Chapter 10: The profoundness of Taichi’s art of pushing hands (1/2)

Chapter 10: The profoundness of Taichi’s art of pushing hands

Tang Zichen slowly straightened the golden needle before shaking her hands so that the needle could slowly make its way into the joints of Wang Chao’s elbow. By the time Tang Zichen’s big thumb and forefinger left the butt of the needle, about seven eighths of the needle was already buried in his arm.

Wang Chao had nearly leapt in fright, but there had been no pain even after the needle had stabbed into him. In fact, instead of pain, there was a nice and refreshing feeling that spread throughout it.

After half an hour of Wang Chao becoming a human pincushion, Tang Zichen’s arm blurred once more as she rapidly pulled out the needles before intertwining it around her finger to form a ring again. At that moment, Wang Chao regained sensation within his arm, but the bruising had not yet disappeared from it.

As soon as she finished collecting all of the needles, her arm instantly grabbed onto Wang Chao’s arm and began to massage the area where the bruising was.

This time, Wang Chao felt as if each time she rubbed at his arm, an electric current was shocking his entire arm, causing the nerves to be jolted every now and then.

Gradually, the discoloration on his arm slowly receded away, but Wang Chao knew that this had to do with the powers of the Hidden Jin.

When sis Chen had used her Hidden Jin, the pores on his arm had opened up, allowing for the blood inside to seep out.

Furthermore, the black and blue swelling on his arm had gradually receded away as well until Wang Chao’s entire arm and fist seemed as if he had just pulled it out from a pool of water thanks to all of the sweat from the Hidden Jin of Tang Zichen.

“Hhhhhhhhnnnnnn……” Suddenly, Wang Chao could detect a low sound permeating into his ears as if there was thunder from somewhere.

“Where’s that sound coming from?” Wang Chao wondered. But then he realized that Tang Zichen’s entire joints were vibrating as she massaged his arm so that after a while, the sound that could be heard sounded a bit like thunder.

“Okay! Just rest for half a day and it’ll be back to normal. Don’t put any medicine and it’ll heal naturally. Using medicine is detrimental to healing since it will go through the kidney before being expelled from the body. This will naturally take a toll on the body even if it was applied orally or externally.”

After Tang Zichen had finished her kneading, she let out a long sigh. By this point, the swelling on Wang Chao’s fist and elbow was almost completely gone, only a small red trace remained.

“Sis Chen, your hand is covered with sweat…” Wang Chao muttered.

“Using Hidden Jin taxes the body, if one’s martial arts does not reach the quintessential change stage, then the Hidden Jin will not be usable and will lead to a high chance of heart failure. Furthermore, the body will begin to deteriorate with each attempt.”

“Quintessential change?” Wang Chao asked. From his two months of training, Tang Zichen had told him about the three Jins and even the principle of “Qi”. But this Quintessential change was something he had never heard before.

Tang Zichen only nodded her head, but gave no answer. Instead, she pressed a button on her armrest. In the next second, the door opened up as a servant came by with a basin of water and a towel. After washing her hands, she sprayed some water onto Wang Chao’s hand as well.

“You may leave, but leave the water here.” Tang Zichen spoke an order to the servant who immediately left. Then, facing Wang Chao, she spoke, “Come here, wash your hand and then water the grass with it.”

After washing, Wang Chao immediately carried the washbowl out to the garden and began to water the garden.

“Starting from today, I will be teaching you guoshu.” Tang Zichen spoke with a icy stare, causing Wang Chao to feel that the kindly elder sister had suddenly transformed into someone else. In fact, he could feel a cold one go up his spine. This type of feeling was something he had felt only once when the leopard had looked at the meal given to it at the zoo. But, the stare that Tang Zichen was giving him was far more intense.

“I’m sure you’ve been really curious about your sis Chen’s history, right?” Tang Zichen spoke.

“En.” Wang Chao nodded. He had this question on his mind constantly, but he had a premonition that if he had asked this question, then he would lose something precious. With a feeling like that, then it would have been better to be stuck in the dark.

“It’s fortunate you didn’t ask sooner, or else I wouldn’t have agreed to teach you.” She spoke. “The world I live in isn’t one that you could ever imagine or normally come in contact with. I only come to China once in awhile at my whim. When I first taught you a few things, that was just to see if you were qualified. But seeing your success, you possess some potential. This is why I left behind my belongings here so that it could be passed on. It would be unfortunate for the chain of inheritance to be broken one day without a successor.”