Breaking Limits in Martial Arts: Grinding Your Way to Becoming a Martial Saint in a Chaotic Era

When Xu Qing returned to the martial arts school, it was lunchtime.

As soon as he entered the gate, he saw Chen Wang standing in the courtyard, looking back and forth as if he were looking for someone.

"Junior Brother Xu!" Chen Wang greeted him quickly upon seeing him, his brows furrowed. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you all afternoon. Come on, go wash up. The kitchen prepared venison for the inner courtyard tonight and saved you a bowl."

Xu Qing smiled, her smile seemingly no different from usual: "Senior Brother Chen, I went to my aunt's house, I forgot to tell you."

After saying that, she went to the water room. When she came out, Zhang Ma had already brought out the venison and steamed buns, the bowls piled high with glistening meat juices overflowing from the rims.

Venison is chewier than pork, and the more you chew, the more fragrant it becomes. The juices seep into the steamed bun, and Xu Qing eats it in big bites, each bite satisfying.

After dinner, I went to the martial arts training ground to practice my boxing as usual.

The difference is that he didn't change into his training clothes tonight; he was still wearing the same old clothes.

The sky gradually darkened completely.

Xu Qing was left alone in the training ground once again.

Xu Qing stopped practicing boxing and instead went up to the plum blossom stakes.

The footsteps on the stakes were so light they were almost silent. Without the sound of punches, the courtyard was unusually quiet, so quiet that you could hear the sound of the moat in the distance and the muffled sound of the watchman's clapper a few streets away.

Xu Qing waited until midnight.

When all was quiet, when the snoring of his fellow disciples came from inside the house, and when even the chirping of insects in the courtyard had stopped, he quietly walked to the wall.

The wall was quite high, about eight feet, but he had a solid foundation in martial arts. With a push of his foot and a leap, he climbed to the top of the wall. When he landed, his toes touched the ground first, without making a sound.

Unbeknownst to him, Ning Yun was standing against the wall in the shadows at the entrance to the inner courtyard, her gaze piercing through the night and landing on him.

These days, Ning Yun would secretly watch Xu Qing practice boxing and stance training from the shadows.

He saw himself in Xu Qing. Not in Xu Qing's face, but in that spirit, that unwillingness to be trampled in the mud, that desperate struggle to rise upwards.

Every punch Xu Qing threw, every stance he took, seemed to be punching and standing on his behalf.

"He mastered stance training in half an incense stick's time, mastered the Five Elements Fist in three days, and sneaked out of the courtyard at night... My junior brother is truly unfathomable." Ning Yun shook his head and smiled, walked to the wall, leaped over it, landed silently, and chased after him.

He had already reached the pinnacle of internal strength. Although he was lame and his strength was not what it used to be, he was still more than capable of following behind a boy who had not even reached the level of external strength without being noticed.

......

Xu Qing walked on the deserted street.

As night deepened, the long street was deserted, with all the shops on both sides boarded up and the place pitch black. Only occasionally, a dim yellow lantern would light up at the entrance of the alley, swaying in the wind.

His footsteps were as light as a cat's, barely making a sound on the cobblestones. Following the route he had memorized during the day, he turned left, then right, crossed a long street, and circled a narrow alley...

Before long, they arrived at Chen Jiang's courtyard.

He crouched in the corner, pressed his ear against the wall, and listened carefully.

A heavy, muffled snore echoed in the courtyard, like a broken pot bubbling on a fire, interspersed with a few indistinct murmurs in sleep. Apart from that, there was no other sound.

He climbed over the wall into the courtyard.

The door was open—Chen Jiang was drunk and confident that no one in this area would dare to cause him trouble, so he had no habit of locking the door. The door was ajar, leaving a crack, as if it had been left specifically for him.

Xu Qingzao realized that Chen Jiang didn't have much of a martial arts background and wasn't much better than Liu San. He relied on his fierceness and the gang behind him to bully others.

It wouldn't be difficult for him to kill Chen Jiang.

This time he didn't have a knife. Nor did he want to use one.

Killing someone like that with a knife is too lenient.

He wanted to beat Chen Jiang to death with a hammer!

Xu Qing entered the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and the sliver of moonlight filtering through the crack in the window was just enough for him to make out the blurry figure on the bed.

Chen Jiang lay sprawled on the bed, snoring, his mouth wide open, drool dripping from his lips, and wearing the same nauseating smirk he'd worn during the day. He was probably still in his dreams, harassing some respectable woman.

The room reeked of alcohol, mixed with the stench of feet and sweat, making one want to vomit.

Xu Qing stepped forward step by step.

He looked down at Chen Jiang.

Look at this face.

My aunt's reddened eyes flashed before my eyes. The dull thud of my uncle's head hitting the doorframe echoed in my ears. That lewd look, that hand that wanted to touch my aunt...

He slowly raised his fist, veins bulging on his arm.

A powerful punch.

Filled with hatred and all the rage suppressed in his heart, he slammed his fist into Chen Jiang's chest.

"Click—"

The sound of bones breaking was especially crisp in the night.

Chen Jiang suddenly opened his eyes. His pupils shrank to the size of pinpoints. Before he could even see who was in front of him, he spat out a mouthful of blood, which splattered onto the pillow, turning it into a dark red stain.

He wanted to shout, but Xu Qing's second punch had already arrived.

Crushing Fist. Straight to the face.

The sound of his nasal bone cracking was like crushing a walnut. Chen Jiang's scream was choked in his throat, turning into a muffled groan. Blood and foam gushed from his nose and mouth, covering his face.

His body arched suddenly, like a shrimp whose shell had been stepped on, his back bounced off the bed board, only to be flattened by Xu Qing's punch.

"This punch was for my aunt." Xu Qing's voice was as cold as ice, devoid of any warmth.

Drill your fist. Pound it between the ribs.

His ribs snapped with a crack. Chen Jiang's body convulsed violently, and a hoarse sound came from his throat.

"This punch was for my uncle."

A horizontal punch. Sweep onto the temple.

Chen Jiang's head suddenly tilted to one side, and blood flowed from his ear.

Xu Qing gasped for breath, her chest heaving violently, looking down at the face that was no longer human. The bridge of her nose was collapsed, her cheekbones were shattered, and a gash at the corner of her mouth revealed bloody tooth roots.

Chen Jiang's eyes were half-open and half-closed, the whites of his eyes rolled upwards, and his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but only bloody foam gushed from the corners of his mouth and flowed down his cheeks onto the pillow.

The final punch.

A downward chopping punch. It strikes the top of the head.

A muffled thud.

Chen Jiang's body stiffened abruptly, then went completely limp, collapsing onto the bed like a lump of mud, and remained motionless.

Xu Qingzhi stood up. He took a few breaths, then looked down at his hands.

My hands were covered in blood.

The skin and flesh of his knuckles were torn open, revealing the red and white flesh inside. Beads of blood dripped down from between his fingers and onto the ground, "drip, drip, drip."

But he couldn't feel any pain at all. Or rather, the pain had been covered up by something else.

He wiped the blood off his hands with the bed sheet, then searched Chen Jiang's body and the room. He found more than ten taels of silver.

Then he pushed open the door and went out of the house.

The night wind blew in, cool and refreshing, blowing on my face and onto my blood-stained clothes.

He walked in the courtyard and looked up at the sky. The moon was obscured by clouds, dark and gloomy, and he couldn't see anything. There were no stars, no light, only boundless darkness pressing down.

He took a deep breath and walked towards the courtyard wall.

After taking two steps, he suddenly stopped.

He sensed something.

It was an indescribable feeling, not a sound, not a smell, but an intuition, an instinct to be targeted by a predator.

Someone was watching him from the shadows.

He turned around abruptly—

The courtyard was empty, with only the rustling of withered grass in the night wind. There was no one there.

Ning Yun had retreated to the shadows at the base of the wall, his entire being blending into the darkness, holding his breath and remaining motionless.

Xu Qing looked back and forth several times but found nothing. Without further hesitation, he turned around, climbed over the wall, and left. His footsteps gradually faded away and disappeared at the end of the alley.

Walking down the deserted street, the night wind was cool, blowing against his sweat-drenched back. Yet he felt calm, without fear or excitement, only an inexplicable sense of certainty.

He is not addicted to killing.

He was uprooting everyone who had wronged his family, one by one. Like pulling weeds, he was leaving no one behind, root and all.

Only by eliminating all these people can Second Uncle fish in peace, Auntie sell steamed buns with peace of mind, and Xiuer grow up carefree.

......

In the courtyard, Ning Yun emerged from the shadows in the corner.

He stood at the door for a few moments, then went inside.

Chen Jiang's face on the bed was unrecognizable; it was swollen like a pig's head, blood smeared all over the pillow, and the bedding was a mess.

Ning Yun didn't recognize Chen Jiang, but he knew this courtyard belonged to the Qingjiao Hall, and the dead man was most likely one of their thugs. Furthermore, he vaguely heard Xu Qing say, "He did it for my aunt," and "He did it for my uncle."

He had a plan in mind.

It's no wonder that someone like him died at Xu Qing's hands.

"I didn't see wrong," Ning Yun said softly, as if speaking to thin air, or perhaps to Chen Jiang lying on the ground. "My junior brother is loyal, grateful, but also ruthless. It's just—"

He paused for a moment, shook his head, and a helpless smile appeared on his lips.

"It's just that he lacks experience in killing. If a master sees the way this person died, they will always be able to discern some of the Five Elements Fist techniques."

He stepped forward, squatted down, and wiped away the traces of the Five Elements Fist. His technique was very skillful, as if he were doing something he had done countless times. He smoothed out what needed to be smoothed out, restored what needed to be disrupted, and covered up what needed to be covered up.

After doing all this, Ning Yun's eyes suddenly turned cold. He raised his palm and delivered another blow to Chen Jiang's chest.

There was no sound. Or rather, the sound was muffled inside. The hidden force erupted suddenly, like a silent lightning bolt, penetrating from the palm and shattering Chen Jiang's internal organs.

This is how a master killer operates. The exterior may look normal, but the inside is rotten to the core.

Ning Yun withdrew her hand and inspected the area thoroughly. From head to toe, inside and out, she carefully examined every possible flaw. Once she confirmed there were no weaknesses, she wiped her hands on Chen Jiang's clothes, stood up, and climbed over the wall out of the courtyard.

They quietly returned to the martial arts school along the same route they had come from.

Inside the martial arts gym, Xu Qing resumed his boxing practice.

He stood in front of the plum blossom stake, took a deep breath, and then slammed his fist into the wooden dummy.

"Bang!"

The skin on his knuckles was torn open again, and drops of blood splattered out, landing on the wooden dummy and leaving a few dark red marks.

As if he hadn't noticed, he expressionlessly withdrew his hand, wiped it on his blood-splattered outer garment, and then went into the washroom.