Chapter 10: The Tongbei Stance

Shen Xiuhan turned his gaze forward and mounted the stone steps.

"Who goes there!"

A disciple in gray robes stepped out from inside, arms crossed, sizing him up.

Shen Xiuhan cupped his fist in greeting:

"Brother, if you'd be so kind — Ma Xianyang placed an order for fish yesterday, and I'm here to deliver."

The gray-robed disciple's expression eased: "Senior Brother Ma isn't at the hall. Hm... wait here a moment, I'll go report it."

He turned and disappeared through the gate.

Before long, a set of heavy footsteps echoed from within.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Each one seemed to land squarely on the chest, low and powerful.

Shen Xiuhan looked up.

A towering, thickly muscled man strode out through the gate.

He had the back of a tiger and the waist of a bear — shoulders broad, back thick, with a squared jaw, heavy brows, and large eyes.

The sheer pressure rolling off him was even more imposing than Ma Xianyang's had been.

"This is our Tongbei Martial Hall's second inner-court senior brother, Feng Xiaobao," the gray-robed disciple introduced, following close behind.

Feng Xiaobao regarded Shen Xiuhan with a flat expression, his voice booming like a bell:

"Those fish yesterday — you caught them?"

"I did..."

"Hm, not bad!"

Feng Xiaobao broke into a sudden grin: "That fish stew — damn fine flavor!"

Shen Xiuhan blinked, then recovered and returned the smile with a cupped fist: "Glad it was to your liking, Brother Feng."

"Hahaha! Follow me!"

Feng Xiaobao waved him in with a sweep of his arm, and Shen Xiuhan stepped over the threshold.

Tongbei Martial Hall was vast — a proper three-courtyard estate.

The front courtyard was wide and open, its ground paved entirely with hard blue-gray flagstone.

Despite the winter cold, several dozen outer-court disciples held horse stances and drilled fist forms, wisps of white steam rising from their bodies.

Shen Xiuhan's gaze swept the group but found no sign of Chen An.

Feng Xiaobao didn't slow down, so he kept his curiosity to himself.

Through a carved lattice moon gate, they entered the inner courtyard.

The scenery here was far more refined.

There was a miniature mountain with a flowing stream, koi drifting lazily through a small pond, and a few stalks of winter plum in the corner of the wall, blooming in defiance of the snow, their subtle fragrance drifting on the air.

Following behind Feng Xiaobao, Shen Xiuhan had just stepped into the courtyard when his gaze was drawn — almost against his will — toward a corner of the inner courtyard's sparring ground.

There, several disciples were paired off in combat, fists whipping through the air with the crack of splitting wind. Inner-court disciples, no doubt.

And beside them sat a coarse black clay crock, filled with well water for the disciples to rest and drink from after practice.

Shen Xiuhan's eyes lingered on the base of that crock for just a fraction of a heartbeat.

A pale gold marker, dazzling as a star!

The original copy of the Transforming Strength-grade art, the "Tongbei Stance" — it was right there!

...

While the two men crossed the courtyard.

The rear hall's doors and windows were shut tight. The hypocaust burned fiercely, filling the room with warmth.

In the seat of honor sat a short, portly, pale-faced man without a whisker of beard — the current master of Tongbei Martial Hall, Yan Xiao.

He raised a teacup, took a slow sip, and drawled:

"Honggang, has that Mei Shuangfeng made any moves lately?"

In a chair below, a young man in his early twenties lounged against the backrest, one leg crossed over the other, idly toying with the jade pendant at his waist. At his master's question, he answered with a careless air:

"Same as always."

"Seven days ago, I personally beat that Jiang Qinghong in the ring. I'd wager Mei Shuangfeng's been too humiliated to show her face since..."

"Hahaha, excellent!"

Yan Xiao slapped the armrest in delight, eyeing his senior disciple Zhao Honggang with approval:

"That lunatic woman must be beside herself!"

"Jiang Qinghong's talent isn't bad — breaking through to Bone Tempering at eighteen — but what good does that do her when she's up against my Honggang?"

"Twenty-five years old, peak of Manifest Strength, one step shy of Hidden Strength..."

"I imagine only Zhendong Martial Hall's Wang Xuanyang can claim to be a touch ahead of you."

"And to think a prodigy of this caliber is my own, Yan Xiao's, personal disciple!"

"Hahahaha!"

A flicker of smugness crossed Zhao Honggang's face. He sat up straighter and cupped his fist with a show of gravity:

"It's all thanks to Master's generous teachings and guidance!"

"Come now, it takes natural talent and hard work too."

Yan Xiao waved the compliment away, then sighed:

"The martial path — my teaching alone counts for nothing. Take Xianyang, for instance. That boy's got a skull thick as an elm plank..."

"Enough, enough!"

A woman's voice cut sharply across the room, severing the mutual flattery between master and disciple.

On a daybed beside Yan Xiao reclined a strikingly beautiful woman. She appeared to be examining the scarlet lacquer on her nails, but her words dripped with acid:

"You two really do enjoy singing each other's praises behind closed doors."

"You've both cultivated yourselves into a dead end, and here you sit, preening?"

"Peak of Manifest Strength — so what? Even if he trains all the way to peak of Hidden Strength, what difference does it make?"

"Until you set foot in Transforming Strength, all you'll ever do is eke out a wretched existence under the boot of the county magistrate's office, Zhendong Martial Hall, and the Bai family!"

The room went dead silent.

Yan Xiao and Zhao Honggang exchanged a glance, embarrassment plain on both their faces, but wisely chose to hold their tongues.

The woman paid no mind to their expressions. Her narrow phoenix eyes narrowed to slits, and her tone shifted abruptly as she turned to Yan Xiao:

"...Has she talked?"

Yan Xiao rubbed his flat nose bridge and coughed drily:

"Ah... no. She still refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the Tongbei Stance's Transforming Strength mental cultivation method..."

"Hmph!"

The woman gave a cold snort, a flash of cruelty in her eyes:

"That whole family — stubborn as rocks. Stinking and hard, every last one of them. I say we should have resorted to serious measures long ago. What good does gentle questioning do? You'll never pry a thing out of her that way."

Yan Xiao was silent for a moment, then said with hesitation:

"She is your birth mother, after all..."

"Birth mother?!"

The woman let out a bark of laughter, as if she'd heard the funniest joke in the world. She rose to her feet in a single motion, her crimson gown cascading down like a waterfall of blood.

"What kind of mother is she?!"

"The moment she gave birth to my darling little brother, she tossed me out to some crumbling estate in the countryside — ten full years without a word, without a visit!"

"Once she saw I'd grown up, saw I had a bit of looks on me, she decided to marry me off to the Bai family — tried to force me into becoming some old wretch's concubine, all to smooth the path for her precious baby boy!"

"Born of the same flesh and blood, she taught my dear brother the complete Tongbei Stance and went to every length to hide it from me — terrified I'd steal that waste of space's claim to the inheritance!"

"And you call that a mother?!"

The hall fell into deathly silence.

You could have heard a pin drop.

Zhao Honggang's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He ventured a careful word of comfort:

"Madam, please calm yourself... haven't you already had your revenge? You've vented your anger..."

"Not enough!"

The woman whipped around, her voice spiking to a shrill, piercing register:

"Nowhere near enough!"

"Poisoning that biased dead bastard of a father — you think that settled it?"

"No!"

Each word fell like a hammer blow, her eyes blazing with mania:

"I want my dear brother dead. I want every last member of his family wiped out. Only then will this fury in my heart be quenched!"

The hall went still. Only the faint crackle of charcoal broke the silence.

For a long time, no one dared speak.

Until—

From the corridor outside, heavy footsteps approached.

"Master, your disciple Feng Xiaobao requests an audience!"

The killing aura inside the hall was reined in at once. The woman gave a cold snort, flicked her sleeve, and swept through to the rear chamber.

Yan Xiao cleared his throat, straightened his robes, and picked up his teacup again, reassembling the dignity befitting a hall master.

After listening to Feng Xiaobao's report about Shen Xiuhan delivering fish, he didn't so much as lift an eyelid. With an idle wave of his hand, he said:

"Since Xianyang arranged the supplier, just take it."

"Don't bother me with purchasing errands from now on. I'll leave it all in your hands."

"Your disciple obeys!"