Chapter 135 - 97: An Out-of-this-World First Live Stream

As for the so-called divine National Martial Arts hyped up online, that was all just exaggerated fiction from novels, meant to satisfy people’s fantasies.

The National Martial Arts scene during the Republic era was just like today—full of swindlers and fake masters. They’d pad their resumes by claiming to have defeated Western strongmen and Japanese samurai, not even bothering to change the template for fame. It was the same old playbook.

As for those "Inch Fist fake masters" in the videos, with their flabby bodies and zero muscle mass, even if a whole crowd of them ganged up on him, Chen Jue could take them all down with just a few well-aimed shots.

Perhaps, long ago, there truly existed real National Martial Arts, real kung fu, designed purely for killing enemies, not for performance.

But as times changed, these true combat skills became obsolete techniques, likely swept into the dustbin of history, their methods and lineages completely severed.

And so, scammers are now everywhere, conning people for money and slowly but surely tarnishing the name of Huaxia’s Traditional Martial Arts.

’Sigh! No wonder Teacher Wu was so upset!’

After chatting with Wu Fang on WeChat, Chen Jue couldn’t help but reflect, ’Elder Wu has practiced Traditional Martial Arts his whole life. It’s a miracle he hasn’t passed out from rage after seeing these scumbags.’

He then recalled Zhao Jianguo and that Daoist Zhiqing from the Dragon Gate Sect. Their desperate attempts to recruit him into the Dragon Gate Sect were clearly because they coveted his aptitude for learning physical skills.

’Thanks to the powerful corrective function of my Attribute panel, it would be much faster for me to get real results in Traditional Martial Arts than it would be for a normal person,’ he thought.

...

After walking off his meal, Chen Jue strolled back to Wangyang Apartment.

He had considered climbing a lamppost to grind some [Climbing] Skill Level.

But then he remembered his workout with the power twister that afternoon. Since the muscles in his arms were still sore and hadn’t fully recovered, Chen Jue just stood under the lamppost for a moment before turning into the small supermarket by the apartment entrance.

"Excuse me, do you have any needles and thread?" Chen Jue asked.

"We do. They’re on the stationery shelf all the way in the back."

The owner was a middle-aged man in his forties, and by the looks of it, a hardcore gamer. He was gleefully grinding on a private server on his computer. He casually pointed toward the back shelf and went back to ignoring Chen Jue.

Chen Jue walked to the back of the store, swept all the boxes of needles and spools of white thread off the shelf, and immediately returned to the counter.

Seeing the owner completely absorbed in his game, Chen Jue leaned over curiously to get a look. "Whoa! A castle siege, huh? Nice one, boss! Not watching the game tonight?"

Chen Jue had been to the small supermarket a few times for supplies, so he and the owner were familiar with each other and would often exchange a few words when he passed by.

"This is way more fun than watching soccer!"

"Damn, you have no idea. Yesterday, those pampered wimps on the men’s national team got their asses kicked 3-0 by the Koreans again. Pissed me off so much I rage-spent five hundred yuan on this private server to build a guild and take the castle, just to blow off some steam!" the owner grumbled. As he spoke, he pulled out a cigarette and offered it to Chen Jue while ringing up his purchase.

Chen Jue didn’t refuse. He took the cigarette, borrowed a lighter, and lit it. While scanning the QR code to pay, he joined the owner in complaining about the national team’s "stellar" performance.

Men’s soccer, much like Traditional Martial Arts, was a murky world.

The problem was, just like fans of Traditional Martial Arts and kung fu, soccer fans could be found on every street corner in Huaxia.

Although Chen Jue wasn’t part of the Traditional Martial Arts community—he was just an ordinary guy trying to get stronger with the help of his panel—he had no desire to get involved in their messy affairs.

But now that this trend of debunking fake Traditional Martial Arts was starting to affect his Brother of Special Skills account, he felt he had to step in and "clarify" a few things.

Looking at his short-video app’s analytics, Chen Jue saw that his follower growth on the Brother of Special Skills account had taken a noticeable hit over the last few days.

The comment section was even starting to fill up with drama-seeking trolls, calling him a fake, questioning his skills, and trying to tear him down.

’If this keeps up, my income from this video-making side hustle is going to plummet.’

This was starting to affect his livelihood, so Chen Jue had bought a pile of needles and thread. He planned to pull an all-nighter and produce a new "special skill" video as a response to the debunkers who clearly had too much time on their hands.

...

After finishing his cigarette, Chen Jue returned to his apartment.

First, he set up his camera tripod. Then, he rummaged through his closet, found a black thermal shirt from last year, and cut it into a rectangular piece of cloth with a pair of scissors.

Thanks to his recent weight loss, the old shirt was now a size too big and hung loosely on him, so Chen Jue felt no guilt about cutting it up. It was just recycling, after all.

He then took some leftover nails and used them to stretch the rectangular cloth taut like a banner, pinning its four corners in the middle of his hallway so it was suspended in the air.

With that done, Chen Jue took all the sewing needles he had just bought out of their boxes and began patiently threading white string through their eyes.

Perhaps because his [Hidden Weapon Throwing] skill had reached the Perfection level, his manual dexterity and eyesight had improved dramatically. The mechanical task of threading a needle became remarkably easy and swift in his hands.

After patiently threading all thousand-plus needles, Chen Jue put on his Brother of Special Skills Face Armor and adjusted his phone’s camera angle to frame both himself and the suspended black banner.

Then he tapped the livestream function and began the first broadcast of his life.

As for the stream’s title, Chen Jue didn’t overthink it. He just typed "Special Skill: Huaxia Martial Arts" and went live.