The warm sunlight in winter greatly comforted Little Shiba. He was leaning against the wall, basking in the sun, and breathing slightly.
The mountains in the distance meandered like dragons with gigantic ridges looming up like spikes on their backs. Scenery like this made him convinced that this place could not be Earth. How could it be possible that such towering peaks appeared on our planet?
Each of them was higher than 10,000 meters, which had never been seen before anywhere in the world.
Today, Little Shiba wore a brand-new cotton-padded jacket, which was the first new clothes he had received since his birth. He always wore his brothers' hand-me-downs, Boxer's or even Houndie's.
This year was quite different, Zhou Hua made new cotton-padded jackets for both of her younger brothers. Her life had been much better off than at home since she had gotten married.
Acknowledged as a man of profound capability, Wang Tianlei was not only known for his strength, but it was certainly the most outstanding part.
Wang Tianlei was shrewd. Having been back from the army for a few months, he became a natural leader of the hunters and won their admiration. Seeing this, Little Shiba thought of the heroes in online novels. In such novels, the hero traveled to a primitive society and led the villagers to live a better life. He calculated the number of prey in private and found that under Wang Tianlei's leadership, the number of prey had been five or six times greater than before. To his delight, they now got the chance to eat meat every few days. That was much better than before.
Wang Tianlei guided the hunters to sell their furs in Qingyang Market. Since they hunted more prey now, the number of beasts that they hunted was largely increasing too. Compared to their individual work in the past, they gained more. In the meantime, they had a higher standard of living.
A broad open space lay on the north side of the village, which was suitable for Wang Tianlei to teach the hunters to deploy some rough battle arrays and train them to interact with each other. As a result, for a few months, there were more gains and fewer casualties among the hunters. Actually, only several unlucky hunters were injured by their carelessness rather than by the beasts.
In Little Shiba's eyes, everything Wang Tianlei had done seemed like it was out of a pastoral time-travel novel in which the hero traveled to a primitive society. Sometimes he even thought that Wang Tianlei was a time-traveler like himself.
Having such a competent husband, Zhou Hua naturally lived a beatific and blissful life. It was especially true when she was carrying a baby; Wang Tianlei became more considerate and never asked her to do heavy work. To kill time, she began to make cotton-padded coats for her younger brothers. After all, she brought them up and shared a strong bond with them. In particular, Zhou Hua saw Little Shiba as her own, for he was clever and well-behaved as a child.
At times, Little Shiba frequently gate-crashed as well as sponged off his sister's food and drink, and, incidentally, would get something valuable from Wang Tianlei's mouth.
For a few months, he was completely immersed in the world of martial arts skills. Even the most superficial skills were enough for him to study for a long time.
His practice of Unusual Strength Qigong had encountered a bottleneck. A three-year-old boy, as expected, was not strong enough to hold too much Internal Qi.
Yet, he was too young to practice Dark Bear Fist.
However, recently, when he was practicing Taiji Fist, he accidentally discovered that Taiji seemed to have the function of strengthening the body.
The reason was that his strength was gradually building up.
It was similar to the practice of Dark Bear Fist, a skin-toughening punching skill, while the extent of increase was less obvious than Dark Bear Fist.
In fact, he felt that the increase in strength was from Unusual Strength Qigong rather than Taiji Fist.
To practice martial arts skills, one has to balance his inner and outer self. The practice of Internal Qi was an inside-out process that could build up your body. Of course, it was a step-by-step process that would appear only when you had strengthened your Internal Qi. Actually, the more profound your Internal Strength was, the healthier you would be. But, Unusual Strength Qigong was just the most superficial Internal Strength that was popularized in the army and would be no good for your body even if your practice went into a profound phase.
The Internal Qi in Little Shiba's body was extremely poor now and made little difference. In general, people should consider themselves lucky with such Internal Qi that it had not become a burden to their bodies. Obtaining any benefits from it was wishful thinking.
In fact, Unusual Strength Qigong in his body began to nourish his body; not merely the muscles, but his skeleton, veins, tendons, and meridians. It would have been a shock to anyone else. It was beyond imagination!
However, he really made it, not because of his genius, but from Taiji Fist. It seemed that Taiji Fist purified the Internal Qi. Practicing Taiji Fist would reinforce his Internal Strength, and meanwhile, polish it and change some of its nature. Thus, forming an Internal Strength was similar to Unusual Strength Qigong but yet in a completely different way.
Of course, this kind of Internal Qi equaled Unusual Strength Qigong from the essence. It was just optimized by Taiji Fist.
Little Shiba slightly moved his body from the wall. Basking in the comfortable sunshine and doing nothing made him feel empty in his heart. It was even harder to be a lazybones after becoming diligent.
The Zhou family was on the west side of the village, backed up to a small hillside. To the west were scattered a few houses, approaching the edge of the village. Tramping over the hillside, a steep cliff, some thousand feet high, entered into view. With nowhere to borrow force from, you would find it difficult to climb over it. The cliff was filled with bald rocks rather than prey and herbs, thus holding back the villagers. Between the cliff and the slope was a small piece of hollow, covering an area of about 100 square meters and overgrown with dense shrubs. Even the shorter shrubs were a meter high, that was high enough to shelter a child at the age of three or four and protect him from being found by others. Not to mention, nobody would go to such a secluded place.
That was where he practiced every day.
Hunkered in the clearing, Little Shiba practiced Unusual Strength Qigong for four hours. As he was awakening from meditation, the sun had moved its way to set in the west. He stood up and practiced Taiji Fist. There were eight types of Taiji Fist and two minutes were enough for him to finish it in his previous life. At present, however, practicing from the commencing type to the fifth type, Wild Horse Parts Its Mane, took him about one hour. In the fifth type, he twined his hands to practice Cloud Hands. At that moment, he felt just like he was holding a big ball weighing over 500 kilograms. The sweat, beading into drops on his forehead, were like pearls under the sunshine. Gradually, he crossed his hands, and transformed into the sixth type, Stork Stand, and accelerated his practice. When getting into the last type, Cross Hands, Little Shiba was soaked with sweat all over and entered into a relaxing state.
Oh, I'm not sure whether there will be food left, but I'm sure there will be a scolding waiting for me!
It was getting dark, Little Shiba heaved a great sigh and murmured that the mountain villagers only had two meals a day, and the time of the second meal was exactly when he finished practicing Unusual Strength Qigong. At that time, his Fighting Qi was just completed, so he had to digest it through Taiji Fist, otherwise, the effect would get worse.
Oh, it's all Er Ya's fault! Such a young girl should know better about chasing a boy! She has taken up so much time, now I have to suffer!
The best time to practice Internal Qi was in the morning. But this theory was only appropriate for advanced Internal Strength. For superficial internal force like Unusual Strength Qigong, it would make no difference.
The reason was that to practice superficial Internal Strength, one did not need to absorb the pure essence of the world. It was just refined a lot, then blended with the Internal Qi and became sundry.
When Little Shiba climbed over the hillside, there came the sound of his mother's shouts. So he trotted home with a bitter smile on his face.
"Little Shiba! You're playing around again! How many times have you done this? One more time, and you'll never come back! If you were carried off by a wolf, no one would save you!"
Little Shiba stood at the gate with his head bowed and nodded when receiving his mother's lecture. After teaching him a good lesson, she waved the broom in her hand and gave him a sound beating on his ass, then pointed to the meal and said, "Go eat quickly!"
Little Shiba sniggered and rushed to the kitchen as if he had been given amnesty.
"This little bastard is really worrying!" Looking at his figure, she gave a trace of a smile on her face.
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