Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 10 Introduction to Boxing Stances

Wu Xiong stood in front of the wooden dummy and cracked his knuckles five times.

Su Xinpei had just finished finishing his practice and was wiping the sweat from the back of his neck with a towel when he heard that series of sounds. He knew he wouldn't be able to escape tonight. Wu Xiong had a habit—he would always pinch his knuckles before starting anything, and the more frequent the sounds, the more itchy his hands were. At this moment, he had pinched his ten fingers twice in turn, so it seemed like he was itching more than just a little.

"Master said you've been practicing the opening stance these past few days. Finish." Wu Xiong took three steps back, clearing a two-meter square space in front of the stake, and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He was three fingers shorter than Su Xinpei, but his shoulders were a fist wider, and his forearms were a size thicker. The old scar on his forearm, which ran from his wrist to his elbow, gleamed pale under the incandescent light in the yard.

"Are you going to be a sparring partner or a training dummy?" Su Xinpei draped a towel over the back of the bench.

"Is there a difference?" Wu Xiong grinned.

Su Xinpei didn't answer. He stepped forward, assuming the starting stance of opening a door—feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, spine straight, hands hanging naturally at his sides. Then, he slowly raised his arms, turning his palms outwards so they faced forward, pushing open two invisible doors. The entire movement took more than two minutes, the force flowing from his shoulders to his fingertips, a faint warmth circulating in the meridians of his knuckles as he pushed his palms to the end. The slight tearing sensation from last week's minor thumb strain was gone; his palms could stabilize themselves after being fully extended, no longer requiring the last joint to brace itself.

Just as he was about to finish his routine, Wu Xiong came up.

Not from the front. Wu Xiong took a half step forward with his left foot, his body already turned to Su Xinpei's right side, his right fist shooting straight at Su's ribs from his waist. This was a sudden movement, without any running start or building up momentum; it was just a half-step twist of the waist, and the fist was already out. Su Xinpei only had time to lower his right elbow to block, the fist slamming into the outside of his forearm with a dull thud. The force was as great as being swept by an iron pipe; he staggered two steps to the left before regaining his balance. Wu Xiong had mastered the basics of tendon training, using "struggling force"—after the fist hit the target, it didn't bounce back, but continued to twist forward, as if trying to drill the force from the flesh all the way to the bone.

While his mind was still processing the shock of the first punch, Wu Xiong's second punch was already at his chest. This time it was a left punch, aimed at his center. Su Xinpei didn't have time to block with his hands, so he could only turn to the side and take the hit with his shoulder. His deltoid muscle went numb from the blow, and half of his arm immediately went limp. He used the momentum from turning to the side to take two steps back and create some distance. Just as he regained his footing, Wu Xiong's third punch came—this time a straight punch, aimed at his face.

Su Xinpei raised his hand to block. Forearm against forearm, bone against bone, the shock sending a tingling sensation from his wrist all the way to the back of his head. He gritted his teeth and pushed Wu Xiong's fist away, the blade grazing his ear, the force of the blow making his earlobe sting.

"Wait!" Old Tie Tou's voice came from the rattan chair. "Wu Xiong, hold back. He's only just started training his tendons. Don't break his arm." Wu Xiong withdrew his fist and stepped back, his breathing perfectly steady.

Su Xinpei hung his arms, panting. Three blocks, less than ten seconds. He stood there catching his breath, then looked down at his hands—the outer side of his palms was already red, and the spot on the inside of his forearm where Wu Xiong's first punch had landed was slightly hot. But the display screen jumped up.

[Practical experience +8]

He paused for a moment. Half an hour of practicing stances usually yielded three experience points, one or two each time. A single sparring session, ten seconds, would give him eight points. He had previously suspected the stat panel had a bias towards sparring, and tonight's sparring session confirmed it—the efficiency of practicing alone was far inferior to real combat. It wasn't that the stat panel was generous; it was that a person's focus and muscle activation rate in real combat were far higher than in solo practice, and the stat panel simply reflected this difference.

"Let's try again." Su Xinpei loosened his wrists and readjusted the opening position.

Wu Xiong glanced at Old Tie Tou, who didn't say anything, but simply picked up his enamel mug and took a sip. Wu Xiong turned back, grinning and revealing his tiger teeth: "You said it."

Over the next forty minutes, Su Xinpei took about forty punches.

Wu Xiong's fighting style was very straightforward; there were no combinations, no feints, just direct attacks. But every punch was accurate. Not in terms of fancy moves, but in the precise point where the fist landed, always stopping precisely in Su Xinpei's most uncomfortable position—the gap when the elbow had just risen, the space before the shoulder had retracted after turning, the transition point where the weight had just shifted to the left foot and hadn't yet caught up with the right. Every time Su Xinpei thought he was ready, Wu Xiong's punch would come from an angle he hadn't anticipated at all. It wasn't that Su Xinpei was slow to react; it was that Wu Xiong had already seen through the direction of his weight shift before the punch even landed.

But Su Xinpei was also changing. One hundred and twenty days of standing meditation taught him not only the sensation of qi, but also the real-time awareness of the position of his joints. Every time he was hit, he would instantly realize where he was off—his center of gravity was off, his shoulders weren't relaxed, his waist wasn't turned, his feet weren't in sync. Each time he was hit, a small red cross would automatically pop into his mind, pinning it to the problematic body part. The next time Wu Xiong struck at the same angle, he would move that part away a fraction of a second earlier. He would still be hit half the time, but the percentage of times he was grazed would increase from zero to thirty or forty percent.

On his twenty-first punch, Wu Xiong threw a low sweep, aiming for the outside of Su Xinpei's knee. Su Xinpei neither blocked nor retreated. He lowered his center of gravity, slightly bent his knee, and took the blow head-on with the outside of his thigh. After being strapped with weighted sandbags, his quadriceps had become more resilient and could withstand the impact. This was the first time tonight that he had deliberately chosen not to dodge—not because he couldn't dodge, but because he wanted to test his limits. Wu Xiong's shin collided with his, causing the muscles on the outside of his thigh to tremble, and his combat experience score jumped by three points.

"Alright, you dared to take it head-on." Wu Xiong withdrew his leg, a hint of approval in his eyes.

Su Xinpei remained silent, panting as he awaited the next punch. His combat experience progress bar on his panel was rising, but he knew this wasn't the biggest gain of the night. The biggest gain was discovering that each block he took could last a fraction longer than the last—not because his strength had increased, but because his reaction time had improved slightly. Standing meditation had taught his body to be still; only in stillness could he discern the direction of his shifting center of gravity before being struck.

In the final round, Wu Xiong unleashed a combination—first, a right straight punch forced him to raise his arm to block, then he stepped forward with his left foot and launched a left punch diagonally upwards at Su Xinpei's chin. Su Xinpei was almost out of strength; his arms felt like they were filled with cement. But just as Wu Xiong's left fist came up, he suddenly felt a surge of heat three fingers below his navel. That heat flowed up along the Ren meridian, splitting into two streams in his chest, rushing down the inside of his arms to his palms. His right hand moved before his mind could react, rising from below and using the heel of his palm to block Wu Xiong's wrist. It wasn't a direct clash—it was blocking and then guiding the force outwards in the direction of Wu Xiong's power. He felt it. Wu Xiong's force was directed forward, and his palm, pushing against the wrist, redirected the force from "aiming at his chin" to "grabbing the outside of his shoulder." After the push, Wu Xiong's fist grazed past his ear, missing its mark.

Wu Xiong steadied himself, looked down at his wrist, and then at Su Xinpei: "That wasn't a block, it was a pull." Su Xinpei leaned against the wooden stake, panting, too weak to answer, but the feeling of the closing force line that flashed between the palm and the other's wrist bone was the same kind of heat as the circulation of Qi during standing meditation.

Old Tietou sat up a little straighter in his rattan chair, his enamel mug resting on his lap, saying nothing. After a while, he stood up, walked over to Su Xinpei, and said in his rough, alcohol-smelling voice, "Come early tomorrow night. From now on, you'll be taking the tendon-strengthening class with Wu Xiong."

Wu Xiong let out a wail from the side: "Master, he's only been here a few days and he's already working with me?" Old Tie Tou glared at him: "He held on for forty minutes without falling. You were complaining of leg pain on your first day of standing meditation." Wu Xiong touched his nose and dared not say another word.

Su Xinpei leaned against the boxing post, slowly lowering his arms. Two bruises were already on his right forearm, and his left shinbone throbbed with pain. But he had a strange feeling inside, an indescribable mix of excitement and a sense of accomplishment. It was like his first month at the subdistrict office, when he went through all the files of low-income households in Beihe District from beginning to end. Aunt He asked him if he was tired, and he said he was, but he felt that this place would be his from now on.

That feeling is back.

After he calmed down, he put on his coat, zipped it up halfway, walked up to Old Iron Head, and asked the question he had always wanted to ask.

"Master, is the order of the four major training methods in traditional martial arts—tendon training, skin training, bone training, and qi cultivation—fixed?"

Old Tie Tou tilted his head back and took a swig of wine, then slammed the wine jug down on the bench, the enamel bottom hitting the wooden board with a dull thud. "No. Some people train their tendons first, some train their bones first, it depends on your physical constitution." He poked Su Xinpei's shoulder with his finger. "You touched the Qi sensation first through standing meditation, and after the Qi circulated through your body, it sank downwards, and the tendons were pushed by the Qi. So you trained your tendons faster than Wu Xiong did back then. But his explosive power is stronger than yours. With the same initial tendon training, he punched the tire more deeply than you, it's his explosive power that's better, not his progress. You're on two different paths, and in the end you both have to pass four thresholds. As for how to pass them—you're not on Wu Xiong's path, you're on the path you've cultivated through your own standing meditation."

He paused for a moment, then said, "The four foundations are not a straight line, but four layers of shell. Once each layer is established, the foundation of the next layer becomes stable. But the shell is not clothing; you can't put on the outer layer before putting on the inner one. If you rush to refine the skin before you've refined the tendons, the skin will become superficial. If you try to refine the bones before you've refined the qi, the bones will become brittle. You asked about the order, and my answer is: your order is determined by each time you practice standing meditation. I can feel your bones for you, but I can't replace your qi."

Su Xinpei nodded. He kept those words in mind—the order in which he performed each standing meditation exercise was closer to his own body than any standard procedure.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to leave when Old Tie Tou called him back.

"Your experience points on that panel must have jumped quite a bit tonight, right?" Su Xinpei was taken aback, and before he could speak, Old Tietou waved his hand. "I didn't see it. But your final burst of power just now was clearly different from last week. The recorder inside your body is recording your experience every time you're hit. Go back and look at it carefully; that's the foundation for you to get back up next time."

Su Xinpei didn't say anything. When he left, Wu Xiong was still struggling with the broken sandbags under the lamp, unable to thread the needle through the nylon thread, muttering, "Mending sandbags is more tiring than getting beaten up." Old Tie Tou turned on the radio; the weather forecast said it would rain tonight.

The rain started in the latter half of the night.

Su Xinpei lay on his apartment bed, the bedside lamp still on, a notepad in his hand. He had at least eight bruises: two on his right forearm, one on his left shoulder, one on his left shinbone, and four more on his back and ribs, feeling like someone was poking him with knuckles when he turned over. He stared at the fluorescent light on the ceiling—not in a daze, but counting. Counting how many punches and kicks he'd taken that night. Forty-odd sparring sessions, forty minutes without collapsing. His training load had increased by almost a whole day.

Panel pops open—

[Boxing stance (Iron Bone Hall Eighteen Hands) Proficiency level 82%]

[Practical experience, unknown difficulty, +43 experience]

[Tendon Refining (Iron Bone Hall) Experience +6]

He noticed that both the tendon-strengthening and boxing stance progress bars had increased tonight, but the initial stage of boxing stance training relied on the benefits of stance training, which gradually diminished after reaching the proficiency level. Later progress depended more on increasing the frequency of sparring with Wu Xiong. Tendon-strengthening was a different matter—it wasn't built up by the number of matches, but by the increased density of the muscles after each elbow strike, when the bone marrow felt numb and sore. Progress wouldn't be fast, but every bit had to penetrate to the joints of the bones and tendons.

He turned to a new page and wrote three lines—

I got punched at least forty times tonight. Several times more than the first day. But the first punch almost made me fall over when it hit my arm, and by the last punch I was able to deflect it.

A boxing stance is a set of moves; actual combat is about breaking those moves apart and then piecing them back together. A combat panel cannot replace real combat, just as a map cannot replace a path.

Three hundred punches tomorrow, with a punching bag.

He put down his pen, closed his notepad, and turned off the light. Rain pounded against the air conditioner unit outside the window, a pattering sound like someone pounding a broken drum in the distance. In the darkness, he could feel the bruise on his forearm swelling faintly. This swelling was different from the soreness he felt during standing meditation—the soreness of standing meditation was the result of his body being transformed and improved, while the swelling of the bruise was the memory left behind after a hard impact with a hard object, as the muscle fibers thickened during self-repair.

He glanced at the panel. The progress bar for stance training was nearing the mastery level, and his fist stance had just crossed the proficiency threshold. His tendon training was still barely at the beginner level, but those six experience points he gained tonight were earned through every single punch he landed.

He closed his eyes; a slight warmth still lingered three fingers below his abdomen. It wasn't the warmth from standing meditation, but rather the warmth forced forth by Wu Xiong's punch. His qi had been passively engaged in actual combat; it wasn't something he consciously channeled, but rather the only solution his body found under extreme pressure. This made him realize that he couldn't just stand still after practicing standing meditation—he needed more resistance, needed to observe whether his qi sensation could be even faster under extreme fatigue and extremely short reaction times.

Three hundred punches tomorrow. I'll find Wu Xiong again tomorrow.