Cangmang Asks the Way 1: Guardian of the Lamp

The training grounds of Jixian Sports School are a world where sweat and absolute strength are the only laws. The air here is perpetually thick with the salty, pungent smell of sweat, worn leather, rust, and an ever-present, gritty odor of dust. The shouts rising and falling, the dull thuds of flesh slamming against sandbags, the clanging of barbell plates hitting the ground—all these create a primal and harsh symphony of survival. For Cang Tianci, this is not just a training ground, but also the place where he puts his belief in "my destiny is in my own hands" into practice, the place where he launches his first assault against his predetermined fate, a place of "seeking the truth."

"gather!"

Coach Zhou Zhenhua's sharp shout cleaved the clamor like thunder. The boys reacted instantly, quickly forming ranks as if it were an instinct ingrained in their bones. Cang Tianci stood at the very edge of the line, his heart clenched. His gaze swept over his unfamiliar yet strong companions; the bulging muscles on their bare arms, the habitual resilience in their eyes, all instilled an invisible pressure in him. However, the vow on the stone bridge in his mind, and the fiery gaze of his elder brother Cang Lifeng before his departure—"Ask your heart, not your fist; when your heart is clear, your fist will be true"—acted like a stabilizing force, firmly suppressing his surging fear. This was the first arena he had to conquer to prove himself.

"A towering building rises from the ground; without a solid foundation, it's all just a facade!" Zhou Zhenhua's voice boomed, his gaze sweeping over every young face like a searchlight. "Today, practice horse stance! This is the foundation of your stance, the root of your power! All of you, be like nails driven into this concrete! Anyone who slacks off will have their training load doubled tomorrow!"

He personally demonstrated, his body suddenly sinking down, as steady as a rock, his legs seemingly growing into the worn floor beneath his feet, naturally exuding an immovable aura.

Tianci took a deep breath, mimicking the posture, bending his knees and lowering his center of gravity. Instantly, a tearing soreness erupted in the muscles of his thighs and buttocks, his legs trembled uncontrollably, and sweat poured from his pores almost immediately, sliding down his forehead and temples.

"Lower your center of gravity! Straighten your back!" Zhou Zhenhua walked through the ranks, and when he reached Tianci's side, his rough palm pressed heavily on Tianci's trembling lower back, which was trying to shrink back. A steady, mountain-like strength penetrated through him. "Cang Tianci, don't let your bones buckle! Trembling is a matter of muscles, your soul needs to stay here!"

"Yes...yes, Coach," Tianci managed to squeeze out through gritted teeth. The extreme pain transported him back to the cold bottom of Wild Boar Gully, back to the despair of losing control and sinking downwards when Wang Yaowu pushed him into the pond. No, this time was different! He clenched his teeth, transforming the almost crushing pain into the strength to resist the fall. Nancheng's curse of "the skeleton can't hold" tried to bind him again, but it was shattered by a louder voice in his heart—his mother said, "Your bones must be strong," and his elder brother said, "You must see through the scales of the world!" This stance wasn't a post; it was his spine, which he had to stand straight for himself and the Cang family in this cold world, a spine that could never bend again! His feet felt not like concrete, but the cliff that had saved him and his mother's lives; he was clinging to it with all his might, refusing to let go!

Time seemed to freeze in the extreme agony. Every breath felt incredibly long. The senior disciples around me also began to breathe heavily, and the air was filled with suppressed gasps.

"Hold on, all of you!" Zhou Zhenhua's roar echoed like a war drum across the empty training ground. "There are no shortcuts in martial arts training; it's all about sweat and toil! The more sweat you shed today, the more stable you'll be tomorrow! If you try to cheat or slack off, you'll be the first one to fall on the ring!"

Just as Tianci felt his consciousness was about to be swallowed by pure pain and his vision began to black out at the edges, the command to end it finally rang out like a pardon: "Stop! Stay where you are, don't sit!"

The team instantly relaxed, and a chorus of heavy breathing and cracking sounds from joints stretching filled the air. Tianci's legs buckled, and he barely managed to stay upright by supporting himself on his knees with his hands. Sweat dripped from his chin and nose like broken beads, quickly spreading a dark stain on the dry, dusty cement.

"Huh, it's already gone soft?"

Sun Peng swung his arm, deliberately swaying in front of Tianci, his face radiating undisguised superiority. He even imitated a Hong Kong movie accent in a distorted way: "Kid, you think this is enough? In the underworld, it's all about strength and ruthlessness. The horse stance is just an appetizer; there's more to come—stone locks, barbells, resilience… With your frail frame, you think you're fit for this?"

As he spoke, he turned around seemingly unintentionally, his strong shoulder blades, damp with sweat, slid smoothly and struck Tianci's shoulder squarely.

Tianci stumbled from the impact, nearly falling to his knees. He jerked his head up, a surge of humiliation rising like poisonous flames. However, unlike the fear-fueled anger he felt in Xiqiao Village, this time he felt a deeper, chilling cold. He didn't retaliate, but instead fixed his gaze on Sun Peng with eyes burning with a dark flame, eyes that seemed to see right through the other's soul. He was "seeing," seeing clearly the weakness and pattern behind this oppression.

"Sun Peng!" Chen Gang's deep voice rang out. "Got all the energy? Looking for trouble right after practice. Looks like Coach Zhou's assignment was too light. How about I do an extra set of abdominal and rib impact resistance training with you?"

Sun Peng met Chen Gang's gaze, his Adam's apple bobbed, and he sullenly pursed his lips: "Just kidding, Captain Chen, you're too protective of the newcomer." He walked away awkwardly, still muttering incoherently, "...Let's see how long he can last." After a few steps, he looked back again, a complex look flashing in his eyes—a look that contained both disdain and something he seemed to recognize, like the look in his father's eyes before he raised his hand to slap someone after drinking too much.

Chen Gang ignored him and turned to hand Tianci another wrung-out warm towel, saying calmly, "Put this on and rub it in. When I first arrived, my legs were so swollen I couldn't get out of bed the next day, even worse than yours. Just get through this, and you'll be fine."

"Thank... thank you, Senior Brother!" Tianci took the towel, still warm from Chen Gang's touch, and thanked him softly. The suffocating feeling in his chest had dissipated a little thanks to Chen Gang's help, but the humiliation brought by Sun Peng was etched even deeper into his heart, becoming a kind of fuel.

After a short rest, came the tedious yet equally challenging shadowboxing training. Facing the air, we repeated the basic movements of straight punches, hooks, and uppercuts over and over again. The monotony was tedious, and the muscles in our arms and shoulders quickly became sore again.

"Put your power through! Focus your mind! Don't just punch the air!" Zhou Zhenhua paced at the front of the group, hands behind his back, his voice rousing. "Imagine what's standing in front of you? Your most hated opponent, your most feared nightmare, the obstacle you can't overcome. Use your fists to smash them to pieces! Destroy them!"

Tianci gritted his teeth, channeling all his energy into each punch. His straight punch pierced the air, and the twisted smile of Wang Yaowu as he pushed him into the deep water seemed to flash before his eyes. A question struck his heart: Why do you have the right to decide the life and death of others so easily? A sweeping punch, a twist of his waist and hips generating power, and in a daze, he struck the wrist of Wang Zhenkun that was gripping his mother's hair. A burning resentment surged in his chest—your "reasoning," why does it override our unyielding spirit? An uppercut struck from below, carrying the hatred rising from his feet. The iron-clad short stick Liu Tietou's men were using to smash their elder brother shattered with a crack. A question rang out from the depths of his soul: A fist can bring down the person before you, why can't it break the mountain behind him? Finally, he unleashed all his power, completely shattering the cold face of Coach Nancheng who had uttered the judgment "the frame isn't strong enough," leaving only one belief surging in his blood: My life, I will bear it myself!

Sweat blurred his vision again, and his arms ached as if they were about to break, but his punches became increasingly fierce and precise. The whistling sounds as the air was cut were no longer just the impact of flesh, but more like his suppressed soul frantically pounding against the impenetrable walls of fate. With each strike, a deeper understanding of "power" was etched into his heart.

Zhou Zhenhua's gaze inadvertently swept over the thin figure at the back of the line, practicing the most basic boxing techniques, yet exuding a fierceness and focus beyond his years. His eyes flickered slightly, but the scrutinizing meaning seemed to deepen.

After afternoon classes, Tianci dragged his body, which felt as if it had been disassembled and reassembled, back to the sports school dormitory, each step like walking on a knife's edge. He struggled to climb onto the upper bunk, the intense soreness in his thighs making it almost impossible for him to lift his legs.

"Tsk, look at this..." Sun Peng leaned against the lower bunk opposite him and chuckled sarcastically, "Already acting like this on the first day? Bean sprout, take my advice..."

Tianci had his back to him, offering no response. He simply gritted his teeth, surrendering his entire weight to his trembling arms, and clumsily dragged himself onto the bed. He shut out Sun Peng's noise and his extreme physical exhaustion, and instead, his heart sank into a strange tranquility.

Chen Gang brought in a basin of hot water. Seeing Tianci's stiff posture, he shook his head and said to Sun Peng, "Pengzi, stop talking nonsense. Who hasn't been through this? Have you forgotten how you cried and begged for mercy back then?"

Sun Peng didn't reply, but simply turned over, facing away from them. After a long while, he muttered sullenly, "Hmph, crying and begging? I'd rather die than call them!"

In the stillness of the night, the dormitory was filled with the sounds of snoring, teeth grinding, and indistinct murmurs in sleep. Tianci lay on the hard bed, his bones and muscles feeling as if they had been repeatedly crushed, every part screaming with sharp aches and pains, especially his legs, where even the slightest movement brought excruciating pain. Yet, amidst this extreme physical agony, his thoughts remained unusually clear and calm.

Scenes from the daytime flashed before my eyes: the heavy fertilizer bag on my father's shoulder, the hard, warm biscuit hidden at the bottom of my mother's bundle, Coach Zhou's steady, mountain-like pressure on my lower back, the hardness and malice of Sun Peng's shoulder blade when he collided with me, the warmth of Chen Gang's palm as he handed me the towel, and Teacher Fang's words, "I believe in you," echoing in the classroom sunlight... These scenes collided and merged repeatedly with the cold rejection from Nancheng Sports School, the blood splattered at the temple fair, and the cries of despair and new life intertwined at the stone bridgehead.

The "questioning" that his elder brother spoke of—he seemed to have grasped a little of it. This pain was a key, forcibly opening a door. Behind the door was not a shortcut, but a path that allowed him to see himself more clearly and understand the rules of how this world operates.

He lay on the hard bed, his whole body aching as if he'd been run over. In the pain, he wondered: Was that thread still there? He tried to clench his fist. His palm was empty; there was nothing there. But the pain was real.

On the edge of his blurred consciousness, he seemed to sense, deep within that tearing, aching pain, a faint, almost negligible, inexplicable force, like an earthworm crawling underground, struggling to move through the gaps in his stiff muscles. It was fleeting, yet it brought a faint sense of relief, a feeling that "I can hold on a little longer."

He quietly clenched his fist. Moonlight fell on it, revealing a small bloodstain on his knuckles—a cut he had made during his boxing practice that day.

Unbeknownst to him, within this body, which he considered to have a "broken skeleton," there was an invisible thread being stretched taut little by little.

He didn't know that what awaited him tomorrow was not only Sun Peng's malicious gaze—but also something hidden in those eyes that even Sun Peng himself might not be able to explain.