Genius
There was no need to comment how tough the day of work was, but for Zhang Xiaohua who had already gotten used to it, he did not felt fatigue at all. However, he was unable to stop thinking of the Rohan fist which was indeed very consuming for him to learn.
Unfortunately when it came to his evening training, he had made the disciple who taught him in the morning speechless as well, Zhang Xiaohua could actually forget everything after the sixth stance again, and only the first sixth stance remained in his head!
The disciple reported back to He Tianshu resentfully that he did not have the ability to teach martial arts to the boy. No matter how dumb a person was, he should have remembered what was taught to him in the morning and the previous night but why could this Zhang Xiaohua not recall anything at all? The disciple could not forsake all his training time just to teach Zhang Xiaohua the Rohan fist right?
He Tianshu pondered and clenched his teeth to say, “You will teach him again for tonight, and I will switch you out with someone else the next day. I refuse to believe that the four of us will not be able to teach him the Rohan fist.”
During that night, the results were rather fruitful because after the disciple has demonstrated the Rohan fist step by step for seven to eight times, Zhang Xiaohua was able to perform up to the sixteenth stance in front of He Tianshu. The other Piaomiao disciples who were watching from aside were all thinking the same thought, “Effort does not fail the person with the determination, even a metal rod could be ground down into a needle, the ancient sayings hold some truth to them after all.”
While everyone returned to their rooms after admiring the results of the training and feeling the satisfaction of being a teacher, Zhang Xiaohua stayed behind and continued to perform the entire set of Rohan fist again and again. However, after an unknown number of repet.i.tions, Zhang Xiaohua began to forget the stances one by one again. The pitiful Zhang Xiaohua was at a loss on what to do, he could neither continue to train nor stop training as he was afraid of forgetting more stances if he did either.
In the end, he chose to go back to the horse stance position.
By the time the night became deeper, he reluctantly returned to his room.
The depressed Zhang Xiaohua did not know that a pair of eyes was watching him throughout his practice; the one-armed elder Yu had come again to observe the boy.
In the morning of the second day, Zhang Xiaohua’s Rohan fist struck heavily onto the determination of the Piaomiao sect members, the confidence of being a teacher which had grown as steady as a tree from the first day came tumbling down. He Tianshu looked at Zhang Xiaohua five and a half stance of Rohan fist that were full of mistakes and he swapped out another disciple. The unfortunate disciple went over like a boat in still waters, he almost sang out a song of “Travelling on sea in the frozen waters of winter.”
The morning practice went the same as last night causing He Tianshu to be speechless. Genius-ah, this is someone who would only appear once every thousand years, and truly deserves to be ranked first in Piaomiao sect.
For the next few days, the Piaomiao members all took turns to lead Zhang Xiaohua, the result was that all four of them took their understanding of the Rohan fist to a “whole new world”. Everyone also took turns to “practice” their patience, but after seeing Zhang Xiaohua still stuck in the five and a half stances, He Tianshu waved his hands and let go of the last vestiges of hope in his heart, and the once fiery pa.s.sion cooled back to its original dullness.
“I always wished for a biscuit to fall from heaven and straight into my mouth. Unfortunately, I guessed only the process correctly but not the result, and the thing that fell from the sky was a large metal weight and where it fell on was my head.” For the next few days in Huanxi mountain villa, these were the words He Tianshu would say most often.
One may feel disappointed and frustration, but villa master Ou’s instructions still had to be followed to the letter.
Hence, He Tianshu changed his plan and began to teach Zhang Xiaohua the second set of fist martial arts, Sky Luo fist. The sky Luo fist was an extremely easy fist martial arts with only twenty stances, he would demonstrate it first and then made Zhang Xiaohua perform the same set of actions. Perhaps because of the foundation built up from practicing the Rohan fist, Zhang Xiaohua was able to execute up to the twelve stances on his first try which was like a drizzle in the drought-stricken field of He Tianshu’s heart. But then again, Zhang Xiaohua’s performance on the next day as like a tornado which blew the fields into an unrecognizable mess of mud.
The stances that Zhang Xiaohua remembered from the sky Luo fists were only three that were full of mistakes apart from the beginning posture, and these three stances were not even in the right sequence. n.o.body knew how Zhang Xiaohua put these three stances together, and they actually looked like legitimate movements when performed.
In the end, it was naturally up to the other three disciples to take turns to teach Zhang Xiaohua. A few days later, the result was that Zhang Xiaohua was still performing the same three stances, his mistakes were not even corrected and remained exactly the same as before.
He Tianshu, no, the other three disciples as well, no longer even had the slightest hope for Zhang Xiaohua anymore.
He Tianshu decided to change his plan again, the four of them no longer taught Zhang Xiaohua the same martial arts movement. Instead, he let the other three disciples teach Zhang Xiaohua different types of martial arts and would not go over to instruct the latter personally anymore. After all, it did not matter who was teaching him because he would always make mistakes, and he could never remember the full set of motions. Thus, he did not bother to put in any effort in planning the curriculum and taught one stance after another.
When the other three disciples first taught Zhang Xiaohua, they would repeat the same set of movements again and again, but they soon realized that no matter how many times they demonstrated be it once or twenty times, Zhang Xiaohua would only remember those few strokes on the second day and any further instruction would be fruitless. Hence, they changed the way they taught and would only demonstrate one different martial art once each day, no more and no less.
Hence, the Piaomiao sect disciples returned to their original lifestyles, only, they would take turns to teach Zhang Xiaohua a new martial art every evening no matter if it was simple or complex. In the morning of the next day, Zhang Xiaohua would then display whatever he could recall from his memory.
It was under this unusual way of training that Zhang Xiaohua learnt the incomplete Erlang fist, Skanda fist, Sage fist, Eight Immortals fist, Sky Luo fist, Ground Ghost fist, Six Star fist, Nezha fist, Adamantyl fist, Guanyin fist, Buddhist Han fist, Buddhism fist, Rohan fist, Adamantyl hammer, Twenty Eight Persistent fist, Four Sparring Immortals fist, Seven Stars Tour fist, Rohan Mantis fist, Yasha Ocean palm, Adamantyl Samadhi fist, Yasha Iron Sand hammer, et cetera. Learning a new martial art each day allowed him to acc.u.mulate a huge repertoire in a short period.
Among all these martial arts, the best he could remember was close to ten stances, and the worst was two to three stances, and among all these stances, very few went in the sequence in which they were supposed to. Most of them were put together somehow by Zhang Xiaohua, although strangely speaking, the way Zhang Xiaohua connected them was seamless like XX without any scar. Even He Tianshu was secretly amazed, and something even stranger was that none of these stances were exactly same as the original ones. As for the edited versions, Zhang Xiaohua would remember them deeply and no matter how many times he was corrected, it would go back to how it was again. Of course, for those that he could not remember, he would still not be able to recall them.
After the evening training, He Tianshu watched Zhang Xiaohua practiced the many incomplete martial arts he had gained over the past few days one after another which somehow combined to look quite consistent, and he shook his head thinking, “Being able to learn up to this standard, I guess he can still be considered a genius in his own right.”
For the long period after then, Zhang Xiaohua would always be anxious for the morning and greedy for the night. He would be the first to arrive in the clearing, and would only return when it was closed to the darkest hour. His diligence was not missed by elder Yu who would watch him amid the darkness and nod to himself, thinking, “This Zhang Xiaohua’s apt.i.tude is not just bad, his brain is as impenetrable as elm wood and it would not be unsuitable to carve a wood sculpture with it. However, his perseverance and willingness to rough it out is also equally abnormal, and he is worthy enough material to be molded from an iron rod to a needle.”
Little did anyone knew that whenever Zhang Xiaohua stepped into his room every night, he would hold breath and curse in his heart, when would this Ma Jing start to wash his leg? Likewise in the morning when he left his room, he would praise the heavens for the chance to breathe in fresh air again.
Sigh, heaven does have eyes. Could it be that every successful man will always have a person supporting him quietly from behind? Except that in Zhang Xiaohua’s case, the person at his back was Ma Jing with the smelly foot?
While Zhang Xiaohua was diligently training the martial arts that were taught to the four to five year old Piaomiao disciples, there was an atmosphere of joy and celebration on the Piaomiao mountain villa adjacent to Huanxi mountain villa.
Within Piaomiao sect discussion hall, there was a celebratory mood and no hint of any solemnity while Ou Peng himself was sitting at his usual high position smiling at the people below. Even though Ou Peng appeared to be composed and calm, the smile on his face was enough to let everyone know that their sect master was extremely happy that particular day.
But that was to be expected. Think about it, there were records of centuries of history from Piaomiao’s founding up till that day, and never once had Piaomiao sect’s power overtook Luoshui sect, and even in its heydays, the furthest it ever expanded was up to south of thousand swords peak. However, the successive generations of sect leaders had limited ability and the sect was forced to shrink its head back in like a tortoise. On that day, under the arrangement and leadership of Ou Peng, Shangguan Feng and the others, they managed to overcome the odds with a smaller group of followers while Ou Peng personally captured Luoshui sect’s sect master Shui Yupeng.
Luoshui sect was headquartered in Luoshui and they had the numerical advantage despite their forces being weaker than Piaomiao sect’s men on average. The importance of the crack team of elite disciples would not be overlooked in their role to allow Piaomiao sect to successfully defeat Luoshui sect in one attempt. As for defeating the upper echelons of Luoshui sect, most of the reason for victory was naturally due to the Piaomiao’s six tiger’s superior martial arts.
As Ou Peng still had some lingering fear when he recalled the battle with the core powers of the Luoshi sect as he did not expect that Shui Yupeng would also be a hidden expert, and the few hallmasters and sect elders to be so strong as well. If not for the miraculous encounter a year ago, Piaomiao sect would have suffered a serious defeat and they might even be held captives right then within the Luoshui sect. Ou Peng could not help but warn himself again that power was might in the Jianghu world, and to go against a power stronger than oneself was akin to playing with fire.
Nevertheless, his current focus was on the celebration of their hard-earned victory, and anything else could be put on hold for later. Right then, morale was high in the entirety of Piaomiao mountain villa and everyone was celebrating, so Ou Peng could not bear to the party-p.o.o.per. Even though he was usually strict, he would not be rigid to that extent.
The expressions of the people in the discussion hall were full of smiles no matter their seniority or age. In the beginning, some of the senior members were still being solemn, but they eventually let go when they saw their sect master’s smile. It was a rare occasion and they would still have to face a solemn-faced sect master the next day, so they thought that they might as well enjoy the current moment.