Book 4, Chapter 220: Asking About What Happened In The Past
Book 4, Chapter 220: Asking About What Happened In The Past
The person furthest from the entrance clearly sensed the strange happenings outside. She pushed open the wide partition curtain and revealed herself as a woman of more than 2.2 meters.
She looked to only be in her twenties. Her hair was done in a ponytail that went straight down to the back of her ankles. She had a toned, well-proportioned body. With just one look, Chen Chuan could tell that her muscles and bones had been refined through training. Contained under her skin was power that Chen Chuan was sure would come out like flowing water.
This woman was the one who had appeared in his mother’s memories. She didn’t seem to have changed much, which showed that her body and mind were both at the peak.
Out of politeness, he didn’t observe her with his biofield and mental energy. After just one glance, he looked down and nodded. “Senior Fang.”
Fang Zhuoying was quite surprised. Chen Chuan had sent a telegram saying that he was Yu Zhen’s son and had learned about her from her senior sister, Ni Xiaolin, so he wanted to visit her and ask about certain things.
Her first thought was that he wanted to learn martial arts from her.
Fang Zhuoying remembered Yu Zhen being pretty talented and competitive. She admired that about her. Since Yu Zhen’s son was willing to visit her in another country, she thought that he might also want to become a good martial artist. If he was talented and had drive, she wouldn’t be against giving him some guidance.
When he stood in front of her, she found that she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Even though Yu Zhen’s son hid his biofield, she could feel a powerful pressure from him that made her tremble from the bottom of her heart.
This was her mutated tissue sending her a warning to stay away from this highly dangerous entity. She couldn’t control it with her willpower alone. The more a martial artist trained their mutated tissue, the stronger this sensation would become. Fang Zhuoying had been in close contact with such people before, so she knew what it meant.
As she stared at Chen Chuan’s young, handsome face and his ink-like eyes, she sucked in a deep breath and said earnestly, “I wasn’t expecting Yu Zhen’s son to be a martial arts master. If I had known that a martial arts master was visiting, I would have prepared a better welcome. I’m sorry for being a bad host.”
She put a palm against her fist and bowed deeply.
Chen Chuan turned his body slightly to the side and returned the salute. “This is more than I deserve, Senior Fang.”
Fang Zhuoying refuted gently but seriously. “Every martial arts master should be treated with the respect they deserve. This is our appreciation for their strength and martial arts.”
In the old era, martial arts masters had great status. Among the common folk, they were usually given titles like grandmasters or mortal deities. Many martial arts factions treated them as their ultimate goal.
A martial artist needed to go through unbelievable training and refinement to truly perfect their bodies and minds in order to reach that stage.
Once they crossed the threshold and reached the Fourth Limit, they became something beyond human and stood apart from normal people. They could even be called an entirely different species. The rules of humans could no longer be applied to them. Before them, ranks of seniority were nothing.
Fang Zhuoying might be Yu Zhen’s master, but she wasn’t Chen Chuan’s master. She had never done him any favors or taken care of him. While Chen Chuan could be polite to her, she couldn’t take it as it was, especially since she was a person who was really enthusiastic about martial arts and always strove to become stronger. She would never allow herself to be rude to a person who had achieved such success.
Fang Zhuoying decided to close her school for the day and deny any other guests a visit. Then, she would bring all the Bozhan blossoms she had collected. This flower only bloomed once every fifty years, so it would be a good way for her to show her respect and admiration to her guest.
Chen Chuan could tell what she was thinking and quickly said, “Senior Fang, I have other business besides visiting you, so I don’t want too many people knowing that I’m here.”
Fang Zhuoying thought about it and apologized, “I wasn’t being considerate enough.”
With her experience, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out why a martial arts master might have come from abroad. There was no way they would show up in a place like this without reason. Perhaps him visiting her was just an excuse. She had heard news that there was an unresolved issue between Veshahan and the Great Shun Republic, so Chen Chuan’s business might be related to the negotiations between the two countries.
“Please come into the inner section to talk, Mr. Chen,” she said earnestly.
Chen Chuan nodded and walked into the inner section. Then, he sat down on a cushioned floor seat with low armrests. Fang Zhuoying clapped her hands, and a woman brought a silver decanter and teapot. She set them down and lit up some incense.
Serving guests with horse milk wine and red flower tea was a must in Veshahan. These two drinks would appear even during the most important parties. Martial artists usually didn’t drink wine, so Fang Zhuoying picked up the teapot and poured a cup of honeyed red flower tea for Chen Chuan before picking up her own teacup to toast to him.
Chen Chuan took a sip before putting the teacup down. “Senior Fang, I came here to ask about my mother.”
“About Xiao Zhen, huh? Do you want to know why she went missing?” Fang Zhuoying asked.
“Do you know it?”
“If that’s what you want to know, you will be disappointed. When it happened, I was in the country, but I don’t know how or why it happened,” Fang Zhuoying answered seriously.
“I taught plenty of students before and led them onto the path of martial arts, but I never interfered or asked about how they were going to continue walking down them. Back then, I heard that Xiao Zhen took up the job of a security guard for an important person, though I don’t know who. All I heard after was that she went missing with them. I was told that by my other students, so even this might not be true.”
Chen Chuan nodded. He needed to figure out why and how his mother went missing, but right now, he was looking for something else.
Chen Chuan said, “I learned from some clues that my mother had hired a teacher to teach me martial arts, but the person never showed up. I believe that if the person were still alive, they might know something.
“From the clues, this person should be good friends with my mother and might have studied under the same master. This means that both of them learned from you, so I came here to ask whether you know anyone who was close friends with my mother.”
Fang Zhuoying thought back on it. “Xiao Zhen was really competitive, so she was only acquaintances with most of my students, but there were two people who were close with her. They were a pair of siblings. The brother was He Ruihai, and the sister was He Zhilan. He Zhilan had average talent, but her determination was comparable to Yu Zhen’s. She was very headstrong.
“He Ruihai was more talented and hardworking. He also had a solid foundation and was a down-to-earth, honest person. Both of them were close friends with Yu Zhen. Based on what I know, they stayed in contact after graduating. So, if Xiao Zhen hired someone to be your teacher and they studied under me, I think it’d be them, or at least one of them.”
Chen Chuan considered it. Setting aside the fact whether they were really the teachers his mother hired for him, the fact that Chen Chuan hadn’t seen them despite them being good friends with his mother and Yu Wan never mentioning them meant that something had to have happened to them.
Did they not want to come, or were they running away from some kind of danger?
“Do you know where they are right now?” he asked.
“Before I left the country, I heard that they were gone, but later, I heard from some of my students that they went back to the Great Shun Republic. It’s been more than a decade since I last spoke to them, though,” Fang Zhuoying answered.
She was focused on spreading her martial arts and ideals, so she had taught more than a hundred students over the decades. She never paid attention to their lives after they graduated.
While Chen Chuan didn’t manage to learn where exactly they went to, he got names, and that was enough. With a detail like that, finding them would become much easier.
“Thank you, Senior Fang,” he said gratefully.
“You’re welcome. I only told you what I know, but you can take some things back with you. Please wait here a moment,” Fang Zhuoying said and stood up to go to the room in the inner section. After a while, she came back with a softcover notebook and handed it to Chen Chuan.
“This has Yu Zhen’s thoughts about martial arts. Before she left, she gave me this book as a keepsake, but I think that it would be better for you to have this.”
Chen Chuan took a look. The handwriting was neat and delicate. Every word was written seriously, and their strokes were deep. From the entries alone, he could tell that his mother was a meticulous and serious young woman.
He touched the slightly sunken words and felt just how much strength was put into writing them. He could sense the emotions and determination his mother had when writing the entries. It made them feel closer to her. He would even say that he felt an emotional connection to her.
“Thank you, Senior Fang. I’ll take this with me, if that’s alright,” he said once he looked up.
“It has always belonged to you,” Fang Zhuoying replied seriously.
Chen Chuan changed the topic then. “On my way here, I saw your students using a training method that would increase their resistance. This technique has a great depth. I believe multiple predecessors refined and perfected it so once you get familiar with it, you will have a powerful body and mind.
“Many of the changes are centered around the main idea of not leaving behind any intervals. Intervals exist not only when you chain martial arts techniques together, but also when you refine your mind. If you get rid of these intervals, you can get rid of the rift between the body and mind. Through that, you can reach perfection.”
When Fang Zhuoying heard Chen Chuan talk about martial arts, she perked up and became much more excited. There was even a fervent air about her.
“You truly are a martial arts master, Mr. Chen. You managed to figure out the core of our faction with just one look. You’re exactly right. The seamless faction’s core belief lies in seamlessness.”
“But I think that something is missing,” Chen Chuan said.