Under the fist

Chapter 37 A Coffin Hidden in a Stone, The Art of Witnessing

In the dark room of the forest farm, the firelight flickered, illuminating Lian Youming's bright eyes.

He sat cross-legged on the ground with an oil lamp beside him. His gaze darted around, looking at the stone bed not far away, at the stone wall illuminated by the firelight, and counting the characters engraved on it.

“I have a three-bay house, dwelling in the Spiritual Spring. The four walls are bare and desolate, all things in the universe form the brackets, the roof tiles cover the blue sky. For many years I have lived without leaks, thus forming a karmic bond. Having cultivated myself to the fullest extent, I have subdued fire dragons and tigers, becoming a terrestrial immortal…”

It was already late at night outside, and everyone in the forest farm had gone to sleep.

Lian Youming was still holding a wooden box in his arms, which contained the Solomon's Seal that Yan Lingyun had Qin Yuhu bring before she left.

After reading the poem, he stared at the three crystal-clear fist marks on the stone wall in silence for more than ten minutes. Finally, he glanced at the scattered stone fragments on the stone bed, and his eyes gradually became dull.

Such a powerful punch must most likely have been left by Xue Hen.

"Is there some secret hidden in this poem?"

Lian Youming took out a piece of Polygonatum and put it in his mouth, then his gaze fell on a very inconspicuous corner on the stone wall.

"Mount Lu?"

"What exactly are these people looking for?"

Although Lian Youming had some guesses about the secret guarded by the old man who guarded the mountain based on Yang Shuang's few words, he still did not know the truth.

Moreover, this secret involves various forces, including the White Lotus Sect, martial arts masters like Gong Wuer and Xue Hen, and even Li Da may have come because of it.

Savoring the sweetness in his throat, Lian Youming kept sorting out everything that had happened during this period, and he even guessed roughly where the old man guarding the mountain had gone.

The world has changed. This world is neither too big nor too small. Since the other party intends to withdraw from the world, it is not hard to guess where they are going.

In this vast Northeast, besides the primeval forests deep in the Greater Khingan Mountains, is there a better place?

"I don't want to think about it anymore, I'm going to practice!"

After much thought, Lian Youming became increasingly agitated. As his vital energy surged, he simply pushed himself up with one arm and flipped himself over.

As long as you have enough strength, the world will naturally open up.

If the mountain doesn't come to me, then I go to the mountain.

As he inhaled and exhaled, the muscles on his body began to move, trembling and stretching under the influence of his movements and internal energy, extending into an exaggerated arc. Sometimes he supported himself with one arm as if sitting backwards in a lotus position, sometimes he clenched his fist like a hammer or a vajra pestle, sometimes he lunged forward with outstretched arms like a tiger pouncing, sometimes he stomped his feet like a horse trampling...

The twelve portraits each mobilized the muscles and bones of different parts of the human body, and with that strange internal energy, ripples appeared on the surface of the body, and the muscles and bones seemed to coil like dragons.

As the lamplight shone, Lian Youming's body began to glow with an unusual flush, radiating warmth.

Despite his imposing stature, he did not appear bulky at all. He resembled a leopard stretching its limbs, seemingly accumulating terrifying power, and one could even hear strange sounds emanating from his body.

Those external martial arts that involve external force, such as Iron Shirt, first involve striking the body with external force, supplemented by medicinal soup. Through repeated tempering day after day, as the force and intensity of the blows increase, the body's resistance to blows will also improve. Combined with each school's unique breathing method, the muscles and bones will become as strong as iron, and that is considered a mastery.

However, his Golden Bell Shield technique requires no external force; it relies on the constant stimulation of muscles with internal energy. Each breath in and out is equivalent to an invisible tempering.

Moreover, as Lian Youming practiced the Golden Bell Cover technique for longer, he discovered something strange: his weight had become somewhat unusual.

In the short two weeks since he returned to the mountain, his physique has not changed much, but he has become increasingly heavy.

The reason for this is that Lian Youming noticed that it took him less than ten days for his wooden bed to go from being stable and sturdy to being on the verge of collapse.

Also, it seemed that the mules and horses were having more difficulty carrying him than before.

Moreover, this strange change seems to be continuing.

Lian Youming was somewhat worried, unsure whether this situation was good or bad.

Unfortunately, Yan Lingyun had already left, and with the young girl not by his side, he had no one to consult.

He practiced for almost half the night.

Only when he exhaled the last long, hot breath did Lian Youming's heaving chest slowly calm down.

He wiped the sweat from his body, but instead of going upstairs, he simply lay down on the stone bed.

The wooden bed couldn't bear the weight any longer; surely this stone bed won't collapse too.

But in the middle of the night, he rolled over carelessly, and in his drowsy state, he didn't know where his right foot had brushed against, but with a "crack," the stone bed beneath him suddenly flipped over.

Lian Youming felt his body suddenly sink, and when he opened his eyes in a daze, he found himself in complete darkness, with a strange popping sound coming from beneath him. "Cough cough, what a disaster, it's collapsed again?"

Lian Youming hurriedly pushed his hands and feet outwards, only to find that it was a square, enclosed space, narrow and cramped, like a coffin.

After carefully groping around in the dark for a while, he picked up a round but not round thing next to his head. He ran his fingertips over it, and when he touched several holes and two rows of teeth, he felt terrible.

This looks like a skull.

It really is a coffin.

The air was filled with a faint stench of decay.

Moreover, it seemed that there were some crushed bones under his body, which were extremely uncomfortable.

Upon discovering that it was a confined space, Lian Youming hurriedly calmed his breathing, half-kneeled to support himself, and awkwardly began to feel around the four walls of the coffin.

Remembering that he seemed to have kicked something that triggered the mechanism, he groped his way down into the darkness.

This coffin must be the interior space of that stone bed.

Lian Youming felt a wave of bad luck. Wasn't this just plain stupid? There was a coffin hidden under the bed.

But considering that this dark room was originally an ancient tomb, it doesn't seem strange that there is a coffin there.

Could it be that the person who renovated this tomb designed it this way on purpose?

For what?
hide?

Playing dead?

Or was it to avoid enemies?
"found it!"

Suddenly, Lian Youming relaxed his mind and touched a disc-shaped protrusion in the corner with his left hand. He then clenched his fingers and kept trying to exert force.

Before long, two "crackling" sounds were heard, and the stone slab above their heads immediately loosened, letting in a sliver of light.

Seeing this, Lian Youming raised his hand to brace himself and pounced out the moment the stone slab flipped.

"call!"

Brushing off the dust and bone powder from his body, and smelling the putrid stench clinging to him, Lian Youming was filled with disgust.

He raised his gaze again, looking at the stone bed that seemed to have nothing unusual about it. After a moment's thought, he picked up the oil lamp that was almost burned out, adjusted the wick, and went around to the foot of the bed. His eyes swept over the patterns and carvings, and he began to examine them one by one.

Until his left hand touched the stone button in the center of a stone flower, Lian Youming pressed it gently, and the familiar "click-click" sound rang out again.

Seeing the stone slab shift again, Lian Youming took a deep breath, picked up the oil lamp, and leaped back into the stone coffin.

Under the lamplight, everything inside the coffin was immediately visible.

A skeleton lay starkly in the room.

Perhaps because Lian Youming had collapsed and crushed it earlier, most of its bones had been broken.

His cheek twitched, and he saw that although the corpse was dressed in old clothes and it was difficult to make out its full appearance, he could tell from the pair of horseshoe cuffs that it seemed to be a Manchu-style uniform from the Qing Dynasty.

Judging from the degree of decay and tattering of the clothes, the era is probably not too long ago.

Lian Youming's eyes darted around, and he quickly found the skull again. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the skull's forehead was covered with fine cracks, and several shallow pits were faintly visible in the middle.

Looking at the shallow pits, he pursed his dry lips, his eyes flickered slightly, and then he clenched his right fist and slowly aligned the protruding knuckles with the pits.

Upon comparison, though they differed in size, it was clearly a fist imprint. Looking further at the cracks spreading outwards like a spiderweb, the force was concentrated and unyielding, something beyond his comprehension.

Lian Youming grew increasingly alarmed as he looked, but seeing that the oil lamp in his hand was about to burn out, he decided to go out first.

This place has probably already been explored by Gong Wuer and Xue Hen, and there likely won't be anything useful left behind.

He turned around, intending to turn the mechanism, but just as he turned his head, he suddenly caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. His gaze narrowed slightly, and he quickly leaned closer to the stone wall on the side to take a look.

"I have a method, which I will now pass on to future generations, called the Art of Eye Observation... To practice this method, one must observe the sun and moon, and cultivate extraordinary eyesight. Once the time is right, one can capture the enemy with one's eyes..."

(End of this chapter)