Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 28 The Shadow of Alchemy

When Lao Tie Tou handed him the note, Su Xinpei was wiping the sweat from the back of his neck with a towel. He had just finished punching three hundred times, and the bandages on the back of his hands were still wrapped up, the calluses on his knuckles reflecting a dull light under the lamplight. He took the note and glanced down at it—it contained only one address, written on the back of an electricity bill from three months ago, in Lao Tie Tou's rough, hard-tipped cursive handwriting, but much slower than usual, each stroke as if slowly ground on sandpaper.

"Old Medicine Alley in the Central District, go to the very end, the third wooden door on the right." Old Tietou folded the electricity bill again and stuffed it back into his pocket, picked up the enamel mug to pour water from the corner, and said with his back to him, "You've been training too hard lately. The strength in tendon training comes from twisting, and the energy in boxing comes from striking, but you're only outputting, not drawing it in. Your blood and energy are always on the surface, and the tendons under your skin will have a persistent low-grade fever when they over-recover, which will accumulate into slow damage over time—not injury, but depletion." Su Xinpei did feel tired. It wasn't the kind of tiredness from lack of sleep, but a deeper kind, as if something was being slowly drained from the gaps in his bones. After mastering tendon training, his explosive power and resistance to blows had improved, but every day after training, when he returned to his apartment and lay in bed, his body was burning hot, the skin behind his ears felt slightly tight, but his heart felt empty.

"Traditional martial arts train the shell, while alchemy trains the core." Old Tie Tou walked back, placed the enamel mug on the bench, and sat down next to him. "Your grandmaster grandmaster was only focused on fighting back then, fighting until he was fully trained in the fourth stage of alchemy, but the core inside his body remained empty. Later, he discovered this problem and went to alchemy practitioners to catch up. It took him three years to connect the internal and external. Don't follow his old path."

Su Xinpei untied the bandage from his hand, rolled it into a small ball, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "What is alchemy?"

"I'm telling you to look inward. Traditional martial arts train from the outside in—first you have tendons, skin, bones, and qi; once these four layers are in place, the body will naturally extend inward. Daoist alchemy trains from the inside out—first you have that 'elixir' in your dantian, and then it spreads from the core to your limbs. The two paths are opposite, but the destination is the same—once you have the shell and the core, you and your body are truly connected." Old Tie Tou finished the last bit of cold tea in his enamel mug, put the mug down, leaned back in his rattan chair, and after a moment added three words, "Master Chen."

Su Xinpei went there the next afternoon.

Zhongcheng District's Old Medicine Alley is a narrow old alley, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Both sides are lined with blue brick walls, their bases covered in moss, and white sheets from various clinics hang overhead, rustling in the wind. At the end of the alley, the third wooden door on the right is an old, peeling door. Above the door is a faded, almost illegible pharmacy sign, the lettering faded to grayish-white. Su Xinpei stood at the door for a moment. It wasn't locked, and a medicinal scent wafted from the crack—not the disinfectant smell of a pharmacy, but the kind of Chinese medicine that has been simmering in a clay pot for a long time, its bitterness gone, leaving only a mellow sweetness.

He pushed open the door and went inside. The room was dimly lit, half of the window covered with old newspapers. A medicine cabinet against the wall occupied two entire walls, its numerous small drawers each labeled with the name of a medicine written in calligraphy. In the center of the room was a low table with a dish of dried dates and a glass of warm water. Beside it sat a thin old man, pitting the dates. The old man's hair was completely white, his sideburns neatly trimmed. He wore an old, thin cloth shirt, and his fingers were long with prominent knuckles. His movements as he pitted the dates were extremely swift—with a twist of the knife, the pit would come out intact, falling into the enamel dish beside him with a barely audible sound.

"Sit down." The old man did not look up.

Su Xinpei sat down opposite him. The low table was old, its surface worn smooth and lustrous like a piece of old jade. The old man removed the last pit from the date, wiped his hands with a cloth, and looked up to examine him. His gaze was gentle, but Su Xinpei felt as if those eyes had swept over his entire being—not scrutinized, but rather illuminated, like a faint beam of warm light sweeping from head to toe, revealing all the weariness that had seeped into his bones and the simmering anger from overtraining.

"That old bastard Tie Zheng said you want to learn alchemy." The old man's voice was slow, each word like a long-simmered medicinal soup, unhurried and deliberate. "Don't have too high hopes—even I can only point you in the right direction. How far you go depends entirely on yourself."

Su Xinpei nodded. "May I ask how I should address you, sir?"

"The Wandering Hermit—surname Chen." Master Chen pushed the dried dates on the table forward half an inch, gesturing for Su Xinpei to make himself at home, then added some warm water to the old enamel cup. "The Dao of Alchemy isn't a course, it's a path. You've developed a shell through standing meditation, but the substance inside hasn't taken shape yet. It's not that it hasn't taken shape, it's that you haven't looked inward. What do you usually do while standing in the stance?"

"Sink your breath. Circulate your energy. Circulate it throughout the body."

How does the circulatory cycle work?

"The sensation of Qi rises from Yongquan (KI1) to Huiyin (CV1), ascends along the Du meridian, passes through Jiaji (EX-B1) and Yuzhen (EX-B1), descends along the Ren meridian to Baihui (GV20), and returns to Dantian (CV6). After completing one cycle, it feels as if the entire body has been filtered by a warm current—this is most stable when practicing Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation), but can be interrupted when practicing Tai Chi." Su Xinpei explained the circulation of Qi in the simplest terms.

Master Chen listened without commenting. He stood up, walked to the medicine cabinet, opened a small drawer, took out a slender moxa stick, lit it with a match, and applied it to the indentation on Su Xinpei's left rib for a moment. The smoke from the moxa stick was extremely thin and straight, with a mild and non-irritating aroma. After finishing, he extinguished the moxa stick and placed it on the edge of the enamel tray before sitting back down. "Your Qi is flowing outside the tendons, not into the bone marrow. The Ren and Du meridians are the pathways, but the Dantian is the sea. What you're doing now is pushing the seawater around the coastline, making it look beautiful, but the seabed is still shallow. The Dao of Dan doesn't tell you to keep pushing the water—it tells you to dive down."

Su Xinpei remained silent for a moment. He didn't rush to respond, but instead picked up the glass of warm water on the table and slowly took a sip. The water was warm, not scalding, just at body temperature. Seeing that he had drunk the water, Master Chen refilled the empty glass halfway and filled his own glass as well, as if he were doing something completely unrelated to teaching alchemy. "Don't think about what an elixir is." Master Chen's voice was like the last bit of heat in a medicinal soup, slow and steady. "An elixir is formed, not cultivated. What you need to do now is not to form an elixir, but to cleanse your dantian. Cleansing the dantian doesn't mean holding your breath, it means that every breath you inhale should stay obediently below the Guanyuan acupoint, instead of rising upwards as soon as you inhale, reaching your chest and then being forced back down by willpower—the breathing you do when you're cultivating your tendons is all reversed."

Su Xinpei mentally reviewed Master Chen's choice of words, finding the word "tidy up" odd. Tidying up a room is tidying up, tidying up one's dantian (energy center) is also tidying up, but the dantian isn't a room, and qi isn't a thing—qi is alive. He tried closing his eyes on the low stool and slowing his breathing. But as soon as he pressed down on his breath, his chest automatically rose, exactly like the breathing rhythm he used when practicing boxing. He realized that all his recent breathing had been preparing for a punch—inhaling to build up power, exhaling to release it, even sitting on the low stool was subconsciously preparing for the next punch. He opened his eyes and glanced at Master Chen.

"You can't generate true power when you're not focused on your breathing while practicing boxing—it's the same when you're practicing standing meditation. Sit still, let's start from the beginning." Master Chen didn't give him any instructions, but simply pushed the plate of dried dates closer to him. "The first lesson in the Foundation Building Course of Daoist Alchemy: Breathing. Not deep breathing. The breath you inhale now should sink below your navel—not to your chest, not stuck in your throat. Sink it."

Su Xinpei closed his eyes. With his first breath, his chest rose slightly. For his second breath, he waited two beats before inhaling; his chest stabilized, but the air only reached his stomach and then stopped. For the third breath, he didn't think about it—not about his dantian, not about breathing, not about his chest—he focused solely on the slight pressure of his sit bones against the stool. Then the air sank down on its own—very lightly, like a leaf slowly falling from his chest to three fingers below his navel, making no sound as it settled, but Su Xinpei knew he felt it. It was different from the feeling of qi during standing meditation. In standing meditation, the qi surged upwards, the warmth spreading outwards along the Ren and Du meridians. But this time, the qi didn't spread; it simply settled there, steady and calm, like a small, warm lake. He tried to visualize each exhaled breath as a sinking of qi in his dantian, rather than pushing it outwards.

After about the time it takes to brew a cup of hot tea, Master Chen spoke. "Remember this feeling. When you practice standing meditation later, you can also let your Qi sink down like this, and the depth of your Qi circulation will be immediately different. Now open your eyes."

Su Xinpei opened his eyes. The warmth in his dantian was still there, undiminished, as if someone had placed a tiny piece of charcoal three fingers below his navel—not hot, but reassuring. The panel flashed—[Fetal Breathing Meditation: Undeveloped 3/100]. He glanced at it and then put it away.

"This concludes the first lesson in Daoist alchemy. After returning home, sit for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before practicing Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation) each night. Focus solely on breathing, without circulating Qi, visualizing, or thinking about any specific terms. If that 'charcoal' in your Dantian is still there after three months, come back."

Su Xinpei stood up to thank him. Master Chen pushed the dish of dried dates towards him, gesturing for him to take it, then picked up the knife again and began pitting the next batch of dried dates. The tip of the knife turned, reflecting the densely packed labels of medicine names on the medicine cabinet. Su Xinpei picked up two dried dates, put them in his pocket, pushed open the wooden door, and walked into the alley.

Autumn sunlight filtered through the white sheets drying on either side of the old alley, casting dappled shadows on the blue brick pavement. He walked out of the old medicine alley, past the oldest post office in the central district, where the old man roasting sweet potatoes at the entrance of Beihe Old Street was still at his stall. He took a small bite of a dried date by the roadside; the flesh was sweet, not cloying at all, but the pit left a slightly astringent taste on his tongue. As dusk settled after he passed the street corner, he suddenly remembered the last time he unexpectedly met Old Tie Tou at the entrance of this alley. Old Tie Tou was carrying half a bag of roasted sweet potatoes; he had just spent the afternoon in the archives, his mind filled with thoughts of the cracks in the culvert at Beihe No. 2 Primary School. That time, they walked back to Tiegutang together, and the old elm tree at the alley entrance had just lost all its leaves. Master Chen and Old Tie Tou were old acquaintances; he should have asked sooner. The herbal ointment Old Tie Tou had used to treat his calves during the third round of skin refining—the smell was exactly the same as the one wafting from the old medicine alley today.

Back in his apartment that evening, he set up his stance in the center of the living room as usual. But today, he didn't start practicing standing meditation immediately. He first sat on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes and mouth, pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and placed his hands on his knees—not standing, but sitting. When he inhaled, he used his mind to direct the air to a point three fingers below his navel, and when he exhaled, he felt that warm area sink slightly. He sat for about seven or eight minutes, and the warmth didn't dissipate. Then he stood up, using that warmth as a base, and began practicing standing meditation. When the Qi circulated through his body, the sensation was heavier than usual, not hotter—it was deeper. The heat rose from the Yongquan point, ascended along the Du meridian, passed through the Jiaji point, reached the Yuzhen point, descended from the Baihui point along the Ren meridian, and finally returned to the Dantian—today, when the Qi returned to the Dantian, it didn't fall directly back to its original position as usual, but was drawn into that warmth, like lake water overflowing the seabed and not receding completely, accumulating an extra layer under the mud. When I finished practicing, the panel popped up again—the experience points for standing meditation had increased by a few points more than usual, and the new skill for fetal breathing and visualization had also gained some experience points, while the progress bar for tendon strengthening remained unchanged. It wasn't a regression; it meant that the Qi and blood had finally withdrawn from the recurring low-grade fever in the tendons and were being drawn back to the core.

Su Xinpei knew that what he learned at that low table in the old medicine alley today wasn't some "new technique," but rather a screwdriver. The old martial arts had built him a good framework, but some screws were too tight, and some joints were loose—standing in meditation for too long would stiffen his muscles, excessive tendon training would make his tendons swell, and punching too fast would cause his qi and blood to stagnate in his joints. This screwdriver was called "breath control," used to calm the pulsating heat in his dantian and loosen all the overly tightened thoughts by half a turn. This was the first correction the alchemy had given him. There would be three more, four more, countless more.