"The saber is relentless. Once drawn, it does not return."
Chen Anshun silently recited this couplet three times before turning to the second page.
The main content of the "White Tiger Frenzy Saber" was more concise than he had imagined. There were no flashy incantations, no lengthy explanations of inner techniques.
Each move was summarized in a single sentence, accompanied by a few ink-drawn diagrams of body movements. The drawings were rough, but the direction of the joints and the path of force transmission were clearly marked.
The Frenzy Saber had only three moves.
The first move, White Tiger Carries the Corpse.
"A fierce tiger pounces, relentless until death. With the corpse in its mouth, I am invincible."
The accompanying illustration depicted a figure holding a saber, lunging forward in a bow stance, the saber slashing diagonally from the waist, the blade following a downward arc.
It wasn't the common horizontal slash or vertical chop, but an upward slash from above, moving from outside to inside.
The tip of the saber was circled, marked with: throat.
Chen Anshun spread the book open on the square table, pressing it down with a teacup.
He lifted the long saber with its black scabbard in his right hand, pushed open the door to the main room, and stepped into the courtyard.
The bluestone slabs were laid flat, with no weeds growing in the gaps.
The courtyard wasn't large, about twenty paces in diameter, but ample for practicing with a saber.
A pomegranate tree stood in the southwest corner, its branches laden with fist-sized fruits, red and heavy, the skins taut and ready to split.
Moonlight shone on the bluestone, casting his elongated shadow.
Chen Anshun stood with the saber, feet shoulder-width apart.
No need to hide anymore.
This thought surfaced, and he paused for a moment.
For twenty years, in that stinking stable, he had practiced horse stance in secret, afraid of being laughed at if seen.
Now, he stood openly in his own courtyard, holding a forty-two-pound long saber.
No need to hide.
He exhaled a breath of turbid air, gripping the saber with his right hand, his left hand holding the end of the scabbard. His thumb pressed against the guard, pushing outward.
The blade slid out, the dark sheen flashing under the moonlight.
First move, White Tiger Carries the Corpse.
Chen Anshun recalled the body movements from the manual. He lunged forward in a bow stance, his weight sinking into his left leg, his right arm powering from the waist, guiding the saber along a diagonal arc.
He attempted a slash.
The force dissipated.
His waist hadn't twisted properly, his shoulder moved first, the arc of the blade went wildly off course, and as he finished, he nearly toppled into the pomegranate tree.
Not right.
He returned to his original position, closed his eyes, and mentally reviewed the manual. Bow stance, sink the waist, twist the hips, send the shoulder, draw the saber. Five actions, in one fluid motion.
The key was in the "twist the hips" step. The waist and hips were the pivot for force transmission; if the hips weren't twisted open, everything else was wasted.
Again.
The second slash was better than the first. The waist and hips twisted open, but the shoulder was half a beat slow, and the arc of the blade was still off.
The third slash. The hips were in place, the shoulder followed, but the finish was too rushed, the blade trembled in the air. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Fourth slash. Fifth slash. Sixth slash.
Each slash smoother than the last.
By the twentieth slash, Chen Anshun stopped.
He looked down at the long saber in his hand, then at the marks his footwork had left on the bluestone.
Not right.
Not "not right." Too smooth.
Twenty slashes. He had only needed twenty slashes to grasp the basic framework of White Tiger Carries the Corpse.
Lunging forward in a bow stance, sinking the waist and twisting the hips, sending the shoulder and drawing the saber, the blade slashing down along a diagonal arc, finishing with a return. The entire set of movements could already flow smoothly, though there were still slight hesitations, but the framework was established.
Twenty slashes to get started.
This speed was abnormal.
When he learned boxing at the Hongyang Martial Hall, it took him three months to get started with the most basic Beng Quan.
His master said he was dull-witted, the worst among his fellow disciples. What took him three months to learn, others could grasp in half a month.
That was boxing. This was saber. A saber was more complex than a fist, a weapon was an extension of the arm, adding another layer of transmission, logically it should be slower to learn.
But he had grasped it in twenty slashes.
Chen Anshun gripped the saber handle, pondering over and over in his mind.
It wasn't that he had suddenly become smarter. It was that sixty years of stance training hadn't been in vain.
What did the Hongyang Stance Art train? It trained the transmission of force. From the soles of the feet to the waist and hips, from the waist and hips to the shoulders and back, from the shoulders and back to the fists. Sixty years, day after day, this path of transmission was already etched into his bones.
What the saber technique required was the same path. Only the endpoint changed from the fists to the blade.
Sixty years of stance training gave him a foundation that others didn't have.
Poor aptitude, slow to gain strength, but his body's understanding of force transmission was deeper than most.
He learned boxing slowly because his foundation was weak back then. Now the foundation was strong, and switching to the saber, he was faster.
For the first time in so many years, he realized he wasn't so bad after all.
He couldn't help but laugh.
It wasn't a bitter laugh, not self-mockery. It was a kind of uncontainable joy welling up from his chest.
All those years of stance training hadn't been in vain.
Those winter nights squatting shirtless behind the stable, those mornings with snot frozen into ice, gritting his teeth and refusing to get up, those days and nights being seen as a crazy old man—all of it hadn't been in vain.
Chen Anshun thrust the saber forward, lunging in a bow stance, twisting his waist and hips, the blade slashing down along the familiar diagonal arc.
This slash, without hesitation.
The saber wind stirred the dust on the ground, the lowest branch of the pomegranate tree swayed with the force, and a ripe pomegranate fell to the ground with a thud, splitting in half, red seeds scattering everywhere.
Satisfying.
He sheathed the saber and turned to the second move.
West Gold Rending Wind.
"Gold signifies killing, the west belongs to gold. Rend the wind and all things yield."
The accompanying illustration was more complex than the first move. The figure holding the saber shifted from a bow stance to a side horse stance, the saber sweeping horizontally from behind the right shoulder, following a horizontal arc.
As the blade passed in front, there was a sudden acceleration, marked on the diagram with three short lines, indicating the point of force explosion.
Unlike White Tiger Carries the Corpse's direct throat strike, West Gold Rending Wind targeted the waist and abdomen. A horizontal slash within three feet, severing anything in its path.
More difficult than the first move. The force of the horizontal sweep needed to be even, the acceleration point precise, and the saber must not wobble when finishing.
But with the foundation of the first move, the speed of mastering the second move was even faster.
He practiced for about an hour, and the framework of West Gold Rending Wind was also established. Rough, but formed.
The third move, Furious Thunder Heavenly Prison.
"Thunderous force, unbreakable. Trap the enemy within, shatter with one slash."
As he turned to the manual, Chen Anshun's brow furrowed.
This move's illustration depicted three figures. One held a saber in the center, with two on either side. The saber wielder's blade followed an extremely strange trajectory—first a chop, then a lift, and finally a horizontal slash. The three actions weren't separate but merged into one slash. The blade's trajectory formed a closed circle in the air.
Trap the enemy within.
This wasn't a one-on-one killing move. It was a method for encirclement.
To fight many with one.
Chen Anshun stood in the center of the courtyard, mentally tracing the trajectory from the manual three times, and attempted the first slash.
The saber fell apart halfway through. The connection between the three actions was too complex, the force broke during the second lift, and the subsequent horizontal slash couldn't follow.
He sheathed the saber and tried again.
Still broke.
Again.
The break point moved back an inch.
Chen Anshun wasn't in a hurry.
The difficulty of this move wasn't on the same level as the first two. The first two were straight lines, this one was a closed curve. It couldn't be rushed.
He repeatedly broke it down, separating the three actions into individual steps, honing them one segment at a time.
Chop, twist the waist, lift, turn the wrist, horizontal slash, finish.
He practiced for another hour.
The three segments could barely be linked, but the connections were still stiff, far from truly getting started.
Chen Anshun sheathed the saber, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
The April night wind blew cool against his body, his sweat-dampened shirt clinging to his back.
Under the pomegranate tree, the split pomegranate still lay on the ground, its red seeds glistening in the moonlight.
Two hours, the first two moves mastered, the third move barely glimpsed.
This speed, in any martial hall, would qualify as "prodigy."
Chen Anshun leaned the saber against the wall, bent down to pick up the split pomegranate, and tore off a segment to eat.
Sweet.
Sweet with a hint of sour, the juice plentiful, trickling down his chin.
He sat down against the pomegranate tree, chewing the pomegranate while flipping through the annotations at the back of the "White Tiger Frenzy Saber." The annotations were concise: only when all three moves are mastered can they be integrated. Once integrated, the saber has no fixed form, moving as the heart desires.
Moving as the heart desires.
These words, easy to say.
But just mastering the first two moves brought him such joy; the road ahead was worth looking forward to.
Chen Anshun finished chewing the last pomegranate seed, spat the pit on the ground, and got up to go back inside to sleep.