I Alone Devour All Under Heaven

Chapter 3

In a remote courtyard not far from Yuanshun Escort Agency.

After dinner, Zhao Mu washed himself with well water in the courtyard, then grabbed his oxtail knife with his upper body bare.

Zhao Mu's routine was to practice martial arts every night, running through a few forms and standing in stance for an hour.

He had been promoted from errand disciple to apprentice, and now to trainee escort master, through a combination of talent and, above all, diligence.

Zhao Mu gripped the oxtail knife and had barely performed a few moves when he stopped, frowning, and held the blade up toward the faint light coming from the doorway.

He had been using this knife since becoming an apprentice. Two or three years had passed, and he had developed a deep familiarity with it.

In the past six months especially, a faint sense of man and blade becoming one would wash over him the moment he picked it up.

But tonight, that feeling had suddenly vanished.

"It is my knife, no question about it." Zhao Mu studied the cold blade under the light with an odd expression in his eyes.

He weighed the knife in his hand, swung it twice, and muttered: "What is going on? It feels nothing like itself... It is like holding a new knife for the first time..."

Mo Qian seemed to drift through a dream that night.

He "saw" a figure, powerfully built, practicing a knife form with his back turned.

At first the movements were awkward and halting, the transitions failing to connect, but gradually they grew familiar, and then increasingly fluid.

Mo Qian could not only see the movements, but little by little he could also "see" the flow of internal breath within the figure, as though looking inward.

And when the figure stood in stance versus when it was in motion, the internal breath moved in two entirely different patterns.

"This is... the internal power of the Five Tigers and Sheep Knife!"

Mo Qian jolted awake. The room around him was filled with snoring, and moonlight filtered through a hole in the window paper, casting a pale silver glow across his side.

Mo Qian's mind was sharp and clear. He turned over and got out of bed immediately.

He walked into the yard, picked up a branch from the corner, and as though by nature, settled into a starting stance.

From that starting stance, he began performing the Five Tigers and Sheep Knife form, move after move, and the faster he went, the more natural it became.

Mo Qian grew more and more excited. In that moment, this set of swordsmanship felt as familiar as something he had practiced for years.

Mo Qian did not stop after completing one set. He continued into a second run. And as he fought, his mind grew clearer and clearer, as though each repetition was burning the swordsmanship deeper into memory.

"The sword is the seal of the heart. One night, a thousand enlightenments..."

Just as Mo Qian's excitement was reaching its peak, the thumb-thick branch in his hand suddenly snapped and broke.

Mo Qian stopped abruptly and found that the muscles in his right arm were mildly aching.

Fortunately, the branch had given way before he could push further. Had he continued, the muscles in his right arm would have been strained.

Mo Qian thought it over and understood the reason.

Although he had directly acquired the experience of an entry-level Five Tigers and Sheep Knife by devouring the weapon spirit and achieving a thousand enlightenments in a single night, his physical condition had not changed. He was still weak.

With his current frail body, he simply could not sustain the intensity demanded by the entry-level Five Tigers and Sheep Knife.

Strengthening the body, however, was a slow process that had to be approached gradually. There was no use in rushing.

What occupied Mo Qian's mind now was another problem entirely: the internal strength of the Five Tigers and Sheep Knife. To put it plainly, the two completely different patterns of internal breath circulation during standing stance versus active practice.

He had felt the flow of internal breath so vividly in his dream, yet now that he tried to begin, he could find no point of entry.

"Internal breath?"

Mo Qian thought for a moment, then began to stand in the Round Pile.

Had Zhao Mu been present, he would have been astonished, for Mo Qian's standing posture at that moment was nearly identical to the standard form.

Zhao Mu had been standing the Round Pile for three years. Mo Qian had been at the escort agency for barely over a month.

The reason Mo Qian chose to attempt cultivating internal breath through the standing stance was that the flow of internal breath during stillness was far simpler than during active movement.

When standing still, the pattern of internal breath circulation was vivid in his mind. He only needed a way to begin, and it would follow naturally.

But he could not grasp the internal breath at all.

Mo Qian stood for a while, and his body began to steam. He could clearly feel the qi and meridians stirring within him, yet his consciousness could not intervene.

"What is going on? I cannot make sense of it..."

Mo Qian stopped standing and began to pace around the yard, thinking.

He thought for a while, formed an idea, then tried standing again. When the attempt failed, he stopped and thought once more, repeating this cycle until a fish-belly white appeared in the eastern sky.

At this point, three figures shuffled out of the servants' dormitory, yawning.

Mo Qian did not turn to look, but he already knew who they were.

It was Kong Bin, Li Chong, and Zhang Zheng. The three had already formed a close-knit group.

Kong Bin was a burly man, deep in character and few in words. Li Chong was tall and brash. Zhang Zheng was shorter than the other two, but the most nimble and alert of the three.

Since entering the escort agency, these three had been rising one hour earlier every day to practice.

It should be understood that outside of the evening practice sessions, the errand disciples had a great deal of work to do and often felt sore all over by the end of the day.

Muscle recovery required time, and adequate sleep was essential.

It took real perseverance to rise an hour early every single day, and it was not easy.

The original occupant of Mo Qian's body had certainly been incapable of it.

As a general rule, those more talented than you will also work harder than you.

They receive positive reinforcement and see results right away, so naturally they press forward. You, on the other hand, encounter setback after setback until you give up or change course entirely.

The three of them were mildly surprised to find that Mo Qian had risen before them and was already standing in his stance.

Li Chong sneered, stepped forward, and said: "Hey, isn't this Mo Qian?"

There was a clear note of sarcasm in Li Chong's tone, which Mo Qian heard plainly and ignored entirely.

Seeing that Mo Qian ignored him, Li Chong's facial muscles twitched, and he said mockingly: "What's this? The assessment is almost here and you're thinking of cramming at the last minute! What good will that do? A toad dreaming of swan meat — do you really think you're going to be selected as an apprentice?"

Although Li Chong was a man, he wore a silver ring in his right ear. This was because his parents, fearing he might not survive childhood, had dressed him as a girl in his early years.

His family had once been fairly well off, and he had been spoiled from a young age. But when the family fell into poverty, he was sent to Yuanshun Escort Agency to work as an errand disciple.