Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Chapter 117: Underwater Martial Arts

“Master Cheng, do you mean to say…?” Wang Chao knew from Cheng Shanming’s words that he had wished to give Wang Chao what he himself had comprehended over the years. In the past, learning the ways of the fist had many taboos. The secrets to a school was especially precious; if a single word or movement was leaked out, it was enough justification to kill to stop the leak.

The era of today was not as strict; but the teachings of a school was still not easily divulged to an outsider.

Chen Aiyang’s “Flying Horse Treading on Sparrow” had been taught to Wang Chao for the sake of mastering it. Chen Aiyang had taught it to Wang Chao so that his friend may live.

Cheng Shanming and Wang Chao had only met once before. Neither of them were friends, and neither were they enemies then, but now there was a feeling of comradery. Yet, how was such a thing good enough to impart the secrets of their discipline to another?

An expert capable of Transforming Jin placed martial arts secondly. The most important thing was to slowly teach through the lessons of experience.

Ever since the Wushu of the ancient past, there had been true and false methods of learning. Given a secret book, if one were to study and learn from it, it was possible to become muddle-headed from it.

But a person with experience was by no means fake. Cheng Shanming had said he would present what he had learned to Wang Chao, which would mean to teach him both martial arts and experience. When it came to walking down a detour or the right path, this specific example was a windfall of riches and wealth.

“In my years of living, I have already established a business and home in Canada. There is where my roots have been planted, and never will I be able to return my roots here. My body will live in Canada, and my bones will be buried in Canada. You seek martial arts in your heart, and at your age, you’ve already reached where your muscles and bones act as one, the sounds of thunder follow the fist, and have already touched upon the principle of martial arts reaching into nothingness. What little experience I have will be negligible, but I can see that you have studied Baguazhang as well. I can only hope, you will see the many schools of it, and master them all to become a grandmaster. This is the only contribution I can make for the sake of Chinese martial arts.”

“In the expansion of today, martial arts has become something sentimental and has not yet disappeared without a trace in the world. I have learned the ways of the gun, but my martial arts has become secondary to myself.”

In the short several hours, Wang Chao and Cheng Shanming had fought once more with words. Cheng Shanming had took Wang Chao to be a person with moral standing. But his art laid within marksmanship instead of martial arts. His movements were adapted to such an art and as well as his thoughts.

When it came to Wang Chao’s history, Cheng Shanming had guessed correctly. His fists weren’t as pure as it could be in martial arts, but his experience had given Wang Chao some thoughts to reflect on. In the future, if there was a chance to recollect on it, it would serve him plenty.

“To bury his bones in his homelands…”

Wang Chao thought over Cheng Shanming’s words as he thought about the grief a Chinese person overseas would feel now that the leaves of their lives would never return to the roots of their lives.

“A pair of elder and junior with different perspectives. In comparison, the elder Cheng Shanming has the openminded thinking of a youngster. While Wang Chao follows the teaching of the old, how interesting. The elder is open-minded while the junior is inflexible–isn’t this inverted?”

Lin Yanan watched Cheng Shanming and Wang Chao reply to each other with great interest.

“You are a practitioner of Bajiquan then.” Cheng Shanming turned to look at Cheng Shanming. “It’s unfortunate that your Bajiquan is not pure.”

Lin Yanan looked down, “Master Cheng has learned the Huo school of Bajiquan; a style that has been taught with the Cheng school of Baguazhang. My Bajiquan is only a subsidiary, it is no wonder mine cannot be considered to be as genuine as yours.”

“Haha.” Cheng Shanming began to laugh. Holding his spear, he walked towards the beach. At this time, the sun had not yet begun to shine, but the waves and ocean breeze could still be heard. But still, the light coming from the nearby city was quite bright enough for the people on th beach to be seen.

Cheng Shanming did not say a word and instead brought his spear up fiercely! Shua! The spear shook as it brought out the buzzing sounds of a swarm of bees.

At the same time, Cheng Shanming’s body had begun to shake along with the spear. At a glance, it was unclear whether it was the man shaking the spear, or the spear shaking the man.

A single sound of thunder could be heard coming from Cheng Shanming’s abdomen as his clothes began to crackle with sound.

In this current moment, Cheng Shanming was like a deity with his beard flying up.

With a single breath, Cheng Shanming expelled a mighty “Ha!” sound that was similar to the cries of a swarm of soldiers.

Simultaneously, Cheng Shanming’s body flew forward and his spear shook along with the “Ha” sound. The air had been slapped apart by the intense movements of the spear and made it seem like a wave of air was being blown everywhere.

Feeling the forceful waves of the spear, Lin Yanan couldn’t help but take several steps back.

A single foot came crashing onto the ground, causing the grains of sand beneath Cheng Shanming’s feet to cave in. It was as if there had been a cave in, but his feet hadn’t been affected in the slightest.

With his lapels like the wind, Cheng Shanming and his spear stabbed forward. The entire body of the spear had seemed as if it was the body of a dragon coming to life.

But his clothes seemed like something was supporting it and did not budge an inch while his beard danced in the wind.

Wang Chao’s eyes swiveled to look at Cheng Shanming step forward as he hopped and leap and shook his spear over the sand. Each strike of the spear contained a mysterious intention behind it that any regular martial artist wouldn’t be able to understand. But for a martial artist as accomplished as Wang Chao, he could understand the Jin and movements completely. Like chef Ting from The Dexterous Butcher, he did not need to use his eyes to observe the movements.

Every five spear thrusts, there was a single stroke of inspiration and Jin that reached the peak of spirit.

And in those instances, his chest and abdomen would let out two distinctive burst of sounds; the “Hengha” sounds.

Wang Chao’s eyes observed the way Cheng Shanming’s body burst with Jin, swallowed the air, trembled his body, stepped forward, and focus his spirit. From this, he gradually begun to understand the secrets of Bajiquan’s “Hengha” to wash the marrow.

Wang Chao had originally learned the “Tiger’s Thunder” while Chen Aiyang had the “Fishing Toad Jin”. One tempered the muscles and bones while the other tempered and cultivated the inner organs. One was external, the other was external, but while both took different paths, they led to the same destination. And now, the Bajiquan’s technique of “Hengha” was nothing more but a principle of two ways to temper the marrow. Circulating Jin and breathing were two different things in the end.

Cheng Shanming was deliberately teaching Wang Chao, so each circulation of Jin and process of breathing was shown clearly with each move of his spear. He was practically a breathing textbook of the classics; and the more Wang Chao looked, the more he understood.

Wang Chao knew that if Cheng Shanming taught his disciples, he wouldn’t be using this manner to teach. He would definitely use a set of movements closer to what one would see in a performance for them to slowly understand and practice on their own for several days to get used to it. When they finished, they would learn the drill again so that they could learn the posture and gain the spirit of the moves. If one had the posture and understanding of it, then that the was the goal of cultivation.

If what you learned wasn’t standard, then that meant to say you are an idiot. You had no talent, and you would forever be inferior. When the time came for the master to teach, he would teach nothing new to you.

When a master taught his style and training methods, it was never in a completely thorough manner, but rather in a piece by piece process. This way, the disciple would be able to practice by themselves. Such a manner of teaching wasn’t meant to preserve the teachings, but rather to test the disciple’s perception and understanding to see if they were able to be entranced by it.

Tang Zichen had done the same thing when she taught Wang Chao in the park several years ago. First, she would teach him the horse stance before disappearing for several days to see if he would have it.

Fortunately, Wang Chao had managed to understand and was willing to be polished, causing Tang Zichen to be pleasantly surprised.

Otherwise, Tang Zichen would have left a long time ago with refusal to teach a high school student.

But this time, Cheng Shanming was using a detailed performance since he knew that Wang Chao was a master as well. His martial arts was high, and his inspiration was stronger than Cheng Shanming–there was no point in testing him.

And so he had found it perfect to bring out all of his intentions, spirit, and inspiration forth into his movements.

In the midst of the performance of the spear play, the eastern skies had already begun to leak red into the dawn white sky. The various objects on the beach could been seen clearly with the ocean waters a transparent blue.

“Our Cheng-style Baguazhang has a secret way of movement. The Rising Drill and Falling Overturn. It is comparable to a fish swimming in the waters. To practice, one must enter a body of water and then take in a deep breath before inciting the inner organs.”

Suddenly, Cheng Shanming’s spear stabbed straight into the sands. Both of his palms pressed against each other as he took in such a deep breath that his adam’s apple shook. As the breath entered his body, Wang Chao could see his intestines begin to grow active before letting loose the rhythmic rumbling sounds of thunder.

“The bones and inner organs of this man is far too strong. If it weren’t for the fact he is more interested in learning the gun and his inspiration is weaker than mine, then if he were to dedicate himself to martial arts, I would not be a match for him!”

Wang Chao could see that Cheng Shanming’s intestines shook powerfully with the sounds of thunder as he took in a deep breath. From this, he could see that the man had combined his internal and external forces into one. His inner organs were far stronger than Chen Aiyang’s as well.

But if Chen Aiyang were to reach Cheng Shanming’s age, then he wouldn’t necessarily be weaker to him then.

The both of them were geniuses.

But, if the two of them were to truly fight to the death to the best of their abilities, it would take Chen Aiyang and Wang Chao combined to be a match for him. Cheng Shanming’s marksmanship had already reached perfection as well, this was much more than what a special force soldier could offer in China.

Suddenly, after his breath of air, Cheng Shanming’s body threw itself into the shallow waters of the beach.

After entering the waters, his feet stepped deeper and deeper into the seabed. Soon, the water had reached to the top of his head.

His entire body had been submerged in the ocean waters

Wang Chao charged into the ocean as well, only to stop when the water had reached his waists.

When Wang Chao had entered the waters, Cheng Shanming was on the seabeds with both palms moving in a circular motion left to right before moving forward abruptly. Unexpectedly, he was performing a set of movements in Baguazhang underwater.

Cheng Shanming’s movement had been firm and steady as his body gently bobbed slightly underwater. His entire body seemed to have forgotten about the need to breathe, and his movements now had been completely reliant on that first breath he taken above water! This was a testament to how strong the man’s lungs were.

His feet stamped into the seabed as he strode and pounced with both palms moving wide apart before falling back with time.

His entire body leaked with Jin as the water began to swirl. A large whirlpool began to form in the ocean as his force brought even the sand swirling around him with the water.

Before the set of movement had even finished, Wang Chao couldn’t even see Cheng Shanming’s figure underwater anymore. All he could see was the turbid waters as it swirled around Cheng Shanming revolution after revolution almost as if a sea monster was within the center doing some sort of ritual.

Suddenly, Wang Chao felt the ground underneath him tremble for a moment as a single humanoid figure leapt out from the waters like a carp leaping out from the pond.

It was Cheng Shanming who had flown upwards. His movements from the bottom of the ocean had been similar to an extreme form of the carp who had leapt over the dragon’s gate.

After leaping out from the water, he landed back down onto the surface of the water. But the ocean had only reached up to two inches above his knee, but not quite the entire thigh.

Step by step, Cheng Shanming moved away from the ocean and towards the beach. His face was rather red after the display. It seemed that a considerable amount of energy and spirit had been used up in his movements.

“Practice the fist, movements, stance, and breathing in the water so that you feel no restriction in any than you would in dry land. Just how much skill is needed for this? This requires a powerful lung. It is no wonder such a way of training is the most painful and dangerous. It is no wonder Cheng Shanming was able to achieve the Transforming Jin.”

When Wang Chao saw how Cheng Shanming had moved and struck with his palms in a way that seemed as if he wasn’t in water, Wang Chao could only sigh in admiration.

When Cheng Shanming stepped onto the beach, his entire body had been dripping with seawater. “Learning underwater requires two years beforehand to learn to breathe to strengthen the inner organs. By then, one may enter the water. In the initial period, one has to wear iron clothes so that they may stabilize their footing and focus on their movements without being affected by the buoyancy. However, with your skill level, you don’t need the iron clothes. Familiarizing yourself with the properties of water to get to the level I achieved isn’t as hard as it seems. The changes in the water can be felt by the pores. Not too long after, it will be easy to be felt with the body. This is one of the ways to learning the Transforming Jin through the way of practicing.”

“With your skill level, you don’t need to practice how to breathe. You’ve managed the sounds of thunder and managed to permeate your inner organs with its sounds. A single breath from you is already strong enough and is comparable to mine.The only difference is is experience. You aren’t able to change from hard to soft. The flow of water is soft, and when you strike out with your palms and feet, the way the water assaults your entire body will show you the way of soft Hidden Jin.”

“My martial arts was all learned underneath the surface of water.”

Cheng Shanming shook his body the way a dog would to shake off the water that clung to him. After he had finished shaking, his entire body seemed to be completely dry except from the clothes which had already seemed as if it was beginning to dry.

“My experiences was all learned from practicing like so. My disciples have prepared a boat for me to leave today in order to avoid trouble at night. We will meet again, I hope.”

As Cheng Shanming spoke, he walked farther and farther away. Wang Chao looked onto him until Cheng Shanming entered a nearby freighter and disappeared from sight.