Book 2 Chapter 9 - Early Glimpse into The Mystery
By the time Yun Yuzhen and the troops under her command left, it was almost dawn when the two boys finished dragging the sacks of salt into square-shaped piles that was empty in the middle. With their body weary and their strength exhausted, they entered the square and immediately fell into a deep slumber.
By that afternoon, voices from the shore have woken them up. The two boys crawled up and saw more than a dozen fast boats anchored on the shore. What attracted their attention the most were Han Gaitian and the pretty nun. Terrified, the two boys shrunk back and returned to the forest.
Fortunately Yun Yuzhen had given them direction earlier; otherwise, this time it would be like their wings have been plucked and not able to fly.
The two boys did not even have the courage to go outside to pick wild fruits. Even when the voices have gone, they still hid inside their cozy nest.
That evening suddenly a rain came. Luckily they had built roof from tree branches and sogon grass mixed with mud, which was able to deter most of the rainwater, so that the trickling water inside their nest was still bearable.
Kou Zhong happily said, "This rain is so timely, it will wash away the traces on the ground; that Han Pudi must have thought that we are already far away from here.” [Translator's Note: play on words: gai tian - covering the sky, pu di - falling face down on the earth/ground.]
Xu Ziling could not help laughing, "Gai Tian Pu Di, these names are as brilliant as that Yuwen Huagu.”
Kou Zhong reached out to stroke the almost-a-cun-long beard on Xu Ziling's face. He laughed and said, "Xiao Ling, you look a bit more macho now, it's just that your beard is a bit shorter than mine. Do you want me to pull them clean by my miraculous hands, so that you'll become ‘little white face' [i.e. pretty boy]?”
Xu Ziling pushed his hand away and said, "When our beard grew until we can't even recognize ourselves, then we can go sell our salt for profit. Do you understand?”
Kou Zhong slapped his thigh in praise; but then he said in distress, "Is our martial art skill that lacking? Why did we clearly feel in our heart that we would be able to block our beautiful Shifu's jade move, but our hands and feet did not want to obey us?”
Xu Ziling mused, "I never thought about that. In my opinion, we learned an exceptionally amazing power from the ‘Secret to Long Life', but we still cannot apply it to the moves. Moreover, each type of weapon has its own unique characteristic, which we have not grasped yet. Naturally we cannot use it as our hearts' wish.”
Kou Zhong raised his thumb to praise him, "This kid is amazing, he actually came up with the same idea I did. This proves that your natural endowments are as good as mine!”
They chatted and joked until darkness fell, and then the two boys slipped out. After they saw that the Haisha Bang people have left and not a single one remained, they left to find wild fruits to allay their hunger under the cover of darkness.
After that, the two boys tore each other apart on that beach and sparred against each other in high spirit. They thought that they might as well take off their clothes and just wore shorts, playing in the sea waves joyfully. It was not until Xu Ziling accidentally made a minor scratch Kou Zhong's arm did they stop their sparring.
Lying on the beach, the two boys found their interest waned, because no matter how diligent they trained, the true qi within their body and the styles of their movement could not be fused into one. Other than obtaining more understanding on how to use their weapons, it could be said that they did not gain anything.
Not too long afterwards, the two boys fell asleep.
When Xu Ziling awoke, bird songs entered his ears. He opened his eyes and looked up, and happened to see a seagull circling over the sea, its bearing natural and graceful, it looked so carefree and happy. The seagull suddenly dove down at an angle into the water. When it reappeared, there was a wriggling, struggling small fish in its claw.
Watching this, Xu Ziling's mind was severely shaken. He grabbed Kou Zhong at his side and said in hoarse voice, "I understand it!”
To his surprise, he was grabbing an empty space. Looking all around, he did not see any trace of Kou Zhong. Xu Ziling jumped in fright and shouted, "Kou Zhong!”
Suddenly something emerged from the sea; it was Kou Zhong. He saw on one hand Kou Zhong was holding his sword, on the other hand he had a big fish. Immensely proud of himself he called out, "Today we won't have to nibble those bird's tasteless wild fruits.”
Xu Ziling did not say anything. He fetched the short halberd lying beside him and rushed toward Kou Zhong, who was walking from the sea to the beach. "Kid, take this!” he shouted.
Kou Zhong laughed aloud while brandishing his sword to meet the attack, "Little thief, you are asking for death!”
At this time Xu Ziling's mind was filled with the image of the trajectory of the seagull swooping down into the sea, his heart and mind in harmony, his intention and his hand working together, he completely grasped Kou Zhong's sword movement and his footwork, as well as his speed. He let out a long whistle, while imitating the seagull's trajectory, the short halberd drew an arc in the air.
The most amazing thing happened.
The sole of his left foot heated up, but the sole of his right foot turned incomparably cold; exactly the opposite of what usually happened during his training, where the sole of his right foot would heat up first.
The amazing thing was not limited to this at all. Previously, the heat would appear first and then the cold. This time however, the heat and the cold occurred together. Followed by two separate streams of qi, one hot and one cold, rushed upward from the Yong Quan [gushing spring] acupoints on the soles of his left and right feet, passing through the Yin Qiao channel on the inside of his legs, and reached the Sheng Si orifices on his crotch, passing through the Chong channels on his left and right chest, and returned to the Jiang Guan position below his heart, the cold and hot qi converged to become one stream, going down the Dai channel, extending toward the small of his back left and right, and going up along the Du channel toward his shoulders, and rushed down via Yang Shu channel on the outside of his elbow. The true qi flowed naturally, without human interference at all. [Sorry, I am sure my translation is off since I know nothing of Chinese medicine.]
‘Dang!' Amid the miserable groan, the palm of Kou Zhong's hand was jolted open, his sword was thrown backward.
The two boys stopped instantly and just stared at each other blankly.
Meanwhile, the strange qi within Xu Ziling's body kept flowing along the Yin Shu channel on the inside of his elbow, and returned to Jiang Gong, down to Sheng Si orifice, following the Yin Qiao channel inside his leg. It flowed back to the Yong Quan acupoint before vanishing.
Kou Zhong tossed away the fish he caught and used that hand to hold his other hand, which was very painful, while he squatted in the shallow water. "What bird's thing was that?” he cried out. [Translator's note: I just realized that Kou Zhong used the word ‘bird' a lot …]
Xu Ziling plopped himself down in the water and said in ecstasy, "I got it now! Niang, Du Fuwei, our beautiful Shifu Bangzu, were right. ‘Secret to Long Life' does not have anything to do with martial art, however, it is the key to unlock the mystery of the universe. We have heard it before that human body is a small universe, while the world outside our bodies is another universe. Therefore, as long as we can grasp the natural essence of these two universes, inner and outer universes will merge together, and will be fused into one entity. Just like the move I have just launched.”
This remark, perhaps only if Guang Chengzi [see Book 1, Chapter 1] came back to life would he be able to infer it clearly. However, even if top-notch expert listened to this, he might still be confused. As a matter of fact, it was precisely the martial art's highest, most ideal principle of oneness of heaven and humanity.
By lucky coincidence Xu Ziling arrived at this conclusion and simply blurted it out, but he did not know that his remark would be the starting point of their journey to become the peerless martial art expert of this age in the future.
Throughout history, no one has ever obtained this comprehension. Of course, one of the many reasons was that no one has ever imagined that they would blindly and randomly train the internal energy cultivation according to the ‘Secret to Long Life' either.
Xu Ziling explained what he saw about the seagull. Kou Zhong was greatly delighted; he picked up the sword and roared, "Try it again. Remember that you can only strike this martial art expert's sword.”
Xu Ziling acknowledged the order. Grasping the short halberd, he repeated his strike just now.
‘Ding!' Kou Zhong blocked it with all his strength.
Xu Ziling was disappointed, "How come this time it didn't work?”
"Go back to the beach,” Kou Zhong instructed, "Rush forward just like you did last time. The problem could be that you have not generated enough heat in your body.”
Xu Ziling thought it made sense; he did as Kou Zhong instructed. Who would have thought that it was still completely useless? The brilliance was gone.
Afterwards, no matter how they trained, they could not reproduce the formidable power of that one strike. Finally the two boys lay down dejectedly on the beach, extremely frustrated.
Kou Zhong turned around to lie face down on the fine sand, with his fist he hammered the ground, "What is the problem?” he asked.
Xu Ziling had a brainwave, "That day when Li Dage was seriously injured and lost consciousness, you went out to find a mule cart, I was bored and practiced Li Dage's ‘Bloody Battle Ten Styles'. That time Jiejie was scared and told me to stop, because my saber emitted hot wind and saber aura. But afterwards, when I fought the enemy for real, I could not generate either hot wind or saber aura. Worse yet, as soon as I met the enemy face-to-face, my saber was twisted and thrown away. If we could figure out why it was so, maybe we could solve the problem.”
Kou Zhong's spirit was greatly aroused; he sat up and asked, "When you practiced your saber play that time, what did you think?”
Recalling the situation that time, Xu Ziling said slowly, "Nothing. I just wanted to practice my saber play so that I could protect Li Dage and Jiejie, and not let them to come to any harm.”
Greatly shaken, Kou Zhong said, "I got it. It's what Niang told us about forgetting everything, inside and out; no-man no-self, the borderline between with and without intention. Just now you when you attacked me, basically you did not expect that it could be that formidable, hence you were able to reach the realm where inside and outside universes converged completely and became one entity, exactly like Niang said, ‘forgetting everything, inside and out'. Afterwards, you had the intention, hence you could not achieve the same realm.”
That was what they said, but for the following ten days or so, the two boys practiced from morning till evening, yet all along they failed to achieve the effect they wanted, that strike that was as if a divine being was behind it.
However, they were, after all, young boys. They were accustomed to live a lazy life back in Yangzhou; unexpectedly, they stopped training altogether, and just spending their days hunting for fish in the ocean, feeling totally free and at leisure, and very cheerful.
One day, when they returned from the sea to the beach, Kou Zhong said, "Did you notice how the fish escape our catch? At first they concentrated their attention completely, and then with a flick of their tail, they slipped away at an unimaginable angle, and it also made full use of the stream characteristics. If we could copy some of successful skill, even if our beautiful Shifu returned, perhaps it wouldn't be so easy for her to beat us askew to the left and collapse to the right.”