Chapter 32: The group of experts by the coast (1/2)

Chapter 32: The group of experts by the coast

Winter vacation had finally ended, causing Wang Chao to return back home.

But this winter vacation had been quite bountiful for Wang Chao. He had managed to find a good and easy-going work opportunity at the Taekwondo dojo with a good amount of pay. Furthermore, he had been able to experience real combat several times thanks to the assistance of the female director Zhang Tong. All of this was vastly different to his previously poverty-stricken lifestyle.

After two months of winter vacation, he had managed to gain a better understanding of martial arts after fighting li Feng, Liu Wenjun, Zhao Xinglong, and the bodyguards from Zhang Tong.

Furthermore, he had been able to live a nice and easygoing life at sis Chen’s place by reading books to increase his knowledge. By researching the words of his predecessors in the Republic of China era, he had been able to mature greatly to attain the attitude of a master.

However, the most obvious signs of improvement he had was in his ability to stand on top of the vats and continue to fight. Using the entirety of his strength to pinch onto the vat, he had reached the Clear Jin stage, allowing him to make the crisp sound with ease each time he struck.

It was already the very last semester of Wang Chao’s high school career. It was also the most chaotic of times for the graduating class. Even Cao Jingjing had immersed herself in her studies. With stacks of books piled up besides her, the amount of times she spoke with Wang Chao grew less and less.

But Wang Chao paid none of this any attention to. He had already decided to walk on another path.

The cultural path was for the cultured, the martial path was for the martial artists.

Everyday afterwards had been spent practicing his stances and fists. Every weekend at 1 AM, he would run to S province to first meet with Li Wanji, and then spare with the bodyguards of Zhang Tong. Afterwards, he would return to sis Chen’s villa to contemplate his merits and demerits and to see just what he could do for the next time for a better effect.

In addition, each time Wang Chao had fought with Zhang Tong’s bodyguards, he felt that his strength was still lacking and continued to increase his training regime each time.

But his current training regime had involved the mercury filled lead balls. Crouching down, he had continued to use his waist and vertebrae in order to force the balls to spin fast enough to bounce into the air and create that metallic sounding ring.

After these months, Wang Chao’s strength had made leaps and bounds along with his ingenuity. At last one day, he was able to spin the ball until it bounced upwards. By then, he was slowly able to spin it around his two hands in a loop.

However Wang Chao was still far away from being able to juggle the ball on his shoulder, waist, head, hip, and fingers like sis Chen was. He was only able to just barely spin it with enough force to make it bounce.

But on a Saturday of the fifth month where the weather had been sweltering hot, Wang Chao was sparring enthusiastically with the three bodyguards within the villa Zhang Tong had in the district.

Bang! Wang Chao’s waist suck into a horse stance with an empty gap in between his legs. Curling his toes into the ground as if they were arrows, Wang Chao burst into one of the bodyguards. In a rush, the bodyguard tried to land a series of blows and kicks onto him.

Raising his knee, Wang Chao blocked the bodyguard’s knee and then quickly crossed past his fists with a snake like motion. Grabbing onto the bodyguard’s shoulder with all five fingers, he tried to dislocate it.

The shoulder was violently turned as Wang Chao influenced the bodyguard’s Jin and sent him flying high into the air four meters away.

After sending the bodyguard flying, he moved onto the next step. His entire body began to scrunch up to resemble a child in size.

This was a move in the monkey posture of the 12 Xingyi postures, the “The Squatting Monkey”. When a monkey was startled, they would immediately crouch down to form a ball so that they would be able to move in any direction swiftly.

Wang Chao’s purpose was to simulate that movement as well. Turning his body in midair, his kneecaps became like two white stones before it struck against the other bodyguard in the chest.

This was another variation of the monkey style, the “Mark of the Hanging Monkey”. With two kneecaps as the ‘mark’, it would smash into an enemy. Nine out of ten times this would kill someone.

The bodyguard had only been knocked backwards with a cracking sound after the bones had been hit.

Wang Chao fell back to the ground and crouched down to imitate a monkey once more. This time, he attack downwards with the move of “Monkey Stealing the Peach”.

The other bodyguard could only see this change of Wang Chao as being extremely strange. But despite the strangeness, he was not about to dodge it. Bringing up his knee, he attempted to block the hand coming at his crotch and then kick at Wang Chao.

However, the crotch had not been the target. Carefully stabbing at one of the nerve clusters on the bodyguard’s leg, he managed to manipulate the leg into instantly freezing up.

Just as the leg began to slow down, Wang Chao took his chance. Like a dragon ascending into the air, his body flew forward and hooked onto the bodyguard’s body with his shoulder before sending him flying away.

Suddenly, another sound could be heard as the third bodyguard whipped his leg straight for Wang Chao’s head.

Remaining Calm, Wang Chao bent backwards to form a bridge with his back, allowing the kick to pass over him.

With both palms making contact with the floor, his body was like a carp out of water. Immediately twisting around to make a sitting position and then rocketing upwards, his legs tried to sweep the legs of the third bodyguard.

This was the “Stealth Palm” move of the snake style. When a person sits on the ground, their legs would sweep across the ground after launching upwards. This gave off the illusion that would try to attack someone with their palms instead of their legs, giving it the name of “Stealth Palm”

Bang! The final bodyguard had been knocked unsteadily off his legs before falling to the ground fiercely.

Wang Chao’s arm supported his entire body on the ground and steadied himself.

“Stop!” Zhang Tong spoke from the other side. She could see that Wang Chao had been able to use a series of secretive moves and completely beat three bodyguards before an entire money was up. This level of progression was so fast that a person wouldn’t even have enough time to remark about it.

“One at a time!” Zhang Tong ordered.

The three bodyguards climbed up and immediately flew out at Wang Chao one after another.

This was much easier to handle, so Wang Chao would just move to the side and do several light strikes on either the shoulder, hip, or the back.

But with each strike, the bodyguards would instantly lose their equilibrium and would fall to the ground once more after two more strikes.

“Your ability to influence someone’s movements is growing stronger and stronger.” Zhang Tong remarked when the last bodyguard had fallen. Each of the three bodyguards were dripping with sweat, but they had only admiration in their eyes.

After these months of practicing with these three bodyguards, Wang Chao had managed to grab hold of the essence of controlling their movements. From there, he grew steadily in his ability to do so with ease.

With practice, Wang Chao’s ability in Taichi had grown to the realm of being able to do this process instinctively.

“Using a person as a training dummy is great.” Wang Chao thought to himself. “This is something only the rich and powerful would be able to afford for practice. If I had no one to use as a live training dummy, then my progress in Taichi would have taken an extremely long amount of time.”

Each time he had left Zhang Tong’s villa, he could only sigh in regret.

After returning to his own villa, Wang Chao would sometimes think about Zhao Xinglong, “That guy dreams of finishing university. I should go take a look and see what the environment is like. At the same time, I’ll see how his martial arts is going.”

Swapping out his clothing, Wang Chao took a cab to the university city in Chengdong.

Wang Chao knew that Zhao Xinglong was studying at the province’s media institute that was mostly filled with university girls. The very moment Wang Chao stepped onto campus, he felt a light yet lively air of youthfulness wash over him.