Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 41, The Second Window

The old medicine alley was covered with ivy climbing the blue brick walls, its leaves already turning red, their edges curled and withered, trembling gently in the afternoon breeze. When Su Xinpei pushed open the peeling wooden door, Master Chen was sitting at a low table, pitting dried dates. Exactly the same as last time—a low table, dried dates, warm water, the medicine cabinet's numerous small drawers, the window half-covered by old newspapers, light filtering through the gaps and falling on the tabletop, forming several thin patches of light. The only difference was that this time there was an old book with a missing corner on the table, the cover printed with the words "Yunji Qiqian," its spine cracked and rebound with hemp thread. Next to the plate of dried dates in front of Master Chen was an empty bowl, the bottom of which was covered with a layer of rice grains, with a half-burnt incense stick stuck in the rice grains, the ash settling on the rice grains in a small gray-white clump.

"Sit down." Master Chen didn't look up. He pinched a dried date between his fingers, turned the knife, and the date pit fell into the enamel plate with a very slight crisp sound.

Su Xinpei sat down across from him at the low table. He took off his coat, folded it neatly, and placed it beside him, revealing only an old T-shirt that showed the faded gold veins on his forearm. Master Chen glanced at him, his gaze lingering on his forearm for a moment, before continuing to pick date pits, his hands moving without pause, and asked, "Are you still practicing the breathing techniques I taught you last time?"

"I practice every day," Su Xinpei said. He placed his hands on his knees and consciously slowed his breathing. He inhaled, drawing the breath into his dantian, and as he exhaled, the warmth in his Guanyuan acupoint subsided slightly. This was a habit he had developed while practicing Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation) at Tiegutang—now, after each session, he would sit for a moment to transition his breathing from the rhythm of Zhan Zhuang to the rhythm of fetal breathing before getting up to practice his boxing. He no longer needed to consciously think about the word "sink"; the Qi would naturally flow downwards, like water flowing downhill.

Master Chen hummed in agreement, took a thin moxa stick from the medicine cabinet, lit it with a match, and applied it to the indentation on Su Xinpei's left rib for a moment. The smoke from the moxa stick was extremely thin and straight, with a mild and non-irritating aroma, exactly the same as last time. After finishing, he extinguished the moxa stick and placed it on the edge of the enamel tray, then sat down again. "Not bad. The foundation for embryonic breathing is stable. Did you achieve this through standing meditation?"

"Yes. Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation) taught me to sink my breath, and fetal breathing (embryonic breathing) helped me retain the sinking breath."

Master Chen pushed the dish of dried dates half an inch closer to Su Xinpei, then opened the book "Yunji Qiqian," turned to a certain page, and pointed to a line of text with his finger. The text was written vertically, and the ink had faded—"Those who practice fetal breathing can breathe without using their nose and mouth, as if they were in the womb." He pushed the book towards Su Xinpei so he could read it himself, then took a small earthenware pot from the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet, added a few medicinal herbs, poured in half a pot of water, and placed it on the charcoal stove to simmer slowly. The aroma of the herbs quickly filled the air, bittersweet, somewhat similar to the taste of the purple wax pill from last time.

"Today's lesson is on fetal breathing." Master Chen sat back down at the low table opposite him, placing his hands on his knees. His fingers were long, with prominent knuckles, and the skin on the back of his hands was so thin that you could see the bluish veins. "How many times per minute do you usually breathe?"

"Twelve or thirteen times," Su Xinpei said.

"And what about when you're practicing standing meditation?"

"Six or seven times."

"When the frequency drops below six times and remains constant for more than an hour, the body will enter a state of semi-sleep—consciousness remains, but the body's metabolic rate drops to near sleep levels. This is called 'fetal breathing.' It's not holding your breath, not deep breathing; it's guiding your breathing to an extremely slow and subtle pace, so subtle that you can't even feel yourself breathing." Master Chen slightly lifted the lid of the clay pot to check the heat of the herbal soup, then closed it again. "When you're practicing standing meditation now, your breath can already sink down on its own, but it's only the breath that sinks; you haven't yet sunk the breath itself. The first step in fetal breathing is to teach you to breathe without your mouth and nose—not that you don't actually stop breathing, but that you move your breath from your mouth and nose to your dantian (lower abdomen)."

Su Xinpei didn't ask "How do you breathe from the dantian?"—he had already learned not to ask such questions. When Lao Tietou taught Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation), he never explained the principles, only letting him stand until he didn't want to ask anymore. Master Chen's teaching method was different, but the attitude was the same: it wasn't that he wouldn't answer, but that the answer was inside the body, and he had to find it himself.

He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. The first time he inhaled, his chest rose slightly. The second time, he placed his hands three finger-widths below his navel, palms against his Guanyuan acupoint, and mentally pressed the inhalation downwards. His chest stabilized, but the breath only reached his stomach and then stopped. The third time, he didn't consciously inhale, nor did he focus on his dantian; he simply concentrated on the small patch of skin his palms were touching. His palms were warm, and his dantian was warm too. The two warm patches were pressed together, separated by a layer of skin. He tried not to actively inhale, but simply let the two warm patches slowly approach each other—and then the breath entered on its own. Not inhaled, but seeped in. Like water seeping into the pores of a towel, without needing to be drawn out.

Master Chen's voice came from across the street, very softly: "Don't count. If you count, there won't be any left."

Su Xinpei let go of the thought of counting breaths, allowing the breath to flow in and out naturally. With each inhale, he poured warm water into his dantian; with each exhale, he gently let the water ripple outwards. When the water level reached the rim of the cup, it stopped moving, only trembling slightly. He maintained this extremely subtle trembling—not holding his breath, but allowing the boundary between inhalation and exhalation to become thinner and thinner, until it almost disappeared. After an unknown amount of time, he felt the warmth below his navel stop ripples outwards and instead begin to slowly converge towards his spine, forming an extremely thin line of heat between the Guanyuan and Mingmen acupoints. This was a sensation he had never experienced before during his standing meditation—the qi no longer ascended along the Ren and Du meridians, but instead settled deep within his abdomen towards the inner side of his spine, like charcoal buried in ash, not emitting flames, but continuously dissipating heat.

Master Chen's medicinal soup was ready. He took the clay pot off the stove and placed it on a mat, then poured a small bowl of soup into it and placed it in front of Su Xinpei. "Drink it."

Su Xinpei picked up the bowl and took a sip. The medicinal soup was very bitter, but after the bitterness subsided, there was a hint of sweetness at the back of his tongue, just like the cool sensation that followed the extreme bitterness of the purple wax pill. He finished the soup and put the bowl back on the table. Master Chen watched him finish the soup and then spoke again, this time in a gentler voice. "When you came here last time, I told you to go back and sit for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn every day. You did it. Do you know why the foundation-building course in Daoist alchemy starts with embryonic breathing?"

"Because it's about gathering in." Su Xinpei recalled what Old Tie Tou had said—Old martial arts are about fighting outwards, while alchemy is about gathering inwards.

"That's right. Traditional martial arts train from the outside in, while Daoist alchemy trains from the inside out. Your master taught you to tighten your tendons, harden your skin, and compress your bones—all of these are ways to stretch outwards. If you stretch for too long, your body will remember the inertia of exerting force outwards, and you'll even stay tense while sleeping. Fetal breathing teaches you to release that inertia—not to release the force, but to release the tension." Master Chen stood up, walked to the medicine cabinet, opened a small drawer, took out a few thin herbal roots, and placed them in Su Xinpei's palm. "Hold them under your tongue. Wait until they dissolve before you leave."

Su Xinpei pressed the medicinal root under his tongue. The taste was very mild, slightly sweet, and similar to dried dates. Master Chen poured the dregs from the clay pot into a ceramic jar in the corner, then placed the empty clay pot back on the charcoal stove to dry. "I've figured out how many energies you have. Old Martial Arts has built a good shell for you, but the core inside hasn't formed yet—it's not that you lack the techniques, it's that you lack tranquility. The most difficult thing in alchemy isn't energizing, it's calming the mind. Your mind is calmer than most people's. This is the most valuable thing that Zhan Zhuang has taught you." He dried his hands, sat back down at the low table, picked up a dried date, and continued to remove the pit, the tip of the knife gently turning on the date skin.

Su Xinpei dissolved the medicinal root in his mouth, thanked the master, and stood up to walk towards the door. As he reached the door, Master Chen suddenly called out to him, "Next time you come, bring your master's enamel mug. I've prepared some herbal tea for him; it might help with that old fool's injury." Su Xinpei nodded, pushed open the wooden door, and walked into the alley.

Autumn sunlight filtered through the white sheets drying on either side of the old alley, casting dappled patterns of light on the blue brick pavement. Su Xinpei stood at the alley entrance for a moment, silently reviewing the key points of the embryonic breathing technique he had just learned: don't count breaths, don't use your mouth or nose, let the breath seep in naturally from your dantian. He tried to maintain this embryonic breathing while walking—his steps didn't stop, his breathing didn't falter, and the warmth in his dantian remained steadily in place. When he reached the entrance of the Beihe vegetable market, he realized he had walked quite a distance, but his breathing was still steady, and the warmth in his Guanyuan acupoint was even more solid than it had been in the pharmacy—embryonic breathing and the sinking of qi in standing meditation were fundamentally the same thing; Old Tie Tou had unintentionally laid the foundation most needed for embryonic breathing when he taught him standing meditation.

Back at his apartment that evening, he sat for nearly half an hour before practicing Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation). Not Zhan Zhuang—just sitting, eyes closed, tongue against the roof of his mouth, hands on his knees, letting his breath seep into his dantian (lower abdomen). He noticed a phenomenon: fetal breathing and Zhan Zhuang completely overlapped in the point of "physical stillness and mental clarity." While Zhan Zhuang required maintaining a specific physical structure, fetal breathing did not, but both demanded the same level of concentration—bringing scattered thoughts back and focusing on a single point within the body. The concentration developed through Zhan Zhuang directly translated into proficiency in fetal breathing. The panel popped up—[Fetal Breathing Visualization Proficiency +1].

After finishing his practice, he spread his notepad on the table and wrote a few lines: Master Chen's second lesson—fetal breathing, lowering the breathing rate, not holding your breath, but relying on the dantian to naturally penetrate. The overlap with standing meditation lies in "physical stillness and clear consciousness." Conclusion: Daoist alchemy and traditional martial arts share the same interface in terms of concentration.

After finishing writing, he added a line: Remember to bring an enamel mug next time. Then he closed the notebook and turned off the light. In the darkness, the warmth below his navel lingered, its subtle expansion and contraction like a small lake breathing quietly under the moonlight.