RPAGF Chapter 48 I See the Truth, I See the True Martial Arts
Chapter 48 I See the Truth, I See the True Martial Arts
When they returned to the team's lodgings, Shu Yuliu and Jin Xiaohu had already woken up. The young lady was getting ready to go out for breakfast, while the tabby cat beside her kept urging, "Hurry up, hurry up. People are such a hassle. They don't have any fur, so they have to rely on paint to disguise themselves."
"Kitten, this isn't called disguising, it's called dressing up. Making yourself look pretty."
"Achoo! I just think the smell is so pungent, the powder you put on always makes me sneeze."
"Then I'll have to find a way to get some natural face powder and rouge. I wonder if they sell it in town."
Lin Zhuo called from downstairs, "Come and have breakfast!"
"Wow, bringing food for the cat, what a kind person!" Jin Xiaohu banged the gong.
"Wow, you brought me food, good senior brother!" Shu Yuliu drummed.
They ate in the living room on the first floor of the North Building, watching Lin Zhuo light the incense burner in the courtyard.
Before long, the smoke and fragrance filled the air.
Lin Zhu sat cross-legged amidst the rising steam, emptying his wine jar to the brim, his demeanor elegant and refined. If it weren't for his modern attire and short hair, he would truly resemble a celestial being.
"Speaking of which, how did Second Senior Brother become a drunkard too? He didn't touch a drop of alcohol when he ate dinner last night," Shu Yuliu mumbled, chewing on a steamed bun.
"His liquor smells like it was given to him by the Panda Boss."
"It's really hard to learn good things, but it's easy to go astray. I'm accusing my senior brother of corrupting such a good young man!"
Zhu Baixuan coughed twice and said some incomprehensible things like "needed for training" and "drinking it will greatly improve one's strength," filling the hall with a cheerful atmosphere.
For the rest of the day, Lin Zhuo spent his time practicing his internal energy cultivation. With the spiritual wine that Zhu Baixuan had kindly gifted him, he could even skip meals.
The circulation of Qi in the "Marrow Refining and Blood Transformation Longevity Method" is extremely complex. He needs to gradually familiarize himself with it in order to speed it up, completing one cycle of cultivation on average every three hours.
[Training behavior successfully assessed; [Marrow Refining and Blood Transformation Longevity Method] basic cultivation progress +1%]
Health Status Coefficient x2 (Perfect)
[Environmental Enhancement Coefficient x9 (Spiritual Wine for Body Nourishment↑↑, Exquisite Fragrance for Mind Purification↑↑, Dharma Seat for Insightful Views↑↑)]
[Final Calculation Result: [Refining Marrow, Transforming Blood, and Prolonging Life] Cultivation Progress +18%]
Thanks to the captain's feeding and assistance, Lin Zhuo's cultivation progress is quite impressive. He is preparing to break through the first bottleneck of "Marrow Refining and Blood Transformation" tonight.
For non-internet players, even the most talented Qigong masters would often need months or even years of arduous training to achieve this level of progress.
From sunrise in the east to sunset in the west, Lin Zhuo only briefly left his Dharma seat a few times to rest, relieve himself, and drink wine, before quickly returning to his spiritual practice.
Practicing internal energy cultivation is not a comfortable experience. Being able to maintain mental concentration for a long time, ignore the distractions brought by sensory stimulation, and sit still with one mind is a rare skill.
Shu Yuliu and Jin Xiaohu looked at the iron man who was focused on practicing his skills, and then thought about how they had spent the whole day going out to stroll around, buy groceries, and choose rouge. Such idleness was simply a waste of their lives, and they were already sweating profusely.
But if you ask them to sit down and cycle through the body for a day or two, they can't take it anymore. They complain that they're too tired and go to the eaves to drink tea and rest.
Shu Yuliu sat at the table, propping his chin on his hand, staring at Lin Zhuo in the courtyard, and whispered, "Perhaps Second Senior Brother is just the kind of genius who is single-mindedly devoted to the Dao, destined to surpass us mortals."
Jin Xiaohu said disdainfully, "You're a human being too, can't you be as ambitious as him?"
"It's good enough if I can just barely clear the game. There are already enough amazing players in this world, who says I can't just be a useless player? No matter how high my skills are, there will always be stronger players. As the saying goes, 'Life is finite, but knowledge is infinite. To pursue the infinite with the finite is perilous!'"
Jin Xiaohu was shocked. "What you said makes so much sense. I underestimated your wisdom! It turns out you can be a good-for-nothing without feeling guilty. My guilt has vanished instantly!"
Shu Yuliu tilted his head, stuck out his tongue, and smiled smugly.
These two guys were like kindred spirits in a lowly place, and immediately clapped and celebrated for reaching a consensus.
Zhu Baixuan came into the courtyard, raised his hand and pressed down on the wine jar in Lin Zhuo's hand, "Alright, you've had enough to drink today."
"I'm not drunk yet." Lin Zhuo was obsessed with the effects of the spirit wine on his power. The amount of spiritual energy stored in his dantian was already quite substantial, and he no longer needed to be as careful with his energy as before.
"Didn't your junior sister say that's enough? Drinking should be done in moderation, and so should practicing martial arts. You said you weren't drunk, so why haven't you completed a full cycle of qi circulation after four whole hours? You're not as skilled as you were this morning."
Some people are obviously drunk because their liver cannot break down alcohol, so their faces turn red after just a few sips. Lin Zhuo, however, still has clear eyes and a normal complexion, and looks completely unaffected by alcohol.
But he was really drunk. It was the first time he had ever drunk alcohol, and he had no idea how much he could drink. He was completely drunk.
Lin Zhuo waved his hand and said, "I will soon break through the bottleneck and unlock the second effect of 'Refining Marrow and Changing Blood'. From then on, I will be immune to all poisons and will be able to drink a thousand cups without getting drunk. A little alcohol will be eliminated very quickly."
Zhu Baixuan snatched the wine jar, and Lin Zhuo raised his hand to chase after it without thinking. He was blocked by the panda halfway, and the two began to fight around the wine jar, exchanging blows and their fists flying.
Lin Zhuo left the Dharma seat and used his lightness skill. Even though he was not fully conscious, his movements were still agile, as fast as a dragonfly on a river, darting back and forth, circling around Zhu Baixuan. The wine jar flew around, landing in Lin Zhuo's hands several times, only to be snatched away again before he could even take a sip.
Pandas are enormous, yet their movements are as nimble as a butterfly fluttering on a flower petal, while their hand and foot techniques are as hard as iron and as fast as lightning. When they want to attack, they cannot be stopped, and when they want to defend, they cannot be broken.
Shu Yuliu and Jin Xiaohu were mesmerized, their heads following the two figures as they moved left and right in the courtyard, leaping onto the high rooftops or weaving through the treetops.
A moment later, Lin Zhuo began to sweat, his body radiating the smell of alcohol, and his drunkenness gradually subsided. He jumped back to the ground and stopped fighting.
"I'm sorry, Captain, I was rude."
Zhu Baixuan returned the wine jar to him, a bear-like smile on his face. "You're always in such a hurry, why?"
"I want to become stronger, and I enjoy the process of becoming stronger. For me, practicing martial arts is both a rest and a reward." Lin Zhu shook the wine jar, only then realizing that he had already drunk about four catties of wine.
This is strong liquor; even an elephant would be knocked unconscious after drinking four catties. The fact that he can still stand is a testament to the immense power of his innate talent.
Lin Zhuo and Zhu Baixuan were chatting, while their two teammates inside the room were eavesdropping.
"To become stronger, you need a goal, right? Besides, cultivation is very arduous. What kind of ambition do you have in your heart that makes you willing to endure it?"
Lin Zhuo was speechless upon hearing this. After all, he was not someone who liked to have heart-to-heart talks. Exposing his thoughts was sometimes equivalent to exposing his stupidity and his weaknesses.
Fortunately, he can share his thoughts with netizens on the online platform. After all, this is not a social circle in the real world. Everyone is just a stranger, and there are some things that he can't say to his closest relatives, but he can say them to outsiders.
"Captain, on the way back this morning, you said that I need to find the martial art that best suits me. It needs to be able to express my own principles and magnanimity. I've been thinking back to those days."
"If you want to talk, I'll listen. If you don't want to speak, let's pretend we never talked about this."
"Thank you. A truly cultivated gentleman has nothing to hide from others, and I aspire to be that kind of person. It's just that I've said this to others many times before, and I've found that my empty talk can't convince anyone, so I've gradually stopped speaking."
"My master once said that power is language and strength. You used to have language but no strength, but now you have strength but no language."
Zhu Baixuan's tone was calm and gentle, like a clear moon and gentle clouds, making people feel relaxed. "The most important thing to becoming a Qigong master, to becoming a martial artist, is to realize your own uniqueness and then have the courage to express your true feelings. Martial arts are our language. If you don't speak, don't open your mouth, don't express yourself, your martial arts will always be just picking up scraps from others, and you will never be able to surpass your predecessors in your entire life."
Lin Zhuo remained silent. He was always silent. When he had made up his mind about something, but others did not agree with it, he could only remain silent.
"When I was a child, I hadn't learned to question, and I believed everything I heard. My mother said that there were many flying animals in the sky beyond the dome, and if children behaved well, she would take them to fly in the sky in their dreams. As I grew older, I stopped believing such things."
"But there are also some things I heard when I was little. When I was in kindergarten, every autumn we would go to sweep the tombs. The tombs contained the remains of the crew members who sacrificed their lives in the early days of colonizing the planet. There was also a monument to heroes, which was inscribed with the history of the home planet, from Yu the Great controlling the floods to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, and then to the Great Rift period. Human civilization obtained the Dragoon colony cells in an alien spaceship that crashed from outer space and discovered the technology of jumping between dimensions. From then on, they scattered like meteors throughout the universe."
"My teacher said that besides the planet we live on, there are hundreds and thousands of children in other worlds who are still hungry and being bullied by bad people. Therefore, the highest ideal of our human community is to unify all species and save all mankind."
"Many children believed in this ideal back then, and so did I. Every time I think of all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives and the people who suffered, I always feel like crying. As we grew up, the people around us gradually treated this as a children's story and forgot about it. One day, I suddenly realized that all the adults didn't care about this. Everyone just wanted to protect their own little corner of the human community."
"It was then that I realized that the era of grand narratives had passed, and many years had passed, leaving only a lingering glow, like a lighthouse luring those who came after, but in the end, they always ended up like moths to a flame."
"Everyone only cares about their own life in front of them. I've also thought about being more pragmatic and living an ordinary life honestly. But there's still a part of me that's like a child, stuck in the past, dreaming the most outrageous, useless, and foolish dreams in the entire universe."
Shu Yuliu quietly walked into the courtyard, came to his side, and said worriedly, "Second Senior Brother..."
Even Jin Xiaohu behaved himself and stopped hitting the gong.
Zhu Baixuan nodded. "Yes. You should know one thing. People don't choose to grow up from children; they are forced to grow up by time. So many people may look quite grown up on the outside, but they are still naive at heart."
Lin Zhu smiled helplessly, "The captain probably thinks I'm very childish too."
"No. What I want to say is, don't hate your past. Don't deny the you who made the decisions back then. A child, given enough strength, can be seen as an adult. Growth isn't the result of time, but the harvest of hard work. You may not be able to achieve this dream right now, but you undoubtedly have the right to it."
"A crossover web..."
"Yes, the entire network. For legendary powerhouses, shattering planets, suppressing the Milky Way, and dominating the universe are not empty words. You should believe in your future and use your martial arts to loudly proclaim your promise to the world."
Lin Zhuo looked up at the vast starry sky tonight, a sky so different from his hometown of Hongshui City, like the Earth's dome in a video archive, and he felt it was beautiful no matter how many times he looked at it.
At this moment, a thousand thoughts are churning in my mind: my own future, the future of humanity as a whole, and the future of the human race.
In the end, all that remains is the word "sincerity," no longer running away from one's inner self, and staying true to one's most sincere thoughts.
"I will unify the world, crush all the ways of the world that I find displeasing, and bring joy to all the children in this galaxy, and peace to all the people. What the hell is wrong with that?! Can't I do this little thing? I will become the hero who sweeps across the heavens!"
Lin Zhuo remained silent, but his turbulent emotions had calmed down.
Zhu Baixuan sent his two bewildered teammates back into the house, leaving Lin Zhuo alone in the courtyard.
After a moment, he assumed a stance and slowly began to punch and push with his palms, like a poet meticulously crafting words and phrases, gradually revealing his true martial arts on this clear night.