The Martial Lord of the Troubled World

Chapter 4 Hunyuan Stance

Five minutes later, Fu Juemin followed Li Tong to an unused room.

The interior was simply furnished, with some miscellaneous items piled up in the corners, but the floor was clean, indicating that it was cleaned regularly.

"From now on, this will be where the young master practices his skills."

Li Tong looked around and said, "I'll have someone clean it up again later."

Fu Juemin nodded, and then Li Tong said, "I will teach you a stance training method. As long as you practice it for an hour or two every day, it will be more than enough to strengthen your body."

Fu Juemin originally thought he would first hear some principles and common sense about martial arts, but Li Tong immediately asked him to assume a horse stance and then began to make various adjustments to his posture.

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, parallel to each other, and toes slightly turned inward.

The knees should be slightly bent, as if sitting but not sitting, with the center of gravity between the feet.
While keeping Li Tong's words in mind, Fu Juemin let Li Tong do whatever he wanted with his hands and feet. Suddenly, he remembered the two guards who had been punished by standing in the rain earlier and couldn't help but ask, "Uncle Tong, is the stance training method you're teaching me now the same one they practice in the backyard?"

"Of course not."

Li Tong nudged his elbow, "Some of them already know a few sets of stance training methods, some learned Iron Bridge Stance from me, and what I'm teaching you now is called Hunyuan Stance."

Although Li Tong did not explicitly state which stance was more powerful, Fu Juemin could sense from his tone and demeanor that the stance he was practicing was considerably more advanced than that of the average guard.

At this moment, Li Tong released his hand that had been resting on Fu Juemin and said, "Alright, stay in this position and don't move anymore."

Fu Juemin quickly shut his mouth, his whole body tense, for fear of scattering the carefully arranged frame.

Time passed second by second, and the quiet room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Fu Juemin felt as if he had returned to the time when he was standing at attention during military training in college in his previous life. Of course, standing at attention was much more difficult than standing at attention.

He held on until he could no longer hold on before he finally relaxed completely.

"Whoosh—hiss—whoosh—"

Fu Juemin didn't collapse to the ground, but he felt sore and numb all over. He subconsciously looked at Li Tong, hoping for the other party's evaluation of his first time practicing standing meditation.

"His physical condition is somewhat worse than the average person's."

Li Tong showed no disappointment on his face, and simply said, "It's alright to start from a low point. As long as you keep practicing standing meditation, your depleted body will eventually be able to recover."

Fu Juemin had just secretly calculated the time for himself and knew that he had only stood for about a minute in total, so he couldn't help but ask, "Uncle Tong, how long can one hold a standing posture for a while to be considered a beginner?"

"The most important thing about standing meditation is not how long you stand, but the feeling of standing in the posture."

Li Tongdao said, "Finding the feeling of stance training once is more effective than standing ten or a hundred times as usual."

What is "posture sensation"?

Fu Juemin looked bewildered.

Li Tong thought for a moment and explained, "Relaxed but not slack, tight but not rigid."

When you suddenly find that standing meditation isn't so tiring, that's when you've found the feeling of standing meditation.

Fu Juemin then asked, "How long does it usually take for an ordinary person to find the feeling of stance?"

"A fast person might just happen to get to the top in one or two tries, while a slow person might take ten days, half a month, or even several months."

However, standing still once doesn't guarantee you'll stand still every time. Only when you can stand still more than half of the time in ten standing meditation sessions can you be considered to have formally entered the practice of stance training.

Is it really that mysterious?
Fu Juemin rubbed his slightly sore shoulders, then suddenly remembered something and quickly squinted his eyes.

The pale red character panel frame reappeared in my field of vision.

The panel remained unchanged, and the "Techniques" section was still empty. It seemed that the reason was that the "stance sensation" that Li Tong had mentioned could not be found.

"Young Master, take a rest for a while. I will teach you how to adjust your breathing when practicing Zhan Zhuang later." After that, under Li Tong's guidance, Fu Juemin practiced Zhan Zhuang again and again, standing and resting, until it was past six o'clock in the afternoon.

A maid ran up to him and said, "Young master, the master and madam are waiting for you to have dinner. The two young ladies have also returned and are in the front hall."

At this moment, Fu Juemin was already in a state of ecstasy from the Hunyuan Zhuang exercise.

I had long since taken off my suit jacket, and the silk shirt underneath was almost completely soaked with sweat. My trousers were also wrinkled and stuck to my thighs. My whole body ached and felt bloated, and I even felt nauseous, dizzy, and lightheaded.

Fu Juesheng's mother died early. When Fu Guosheng was forty years old, he remarried and married a female college student who was fifteen years younger than him. After she married into the Fu family, she gave birth to two daughters for him. The older one was named Fu Shuyao and the younger one was named Fu Shuxin. Usually, the five of them would eat together as a family.

Fu Juemin really didn't want to attend any family banquet in this state, so he simply waved his hand to indicate that he wouldn't go. He then instructed the servants to prepare another table of food, which was set up under the pavilion in the backyard.

The daytime downpour had stopped, leaving the backyard lawn damp, and the evening breeze brought a pleasant feeling.

Dinner consisted of six dishes and a soup, with Fu Juemin and Li Tong sitting at the same table.

Fu Juemin lay back in a chair, with two servants massaging his hands and legs, and a timid but pretty young maid feeding him bite by bite. He was the epitome of a young master from the Republican era.

It wasn't that Fu Juemin was indulging in pleasure; it was simply that his arms were so sore he could barely lift them, and his hands would tremble when he held chopsticks.

"Young master, you shouldn't practice anymore tonight. Get some rest. Standing meditation requires gradual, persistent practice; it can't be mastered in just one day."

Li Tong picked up a bright green water spinach and spoke slowly and deliberately to Fu Juemin.

Fu Juemin ate a bite of the food the maid fed him, grumbling as he ate, "Uncle Tong, is practicing martial arts always this hard?"

"bitter?"

Li Tong shook his head, "This is nothing. For serious martial arts practitioners, the hardships of training in the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer, including skin-wearing, bone-strengthening, and blood-training, are the least of their worries. Standing in stances is the least important part of it."

"But if you're only trying to improve your health, you don't need to go through those hardships."

"Skin resurfacing, bone strengthening, blood tempering"

Fu Juemin murmured the three words Li Tong mentioned, then asked, "Uncle Tong, tell me, how exactly are the levels of martial arts practice divided?"

Li Tongdao: "No matter who learns martial arts, they must first go through three stages: skin polishing, bone forging, and blood tempering."

After practicing blood cultivation, you will encounter the first hurdle in martial arts, commonly known as the Blood Barrier.

Although many people habitually refer to all martial artists as "martial artists," in reality, only those who have passed the bloody trials truly deserve the title of "martial artist."

"What level can a martial artist who has broken through the blood barrier typically reach?"

"His arms weigh three to five hundred pounds each, and his speed, reaction, stamina, and recovery will all be many times greater than those of ordinary people."

"Can it stop bullets from foreign guns?"

Fu Juemin blurted it out subconsciously.

Li Tong paused with his chopsticks, glanced up at Fu Juemin's left chest where his heart was, and then shook his head.

Fu Juemin felt a pang of disappointment, but the next second he heard Li Tong say, "A martial artist who has just broken through the Blood Barrier cannot stop bullets, but once they have mastered Blood Refinement and entered the Profound Realm, their internal energy will be released outwards. Ordinary bullets from foreign guns will not pose a great threat to Profound Realm martial artists, unless they are shot repeatedly in the same spot in a short period of time."

"Shh!"

Upon hearing this, Fu Juemin sat up straight in his chair, a sudden movement that nearly startled the servants who were attending to him.

At this moment, Fu Juemin felt all the soreness in his body disappear, and it seemed as if a golden door was slowly opening in front of him.

-

Holy crap! The martial arts masters of this world can actually block bullets with their bare hands?!
(End of this chapter)