The Immortal Seeker: Legend of Bronze Mirror
Chapter 38 - 34 Movement Technique

Chapter 38: Chapter 34 Movement Technique

"Young man, would you like to pass on the torch?"

Xu Qing heard the young girl’s words, and the first response that sprang to mind was this phrase.

Then, Xu Qing replied to the girl with equal seriousness: "My life is already extraordinary."

The girl: "..."

She had many things to say, but couldn’t say them anymore.

She was rejected.

How sad.

Then came surprise.

Xu Qing’s grip was like an iron hoop.

The girl, caught off guard, was firmly grasped, "It hurts."

She had just spoken when Xu Qing let go.

Her wrist, like frosted snow, showed visible bruises under the moonlight.

"If I had wanted to kill you just now, you would already be dead," Xu Qing spoke slowly, then added, "You may not like a life of conventional tedium, but you must also accept that what I just did was far gentler than the extraordinary life out there."

Towards the end, Xu Qing spoke with a hint of apology: "I shouldn’t speak to you in such a preachy tone, but I really do consider you a friend."

His gaze was unshielded as he looked into the girl’s eyes, not hiding his emotions, open and honest.

Indeed, the girl was dangerous, trouble-prone, but she had helped Xu Qing.

So, for one of the few times, Xu Qing spoke words to a woman that she didn’t want to hear.

If it had been one of his "wine and meat" female friends from before, what he would usually say was, "Girls have got to be independent; whatever you do, I support you." He knew that’s what they liked to hear.

After all, he wasn’t going to marry any of them.

"Friends?" For a moment, the girl was somewhat dazed.

It seemed as if a tender spot unique to women in her heart had been struck.

She was in pain and angry just a moment ago, but now she suddenly felt moved. What was happening?

"Hey, we’re not on the same path. I’ll teach you one last thing, and after that, let’s not stay in touch," the girl said indifferently.

"I don’t know how to repay you."

"The fact that you didn’t capture me and turn me in just now is repayment enough," the girl’s tone suddenly grew much colder. She felt like her relationship with Xu Qing had become closer.

Because they were "friends."

But this kind of relationship seemed dangerous.

Her instinct was to reject it.

Xu Qing shook his head and smiled: "You’ve forgotten, the case of the stolen treasury silver has already been closed. Now, even if you confess to the crime, County Magistrate Wu would never allow the case to be reopened."

In the country, once a case is closed, it’s extremely difficult to reopen.

He had seen such a case in his previous life.

There was a death row inmate who admitted to being the murderer of another homicide case, provided all the details of the crime, and various clues. It took the effort and hard work of many people to get the case overturned.

The reason was that the homicide case had already been closed. Moreover, an innocent person had been wrongfully executed.

The unjustly killed person had lost a life, yet exonerating him implicated many who were still alive.

So, turning someone in was out of the question.

If he really did turn her in, even his uncle and aunt would blame him.

...

...

Now, onto the main subject.

The thing that the girl taught Xu Qing turned out to be Kung Fu.

She was the second person to teach Xu Qing Kung Fu.

"Your strength is substantial, go move the water jar from the yard under the tree," the girl ordered Xu Qing without any courtesy.

Xu Qing dutifully moved the water jar.

The water jar was heavy. If he hadn’t practiced Crane Call, his spine wouldn’t be strong enough. Even if his limbs were strong, moving the jar would be too much for his back.

No helping it, his body hadn’t fully developed yet.

Seeing Xu Qing moving such a heavy water jar with just a bit of panting, the girl couldn’t help but enviously say: "You men have a higher talent for martial arts than us women. You’re only fourteen, and you’re already so strong. And surprisingly, your back seems to be in good shape."

"What else needs to be done?"

"You have quite the collection of martial arts equipment in your yard. Go and tie those sandbags to the branches."

Xu Qing immediately understood the girl’s intention, "You mean to have me stand on the rim of the water jar to hit the sandbags?"

The girl glanced at the old tree and praised: "This Parasol Tree is great, thick and robust, it can hold several hundred pounds without issue. The perfect natural setting for practicing the movement technique I’m about to teach."

She then instructed Xu Qing to fill the jar with water and taught him a movement technique.

This technique was centered around the principle of the Eight Diagrams.

While standing on the jar hitting the suspended sandbags, Xu Qing also had to use the Eight Diagrams Body Technique taught by the girl, to dodge the swinging sandbags.

Right now, it was only one water jar. As the practice progressed, the number of jars would increase to eight, and the number of sandbags would also increase to a hundred. Only when one could hit the sandbags while on the jars and dodge them without causing a single ripple in the water, would the technique be considered a Great Success.

And this movement technique precisely released the potential of Xu Qing’s mastery of Crane Form Skill.

He practiced Crane Form Skill, with limbs that were long, flexible, and powerful. What he lacked was a movement technique to bring out the advantages of the Crane Form Skill.

Like having accumulated Inner Strength through the Crane Form Skill, yet not knowing how to utilize it.

And Eight Diagrams Body Technique was precisely the usage method Xu Qing was desperately in need of.

With the state of "Absolute Focus," coupled with his own accumulation of the Crane Form Skill, Xu Qing actually managed to learn the Eight Diagrams Body Technique from scratch, bypassing the preliminary "rough understanding" stage, and directly entered the threshold of learning.

From beginning to end, it only took an hour.

After practicing the Eight Diagrams Body Technique, Xu Qing realized that if the young girl had been on her guard, he indeed wouldn’t have been able to catch her at first.

A martial artist not being wary of a person?

Xu Qing knew in his heart that the girl truly considered him a friend.

It couldn’t be helped; Xu Qing was the only peer of similar age the girl had been in contact with since she was young. Moreover, they got along well in their conversations.

In life, even if one lives to be seventy or eighty, finding a few friends one can truly talk with is not easy.

To meet such friends in one’s youth is even more precious.

"You’ve already learned it; you can practice the rest on your own," the girl said with a tinge of melancholy, not expecting that not only was Xu Qing’s talent for learning the stereotyped essays strong, but his martial arts aptitude was also enviably high.

"Thank you," Xu Qing didn’t know what else to say; he had no idea how he would be able to repay such kindness in the future.

The girl said, "You really should thank me. Do you know that Academician Zhou specializes in ’The Book of Changes’?"

Originally, the Imperial Examination required knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics. Because the Five Classics were broad, profound, and even contradictory in some aspects, beginning with the provincial examinations, candidates could choose one of the Five Classics as their specialized topic. Examination graders, accordingly, were divided into separate panels for each Classic.

Even in the provincial examinations, the top five scholars were known as the Five Classics Leaders.

"The Book of Changes" among the Five Classics was relatively unpopular.

Because it was obscure and difficult to understand.

The most widely circulated version currently was the Meng version of "The Book of Changes" held by the Yuan family of Runan.

This was a great aristocratic family with thousands of years of tradition.

Even in this dynasty, they had produced officials of the Minister rank for four consecutive generations.

Almost all the Confucian Scholars who understood "The Book of Changes" were famous Great Scholars of the age, and Academician Zhou was one of them.

Precisely because those who specialized in "The Book of Changes" were so few, if Xu Qing could break through the exam questions with the knowledge of "The Book of Changes" during the court exam, it would undoubtedly attract Academician Zhou’s attention, and even negate the negative influence from Magistrate He.

Although contemporary scholars and officials had formed many schools of thought, they were not truly factions.

Even if the Reform Faction and the Conservative Faction fought fiercely in the court, the core of the conflict was not about the reform itself but about the struggle for interests and the right to speak.

If Xu Qing could demonstrate his talent in "The Book of Changes," Academician Zhou might be inclined to favor this upcoming young talent.

Sometimes, people of the same faction are not of one heart.

But those who specialize in the same Classic often share very similar political ideologies, belonging to a natural ’insider’ group.

And the Eight Diagram is the basis of "The Book of Changes."

As Xu Qing practiced the Eight Diagrams Body Technique, he inevitably had to progressively master the subject of "The Book of Changes."

...

...

After a long while, the girl’s voice echoed in Xu Qing’s ears:

"The favor you owe me, I don’t want you to repay. I just like that you keep owing me."

Xu Qing sighed deeply.

What a damned era — even taking the child student test requires connecting so many dots. Left without a choice, Xu Qing had to resort to dishonorable tactics as the child student test was not conducted anonymously, and he was pressed for time.

In reality, Xu Qing understood that securing the title of Scholar at fourteen was extremely difficult.

It had little to do with scholarship, but it touched upon an unspoken rule within the system of the Imperial Examination — "The title of Scholar is not easily granted to teenagers."

Without recourse to other means, he would have to wait earnestly for several years. By then, if his scholarly knowledge was sufficient and he was past the age barrier, his success in becoming a Scholar would come naturally.

Why was there an implicit age restriction for conferring scholarly titles in the examination system?

The adage "A thirty-year-old understand the classics thoroughly, a fifty-year-old is considered a young Scholar" had long been disseminated and was not without reason.

Xu Qing, who had extensively studied ancient literature and history in his previous life, actually reached a conclusion.

That was in the Imperial Era, there was an instinctive need to have older individuals become officials.

Because the older a Scholar who passed the Imperial Examination was, the less time he had to cultivate a political faction and to smoothly transfer his political legacy to the following generation, thereby making it difficult to create powerful ministers who could pose a fatal threat to imperial power.

On the contrary, younger Scholars, regardless of their subjective intentions, would naturally gather a large number of loyal followers over several decades.

That was the reason why in this dynasty, young Scholars under thirty, nine out of ten times, could enter the cabinet.

The current Grand Secretary was someone who became a Scholar at sixteen and achieved Second Rank Scholar at twenty-three. Now in his early forties, he had secured the position of Grand Secretary.

If Xu Qing could also pass the Imperial Examination in his early twenties, in the eyes of all scholars in the country, he would have been a Reserve Prime Minister, destined to govern the nation as long as he did not make any serious mistakes.

"Of the generals and ministers of ancient times, what remains now but the grass-covered mounds of their graves."

"Others take the Imperial Examination to be officials, but they don’t know that for me, the exams are about survival," Xu Qing shook his head.

Putting aside these thoughts, Xu Qing practiced punching the sandbag while standing on the rim of a water jar, causing even the Old Wutong Tree to tremble. Moonlight converged, and the cries of the Crane Call resonated with the breathing of the Old Wutong Tree within Xu Qing’s Divine Soul.

Gradually, the moonlight cast by the Old Wutong Tree projected onto the water jar, and Xu Qing’s surge of Qi-Blood infused the jar with Yang Gang Qi.

Moonlight represents Yin, and Qi-Blood signifies Yang.

Below Xu Qing’s feet, a whirlpool resembling the Tai Chi symbol appeared in the water jar.

As he exerted force overhead, his figure floated nimbly, maintaining his balance, never once falling.

In his graceful dance, he was like an immortal crane from beyond this world.

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