The old monk turned and walked toward the inner courtyard after speaking. Although Liang Yan was puzzled and wanted to ask him about it, seeing that he had no intention of explaining at all, he could only let the matter drop and follow the old monk inside.
In the inner courtyard, the two stood facing each other.
“Amitabha. The man who caused your father’s death has already faced the law. The remaining man is nothing more than a blind man, and he didn’t actually make a move. Can’t you put down this grudge and devote yourself to cultivating the Dao?”
“I was wondering what this was about. So the old monk still came to be a persuader. Since that’s the case, there’s no need to say any more. The hatred of my father’s murder means we cannot live under the same sky. How could I not avenge him?!”
The old monk had long since regarded Liang Yan as half a disciple in his heart and had wanted to give him some guidance at this moment. But after hearing these words, he couldn’t help growing secretly annoyed and inwardly cursed, “What a muddleheaded brat.”
For a time, neither spoke, merely standing opposite each other in the inner courtyard. Suddenly, the old monk raised his right hand, extended his index finger, and tapped Liang Yan on the forehead. Liang Yan immediately felt a stab of pain, and his instinctive reaction was to raise his hand to block it.
But the next moment, a mnemonic formula appeared out of nowhere in Liang Yan’s mind. It was profound and obscure, seemingly a method for circulating qi and refining qi. Liang Yan immediately understood that the old monk was transmitting a cultivation method to him, so he lowered his hands and stood still, no longer resisting.
A moment later, the old monk withdrew his right hand, and a complete mnemonic formula had also appeared in Liang Yan’s mind. Liang Yan took a deep breath, bent his knees, and was about to kneel and perform the rites of acknowledging a master.
The old monk reached out and lifted his hand. At once, an invisible force rose upward, supporting Liang Yan’s legs and preventing him from kneeling.
“There’s no need for such ceremony. What I’ve passed on to you is nothing more than shallow surface knowledge, merely a method for entering the gate. Let me make this clear beforehand: I am not your master, and you are not my disciple. When you travel outside in the future, you may not address each other as master and disciple either. Do you understand?”
Liang Yan was stunned for a moment and could only nod blankly.
“Go out and say your farewells to the people outside first. We’ll set off immediately.”
“Where are we going?”
“To find an old acquaintance.”
Liang Yan’s head was now filled with questions. Why would the old monk teach him immortal arts yet refuse to call themselves master and disciple? He thought it over and over but still couldn’t understand. While he was lost in thought, he had already returned to the main hall.
Suddenly, a fragrant breeze brushed against his face. A lovely and gentle little girl with her hair tied into twin braids came trotting all the way over to him. It was Wan’er.
She grabbed Liang Yan’s hand and said in a half-pleading tone, “Brother Liang, just come with me to the capital and have a look around. The capital is really fun.”
“I can’t. I still have other things I need to do right now.”
Wan’er looked utterly disappointed, her little face filled with grievance, but she still forced herself to perk up and said, “Then promise me that you’ll definitely come to the capital and play with me someday.”
Distracted, Liang Yan gave an “Mm.”
Only then did Wan’er’s expression turn from rain to clear skies, and she burst into a giggle. At the same time, she extended the little finger of her right hand and hooked it around Liang Yan’s little finger.
“Then it’s a promise. Hook pinkies and hang ourselves, no changing for a hundred years!”
Liang Yan came back to his senses and stared blankly at Wan’er. His face inexplicably reddened, and this time he earnestly gave an “Mm.”
Wan’er seemed to have heard the happiest thing under heaven. Her pretty face was fair with a rosy tint, making her exceedingly adorable. Just then, Lin Ziqing’s voice called from outside the courtyard. Only then did Wan’er reluctantly release her little hand and walk outside, looking back from time to time as she went.
“You definitely have to come to the capital!”
Liang Yan silently nodded and looked outside. The woman in red and the others had already finished packing. She lifted Wan’er into the carriage and prepared to set out. Seeing Liang Yan looking over, she also nodded to him in acknowledgment, then leapt onto her horse and slowly departed with the group.
Liang Yan stood silently for a moment before turning back toward the inner courtyard. Looking at that withered figure from behind, he said, “Old monk, let’s go too.”
Winter passed and spring arrived. In the blink of an eye, a year had gone by.
On this day, the sky stretched clear for ten thousand li. On a small path through a dense forest, a caravan had stopped to make camp.
Among the caravan was a young scholar dressed like a man of letters, holding an ink-painted folding fan in his hand. He was shaking his head grandly as he recited poems and verses, seemingly becoming intoxicated with them himself.
At the rear of the caravan, a middle-aged man who looked like a steward was frowning, his face filled with disdain. Someone beside him said, “Steward Lu, the young master is getting more and more outrageous. This poetry of his doesn’t make a dog’s fart of sense.”
“Hmph, the young master is young and loves to play. He doesn’t like studying and instead insists on seeking out chivalrous recluses in bustling markets and immortals who have attained the Dao. Who knows how many deep mountains he’s visited or how many temples he’s donated to over these years.”
“Exactly. Take that old monk we ran into on the road yesterday. Who knows which temple he’s from, and he even had a little disciple with him. Look at how he’s nothing but skin wrapped around bones. How does he look anything like an eminent monk who has attained the Dao? Yet the young master insisted on getting out of the carriage and treating him courteously, even bringing them along with us. He’s been supplying them with good food and drink the entire way. It’s simply fooling around.”
Steward Lu coughed and said, “Enough. Stop talking about it. It’s not as if you don’t know the young master’s temperament. He especially favors these ‘eminent monks who have attained the Dao.’”
When he said the words “eminent monks who have attained the Dao,” he deliberately emphasized them, his gaze shifting toward an old monk sitting cross-legged at the rear. The mockery in his expression couldn’t have been more obvious.
After a pause, he continued, “The young master has been deeply doted on by the madam since childhood. We servants need only do our own duties properly. Don’t make reckless comments!”
When everyone heard this, they hurriedly nodded in agreement.
Just then, a swordsman in green at the very front of the caravan suddenly shouted, “Everyone, be on guard!”
One stone stirred up a thousand layers of waves. The dozen or so guards who had been gnawing on dry rations almost simultaneously drew their weapons and formed a circle with guarded expressions.
A strange laugh came from among the trees.
“Jiejie! Brat, your reactions are pretty quick.”
A burly man then walked out from behind a tree, a massive bronze hammer weighing dozens of jin resting on his shoulder. Four fierce bandits followed behind him, one holding a saber, one carrying an axe, and the remaining two wielding swords.
The moment the swordsman in green clearly saw the five of them, his heart gave a thump as though it had suffered a heavy blow. He then cupped his fists and gave a bitter smile.
“So its the Five Tigers of the Five Tigers and Three Wolves of Fengyun Stronghold. I’ve long admired your great titles.”
“Hahaha! Little brat, you’ve got some knowledge. Since you know who we are, hurry up and hand over your gold, silver, and valuables. We won’t do anything like cutting the weeds and pulling out the roots either. Hand over your wealth, and we’ll leave you a road to live.”
The swordsman in green felt bitter inside. If he encountered any one of the Five Tigers alone, he still wouldn’t have complete confidence in winning. Now that all Five Tigers had arrived together, although he had many men under him, none of them were opponents who could withstand even a single exchange against these people. If a fight truly broke out, there probably wouldn’t be a single survivor.
But there was an important item in the carriage that the city lord had personally ordered must not be lost. If he offered it up with both hands, then after returning to the city and being held accountable by the city lord, not only would he certainly lose his life, even his elderly mother, wife, and children in the city would have difficulty escaping punishment.
“Looks like our only choice is to gather everyone’s strength and fight them. I’ll take advantage of the chaos to escape with that item. Mm, if circumstances permit, I’ll also have to take this concubine-born son of the city lord with me.”
While the swordsman in green was thinking, the Five Tigers were already growing impatient. The saber-wielding bandit in particular had a temper as fiery as fire. Seeing him remain silent for so long, he shouted, “Big Brother, this brat is hemming and hawing and still holding on to luck. Let me go chop off a few heads first!”
Without even waiting for an answer, he charged straight at one of the guards and swung his saber down.
How could that guard have ever seen such speed? In his panic, he drew his sword to block.
Clang!
Saber and sword collided, and the longsword snapped at the sound. The saber continued onward without losing any momentum, sweeping toward the guard’s neck.
Just as everyone thought his head was about to separate from his body and his corpse fall on the spot, the saber abruptly stopped, freezing one inch from his neck and unable to advance even the slightest bit farther.
Everyone looked up and saw a boy of around ten years old standing atop the blade. He had black clothes and black hair, with a tree branch resting over his right shoulder. Half of a deliciously fragrant roasted wild boar was skewered on the branch. From the looks of it, he had actually just returned from hunting and roasting his catch.
The saber-wielding bandit was drenched in sweat. He used even the strength he’d used to suck milk as a baby trying to pull his saber back, but it was as if the blade had been nailed into midair and wouldn’t budge in the slightest.
His heart filled with terror, and he shouted, “Big Brother, this mark is prickly! Brothers, go at him shoulder to shoulder!”
Someone in the caravan moved beside the swordsman in green and whispered, “Leader, should we go up and help?”
The swordsman in green pondered briefly before saying, “No hurry. This brat didn’t show the mountain or reveal the water before. Clearly, he wants to pretend to be a pig to eat the tiger. Let’s quietly watch how things change first and see just how strong he is.”
While they were talking, the Five Tigers had already swarmed forward.
The hammer-wielding bandit gripped his bronze hammer and charged from the front. The axe-wielder had already silently circled around behind the boy, preparing a killing blow. As for the two sword-wielding Tigers, they were biological brothers who had later been taught a joint-attack technique by an expert. When their two swords joined as one, they rarely suffered defeat. Now, the two unleashed their joint-attack technique, attacking the black-clothed boy from both left and right.
The black-clothed boy didn’t seem worried in the slightest. Instead, he removed a yellow wooden gourd from his waist, tilted his head back, and took a drink.
Then he flipped into the air. The saber-wielding bandit regained his freedom and rejoiced inwardly, immediately reversing his grip and swinging the saber toward the boy.
The boy was in midair, yet remained completely unhurried. His left leg whipped through the air.
“Pa!”
It struck the saber-wielding bandit squarely across the face.
The saber-wielding bandit immediately flew backward like a withered leaf in the wind and slammed into a huge boulder. His face was reduced to a bloody mess, and he actually died on the spot.
Immediately afterward, the boy twisted at the waist, turned his head, and opened his mouth to spray out a stream of white mist. It seemed to be the wine he had just drunk, and its target was precisely the axe-wielding bandit behind him.
The bandit’s expression changed, and he hurriedly swung his axe to block.
But the white mist was as fast as lightning and struck his body in an instant.
Puchi, puchi!
It was like a hundred needles piercing through paper. Countless bloody holes appeared across the bandit’s body, and the life in his eyes rapidly faded away. He had actually been sprayed to death by a single mouthful of wine from the boy.
After spraying out that mouthful of wine in midair, the boy descended, landing on his right foot alone. A ring of transparent ripples seemed to spread outward from beneath his foot.
The two sword-wielding Tigers on his left and right suddenly felt an immense force surge up from beneath their feet, instantly shattering both their heart meridians. The two still maintained their movements of thrusting their swords forward. They took another two steps and barely reached the boy before their heads tilted to the side and they collapsed dead to the ground.
In the span of a single flip through the air, the black-clothed boy had kicked one man to death, sprayed another to death, and shocked two more to death.
It takes a long time to describe all this, but in reality, only a few breaths had passed.
Four of the Five Tigers were already dead. The only one remaining, the First Tiger wielding the hammer, had only just reached the boy. When he saw the scene before him, he was utterly horrified and immediately turned to flee.
But how could the black-clothed boy give him the chance?
He rushed forward and ended his life with a single punch.
After the black-clothed boy had dealt with all Five Tigers, the remaining people in the caravan looked at one another face to face, not even daring to breathe loudly. This boy’s methods were so terrifying that if he harbored malicious intentions toward them, probably not a single one of them would survive.
The swordsman in green wiped the sweat from his forehead, stepped forward, and ingratiatingly cupped his fists toward the boy. Just as he was about to speak, an aged voice came from the rear of the caravan.
“These men only sought wealth and hadn’t taken any lives. You left no one alive the moment you acted. In the end, you still went a little too far.”
The black-clothed boy glanced sideways at him and said indifferently, “These five came from a bandit stronghold, so they must have accomplices nearby. If I let them leave today and they bring even more bandits here another day, wouldn’t the trouble become too much to bear?”
This black-clothed boy was naturally Liang Yan, while at the rear of the caravan was the very old monk who had transmitted the mnemonic formula to him that day.
The two exchanged question and answer as though no one else were present, yet nobody dared interrupt them. The old monk seemed to have long known Liang Yan’s temperament and fell silent after Liang Yan finished speaking.
Liang Yan ignored him as well. He climbed into a carriage on his own, tore a leg from the wild boar, and began devouring it in great bites.
The people outside the carriage looked at one another. The swordsman in green who led them coughed and said, “We cannot speculate on how experts conduct themselves. Since they’re willing to remain with the caravan, we simply shouldn’t disturb them.”
He then ordered a man on his right, “Pass down the order. No one is permitted to approach the last two carriages!”
“Yes!”
Having received the order, the man immediately went to pass it along.
After resting and reorganizing for a while, the caravan once again wound its way southward. What they didn’t know was that at dawn on the third day, while passing a verdant mountain peak, two figures swiftly departed from the caravan.
At the foot of the green mountain, one old and one young figure slowly approached. They were precisely Liang Yan and the old monk.
Seeing the sun beginning to rise, the old monk unhurriedly walked over to a large rock beside the road and sat down cross-legged. He then said to Liang Yan, “Begin. Do today’s exercises once through.”
Liang Yan curled his lips, walked over to the roadside, and stood on his left leg alone. His right foot hooked around his ankle, while his upper body leaned backward and hung suspended in midair. His left hand supported his head while his right arm curved behind his back.
The posture was truly strange to the extreme, but Liang Yan seemed to have trained it for a long time. He merely closed his eyes without speaking and maintained the posture without moving.
About two hours passed like this.
Liang Yan then changed to another posture. This one was even stranger. He actually lay face down, reached his left hand backward to hold his head, and wrapped his right arm around his left knee.
If anyone else happened to pass by and see them, they would certainly point fingers at the pair. But he had seen the strange so often that it no longer seemed strange. In fact, he had spent the entire past year training like this.
Ever since the old monk had taken him away from the teahouse a year ago, he had used a great divine ability to guide qi into Liang Yan’s body, helping him enter the first level of Qi Refining. That could be considered Liang Yan’s official first step onto the path of immortal cultivation.
But after that, the old monk hadn’t taught him immortal arts or secret techniques as Liang Yan had imagined.
He had merely taught him eight strange postures.
These eight postures could practically be said to violate human habits. They were as awkward as could possibly be.
Yet the old monk insisted that Liang Yan practice them every day until he had memorized all eight postures thoroughly and could perform them without the slightest error in any detail. Afterward, he had Liang Yan circulate his qi according to the nameless mnemonic formula he had transmitted into his mind while simultaneously assuming those strange postures.
At first, Liang Yan had questioned it as well. But after spending several days assuming those strange postures and circulating his qi according to the mnemonic formula, he unexpectedly discovered that all the bones, flesh, and blood throughout his body seemed to have been reborn. When running or walking, he even possessed seemingly endless strength. Delighted by this, he stopped questioning it.
It was just that the postures the old monk had taught him were truly far too bizarre. On top of that, the old monk never explained anything to him in detail and merely urged him to cultivate.
Liang Yan was irritated by this, so he carelessly gave the postures names of his own. For example, he named the first two the “Dozing Pose” and the “Rolling-Around Pose.” There were also ones like the “Cursing-in-the-Street Pose” and “One-Punch Pose.”
The boy concentrated on his cultivation while the old monk sat meditating with his eyes closed.
The two remained silent like this for half the day. When Liang Yan finally finished his exercises, the old monk slowly stood up as well. He nodded toward Liang Yan, then turned and began walking up the mountain.
Liang Yan instinctively felt that the old monk seemed to have something weighing on his mind during this trip to the green mountain. But the old monk had always been a man of few words, and Liang Yan didn’t like asking too many questions either, so he could only sullenly follow behind him.
After walking along the mountain path for half the day, Liang Yan suddenly said, “Old monk, you’ve been teaching me for a year now. Surely you can finally tell me what kind of art I’ve been practicing?”
“Hooligan Art,” the old monk replied without even turning his head.
Liang Yan froze when he heard this, then immediately understood. He knew the old monk was annoyed because Liang Yan had recklessly made up names for the postures he had taught him.
He couldn’t help clapping his hands and bursting into laughter.
“Marvelous, marvelous! With this cultivation art of yours, if I’m not cursing in the street, I’m rolling all over the ground. I look exactly like a street hooligan! Calling it Hooligan Art couldn’t possibly be any more fitting! Hahaha!”
Liang Yan laughed for a long while, but seeing that there wasn’t the slightest response from the figure ahead, he finally couldn’t resist asking, “Old monk, what did we come to this green mountain for?”
The old monk’s unhurried voice drifted along the empty mountain road.
“To find someone.”