step he'd practiced before, along with the Bear, Crane, Tiger, and Ape stances — they had all been laying the foundation for this very art.

After completing his explanation, Zhou Qing removed his shirt.

His body was a landscape of knotted, corded muscle. His back was thick and expansive, while his arms and neck were sheathed in streamlined muscle. When he spread his arms wide, two mounds of flesh rose on his back like a pair of wings folded against his frame.

His Turtle Back, Crane Form was far more developed than Chen Wujun's.

What was especially striking was Zhou Qing's skin. From the outside, the man looked to be around fifty years old, but the skin on his body was as taut and smooth as an infant's.

Not a hint of sagging or wrinkling anywhere. Chen Wujun compared it to his own skin and concluded that Zhou Qing's was actually tighter and more refined than his.

"Watch carefully!" Zhou Qing commanded, his voice deep and resonant. Then he demonstrated Swimming Dragon Palm once more.

Chen Wujun suddenly noticed the muscles across Zhou Qing's back rippling in wave-like succession, the force transferring through his body — and then his palm shot out with a sharp crack, as if it had detonated the very air itself, releasing a thunderous boom.