Volume 1 Chapter 12 (1/2)

On the pit above the mines, facing the calm night sky of the west, the monstrous metropolis in the background deeply illuminated in color of faint red, the sky on the Eastwood Grand District seemed so pale, as if there were never-ending layers of yarn enveloping the outer layer of the atmosphere. Just like this, at this kind of environment where the light faintly fluctuated, the vague silhouette of Xu Le could be seen constantly twisting and stretching his body in accordance to a fixed sequence; stretching his feet, twisting his waist, lowering his body, punching out, turning his wrist, elbow strikes….

At the side, Feng Yu watched calmly without speaking a word. It had been more than a year, the youngster had already memorized this set of movement to the point that it was ripe as melon that rolls from its vine (TL note: Chinese idiom - to know something by heart), without a single mistake.  Even the angle in which the fingertips were slanted downwards would not deviate by even a fraction.

This set of seemingly simple movement obviously can't be considered as physical training since the movement sequence were somewhat scattered and too slow; making it seemed more like a dance. However, when compared to those popular song and dance troupes at Highwood, this dance seemed too stiff.

This was not the choppy type of stiffness; instead it was a type of stiffness due to unfamiliarity. Xu Le's movement carried with it a raw, unpolished by trials of fire type of feeling, akin to raw meats and tendons that were difficult to chew on.

This was the type of stiffness akin to the strengthened acrylic gla.s.s used as knife surface in the operation room, stiffness akin to the endless stones beneath the soils of Planet Eastwood, invariably solid. Each motion was direct and efficient.

When taken apart, there would be a total of ten movements in this set of stiff dance, with every two of them extending towards the opposite direction. Only towards the end when Xu Le seriously pulled back his extended right foot and crouched in a weird posture did this set of movement considered complete. (TL note: wordplay by author. The word stiff in Chinese comprised of 2 words 生硬, and the previous two paragraphs were word play and in depth description of each word per paragraph)

It did not look complicated nor was the intensity high; however under the night sky of Eastwood Grand District, Xu Le's reddened face was already covered with a layer of steam. On his back, his cloth was drenched with sweats that were dripping from the corner of the skintight singlet he was wearing. From this, one can obviously see the amount of energy he had expanded within such short period of time on these movements.

He slowly breathed, not speaking for a long time. The youngster's body originally seemed somewhat slim. At the moment however, this body seemed full of unreleased energy, with an extremely beautiful physique, making one wonder how would it look in a few years when he fully grown into an adult.

Exhaustion wasn't the sole reason for his silence. It was more due the over six hundred pieces of muscles on him completely occupied by achiness, causing him to be unwilling to even lift a finger.  Every single myofibril on him seemed to be breathing, expanding, and rubbing against each other - similar to the friction between metal and porcelain when rubbed together, causing one to suffer an extreme tooth sour-like pain.

After the moment of sourness, came a fit of spontaneous shudder, as if it rose from deep within Xu Le's heart all the way through his nerves and the route consisting of his connective tissues, unceasingly expanding around, shaking every part of that tiny body of his in a fas.h.i.+on similar to a drum being beaten.  Small granules can be seen protruding out of his flesh before disappearing, as if there was a force of invisible energy wriggling beneath his skin.

Amongst the windless night, the cuffs of his pants started trembling, concealing the incessant shuddering of the legs underneath.

Xu Le did not understand why these muscles were warming up by themselves and why was an illusion of friction arising from them. Nor did he know that this was because the myofibrils in human body were actually formed by pairs of intertwined filamentous proteins.  Naturally, he would also not know that the reason for the shuddering of his muscles and what it represented, the usefulness of it…he only firmly remembered what the repair shop boss told him; to etch these feeling of pain into his heart, to remember the path in which his muscle soured and shuddered.

After changing out the sweat drenched clothes and taking a shower, the refreshed Xu Le with his head dangling about climbed to the top of the mine once again. He sat beside Feng Yu weakly and without strength with a somewhat pale complexion, like someone that had just been hit by a serious illness. Feng Yu ignored him, staring at the crystal screen on his knees in an unrestrained manner.  Faint blue light shone upon the face of this repair boss shop, giving off a feeling of cold gentleness.