Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

The door in Chapter 15, Level 2

On the third day after achieving mastery of the Tendon Refining Technique, Su Xinpei noticed an old mark on his left rib while showering. It wasn't a new injury—it was the spot where he had been grazed by a shard of the reflection in the mirror in the apartment building. At the time, it had only broken the skin slightly, barely drawing blood, and he had forgotten about it after using a band-aid for two days. But now the mark was still there, not a scar, but a very faint silver-gray line embedded in the skin on the outside of his ribcage. It didn't hurt or itch; scratching it with his fingernail produced a slight astringent feeling, like touching unglazed rough pottery. He turned up the showerhead temperature, and the hot water flowed over the silver line, causing the surrounding skin to turn slightly red. The silver line itself remained unchanged, neither discoloring nor swelling, simply lying there quietly, like a forgotten suture under the skin.

He turned off the shower and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, drying his hair with a towel. The steam obscured the mirror, but he didn't wipe it. He remembered what Old Iron Head had said—the Water and Fire Immortal Armor could withstand blades, high temperatures, and corrosion, but it couldn't stop bullets, much less something left by subspace entities called "crevices." Crevices weren't wounds, but marks left on the dermis after being scraped by some kind of non-physical energy. They weren't fatal, but they accumulated. Every crevice was tuition the body paid for its consciousness.

He draped the towel on the rack, put on his clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom. It started raining again outside; the autumn rain in the lower part of Ironthorn City was dense and chilly, hitting the air conditioner unit like someone constantly banging on a broken iron bucket. He sat on the edge of the bed, turned to a new page in his notepad, and added a note below the line "Mastery of Tendon Refinement": "A silver line on the left rib, originating from the apartment building incident. It doesn't hurt or itch; temporarily listed as a hidden injury under observation." Then he closed the notepad, put on his coat, and went to work.

The morning at the neighborhood office was the same as usual. The fluorescent lights were still flickering, the printer was stuck on the fourth sheet of paper, and the red light on the water dispenser was still on. Su Xinpei sat at his workstation, munching on a steamed bun in his left hand and opening his email inbox with his right. Five new emails lay in his inbox—two were resident complaints, one was a notice from the district, and the other two were from the Special Affairs Bureau and the Municipal Management Office, respectively. He opened the district notice first; it was the new regulations for low-income assistance verification at the end of the year, a lengthy three-page document with only one core sentence: Starting next January, all renewals of low-income assistance must be accompanied by electronic income certificates; paper stamps will no longer be accepted. He printed out the notice, underlined the key sentence with a yellow highlighter, and placed it in the to-do list.

The email from the Special Affairs Bureau was a routine notification: a cross-departmental joint exercise would be held in mid-December, involving emergency response to unusual events in three subdistricts of the Xiacheng District. The Beihe Subdistrict Office was one of the participating units and needed to designate a specific person to handle the situation. Su Xinpei paused his mouse briefly upon seeing the words "unusual events," then continued reading—the designated person's responsibility was to assist the Special Affairs Bureau's field team in guiding resident evacuation and registering on-site information, not in handling the actual situation. He forwarded the email to Aunt He, adding, "Aunt He, I'll handle this." Aunt He replied instantly with three words: "Understood."

The email from the Municipal Administration Office was another matter. The subject was "Supplementary Notice Regarding the Safety Inspection of Some Old Residential Communities in Beihe District," and the content was short, essentially requesting all sub-district offices to pay close attention to recent resident complaints, cooperate with the Special Affairs Bureau in conducting on-site investigations, and do a good job of calming residents' anxieties. Su Xinpei's lips twitched when he saw the words "calm down." The problem of the abandoned school building of Beihe No. 2 Primary School was still on his heat map—although the Special Affairs Bureau had intervened in the crack in the bungalow area, the seals were removed after a few days, the inside of the school building had not been formally cleaned, and even official channels were still using the phrase "geological disaster hazard" to mislead the outside. He wasn't sure if the four complaint points could hold out until the full inspection was completed.

He finished processing all the emails and ate his steamed buns. He drank the last of his soy milk, opened his spreadsheet software, and tried to compile this series of clues into a progress report that he could submit to the Special Affairs Bureau. The cursor blinked on the screen for a long time, but he didn't type a single word.

It's not that he can't write it. He's thinking about a question: should he be the one to do this?

He's just a contract worker at the neighborhood office, not a permanent employee. His monthly salary is 2,300 yuan, and his job title is "Community Affairs Coordinator." His job duties include reviewing applications for minimum living allowances, mediating neighborhood disputes, and organizing expired files. Investigating unusual events is not part of his job responsibilities. His status as an external consultant for the Special Affairs Bureau only grants him the authority to cooperate in specific situations, not the right to initiate investigations without explicit instructions. What he's doing now—drawing heat maps, creating complaint lead indexes, and compiling unusual complaints across years—if discovered by his superiors, the best outcome would be that he's being proactive, and the worst outcome would be that he's overstepping his authority and interfering with normal administrative procedures.

But he was also thinking about something else. In the signature section of those complaint files, most of them said "unresolved." Some complainants had made three or four trips back and forth, their files filled with transcripts of their repeated statements and copies of evidence, only to be marked "recommended for transfer to the petition department" and then left unresolved. He was the one sitting in this office every day processing these complaints; every file he handled could be traced back to his own account. If he were to throw these leads into the shredder now and continue doing his usual work of reviewing low-income assistance applications and mediating neighborhood disputes, no one would criticize him—that was what he was supposed to do. But those complainants would continue to close their windows tightly in fear the following night, would continue to call the neighborhood office, and would continue to leave the words "unresolved" in the file system. And he would sit in the same chair, listen to the same calls, and see the same words.

He threw the steamed bun wrapper into the trash can and set the soy milk cup aside. Then he opened the document and started typing.

He removed Su Xinpei from the entire report. The document was not signed by any individual, only bearing the words "Beihe Subdistrict Office." It included a summary of trends in unusual complaints over the past three months—not the words "supernatural phenomena," but rather "complaints about unusual noises at night," "a significant increase in requests for help related to sleep disorders and anxiety among residents," and "the spatial and temporal distribution of complaints around the abandoned Beihe No. 2 Primary School." Each description was accompanied by a verifiable file number or police report number. He did not draw any conclusions, but simply wrote at the end: "The above trends are similar to the cumulative curve of unusual complaints last year. It is recommended that a preventative investigation be conducted in this area before the joint exercise at the end of the year."

He sealed the report in an envelope using the street office's official letterhead, addressed to the Tieji Branch of the Special Economic Zone Administration Bureau, and sent from the Beihe Street Office. He didn't write his name or leave a phone number. He placed the envelope in the document book awaiting signature; once Aunt He had signed it, the mail clerk would send it out. This process took him an entire morning; he unpacked the paper three times, and the stapler broke and had to be repaired. He checked the order of each form.

He arrived at Tiegutang almost an hour earlier than usual in the afternoon. The courtyard was empty; Old Tie Tou wasn't in his rattan chair, and the radio was off. Only the leaves of the old elm tree in the corner rustled in the wind. Su Xinpei hung his coat on an old nail on the wall and assumed the stance. His feet were shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hips back, and spine straight. After standing in the stance for about ten minutes, a warm sensation rose from his Guanyuan acupoint, ascending along the Ren meridian and returning to his Dantian along both sides of the spine. The entire system circulated, and suddenly the silver line on his left rib tingled—not painful, but itchy, like the itch of a scabbed wound. He focused his attention on that spot without scratching. A branch of heat flowed from his Dantian, slowly moving towards his left rib, pausing briefly at the silver line, then continuing forward, spreading along the intercostal muscles. The itching subsided, replaced by a slight warmth.

When he finished his work and stood up, Old Tie Tou had already arrived. He was leaning against the gate, carrying his army green water bottle, and looked like he had been standing there for a while.

"You touched it yourself?"

"What?"

Old Iron Head pointed to his left rib with his chin: "That crease. When you were doing the standing meditation just now, your qi and blood went to it on their own. This isn't something I taught you; your body knows it itself—standing meditation sinks the qi down, and the qi will naturally repair the area that needs repair the most. Mastering tendon training gives the fascia enough resilience to withstand this repair; otherwise, the qi and blood would bypass the crease when it reaches its edge, just like they used to bypass the old injury on your shoulder."

Su Xinpei lifted his T-shirt and looked down. The silver line on his left side was still there, but its color was lighter than when he had showered, changing from silver-gray to a very pale white, almost invisible unless you looked closely. He put the shirt down and asked, "What exactly is that crack?"

"The non-physical imprints left on the dermis after contact with a subspace entity. Not toxins, not wounds, but 'evidence of contact.' Each crack is a lesson your body has recorded for you—telling you about the feel, temperature, and frequency of that thing's approach. You think it's a scar, but it's not; it's a memory. The Water and Fire Immortal Robe, when mastered to a high level, can completely eliminate these cracks, but you've just begun to refine your skin. These cracks are a natural yardstick for testing the strength of your skin. The fact that they can be softened by your own Qi and blood indicates that your skin has already developed a rejection reaction to the subspace residue—not immunity, but rejection."

Old Tietou placed the water bottle on the bench, went into the storage room, and brought out an old iron basin, an infrared lamp, and a military water bottle. He placed the basin in the center of the yard, unscrewed the water bottle, and poured water into it. As the water poured out, white steam rose—it was ice water, with a thin layer of ice shavings floating on the surface. Then he pulled out an extension cord, propped the infrared lamp against the armrest of the bench, and pressed the switch. The lamp emitted a dim red light, instantly creating a dry, hot wave in the air.

"The Water and Fire Immortal Robe, first step. Stand in an ice water basin for half an hour, then stand in front of an infrared lamp with your shirt off for half an hour. One cold and one hot cycle is one round. One round tonight. One round every night thereafter, until the skin can withstand both ice water immersion and short-range infrared lamp heating without wrinkling, redness, or trembling. Only after reaching this point can you be considered to have entered the realm of skin refining. You cannot move until I tell you to stop." Old Iron Head looked up at the old wall clock, adjusted the second hand, and said, "Now, let's begin with the ice water."

Su Xinpei took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers, and stepped into the ice water. The moment the ice water reached his ankles, his calf muscles tightened sharply. The cold felt like a dull knife scraping from his ankle bones all the way to his knees. The skin on his soles turned white in the ice water, and the joints of his five toes began to sting. The Yongquan acupoint on the soles of his feet instinctively contracted and tried to relax—this process lasted less than ten seconds before his body automatically recalled the memory of standing meditation: his knees slightly bent, his center of gravity lowered, and his breathing slowed. He shifted his consciousness from his feet and focused on his dantian. The heat glowed steadily three fingers below his navel, like a grain of charcoal in an ice cellar. He continued to add ice water to the basin, and after standing in the ice water for twenty minutes, the pain in his soles subsided by more than half, and the tension in his calves also relaxed. It wasn't that the ice water had warmed up; rather, he had pushed the cold sensation to the periphery of his body's circulation—the cold was trapped in the skin layer, while the core remained warm.

Half an hour later, Old Tie Tou made him get out of the ice water basin and sit shirtless in front of the infrared lamp. The dark red light from the lamp warmed his back, and his skin, which had been pale from the cold, quickly turned red under the heat. The trapezius muscles and the area around his shoulder blades tightened at first, then were stretched open layer by layer by the heat. This time, it was the skin that was being "quenched"—the heat penetrated from the epidermis to the dermis, reopening the capillaries that had been sealed off by the ice water. Su Xinpei felt as if a hot, wet towel was pressing against his back, all his pores were open, and beads of sweat rolled down his spine.

The panel has changed. [Leatherworking (Ironbone Hall) Beginner Level 8/100].

He sat on the bench, wiped his sweat, and pulled his T-shirt back on. Old Tie Tou turned off the infrared light, unplugged the power cord, and pushed aside the basin of water, which was half-thawed, with his toe. The water left a dark, wet trail on the cement floor, following Su Xinpei's footprints from when he was practicing his stance, leading to where he was now sitting.

"Refining skin and refining tendons are different." Old Iron Head sat down and took a sip from his enamel mug. "Refining tendons requires twisting—tightening the tendon bundles and pulling them inward along the force line. Refining skin requires tempering—the skin layer is repeatedly subjected to thermal expansion and contraction, forcing the capillaries under the skin to learn to open and close rapidly, so that the dermis can maintain a stable structure in extreme environments. It's not about making the skin thicker, it's about making the skin more flexible. The name 'Water and Fire Immortal Robe' isn't just for show—once the skin is fully developed, it can withstand high and low temperatures, acid and alkali corrosion, and cutting from sharp weapons, but the price is that the skin will become increasingly sensitive. You can feel temperature differences and changes in touch that others can't, and in some cases, you can even feel the residual vibrations left on the surface of objects when subspace entities pass by. This isn't a good thing—you have to learn to filter."

Su Xinpei placed his hands on his knees, rubbing his palms together in the residual warmth of the infrared lamp. "What are we screening?"

"Filter out what you shouldn't feel." Old Ironhead leaned back in his wicker chair, turned on the radio, and the opening theme of the evening news crackled from the speakers. Then, as if remembering something, he added, "The year your great-great-grandfather mastered skin refining, he crushed a coded iron piece freshly pulled from a furnace with his bare hands at a border post of the Southern Alliance. After crushing it, he sat by the fire, drank a cup of wine, and his hands didn't get blisters."

Su Xinpei didn't speak. He sat on the bench, looking down at his hands, which had just been taken out of ice water and then heated by an infrared lamp. His palms were still red, his knuckles slightly swollen, and when his fingertips touched his knees, he could feel the lingering warmth of the kneecap beneath the fabric. He recalled the moment he hesitated at his workstation in the street office that morning—the cursor had been flashing for so long, yet he had still sent the report. He knew what that decision would bring: the Special Meteorological Bureau would increase surveillance after receiving the report, Ye Xinghe might contact him, and Aunt He had probably already seen the letter's number in the mailing records, but hadn't said anything.

But he also knew one thing. Old Iron Head said that the Water-Fire Immortal Robe needed to be tempered until the skin wouldn't tremble between ice water and high temperatures. He had only just begun, and was still trembling. But his stance training had already taught him how to continue breathing while trembling. He was still practicing skin tempering; his skin wasn't hard enough yet. But his bones had already learned to retain heat in his dantian in the ice water basin, just like how he sealed his fear in the blue file box on that afternoon in the archives.

He stood up and tidied up the things on the bench. Wu Xiong carried two bags of takeout fried noodles and a few skewers of mutton into the yard, oil seeping from the bottom of the plastic bags and dripping onto the ground. Old Tie Tou cursed him, "You've poked holes in the bottom of the plastic bags again," and turned to go into the kitchen, pulling out three enamel plates. Su Xinpei helped break the chopsticks under the light, scraping off the splinters, and arranged them on the side of the plates. The evening news on the radio ended, and an old song, whose name he had heard countless times but could never remember, played.