Chapter 5: A change in the temples (2/2)

Heading inside his kitchen for a moment, he cut a piece of the leftover fish from the new year to give to the cat.

Sensing no hostility from Wang Chao, the cat stared suspiciously at the piece of fish. With a blink of its eyes, it couldn’t resist any longer and snatched up the fish into its mouth.

As Wang Chao began to sigh in relief, a sharp crying sound could be heard from indoors.

It was the kettle he had put on the stove. The water that had been boiling inside was releasing steam through its opening, resulting in a sharp whistling sound.

“I get it now!” Wang Chao cried out before immediately getting into the three integral stance. From his head to his neck, his vertebrae was like a snake. Slowly easing himself downwards, his entire body began to emit heat and sweat.

Pa! His body’s center of gravity suddenly focused at his tailbone before Wang Chao suddenly felt like the cat. Instead of having an actual tail, he could visualize himself with one.

A small stimulation could be felt around his tailbone, and before he knew it, the cold sensation traveled up his vertebrae and towards his head. Suddenly, his scalp went numb as he felt goosebumps appear all over his body as the pores began to close.

With this newfound realization, Wang Chao immediately set himself to practicing the three integrals only to feel the heat and sweat threatening to escape from his pores with each second he sustained the posture.

As he continued, Wang Chao could almost feel that his head was like a balloon that was being inflated.

At the last moment, Wang Chao felt as if he was on the verge of exploding before he had stopped. Following sis Chen’s example, he brought both of his hands up to his eyebrows before pressing downwards towards his abdomen.

Even as his hands pushed downwards, all Wang Chao could feel was him trying to push down on a tire. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t push it down completely.

Wang Chao’s abdomen grumbled with a gurgling sound before turning over and shooting outwards.

Unable to keep his mouth shut, Wang Chao let out a hiss of pain.

This hiss was similar in sound to when the kettle from earlier was boiling.

Suddenly, Wang Chao came to the sensation that a part of the heat had traveled up towards his face before stopping right at his temples.

At this sensation, Wang Chao could swear that his temples were growing larger.

“It couldn’t be…?” A joyous smile swept across his face as Wang Chao focused on this sensation.

Unable to deal with the kettle still whistling, he hurriedly went to find a mirror.

“Eh? I don’t see anything different, but I can clearly feel something there.”

After looking at himself, Wang Chao could have sworn there was a stimulation in his temples and grew dejected.

“Forget it, eating one bite doesn’t mean I’m fat. I clearly felt that sensation, that means I’m doing something right.”

And so he forced himself to stay calm once more.

At long last he had made it through the bottleneck. For the next 10 days, Wang Chao had been in a joyous mood. Naturally, he continued to practice everyday, with each day he practiced, the closer he felt to improving.

However with this fascination came some retributions. When it came to the finals on the last three days, Wang Chao didn’t know a single thing. After the finals, he still knew nothing. With this end result, Wang Chao figured that he wouldn’t be able to have an even worse of a test grade even if he tried.

On the very first day of winter break, Wang Chao had felt that his temples were slightly different than before after a quick observation in the mirror.

His entire body felt as if he was filled with energy was was revitalized.

This type of change had been quite miraculous to him and caused his self confidence to skyrocket. Looking at his attitude in the past, he felt weird for being so introverted, depressed and wretched.

“Since my temples have changed, I’ll go meet up with sis Chen and learn something new!” Wang Chao had already made his plans for the winter break. “What should I do for the next two days? I’ve made great progress with my martial arts and even made my temples enlargen. With this, I am a martial artist.”

Wang Chao had even read some novels during the era of the Republic of China where experts were everywhere. Each one of them had “temples that were an inch tall and mighty”.

Although his own temple wasn’t yet an inch tall, there was still a minute change. For a moment….Wang Chao had felt that… even if just by a little bit, he was slowly becoming an expert of martial arts….

With his temples swollen with energy and confidence, he was eager to go and find someone to fight to see the fruits of his two months of training.