Chapter 24: Chapter 21: Inner Qj_2
Translator: 549690339
He’s a good doctor, and also a good man.
Looking at his busy figure, Lu Yuan thought silently, his mind wandering.
Dayu County is a small place, with only one medical clinic in town. Therefore, this was the only place he could come to buy herbs for martial arts training.
Fortunately, Doctor Zhou was a physician. With his inherited profession, he enjoyed a rich income from treating the patients in the entire county and had no worries about making a living.
So, for training martial arts, killing and fighting, such demanding and dangerous tasks, he had no interest at all.
After several interactions, Lu Yuan had come to trust Doctor Zhou and no longer worried about him coveting his secret book of martial arts.
He even openly admitted that he was buying herbs to train martial arts.
After all, all he gave out was the prescription, not the secret book, and the most that could be guessed from the herbs was that he was training martial arts.
But as to what kind of art he was practicing, outsiders have no idea, there was no concern about revealing secrets.
“After all, who would care about a hunter blindly practicing something they read about? They might even just laugh it off.” thought Lu Yuan.
For a hunter like him who tried to change his fate by practicing martial arts, it won’t seem strange to anyone.
Perhaps the only strange thing was how this hunter had not killed himself with his training yet.
While Lu Yuan was aimlessly thinking, Doctor Zhou had already prepared the medicine. He put several packages on the counter and flicked the abacus, “Here, according to the old rules, a month’s worth, five taels and two coins of silver. ”
“That’s expensive.”
Hearing this price, Lu Yuan’s mouth twitched. While reaching into his pocket for money, he said, “Can’t it be a little cheaper?”
Doctor Zhou looked at him and said with a smile, “My shop is small and we don’t offer discounts. If the customer thinks it’s expensive, why not stop practicing martial arts? That way you don’t have to spend so much and don’t need to complain about the cost.”
Alright, Doctor Zhou was still worried about Lu Yuan practicing himself to death, and was indirectly advising him.
Lu Yuan instantly shut up.
He honestly took out the money. The newly acquired two taels and five coins of silver hadn’t even warmed up in his pocket, and they were going to be spent straight away, leaving him to owe two taels and seven coins more of silver.
“Practicing martial arts really costs a lot of money!”
Putting the herbs into his basket, Lu Yuan left the pharmacy, looking at the bright sunlight outside. The glaring sun seemed like a huge copper coin in his
His savings had decreased significantly and his wallet was even more deflated.
He was becoming poorer and poorer, and he could almost see the day when he would become penniless because of martial arts and end up on the streets.
“No, if I run out of money and sell my house, I can still go back to living in the mountains, I won’t end up on the streets.” Lu Yuan hastily shook his head and then walked towards the city gate.
He even stopped eating in the restaurant in the city in order to save more money and avoid the day of going bankrupt.
What if he gets hungry?
He had prepared smoked meat rice balls in advance and put them in the basket,
It was a long distance between the county town and Yangmei Town, a full 70 miles. Lu Yuan only arrived back home close to dusk.
After returning home, he placed the herbs in his bedroom, in a hidden compartment dug under his bed, together with the silver he had on him. These were bought for five taels of silver, so precious, he couldn’t afford to have them stolen away.
After locking up the small golden box, Lu Yuan went to the kitchen. He cooked as usual, put the rice and meat in the water, and started to prepare dinner.
Taking advantage of the cooking time, he went to the yard and swung around with the Submerging Water Technique, practicing his palm skills. After one set, he stopped training and relaxed. He was already sweating all over.
After bathing with a few buckets of water and finishing dinner, Lu Yuan went back to his bedroom and sat cross-legged on his bed. He didn’t lie down to sleep but sank his consciousness into his body and began to contemplate.
“The so-called inner strength, according to the book, is the fusion of the soul and the essence-blood in the body. This thing is elusive, seeming real and unreal, has no substance, yet can resonate with life.
Therefore, some people call it ‘Qi’.
When the soul and blood combine, they form ‘Qi’; the essence, Qi, and spirit are the three treasures of the human body. Therefore, those who train inner strength, when their inner strength increases, their body is robust and their spirit is abundant, when the inner strength declines, they become weak and
That’s why in the martial arts world, some people become sick and weak after their inner strength is wasted, and die prematurely in a short time.
And some people, when their inner strength is exhausted, lose their soul and blood, and die instantly.”
Lu Yuan was very familiar with the general source of inner Qi. As he thought about it, every word and phrase leaped out vividly in his mind.
“So, the key to training inner Qi is to make the soul resonate with the body, leading to profound changes, eventually integrating into ‘Qi’.
And this method of resonance, is the technique of Internal Cultivation.”
Lu Yuan was recalling the mental technique of Cloud Palm, a method he had watched thousands of times, which he had long since developed his own understanding of.
Now, as he began to resonate, he didn’t need to think much before naturally immersing himself in it.
“The mental technique of Cloud Palm stems from observing the meaning of clouds and water and expands from there.
Therefore, when using this technique to feel the essence and blood within the body, the key is to move like floating clouds and flowing water.
Imagine the spirit as a cloud, spreading throughout the body.
Imagine the essence of blood as a flowing river, surging through various meridians.
When the cloud and river unite, the Inner Qi is released, and the entrance to the mental technique is opened.”
In the midst of emptiness, Lu Yuan cleared his mind, began to imagine his mental will as a cloud.
The cloud gathered and dispersed along with the wind of thought, moving along the route pointed out by the mental technique within his body.
Meanwhile, within the body, the rich essence and blood nourished for more than a year, now appeared to be flowing like a creek in the blood vessels under the guidance of his thoughts.
The sound of blood circulating, the feeling of its flow, under the perception of the spiritual cloud, was all so clear now.
The scenery, impossible to perceive before, was now appearing in his heart.
It was as if a magnifying glass were projecting the places crossed by the spiritual cloud and blood essence into his view.
The inner vision mentioned in the mental technique was now being realized by
Lu Yuan.
The blood continued to flow, and the spiritual cloud floated above it, moving along with them through the meridians.
Gradually, some clouds, driven by the pulse, detached from the void and entered into the blood vessels, merging with the blood.
Boom.
A blast that seemed to exist only in the spirit. A force, seemingly illusory, yet tangible, appeared in Lu Yuan’s meridians.
Inner Qi was born.
After a year of studying the mental technique, he finally cultivated Inner Strength and entered the door of the mental technique.
Three days later.
On the streets of Yangmei Town.
With a basket on his back and a hunting knife and arrows in hand, Lu Yuan was ready to go hunting in the mountains.
Even though it was snowing now and most of the animals in the mountains had hidden in their dens to hibernate, there were hardly any wild beasts to be seen outside, and it was not the hunting season.
But outside while there were no wild beasts, their dens still remained.
“Originally, for the dens of those wild animals, like wild rabbits and foxes, these small animals, their dens were too hidden and hard to find.
But for other large predatory animals like jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards.
Their dens are easy to find, but they are all very aggressive. If you go to trouble them in the snow, it’s not clear who’s hunting whom.”
While walking, Lu Yuan thought: “But now I have cultivated Inner Qi, and both my strength and speed are much stronger than before, almost twice as powerful.
Now, I think I can take on a solitary Fierce Tiger or a wild bear.
But to be safe, it’s better not to mess with these kings of the mountains. We should pick some leopards and wolves, it’s better to squeeze these soft persimmons.”
After cultivating Inner Strength, because Inner Qi is formed by the fusion of spirit and essence and blood, each generation of Inner Qi increases the drain on one’s self, one’s body, and one’s blood.
Therefore, in order to maintain this consumption, he naturally had to find a way to replenish the lost essence and blood.
In reality, Lu Yuan’s appetite had suddenly increased.
The amount of food he used to eat no longer satisfied him.
Now, two or three pounds of meat and four or five pounds of rice for a meal were normal.
Additionally, with the daily consumption of various nourishing herbs, his daily expenses flowed out like an unstoppable flood.
According to Lu Yuan’s conservative estimate, he would need at least ten silver tales a month to barely cover his expenses.
In this situation, of course, he was racking his brains to earn some extra income.
Even now, in the middle of the winter, he wanted to go to the wild beast dens and earn some extra money..