Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Each one of these mercury filled balls were about 180 kilograms with a smooth and clean surface. If one wanted to pick one up, then it would require a super strong amount of finger strength.

Right now Wang Chao’s strength was well over the necessary amount, so he was easily able to spin the ball with both hands.

But using his fingers to bring it up was a far more difficult task.

If it was a basketball, then anyone would be able to pick it up with their five fingers. Then what about a bright and shiny sphere that was heavier than a basketball?

“My God! This is more difficult than I thought!” Wang Chao thought as he tried grabbing the ball. He felt like a dragonfly trying to knock over a tower. All five of his fingers began to sound out with a crackling sound as he tried to budge the ball to no avail.

“With Chen Aiyang’s finger strength, who knows how easily he would be able to pick this sphere up.”

After a try, Wang Chao had realized how difficult it was. When he was in Hong Kong for 20 days, he talked with Chen Aiyang everyday. So he was very knowledgeable just how strong a senior of the martial arts world was.

But this ball was too hard to grip and pick up. Even Wang Chao had some doubts that Chen Aiyang would be able to do it.

“Slow and steady wins the race. Improving the finger strength won’t take a single day and night to do. The finger strength must be stronger than the Chopping Jin before the transition between tiger to eagle stance can be done.”

Wang Chao was in no rush.

Every transition from stance to stance in Xingyi required a strict practice. If one did not combine the movements smoothly enough, then an expert would exploit a hole in the movements and make the most out of that weak point.

During the fight with Zhang Wei, Wang Chao had started with the tiger stance before switching to the snake stance. During this time, there had been a pause in movements, and it was only by luck his own footsteps had saved him.

But even then, Zhang Wei had seen an opportunity and charged forward to strike at him. Breaking apart the platform, he had gone out for a fierce barrage, causing Wang Chao to be at a disadvantage. If it were not for his Assault of Dragon and Snake and then spitting out blood, then he would have lost his life.

At the time of the competition, Wang Chao wasn’t aware of this fact. But after talking with Chen Aiyang, he had suddenly realized what a fragile spot his life was in. So he had to make up for this deficiency by training hard to improve himself.

The tiger stance was very fierce, but there was no follow up move. The snake stance was very agile, but there was no final strike to end the enemy’s life for sure. A giant python would constrict its enemy, but in the end, it would use the venom in its fangs for a clean kill.

Facing the mercury filled ball, Wang Chao began to go through one of the motions of the Chopping Jin of the tiger stance with a gentle movement as if he was practicing one of the stances of Taichi.

The very instant his chopping movement was about to hit the ball, his eyes immediately shined with concentration as he changed from a chop to a claw.

A humming sound could be heard from the sphere, but Wang Chao wasn’t able to grab it still.

Not discouraged, Wang Chao tried the same thing once more. Chopping down with a soft arm, he immediately brought his hair up and sealed his pores together.

This was the true essence of loosening the muscles and attacking with the pores.

One try, two tries! Three tries! ………

After over a hundred tries, Wang Chao’s spirit, energy, and Qi were finally gathered at his fingertips. In his eyes, all of his energy had already disappeared, the remaining few amounts were gathered in his hand as he tried to chop and grab again and again.

As his arm came swinging down, his hand would transform to become a claw.

Committing himself to practicing, he was utterly engrossed in the Chopping Grab. Wang Chao had completely forgotten about the concept of time.

With each grab, he had ingrained the secrets of “Producing softness and receiving hardness”.

“Taichi is like catching a fish, Bagua is like grinding a stone, and Xingyi is like grabbing shrimp.”

Wang Chao’s chop and grab had been utterly concentrated upon as if he was preparing to grab at a prawn in the waters.

After talking with Chen Aiyang, Wang Chao’s understanding of Xingyi had improved by another layer. When it came to the Chopping Jin, his understanding of it was enough to learn something new with it.

Chen Aiyang’s most skilled art in Taichi was the simple Whipping Arm. When both of his arms swung, it was like an iron mace that would shatter stone and dent steel. Any that tried to resist would be blown away.

Taichi’s Whipping Hand, Xingyi’s Chopping Arm, and Bagua’s Whipping Jin, all of them were connected.

Cheng Tinghua of Bagua had once said, “Practicing is like pushing a mountain. Fighting is like swinging a whip.” This whiplike idea of Bagua was shared by Taichi.

When Wang Chao exchanged notes with Chen Aiyang, both sides had benefitted.

Wang Chao knew how to listen to Jin because of Taichi, but he had never learned the hard style of Taichi’s fighting style since Tang Zichen hadn’t taught him anything else. The pursuit to martial arts required one to not be greedy and too give it their all.

But right now, his martial arts had many achievements such as reaching the Hidden Jin and having the sound follow the fist. This was enough to be considered a master. Right now, all he had to do was to get more fighting experience and get a stronger understanding. A truth within a lie and receiving coarseness for smoothness. The style of practicing was different than from fighting.

This was the way that Yang Luchan, Dong Haichuan and the other grandmasters had learned that way.

Within the simple Jin of the Chopping Grab, it had contained the comprehension of many grandmasters.

He didn’t know what attempt it was, but Wang Chao suddenly snapped out of his entrancement after bringing the Jin in his fingers to their limits.

The sky was already dark, it was night time.

Unknowingly to Wang Chao, he had already spent the entire day practicing.

The next day, Wang Chao had closed the doors and refused to go outside, choosing to stay within the villa to practice.

He didn’t practice any movements or stances and spent the day practicing the chop to grab movement. At night, he studied the mercury ball and grabbed it. By night, he closed his eyes and envision the movements.

By day, practice the eyes and hands. By night, nourish the eyes and hands.

If one were to blindly practice, the the muscles and skin in the knuckles would be unable to take it.

But if he were to cultivate his health while practicing, then it would maintain the balance between Yin and Yang.

A soft chop and a hard grab. This was the Yin.

Softening the muscles and hardening the skin. That was the Yang.

Within this simple practice, he had already started to understand the mysterious concept of Yin and Yang.

“In the deepest and highest levels of learning martial arts, each and every movement contains the way of Yin and Yang. Each movement is natural and not deliberate. This is what Confucius had once said after 70 years, ‘Follow the heart without ever breaking the rules’.”

In the midst of studying the “Chopping Grab”, “Yin and Yang”, “Movement and Sound”, and “Nourishment of Health”, Wang Chao had suddenly remembered the words from Tang Zichen’s True Record of Guoshu.

Although he didn’t know where sis Chen was at this moment, at her name, his heart had understood her teachings. Wang Chao once more felt an inseparably close relationship to her.

It was truly that simple. The higher levels of martial arts wasn’t about the muscles, pores, or bones. But rather, it related to a human, animal, or thing in theory.

“One doesn’t know what year, month, or day it is from within a cave.”

Day by day, Wang Chao continued to practice without noticing the passage of time. Aside from eating and sleeping, he spent the days chopping and grabbing from sunrise to sunset.

He was a millionaire by now, so he had naturally hired a specialized chef for his meals and a servant to clean the house.

But the training rooms had been off limits to all but him, making it very peaceful.

Just like this, day after day, the sun rose as the moon fell and the sun fell as the moon rose. At the very end, his own practices had been like a rule of the day and night. Every day when the sun rises, he would practice breaking out with Jin with the Chopping Grab. Every night when the moon came up, he his muscles would loosen and he would cultivate his health.

Even if it was raining or the clouds covered the sun, it had no impact on him.

That was because the rhythm of the sun and moon had already blended in with his body. The clouds could not hide it from him.

“The Wudang Sword Style had placed emphasis on ‘Forge by day, learn by night’ to be one with the world. A person’s Yin and Yang harmonized with the day cycle by working and sleeping. This is the most optimal way to cultivate health.”

Then one day, Wang Chao suddenly felt a crackling sound break out from his knuckles midgrab, causing the ball he had just clamped onto to spring up from the trough!

His knuckles had suddenly bursted with noise and his finger strength had suddenly transformed to become as strong as Zhang Wei’s One Inch Finger.

Grabbing the mercury filled lead ball, Wang Chao began to treat it like a basketball and spin it around his body before throwing it back onto the trough.

As it fell back onto the trough, a loud vibrating sound could be heard as it smashed downwards.

“Ah! Have I finally reached the stage?” Wang Chao spoke with shock. Looking at the ball in the trough, he suddenly chopped down and then grabbed at it. Sure enough, he was able to grab the ball and bring it up into the air.

“Great!” Wang Chao was overjoyed. With a sudden movement, he used the Chopping Jin of the tiger stance, causing the entire room to echo with the roar of a tiger.

At the end of his Chopping Fist, he transformed his hand into the claw of an eagle. At the same time, his throat suddenly let out a sound that was as sharp as a sword almost as if an eagle was suddenly plunging downwards from a thousand meters up.

The roar of the tiger stance was fierce beyond belief, but when he had transitioned into the eagle stance, the power in his body and grown another step in ferocity.

Kacha! Wang Chao’s claw hand struck the ground with Hidden Jin, causing the terrazzo to suddenly break apart into five different one inch holes filled with sweat.

Upon striking the ground, Wang Chao suddenly thought about the killing move of the monkey stance. Without stopping, he immediately grabbed onto a broken piece of the ground and flew for the mercury balls.

As the stone slammed against the mercury balls, a dull metallic ring could be heard.

“So that’s the answer. After the eagle stance comes the monkey. However, I can barely do the Grabbing Claw. The entire eagle stance isn’t something I’m proficient at, it’s not that easy to add another combination straight away.”

Wang Chao stopped his train of thought.

“What day is it? How long have I been practicing? Is this what they mean by ‘In the cave for 7 days is to be a thousand years away from the world’?”

These past few days, He had practiced martial arts in accordance to the sun and moon rhythm of nourishment and Yin and Yang. The highest most Daoist form of cultivation and refinement, the stage of being one with the universe. He had completely forgotten about the outside world.

Looking at the calendar, Wang Chao discovered that it was October, where the days were in a hot spell still. When he came back from Hong Kong, it was only June. That was to say, he had spent three or four months on training only.

Three months without communication from the outside world! Wang Chao suddenly remembered about the organization, after being away for so long, would there be a new mission for him?

“When was Cao Yi this obedient? He would have normally come to bother me before this point. Does he not know I’m here or something? No way, he already knows about this villa. That must mean there hasn’t been any missions lately otherwise, why would they let me practice in peace?”

Wang Chao had guessed correctly. Cao Yi had long since reported the results to the organization and re-evaluated his plans. Right now, Cao Yi and general Zhouliang were both waiting for the organization’s newest plan. There was half a year to wait.

Cao Yi knew that Wang Chao was behind closed doors to train, and so he knew that with Wang Chao’s strength getting stronger and stronger, he didn’t want to disturb Wang Chao. So after allocating several men to look out, he didn’t bother Wang Chao at all.

As soon as Wang Chao exited from his villa, he immediately texted Yao Xiaoxue. Straight away, he received a message back. “Zhao Xinglong fought with a person in the dojo and was sent to the hospital, it’s already been a month. Cao Yi didn’t want anyone to disturb you, so we had no way to contact you.”

“What? Zhao Xinglong was sent to the hospital?” Wang Chao sucked in a sharp breath at the news.