Chapter 346: Eight-Step Crushing Fist

"What is this stuff?" Chen Er Gou flipped through a couple of pages out of curiosity. He couldn't read the traditional Chinese characters, but he understood the illustrations just fine. "A martial arts manual? Jian Ge, are you messing with me?"

Honestly, if a random guy stopped me on the street and shoved a boxing manual in my face, I'd think he was crazy too. "Cut the crap and go get the dictionary. Today, we're going to memorize the contents of this book word for word."

"Memorize a book?" Chen Er Gou's face instantly fell. "Jian Ge, I have an emergency. My dad is sick. I need to rush back and see him one last time."

"Huh? Didn't you tell me your old man was already dead when you kidnapped Jiang Chen for me?"

"My mistake. It's actually my grandfather who hasn't been doing well lately. He's getting up there in years and needs me to take care of him."

Er Gou racked his brains, spinning one excuse after another. I just shook my head. "I'm trying to teach you some real skills, so why are you acting like I'm trying to kill you? If you don't finish memorizing this today, don't even think about leaving."

Seeing my mind was made up, Er Gou begrudgingly clutched the dictionary and slumped at the table. "Jian Ge, you know how to read. Can't you just learn it and teach me? Besides, it has pictures. I'll just look at those."

"Just memorize it like I told you. Learning a few more words will do you good anyway." I spread out the manual and flipped through the dictionary, confirming the meaning of every traditional character before copying down a simplified Chinese version and handing it to Er Gou.

Er Gou resisted hard at first, but after memorizing a large chunk of the text, his eyes began to shine.

Eight-Step Crushing Fist: short in form, fierce in force. Like a collapsing arrow piercing the heart, like a mountain crumbling and the earth splitting—hence the name "Crushing Fist."

The manual progressed from the simple to the profound. The opening chapter introduced the most basic martial principles and methods of generating power, and even these foundational concepts made Er Gou feel like he had struck gold.

He had survived on the streets, brawling as casually as eating a meal, and had even figured out plenty of tricks of his own. Curiosity piqued by the Crushing Fist manual, he casually tested out a stance. To his shock, he realized the introductory moves were several times more lethal than the killing strikes he prided himself on. Completely won over, he put his head down and started memorizing in earnest without needing any more pushing from me.

By four in the afternoon, the manual was memorized by heart without a single omission. I grabbed the book and led Er Gou to a nearby Taekwondo gym.

"The text is memorized. Next, the two of us need to get the stances down." I rented a temporary training room equipped with punch force testers, heavy bags, and other gear.

"Jian Ge, just memorizing the moves won't do us much good. If we want to unleash their real power, our bodies need time to adapt to them. That's a long process." Er Gou knew better than to bite off more than he could chew.

"Time is tight. We'll memorize the stances first, then start training tonight." I actually had a plan in mind; I just hadn't told Er Gou yet.

Eight-Step Crushing Fist wasn't a standard external martial art. To unleash its true power, a practitioner first had to cultivate inner strength. Aside from crushing force, it utilized pressing, wrapping, pouncing, shaking, and stomping forces. Furthermore, a single burst of power was required to contain eight distinct, blended mechanics: surging, twisting, grinding, flipping, springing, erupting, flowing, and penetrating. Each of these blended forces had to be trained individually, layer by layer, making the style exceptionally complex. It was exactly why a famous saying existed among internal martial artists: "Learning the forms is easy; finding the force is hard."

Given my and Er Gou's current foundations, never mind mastering eight types of inner strength—just grasping the most basic technique for generating crushing force would take tens of thousands of attempts. And that was with the manual right in front of us.

Standing face-to-face, Er Gou and I began practicing the stances from the illustrations.

It was our first time trying an internal martial art. Our postures were clumsy and entirely uncoordinated, making us look like two clueless amateurs just messing around.

"Looks like dog paddling. What the hell are you practicing?" There were several other Taekwondo enthusiasts in the training room. Spotting some new faces, they wandered over out of curiosity.

"They even have a manual. Are you sure practicing out of something that looks like a cheap dirty comic won't cripple you?"

"Hey, man. Come learn Taekwondo with us. That ancient stuff is totally outdated."

"All that ancient martial arts crap is just hype. I'm from Huaxia too, but to be fair, foreign styles are way stronger for modern combat."

"Look at their stances. All flash and no substance. They look like a couple of little girls having a spat."

...

The onlookers kept gossiping, their comments growing increasingly insulting. Er Gou's face flushed red until he finally couldn't hold it back anymore. He whipped his head around and shouted, "Can you shut the fuck up for a minute?"

"Oh? Talking tough, huh? If you've got a problem with us, why don't you spar with me?" A burly young man stepped forward, a Blue Belt tied around his waist. In Taekwondo, a Blue Belt represented a Fourth Dan—a fairly respectable rank for an amateur.

"Even the armed cops have to respectfully escort my ass out of the station. You think I'm scared of you?" Er Gou sneered, rolling up his sleeves to throw hands.

"Er Gou, focus on practicing. We have more important things to do tonight." I pressed down on his shoulder, signaling him not to stir up trouble. After all, my most precious resource right now was time.

Er Gou snorted coldly. Ignoring the young man, he went back to practicing the Crushing Fist from the manual.

"Scared? Chickening out?" The Blue Belt refused to let it go, his attitude dripping with arrogance. "I despise people like you. You don't have a shred of real skill, so you parade around with old folks' calisthenics acting like they're secret manuals! Always hyping up ancient martial arts—it's all total bullshit!"

As the young man ran his mouth, the crowd around him voiced their agreement. I slowly narrowed my eyes at him. In my current state, killing this Blue Belt would be trivially easy. Without even trying, I could think of a dozen different ways to do it.

"Jian Ge, I really can't take this shit anymore. Let me call the boys over. I'm going to kill this son of a bitch today!" Er Gou snapped, pulling out his phone in a fit of rage.

"Even if you stab him to death, what would that prove? It changes nothing. Let's just focus on our practice. Once we master the Crushing Fist, we'll come back and settle the score." I was half a cultivator, and the Profound Truth Mental Method emphasized remaining aloof from worldly strife and indifferent to petty disputes. Suppressing my annoyance, I said, "Just memorize the stances. Let your body get used to how the force flows."

Er Gou thought it over and realized I was right. He tossed his phone aside, gritted his teeth, and threw himself viciously back into the exercises.

"Keep practicing those farmer's tricks. Give it another ten years and you'll still be trash! Real fighting is about actual combat—" The Blue Belt suddenly choked on his words. He felt something ice-cold brush against his throat, as if death itself had quietly crept up on him.

I withdrew my gaze and swept a cool glance over the rest of the onlookers. "If you really want to spar, we can do it tomorrow morning. Until then, kindly stop interrupting our practice."

It took a long time for the loudmouthed Blue Belt to recover his senses. "Fine! Tomorrow it is. If you want an ass-kicking, I'll be happy to oblige!"

"Yeah, beat the shit out of them! Real fighting isn't just talk!"

"Can't believe there are still dumbasses who buy into ancient martial arts. Hope they don't cry when their faces get beaten to a pulp tomorrow."

...

After the gym closed for the night, I took Wang Yu and Er Gou out to eat. Er Gou sat at the table with a depressed look on his face, barely touching his food.

"What's wrong? Worried about the fight tomorrow?" I gave a faint smile, having already seen right through him.

"Jian Ge, I know this style is incredible, but we just started practicing it. We'd probably need tens of thousands of tries just to figure out how to generate the crushing force. One night isn't going to be enough."

"Don't worry about it. Go to bed early tonight. I have a way to make them beg for mercy tomorrow."

"Are you just saying that to comfort me because you've already given up?" Er Gou clearly didn't believe me. "Those Taekwondo guys are stubborn. I doubt they'll back down easily."

"Don't worry about it." I downed the rest of my beer in one gulp. "If they refuse to back down, we'll just beat them until they do!"

...

In the dead of night, I settled Wang Yu in on the first floor. After watching him fall asleep, I grabbed a human-skin talisman and headed up to the second floor.

Er Gou had a lot to drink tonight and was dead to the world. He didn't even notice me standing by his bed. "I can only test this theory on someone I trust completely. Er Gou, looks like I'll have to trouble you again."

I placed the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman, which had been drawn on human skin, onto Er Gou's forehead. Recalling Daoist master Wan's method from the dream livestream, I sank my spiritual sense into the talisman.

'To enter a dream, I first have to find the star tied to his destiny.' Using Er Gou's birthdate, personality, and current fortunes as a guide, I searched through the vast cosmic map. Just as my spiritual sense was nearing exhaustion, a star nestled right beside the Greedy Wolf Star—one that seemed poised to overtake it entirely—suddenly called out to me.

'Is this the star governing Er Gou's fate?'

I squeezed out a drop of essence blood and stared at the rotating star chart. "The Great Dream Awakens to Ask Where We Are Now, Entering the Mulberry Once Brings Three Thousand Years!"