Proving God begins with the principle that no effort is wasted.

Seven days after the results of the military examination were announced, someone from the county government came to tell Jiang Lan to go to the Military Equipment Department.

The official who came was a minor clerk in black robes. He was very polite and stood at the door without urging or shouting. He waited until Jiang Lan changed into clean clothes before leading the way.

The Military Equipment Office was located to the west of the county government office, a stand-alone compound with its own gate. Two stone lions stood in front of the gate, and a black lacquered plaque hung above the gate, bearing the three characters "Military Equipment Office".

The courtyard was smaller than Jiang Lan had imagined. It was paved with blue bricks, and there were several stone locks and weapon racks in the corner. There was a row of wooden stakes against the wall, and the surface of the stakes was pitted and uneven.

The clerk led him into the main hall, poured him a bowl of tea, said "Please wait a moment," and then withdrew.

Jiang Lan sat down and drank tea. The bowl was made of coarse porcelain, and the tea was old and astringent. He didn't complain, drinking it sip by sip before placing the bowl on the table.

After waiting for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, a man came out from the back room. He was in his forties, with a square face, a bluish-gray stubble beard, and wore a blue military officer's uniform with a brass-buckled belt. His steps were steady, and he looked like a trained martial artist.

Jiang Lan stood up and clasped his hands in greeting: "Jiang Lan of Guangchang Martial Arts School greets Your Excellency."

The man waved his hand: "Don't call me 'sir,' you can call me Lord Zhou, or Magistrate Zhou. Please sit down."

He sat down in the main seat and looked Jiang Lan up and down. "This year's newly selected martial arts scholar, ranked ninth on the third list, with the Mountain-Crushing Fist and the cultivation of five acupoints."

Jiang Lan nodded: "Yes."

Zhou Tongzhi pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve, spread it on the table, and pointed to the name on it. Jiang Lan saw her name written on it, with a red seal next to it.

"After the military examinations, the county will recruit a group of newly promoted military scholars to fill positions in various government offices," said Zhou Tongzhi. "The Military Affairs Department is short of a deputy patrol officer, with a monthly salary of eight taels of silver and a year-end bonus. He doesn't need to report for duty every day; he only needs to report to the department once every ten days. In case of major events—such as bandit suppression, arrests, or city defense—he must be available at any time."

He didn't need to clock in every day or report every ten days. He liked this arrangement. It wouldn't interfere with his martial arts practice, nor would it interfere with spending time with Cheng Erniang, and he could even earn extra income!

"Deputy Commandant of the City Patrol, shall we patrol the city?" he asked.

Zhou Tongzhi shook his head: "The deputy captain doesn't need to. The captain leads the soldiers on patrol, and the deputy captain is in charge of dispatching and training. To put it bluntly, he's the instructor for those few dozen soldiers under his command, teaching them boxing, swordsmanship, and archery. You just need to go once every ten days to see how they're doing and give them some pointers."

Zhou Tongzhi stared into Jiang Lan's eyes and added, "You don't need to do the dirty or tiring work." Although these words were blunt, they were the truth.

"Thank you, Lord Zhou." Jiang Lan clasped his hands in thanks.

Zhou Tongzhi took out a bronze plaque from the drawer and handed it over. The plaque was small, with the words "Deputy Commandant of the Military Equipment Department Patrol" engraved on the front and Jiang Lan's name and number engraved on the back.

"Take this. Go to the office to collect your salary and rations on the first day of each month. Starting tomorrow, report to the office once every ten days. You'll be notified in advance if anything happens." Zhou Tongzhi stood up, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Do a good job. You're young, you have an official title, and your future is brighter than ours, the old guys."

Jiang Lan put the bronze medal into his pocket and took his leave.

Walking down Changping Street, he took out the bronze plaque again and looked at it. Sunlight shone on the bronze surface, making the characters clear: Deputy Commandant of the Military Equipment Bureau, Ninth Rank. Not a high-ranking official, but in the eyes of the people in Reed Bay, he was already someone who received a government salary.

He stuffed the bronze medal back into his pocket and walked toward the rice shop.

The sun was setting, the heat hadn't subsided, and there weren't many people on the street. He walked slowly, his mind preoccupied with one thing—eight taels of silver, plus the stipend for Wu Xiucai, which would amount to about a dozen taels a month.

It's enough for the family to eat and drink, enough for him to pay off his mortgage, but there's not much left. But he needs to train his internal organs and stimulate his acupoints; relying solely on his salary, even after saving for half a year, he still can't afford a few blood-tonifying pills.

We need to think of other ways to make money.

He walked to the screen wall opposite the county government office, where a wall of wanted posters was pasted. Some of the paper was new, some old; the new ones were white paper with black characters, while the old ones were yellowed and curled at the edges, the corners flapping loudly in the wind. Several people stood in front of the posters; some were looking at them with their arms crossed, some were leaning closer to read them, and a man wearing a straw hat was copying the contents of the poster with a pen. His handwriting was messy, but the muscles in his arms stretched his sleeves taut.

Ghostwriter, or bounty hunter.

Killing wanted criminals for bounty is one of the fastest ways to make money.

But weren't all those people on the notice list desperate criminals who had lived on the edge of death? Jiang Lan glanced at the names and bounties on the notice—"Liu Heizi, the notorious bandit of Hejian, reward 120 taels of silver," "Jade-Faced Wolf, the womanizer, reward 80 taels of silver," "Three remnants of the Black Tiger Gang, reward 60 taels of silver in total." He had already killed the three members of the Black Tiger Gang, but he hadn't claimed the bounty.

To claim the reward, an autopsy is required, a statement must be taken, and the details of the events must be explained. How can he explain that he killed three people? He can't explain it clearly.

Jiang Lan walked away from the screen wall and continued walking towards the end of the street.

At one end of the street, there was a row of stalls selling all sorts of things: chipped bowls, moldy books, rusty knives, and clothes whose original color was no longer discernible.

Most of the stall owners were elderly people and women, squatting behind their stalls, calling out weakly to attract customers. Jiang Lan was just strolling around when she stopped in front of the very last stall.

The stall owner was a thin old man, wearing a patched gray cloth jacket, dozing off on the ground. His stall was cluttered with various items, with a stack of old books piled up at the very edge, their pages yellowed and brittle, some with their covers missing, bound together with hemp rope.

Jiang Lan squatted down and casually flipped through the stack of books. Most of them were folk miscellanea, copies of prescriptions, and fragments of unknown boxing manuals. He flipped through a few, but found them uninteresting. Just as he was about to stand up, his finger touched the bottom book—the cover was completely rotten, revealing a few lines of text on the first page.

The characters were handwritten, the ink was brownish, and the strokes were strong, as if written by someone who had practiced martial arts.

The text begins: "I learned martial arts in my youth, joined the army in middle age, and returned to my hometown in my later years, living a mundane life. However, I heard of an extraordinary person in the martial arts world who could refine his internal organs as if they were cast in bronze and iron, cleanse his marrow and change his blood, and be immune to all diseases. This technique is a secret that is not passed down. I happened to obtain a fragment of the text and recorded it here."

Jiang Lan's finger stopped on that page. Without a word, he pulled out the booklet, along with the two books on top, and asked the old man, "How much are these three?"

The old man opened his eyes, glanced at the stack of books, then at Jiang Lan, and immediately adopted a mystical expression: "Oh my, sir, you have a really good eye! This book has been passed down from my ancestors, it's at least a hundred years old. Look at the paper, the ink, this—"

"How much?" Jiang Lan interrupted him.

The old man held up one finger: "One hundred coins. No bargaining."

Jiang Lan took out a hundred coins from her sleeve, counted them, and placed them on the stall. The old man beamed, wrapped the three books in straw paper, and handed them to her. Jiang Lan took them, tucked them under her arm, and turned to walk back.

Walking down Changping Street, the setting sun cast a long shadow over him. He walked slowly, clutching the bundle of old books in his hand, his heart beating a little faster than usual.

It wasn't because I got a bargain, but because of what was written in that booklet—"Refining the internal organs is like casting bronze and iron, washing the marrow and changing the blood"—isn't that the way to cultivate internal organ strength?

His parchment scroll reads "It stirs the stomach and intestines, shakes the five internal organs, and cleanses the marrow with thunderous sound," while this booklet reads "It refines the internal organs, cleanses the marrow and changes the blood."

Although the wording is different, they both point to the same thing.

He opened the package of toilet paper, pulled out the tattered booklet, and flipped through it as he walked. The pages were brittle and stiff; he had to be careful when turning them, lest they break.

The handwriting is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and some parts are damaged by insects, with a few words missing. But it can be roughly seen that this booklet is a notebook written by someone who had served in the military camp and later studied with a wandering Taoist priest for several years, recording these fragments about internal strengthening techniques.

Jiang Lan turned to the middle page and stopped.

On this page is written a line: "After the three realms of internal organ strength, there is a method of integrating strength into the bones. I only saw half of it and was unable to learn it. What a pity."

It integrates strength into the bones.

He had never heard of this term before. The parchment scroll only mentioned the Three Realms, not this one. He continued to turn the pages, and the later pages were even more tattered, some only half-finished, others with the writing blurred into a mess.

On the last page, in the corner, there was a line of small print: "This method is called 'Bone Ringing,' and it should be practiced in conjunction with the cultivation of internal organs, but without guidance, one dares not act rashly."

Bone tinnitus.

Jiang Lan closed the booklet, tucked it under his arm, and continued walking back. As he passed the screen wall of the county government office, he glanced at the wanted poster again.

The bounty is indeed high, but the risks are also high.

He currently has five acupoints, has mastered the Tongbei Fist, but has only just begun to learn the Zangfu Strength. To rashly pursue a wanted criminal would be tantamount to courting death.

First, practice your internal energy cultivation. Master the first level of internal organ strength, then open up the Baihui acupoint and raise it to the sixth level. Only then should you think about making money.

He pushed open the black lacquered wooden door of Shijing Lane, where Cheng Erniang was collecting clothes in the courtyard.

Seeing that he had something tucked under his arm, I asked, "What did you buy?"

"Old books," Jiang Lan said. "Let's flip through them when we're bored."

Cheng Erniang didn't ask any further questions and carried the clothes back to the east room. Jiang Lan went into her room and closed the door. Three books were spread out on the table, with the tattered booklet on top.

He turned to the page on "Bone Rumbling" and read it again. Then he carefully closed the booklet and placed it under his pillow, next to the parchment scroll.

The sky outside the window darkened, and Cheng Erniang called him to eat from the kitchen. He responded, blew out the oil lamp, and went to the kitchen.

Reaching the doorway, he glanced back at the two other old books on the table—they'd been bought to make up the number. He flipped through them a couple of times and realized they were useless. He casually placed them on the windowsill and went into the kitchen.

Cheng Erniang brought the food to the table: a bowl of white rice, a plate of green vegetables, and a bowl of fish soup. The fish was crucian carp from Reed Bay; it had many bones, but the soup was delicious.

Jiang Lan drank two bowls of soup, finished her meal, helped Cheng Erniang clear the table, returned to her room, lit the oil lamp, and pulled the booklet out from under her pillow again, flipping through it from beginning to end. This time she flipped through it slowly, carefully examining each page, even getting close to the worm-eaten areas.

On his second reading, he found a line of small print in the margin of the "bone resonance" section. The print was lighter than the main text, as if it had been added later: "Bone resonance is when the force penetrates deep into the bone marrow, and the joints resound like thunder. The third level of the Visceral Force, Thunderous Marrow Cleansing, is the foundation of this method. However, Visceral Force focuses on the five internal organs, while bone resonance focuses on the bones; neither should be neglected."

Jiang Lan copied the words onto a piece of paper and pasted it on the headboard of her bed.

Then he sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and began practicing the internal organ exercises. Inhale, expand his abdomen, hold his breath, exhale. Once. Twice. Three times.

[Introduction to Visceral Strength (6/100)]

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