Chapter 54: Exercise

In truth, those days of eating one's fill, drinking to contentment, and basking in the sun came to an end very quickly.

Because after only a few days, all four of them realized, almost simultaneously, that they had actually gained weight.

The old man grew directly irritated. He rounded up the three lazy youngsters who had been sleeping in and made them labor under the sun in the pasture for the entire day, not letting up until Li Po and Yuan Lang were so exhausted they nearly vomited blood.

On this day, although Li Po still served as the cook, under the old man's strict orders, the group only ate to a half-full state across all three meals, a situation that caused Li Po immense suffering.

Yet, regarding his own weight gain, Li Po felt a jolt of alarm and secretly grew vigilant. This simply would not do. In peaceful times, as long as one possessed the capability, stuffing oneself and sleeping soundly required no concern.

However, this was Mayi of the Great Sui Dynasty! If you grew so fat you could barely walk, you might well end up being slaughtered like a pig by someone any given day. How unjust would that be?

Therefore, the next day, without requiring any urging from the old man, he rose bright and early, dragged Li Chun and Yuan Lang along, and began morning jogs looping around the horse track behind the stables.

At the beginning, Yuan Lang was quite displeased, feeling that Li Po was sucking up to his grandpa far too much and dragging him down into suffering.

Yet as they ran, he unexpectedly discovered that no matter how hard he tried, summoning every ounce of his spirit, his footsteps only grew heavier and heavier, while the two in front of him pulled further and further ahead.

How could he know that these two companions had enjoyed only a few good days? Having traversed mountains and ridges, enduring hunger and freezing cold, they had forged their physiques into something increasingly resilient.

Even with his daily chores and martial practice, his condition compared to theirs was like that of a domestic animal versus a wild beast.

Consequently, although he thought this reckless, frantic running was a bit foolish, being unable to outrun even a little girl was something Yuan Lang found exceptionally difficult to accept.

Thus, on this morning, the hot-blooded youth was exhausted like a dog, yet his tender self-esteem had taken a blow, and he swore that hereafter he would train to run faster than a rabbit.

Li Po ran with sweat pouring down his face, yet his slightly aching and numb body seemed to tell him that every single cell was greedily inhaling the fresh air. That feeling of exhilarating freedom was truly hard to describe in mere words.

At the same time, Li Po knew that his body had recovered quite well. If he continued to temper it, he would become even stronger than he had been on the grasslands. After all, this was an excessively youthful body with immense potential for growth.

After dragging the exhausted-to-the-point-of-death Yuan Lang and Li Chun to slowly jog two more laps, he finally called a halt.

They did not rest idly afterwards either. He directed the two of them to carry stacks of dry hay into a long-vacant stable and dismantle the old fencing, clearing out a large open space.

Then, they spread a thick layer of dry hay across the floor to serve as a makeshift mat.

By this time, the three of them were so hungry that their chests practically touched their spines; the weight-loss effect promised to be exceptionally good.

After a simple breakfast—eaten under the old man's disdainful gaze and somewhat resentful, aggrieved expression—Li Po led Li Chun and Yuan Lang into the cleared stable.

Within the empty stable, only Li Po's voice echoed.

"Today, we are going to talk about empty-handed close combat..."

Li Chun was very excited, for she felt this was her eldest brother's very first formal lecture to disciples. Naturally, she pricked up her ears to listen clearly to every single word her brother spoke, engraving them firmly in her heart. This was, after all, destined to be the secret family heritage of the Li clan; the only slight imperfection was that some stinky brat was eavesdropping on the teachings.

Yuan Lang was also excited, though unlike Li Chun, he had been tutored since childhood. At the mention of empty-handed close combat, his little brow arched upward, thinking: Isn't that just the military wrestling art?

Thus, feeling quite unconvinced, he thought Li Po was making such a grand fuss out of being somewhat overconfident; when it came to actual fighting, he might not even measure up to Yuan Lang.

However, having witnessed many of Li Po's miraculous feats—to the point where he called him elder brother quite willingly—a growing sense of awe restrained him, and he did not dare to interrupt Li Po's speech casually.

Instead, he eagerly prepared to give Li Po a surprise during the upcoming drills.

Li Po also felt quite good. Having grown accustomed to the role of the older brother, he naturally assumed an unyielding attitude in all matters. If he had just arrived as a newcomer, he might have first had Yuan Lang demonstrate to test his depth, but now, he slipped into the role of the teacher quite as a matter of course.

"Before practicing with weapons, one must first temper the body and strengthen the physique. Only then can you achieve twice the result with half the effort when wielding various arms."

"That is why martial practitioners must first train their fists and kicks before studying anything else."

At this point, he finally reached the main topic, shaking his palm slightly. "So, let us first discuss fists and kicks. Someone once said: a fist is inferior to a palm, and a palm is inferior to a finger. Do you know what that means?"

"This implies that in terms of destructive power, a fist is inferior to a palm, and a palm is inferior to a finger. That sounds somewhat incorrect, but it actually captures the essence of fist and foot techniques."

"As for us, practicing for a lifetime, we are unlikely to reach the point of poking someone to death with a single finger, so we will not dwell on fingers."

"Let us talk about the fist first. I tell you, some people strike with immense power in their fists—so heavy it is like being struck with an iron hammer. Yet even with such heavy fists, they rarely achieve a one-strike kill. Because no matter how heavy the punch, it relies on shock force, with the impact dispersed across the surface of the fist. Therefore, it is difficult to play a decisive role in the split second of a life-or-death struggle."

"Thus, in a bare-handed duel between two people where life and death hang in the balance, if someone only knows how to bludgeon others with their fists... as for me, I would simply adore encountering such an opponent."

Unawares, Yuan Lang pricked up his ears, listening with increasing earnestness, precisely because of those recurring phrases: life-and-death struggle, life-and-death balance.

Anyone who could casually drop such phrases could only mean one thing: he had very likely experienced such scenes himself.

The martial spirit of the Sui people was extraordinarily robust—not a laughing matter—and the combat arts born from it were likewise varied and numerous. Some were by no means inferior to later developments, and in their ferocity, they even surpassed them.

Yet, even among the scions of aristocratic clans, the opportunities to hear firsthand accounts of techniques comprehended between life and death were rather limited.

Because such techniques were inevitably arts of killing, and their transmission was never casual.

Consequently, what circulated most widely throughout the Great Sui remained military combat arts—practical, yet lacking in refinement. Training in them for a decade or eight years could not compare to taking a stroll across a battlefield, and even that differed vastly from a genuine one-on-one duel.

Yet Li Po's explanation was wonderfully novel; although it sounded somewhat disjointed at first, it struck the listener as making a great deal of sense.

Therefore, merely upon hearing the opening, Yuan Lang's attitude of contempt melted away, and he began to listen intently.

Li Po continued, "Therefore, later practitioners, recognizing these flaws, finally realized that the palm is actually far more lethal than the fist. Because the edge of the palm is like a blade; applied with the right force, a single palm strike downward is sufficient to snap bones and tendons, or even strike vulnerable points to achieve a one-strike kill."