Chương 42: Chapter 41 — Group Training

Two months passed by in what simultaneously felt like a flash and like a drag. Each day was the same routine: wake up early, drink the potion, and cultivate before breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner. Xu Fang and Guo Mingzhe followed the Liuhe method in the specific sequence Lin Che had set out in the notebook, and Lin Che spent his spare time correcting their forms and answering questions.

When their questions got too difficult or repetitive, he delegated to Chen Wei, who, despite having a different foundation to the standard Liuhe Breathing Method supplied by the Shen Clan, knew enough about the technique and similar techniques in general to be of assistance. Guo Mingzhe adapted much faster than Xu Fang, mostly because he had trained his discipline with nearly two decades of daily, focussed martial arts practice.

Of course, he had already taken his first half-step into the realm of cultivation before Xu Fang, but the main difference between the two was that Mingzhe never really got bored of breathing, whilst Xu Fang would complain. The solution was thus that Xu Fang could listen to a podcast or music whilst cultivating. He thrived in the noise, where most practitioners would prefer silence instead.

Once past the first and second breaths of the Liuhe method, the two began practising the beginner techniques Lin Che had picked out for them. The Flowing River Stance proved easy at the start for Xu Fang, which instilled deep confidence in him and made him believe he had divine levels of talent, but, in actuality, the first steps were considered to be the easiest, and they were steps he'd already subconsciously been doing when adapting to different social and physical contexts.

Guo Mingzhe simply repeated his martial movements and even underwent his first body refinement before reaching the third breath of Liuhe, which really was impressive. Honestly, neither Lin Che nor Chen Wei could be of much help to him outside of the Liuhe Breathing method, as the Iron Wood Form he was learning was not something either of them had had experience with, but he clearly did not need the help. As such, by the end of the second month, both of them had taken their first few steps into the foundation stage.

When Lin Che had them run through their sequences on the final morning, he could feel a stark difference to how they were at the start. Meanwhile, throughout this training process, Lin Che spent the first two weeks hounding Chen Wei to hand over his sound arts. Initially, he rejected on principle, stating that they were too dangerous to hand over and that he was sworn to secrecy by his master, but Lin Che suspected it was so that he could not have his role be replaced by another member.

Eventually, however, Chen Wei handed over a rough guideline instead of his own sound arts, enabling Lin Che to start cultivating sound Qi within his throat, but not specifically providing him an efficient technique to do so, nor the specific combat applications he'd learnt himself. Then, he spent another three weeks simply cultivating his restraint — learning to hold sound qi without releasing it, and to sit with the vibration which built internally and prevent himself from letting it go.

It was, Lin Che thought to himself, one of the most uncomfortable experiences he'd had cultivating, perhaps even more uncomfortable than training his Hollow Bell Technique with toxins from Hu Baolin's pharmacy. At least then the feeling came from something external. It was like holding in a sneeze, except the feeling wouldn't dissipate after a while, and would instead just build up and build up. And, of course, if he let it out, he was not prepared to deal with the consequences.

Especially at a beginner stage, the damage caused by sound arts is mostly isolated to the user, as the Qi reverberates within the lungs and chest and up the throat, and ends up bouncing hard on all the internal surfaces. Only after developing control does the split between internal and external damage shift in the right direction. Lin Che was bad at it for most of the remaining month, but he was acceptably bad by the end of it.

Still, he could produce an acceptable beam out of his mouth — it was just that it was visible as it didn't consist of pure sound Qi, and that its range and strength were significantly limited in order to minimise any self-harm. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. In the wise words of Chen Wei: "Most students are further along by this point."

They checked out of the motel on a Tuesday morning with four bags, a notebook, and a small box's worth of dried herbs in a sealed container. The group scrambled to leave the motel before cleaning staff could notice the residual medicinal smell that lingered in Lin Che's room and charge him any extra fees.

"Back on the road," said Xu Fang, starting the engine.

"Back on the road," agreed Mingzhe, from the back. Chen Wei sat beside him and looked out of the window as they pulled out of the car park. For the past two months, he'd been away from home and missed his wife and baby, but loyalty to the job was something that had been instilled in him throughout his entire childhood. It was a shame to disappear from his family without a word, but he was a special agent now! The only thing he could do to let his wife know he was alive was keep his location data active.

In the front of the minivan, Lin Che had the notebook open on his knee and was reviewing the farm trail section he had added to it over the past two months. The address was familiar to him, so everything else was simply a matter of what he found when he arrived. He closed the notebook and watched the motel disappear in the wing mirror.

The operations room of the Shen Clan's field coordination unit was a mid-sized room in an unremarkable building, but there were multiple screens plastered on one wall each broadcasting a different map for a different person or point of interest. The analyst on the overnight shifted noticed the change at 7: 43 in the morning and flagged it as soon as he could.

"Chen Wei's location is on a different route than usual," she said. The senior operative on duty came to look at her screen. The signal had been pinging intermittently from the same cluster of coordinates in the Hebei motel corridor and the local town, never straying more than three kilometres from when he last contacted the Shen Clan. Someone more senior than him was preventing them from contacting Chen Wei again or sending agents on scene to verify whether he was alive, compromised, or truly missing.

After Shen Bowen's threat assessment revision, the reasoning was that confirming Lin Che's location was less valuable than not alerting him that they were on his trail. Sending someone to verify that Lin Che had Chen Wei's phone was not a risk worth taking. The signal was now moving southeast.

"Speed?" asked the senior operative.

"Looks like they're on the highway," she replied. He looked at the trajectory for a moment, following the line it implied if extended forward. He cross-referenced it mentally with the geographical data he had been required to memorise when he took this posting. Something shifted in his expression.

"Get Shen Bowen on the line."

Shen Bowen looked at the projected route for less than ten seconds before he understood. There was only one location of significance along the southeast corridor that Lin Che could possibly have had knowledge of. The holy land access point was still dormant, and he was their key. The Shen Clan initially believed that Lin Che had zero knowledge of cultivation, and, therefore it stood to reason that he had no knowledge of the site of the holy land.

Even upon coming to the conclusion that Lin Che may indeed be a cultivator, no one had put two and two together until now. Since the portal required specific conditions to open, and since the site itself was rather unremarkable farmland otherwise, they had never fortified it heavily. After all, to the unknown observer, it was just spare land owned by a big company.

"Full containment team," said Bowen, into the phone.

"I want the perimeter established before they arrive, and no engagement until I personally authorise it." A pause.

"And find out how much he knows about the site. That question matters as much as the containment." He ended the call and stood for a moment by the window, lighting a cigarette. He put it to his mouth and blew out white smoke, which converged around his neck and took on the form of a small dragon. Lin Che, he thought, was becoming very expensive.