Martial King's Retired Life

If Tang Ye heard what I just told Zizi, he would’ve let it fall on deaf ears until he hit a wall and had to find an alternative route. Or, he would’ve had to cry himself a river. In short, he would’ve tried to find his own solution.

If Su Xiao heard it, he’d have assumed I was lying to him, and I’d have to coax him into training.

Boss would’ve instantly given up any desire to reach an elite status and searched for something else to work on.

Young Shiyi would’ve gladly quit and told me to wait on her no differently to a servant waiting on an Empress. She would’ve used it as a reason to play instead of train.

“No! You saved me!” asserted Zizi.

More than likely, Zizi was used to asking for help, and this wasn’t going to be the last time, either. While trusting someone after being betrayed was likely a product of one’s environment, it was probably in their blood for the most part. His mother was virtually the same as him.

“Didn’t I tell you that you don’t have a bad character?”

Zizi beamed despite not understanding, but he did understand that I was willing to lend him a hand. He seemed to have a lot more confidence in me than I thought. A while later, he realised something wasn’t adding up.

“Shifu, what did you mean?”

I smiled. “I said your character isn’t bad because you’re not bloodthirsty, but you’re also not painfully merciful. It’s admirable to be good at fighting but not bloodthirsty.”

I patted Zizi’s shoulders that had grown wider and stronger. His shoulder strength was a lot more consistent compared to when I first returned. His open wounds had stopped bleeding, and his internal injuries had entered recovery mode. I treated his wounds while conversing with him. Before he realised it, he had escaped danger, and the severity of his injuries had reduced considerably.

“I told you that men make martial arts. Men have character. That’s why picking a discipline that aligns with your character is paramount. You may not have heard about it, but there plenty of people who just train and train without understanding the what, how, why, when, and principles, ignoring their errors. You can have two people learning the same discipline, but rates of progress won’t be the same. These are the reasons only a select few are able to truly become the cream of the crop.”

I was much younger than Zizi when Shifu said those words to me. He clobbered me several times because I paid no attention to him. The harsher he was, the more I ignored him. The more I ignored him, the harsher he was… Every time, he’d use a different discipline to beat me while saying the disciplines didn’t suit his character. When he said a certain discipline suited him, he’d still beat the daylights out of me. You could say I personally learnt to understand the teaching in the flesh.

I caressed the confused kid’s head. “You’re kind at heart, which enables you to learn a lot of disciplines. That’s something many can’t say about themselves.”

“Kind?”

I pointed to the marks on the ground. “You had at least three chances to kill your opponents, but you never tried to, which dragged the fight out. You didn’t need to suffer injuries as bad as you did. That is kindness. My shifu split martial artists’ personalities into nine categories. ‘Kind’ is the fifth one, and it’s one that equips with the ability to learn the majority of disciplines.”

Zizi vividly remembered the fight as his opponents fought back ferociously every time he spared them.

“I was not strong enough, so I would have had to hit their vitals if I wanted to drop them. Otherwise, I would not fear them even in a rematch.”

“Sparing your opponents when you’re strong enough is the equivalent of inviting yourself into hell.”

Zizi went red in the face. “What should I do, Shifu?”

I picked up two rocks. “I’ll throw these. You punch them.”

I threw a rock at Zizi’s face right after I finished speaking, forcing him to swing his fist in panic, knocking the rock away.

“Here’s another.”

I threw the rock vertically. Zizi watched the rock slowly descend and smashed it into tiny fragments once it was within range.

“What was the point of that, Shifu?”

“Ask yourself.” I got up and walked over to the spot he fought. “You beat two people with punches here. This was key to your victory.”

Zizi followed me over. “Uhm, this was the spot.”

“You threw two simultaneous punches and could’ve defeated two of them at once, so why couldn’t you drop one when you only had to focus on one punch? Where did the lack of strength conclusion come from?”

“When I threw the two punches, I had spent ages charging up, but I had no time to charge up when they attacked me at once, so my punches were weak, like the first rock… Oh. Shifu, are you saying that, if you can read them and charge up, you will have an advantage and have stronger attacks?”

“In terms of offence and defence principles, you’re not wrong. However, you’re not fighting rocks. Most of the time, you’ll be dealing with situations similar to the first rock, except they’ll be faster and less predictable. How would you charge up?”

“What do I do, then?”

“What if you could use all your might in one breath?”

“You could have all your power behind every strike, which would make it hard for your opponent to fend off! Shifu, are you going to teach me martial arts?!”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that myself.”

Zizi gave me a look of disappointment.

“Don’t get down yet. I can’t, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to. To be honest, I don’t know what the result of using it will be since I had to put together the mental cultivation. In saying that, this is the creation of someone you can respect. Any ordinary person who tries to learn it would go crazy, and you stand to gain nothing from learning it. That said, there aren’t many people who can master this discipline. I think I’m the person who has come closest to mastering it besides its creator.”

“Can I become an adept if I learn it?”

“The creator is among the top two greatest martial artists. He wasn’t much older than you when he came up with it, and he went on to create countless more, paving his own way to the top. I don’t think you can replicate his success.”