Nine Nights Owl Song

In the spring of the year A-Jiu was five years old, a strange thing happened.

That evening, the old drunkard returned from outside as usual, tossed her an oil paper package as usual, and opened his wine gourd and took a swig as usual.

But this time, he didn't fall asleep as usual.

"Ah Jiu".

He suddenly called her name, his voice much clearer than usual.

Ah Jiu was squatting on the ground eating a cold steamed bun when she heard this. She looked up, with half a crumb of bun still in her mouth.

The old drunkard stared at her for a while, then pulled a crumpled book from his pocket and tossed it in front of her.

The book's cover was illegible; the edges were burned and blackened, the pages were yellowed and brittle, and it smelled musty.

"Can you read?" the old drunkard asked.

Ajiu shook her head.

She couldn't even write her own name, let alone recognize any characters. In these ruins, just surviving was a feat; recognizing characters was something only those who wore silk could do.

"I'll teach you," the old drunkard said.

Ajiu was stunned.

In her mind, the old drunkard was a beggar who was drunk every day and made a living by scavenging and stealing.

She had seen him rummaging through garbage dumps for scrap metal that could be sold, seen him being beaten out of a restaurant by a waiter with a broom, and seen him lying by a ditch like a lump of mud.

How could such an old beggar be literate?

Do I need to teach her?

Ah Jiu didn't ask why, nor did she say whether it was good or bad.

She simply picked up the book and opened it to the first page.

The words in the book looked like a swarm of ants, and she didn't recognize a single one of them.

The old drunkard started teaching her to read from that day on.

Every evening, before it got completely dark, the old drunkard would use a twig to write words on the ground, teaching her to recognize them one by one.

"This is pronounced 'tian' (天)," the old drunkard wrote on the ground. "That one above your head is 'tian' (天)."

"Heaven." Ah Jiu repeated.

"This is pronounced 'di'." He wrote another character, "The ground you're standing on is the ground."

"land."

"This is pronounced 'ren' (人)." Write another character: "You, I, are all people."

"people."

Ah Jiu studied very seriously, so seriously that even the old drunkard was somewhat surprised.

He taught her once, and she remembered it. The next day, when he asked her again, she not only remembered it, but could also write it down crookedly on the ground.

"Have you studied this?" the old drunkard couldn't help but ask once.

Ajiu shook her head.

The old drunkard didn't say anything more, but from then on, he taught even faster.

Three months later, Ajiu had learned nearly three hundred characters.

Six months later, she was able to read the contents of that tattered book, albeit haltingly.

That book is called "Basic Internal Kung Fu Techniques".

It is a martial arts manual.

"You practice this," the old drunkard said, pointing to the illustration on the first page of the book.

"Sit in the posture shown in the picture, and breathe in the rhythm described in the book."

Ah Jiu looked at the pictures of little people sitting cross-legged in meditation, and then at the old drunkard.

"You know martial arts?" she asked.

The old drunkard didn't answer the question, only saying, "Whether you practice or not is up to you."

Ah Jiu practiced.

It wasn't out of curiosity, nor because I wanted to become stronger.

It was purely because the old drunkard made her practice, and the old drunkard was the only person who would bring her food.

If she doesn't listen to him, he might stop bringing her food.

This is Ah Jiu's logic at five years old.

On the first night, she sat cross-legged as shown in the book and began to breathe according to the rhythm described in the book.

"Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale..."

She sat for less than fifteen minutes before her legs went numb, her back ached, and her head started buzzing.

"Don't rush." ​​The old drunkard lay down beside him, his eyes half-closed. "It's always like this the first time. Take it slow, you'll get used to it."

Ah Jiu gritted her teeth and continued sitting.

Half an hour later, she finally sensed something different.

There seemed to be a very faint warmth in my abdomen, like a thin thread, almost imperceptible.

"I have something warm in my stomach," she told the old drunkard truthfully.

The old drunkard suddenly opened his eyes, a glint of light flashing in his cloudy pupils.

He grabbed Ajiu's wrist, placed three fingers on her pulse, and closed his eyes to feel for a moment.

Then he released his grip, a strange expression on his face—a mixture of surprise, worry, and something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"What's wrong?" Ajiu asked.

"It's nothing." The old drunkard turned over, his back to her. "Keep practicing."

What Ajiu didn't know was that it takes ordinary people anywhere from three months to a year and a half to sense the existence of "qi." But she only needed a quarter of an hour.

No, not a quarter of an hour.

From the moment she sat down cross-legged to the moment she sensed the energy in her dantian, it took her less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

The old drunkard lay there, staring at the crumbling wall in front of him, and remained silent for a long time.

He recalled when he first became an apprentice, and his master said that he was a martial arts prodigy, one in a hundred years, who took three days to sense the Qi, and was hailed as a genius by everyone in the sect.

Three days.

The child used a cup of tea.

The old drunkard closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

Time flies.

In the autumn of the year A-Jiu turned six, she was already practicing the second level of the "Basic Internal Kung Fu Techniques".

According to the book, internal energy cultivation has nine levels. The first level is just the beginning; you've succeeded if you can sense the Qi. The second level requires guiding the Qi from the Dantian to the meridians; you've passed the first stage by opening the Ren meridian.

In less than a year, Ajiu opened up one-third of the Ren meridian.

The old drunkard didn't tell her what this speed meant.

He simply increased the amount of material he taught her.

Besides internal martial arts, he began to teach her fist and foot techniques.

"Look carefully." The old drunkard stood on the open ground of the ruins, assuming a starting stance.

His demeanor has completely changed.

The hunchbacked, drunken beggar who used to be there was gone.

Standing there was a man with a straight back, piercing eyes, and an imposing aura.

The old drunkard slowly threw a punch.

The punch was slow, so slow that Ah Jiu could see every subtle change in angle.

But when the fist reached its furthest point, a layer of dust fell from the cracks in the bricks of the broken wall in front of A-Jiu.

The fist didn't hit the wall.

Even from a distance of one foot, the force of the punch shook the plaster off the wall.

Ajiu's eyes lit up.

This was the first time she had developed a genuine interest in "martial arts"—not because the old drunkard made her practice, but because she wanted to know if she could also perform such punches.

"This is called 'Crushing Fist'." The old drunkard stopped his stance, a little sweat beading on his forehead. "When you exert force, your feet, legs, waist, shoulders, elbows, and hands must all move in a straight line in an instant. If any part is slow, the force will dissipate."

He made Ah Jiu practice with him.

Ah Jiu stood still, mimicking the old drunkard's posture, and threw a punch.

The old drunkard frowned.

It's not because she played badly.

On the contrary—her body seems to know by nature how to exert force.

Although the first punch was clumsy, the transmission route of the force was correct. The force of the foot pushing off the ground was transmitted to the waist, the force of the waist rotation was transmitted to the shoulder, and the force of the shoulder propulsion was transmitted to the fist.

A six-year-old child, practicing Bengquan for the first time, actually applied the power in the correct direction.

The old drunkard fell silent.

He taught her martial arts and internal energy for three whole years, always doing the same thing.

No matter what she is taught, she can grasp the essentials in the shortest amount of time and then improve at an astonishing speed.

She seems to have been born to practice martial arts.

No, that's not right.

The old drunkard had seen many martial arts prodigies, and he himself was one of them. But Ah Jiu was different; her talent was not just as simple as "learning quickly."

Her body's affinity for "qi," her understanding of martial arts, and her instinctive intuition in combat—all these things combined make her beyond the description of "genius."

It's more like something etched into one's bloodline.

It seems that among her ancestors, there were extremely powerful martial artists who had engraved a certain talent into their bones and blood, which was passed down from generation to generation. In her generation, it was fully awakened.

The old drunkard didn't say these things aloud.

He just kept teaching and practicing, day after day, year after year.

---

When Ah Qi was seven years old, she had already reached the fifth level of the "Basic Internal Energy Cultivation Method".

She had opened up most of the Ren and Du meridians, allowing her internal energy to circulate smoothly throughout her body. Her strength was several times greater than before; a single punch from her could shatter a brick.

The old drunkard taught her more and more – fist techniques, leg techniques, body techniques, grappling, joint locks, and pressure point techniques.

He teaches everything only once and never repeats himself.

"In a real fight, no one gives you a second chance," the old drunkard said.

"The enemy won't wait for you to be ready before they strike. Your first strike might be your last."

Ah Jiu remembered.

She not only remembered it, but also learned to apply it to other situations.

The old drunkard taught her a set of boxing techniques, and she would find the flaws in these techniques in actual combat and then find ways to make up for them.

The old drunkard taught her a movement technique, which she would combine with the terrain of the ruins to create variations that were more suitable for use in complex environments.

Once, the old drunkard saw her confront a stray dog. She used a footwork technique he had just taught her three days earlier to dazzle the dog, then punched it in the back of the head, knocking it unconscious.

The force of that punch was perfectly timed—it knocked him unconscious, but not killed him.

"Why didn't you kill him?" the old drunkard asked her.

"Killing it will cause bloodshed," Ajiu said. "The blood will attract more dogs. If you knock it unconscious, it will run away when it wakes up and won't come back."

The old drunkard looked at her and suddenly felt that this child was not like a seven-year-old.

Her way of thinking is more like that of a wild beast that has lived in the wild for a long time—skilled in calculation, good at weighing options, and knows what to do and what not to do.

This instinct cannot be taught.

It comes from living it out.

It was something that grew into her bones little by little during every day she fought for food with wild dogs, battled the cold wind, and struggled against hunger in the ruins.

"Ah Jiu," the old drunkard suddenly said, "do you know why I taught you martial arts?"

Ajiu looked at him and shook her head.

The old drunkard remained silent for a long time, so long that Ajiu thought he wouldn't answer.

"Because I'm dying," he said.

Ajiu's eyes widened suddenly for a moment, then returned to calm.

The old drunkard noticed this detail—a seven-year-old child, upon hearing someone say "I'm about to die," did not react with tears or fear, but rather with a moment of shock followed by a rapid calm.

This ability to control emotions is abnormal.

It was so abnormal that it broke his heart.

"I'm fifty-seven this year," the old drunkard said. "A martial artist should theoretically be able to live to seventy or eighty. But I suffered a serious injury in my early years, and half of my dantian was damaged. In recent years, I've also been addicted to alcohol, so my body has long been depleted. It's a miracle that I've been able to hold on until now."

He took a swig of wine, and this time, Ah Jiu didn't complain about the smell of alcohol on him like she used to.

"I'm teaching you martial arts not because I want to take on disciples, nor because I'm kind-hearted."

The old drunkard gazed into the distance, his eyes piercing through the ruins and landing on some unknown place.

"It's because I owe this world a debt that I can't repay in this lifetime. If you learn these things and can repay it for me in the future, I can die in peace."

"What debt?" Ah Jiu asked.

The old drunkard shook his head: "I can't tell you now. When you grow up and it's time to know, you'll naturally find out."

Ajiu didn't ask any more questions.

It wasn't that she wasn't curious, but she knew that asking the old drunkard a hundred times wouldn't help if he didn't want to talk about it.

"Keep practicing." The old drunkard stood up, patted the dirt off his backside, and said.

"You haven't practiced your internal energy for the required amount of time today."

Ajiu sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and began to circulate her qi.

Qi circulates within the body, warm and powerful, like an invisible river that originates from the dantian, flows along the meridians throughout the body, and then returns to the dantian.

One lap, two laps, three laps.

Her breathing became longer and longer, her heartbeat became more and more steady, and she seemed to merge into the world.

The old drunkard leaned against the wall, watching her practice her skills with a complex expression.

He didn't tell Ajiu that the "Basic Internal Energy Cultivation Method" was actually an introductory cultivation method of a major sect. It would take an ordinary person five years to reach the third level and more than ten years to reach the fifth level.

And it only took her two years.

He didn't tell her that his years of wandering around Luoyang weren't just about surviving. He was hiding from someone.

He didn't tell her that his arrival at the mass grave on that snowy night was not accidental.

He is waiting.

As for Ajiu...

The old drunkard closed his eyes, hearing Ajiu's even and long breathing, and the faint sounds of bustling city life in the distance.

He silently said a sentence in his heart, so softly that only he could hear it:

"Master, I have found your descendant."

The wind blew across the ruins, swirling a few withered leaves around Ajiu.

Unaware of her surroundings, she was immersed in the world of Qi circulation. The warm power within her body grew stronger and stronger, like a seed taking root and sprouting underground, ready to burst forth.

Deep within the Yintang acupoint between her eyebrows, there was a very faint golden light that flashed by in an instant.

Even the old drunkard wasn't seen.