Later, Yao Yao returned to the room and told me that she and Chu Qi had reached a settlement and would cooperate fully in the future, with no more disputes. Yao Yao highly praised Chu Qi's martial arts, not only urging us who couldn't fight to learn well but also the demons wanted to learn from her. Although the eight demons had participated in wars with the Ming army before, the "martial arts" on the battlefield were considered border troop skills, very different from the style of the martial arts world, and incomparable.
Large-scale martial arts practice required a larger venue. The ceiling inside the Zhe Jiang Building was too low and not very suitable. It seemed that during the day tomorrow, we would have to find a place nearby. We couldn't go to the crematorium to freeload on the underworld's territory every day.
Late at night, Yao Yao and I, I don't know who woke up first, but an hour later, while bathing, Yao Yao told me why Chu Qi had such a reaction. After listening, I felt that women were truly a magical species, unlike men who didn't seem to react so strongly.
The latter half of the night was uneventful, and I slept soundly.
When I woke up in the morning and was eating breakfast, Chu Qi had returned to normal. The demons hadn't eaten and had already gone out hunting early. After breakfast, I talked to Chu Qi about apprenticing. Chu Qi said there was no hurry, as she had never been to Fucheng before and didn't know where suitable places were.
"Does practicing martial arts require feng shui?" I asked.
"Not exactly feng shui, but it requires a Dragon Pond," she replied.
"What is a Dragon Pond?" I asked, "Like a dragon's den and a tiger's lair?"
"No," Yao Yao interjected, "I've heard of it. A Dragon Pond is a place where martial artists from the Central Plains practice. It needs to be a place with mountains and water. To practice power, a lot of trees are needed. To practice inner strength, it often needs to be done in water, right, Instructor Chu?"
Chu Qi nodded and gave Yao Yao a thumbs-up, "As expected of the number one Ya Ba La, you know so much!"
Yao Yao waved her hand, "It's not that I know, it's that I've fought with martial artists from the Central Plains before, and I heard it from them."
Chu Qi and I were both curious about Yao Yao's combat experiences from four hundred years ago and asked her to tell us more.
"There's not much to tell. The Ming army couldn't defeat me on the battlefield, so they didn't fight fairly and launched a surprise attack. They sent martial arts masters to raid the camp at night, wanting to kill me. They didn't know I had learned Qi observation techniques, so I could detect these guys with various complexions approaching the camp early. Therefore, every time they came, they ended up as targets. Occasionally, I captured a few weak-willed individuals who surrendered, and I would chat with them, thus learning about the martial arts world of the Central Plains."
Yao Yao spoke lightly, but I could see the bloody battles of the past from her words.
The long-term wars between two countries were vastly different from the fights involving at most a few dozen people that we faced now. If I had the chance, I really wanted to travel back in time and witness the battlefield atmosphere on the border.
After breakfast, as Chu Qi requested, the three of us drove out of the city, searching for a suitable area outside the ring road. There were quite a few mountains around Fucheng, but they were all small. Moreover, most of them had mountains but no water, and places with water lacked mountains.
As we drove, I felt a bit discouraged and asked Chu Qi, "I can understand water aiding inner power, using its resistance. But what's the deal with the trees on the mountains? How can they increase power? By eating bark?"
"Have you seen hard qigong performances?" Chu Qi countered.
"Ah, I've seen them on TV."
"How do they demonstrate their power?"
I thought for a moment, "Breaking bricks, breaking stone slabs, Taekwondo breaking wooden boards, and so on."
"I can tell you responsibly that most of those are fake tricks. Ordinary people can break those inanimate objects after some practice," Chu Qi said. "The important thing is not the power, but courage—did you ever try to break bricks when you were a child?"
I recalled, "I think I did, but I wasn't successful."
In our childhood era, possibly influenced by Hong Kong films featuring characters like Chen Zhen and Huo Yuanjia, a martial arts craze swept across the north and south of China. People would spar with each other, showing off their "kung fu." Breaking bricks was very popular then, and everyone considered it the act of a master. Furthermore, many people found the secret to becoming a master: when breaking a brick, lift the brick with your left hand and tap it down. Using inertia, strike the brick with your right hand simultaneously. You don't need to exert much force, and the brick would break, leading the unsuspecting children to worship you as a deity.