Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 27 Lessons and Growth

After Duan the Cripple ran away, Su Xinpei did not speak for three consecutive days.

On the first day, he sketched the layout of the narrow alley behind the dock warehouse on a sticky notepad, making three drawings. The first was a top-down view, marking the relative positions of the roller shutter door, the stack of wooden crates, the metal partition of the back door, and the corner of the narrow alley. The second was a side view, using red arrows to mark the timeline from when Duan the Cripple crushed the talisman to when the fake body shattered. The third was a perspective view, adding the side alley behind the corner that he hadn't noticed before—a side alley only wide enough for one person to pass sideways, ending at a rusty iron gate beyond which lay the dock storage yard. Duan the Cripple had used that to get out.

The next day, he went to the Special Bureau to retrieve Duan the Cripple's complete file. The file wasn't thick, less than ten pages in total, but it was packed with information. Duan the Cripple's real name was Duan Debiao, a resident of the lower district of Ironthorn City, forty-two years old. His left leg was lame due to an old work injury, and he was first recorded by the Special Bureau ten years ago for participating in illegal talisman trading. In an old photo in the file, he looked much younger than he did now, before he became lame, standing in a dimly lit shop, with shelves behind him filled with yellow paper and cinnabar jars. Attached at the end of the file was an incomplete copy of a legal treaty contract, with the signing ancestor listed as "a certain clan," and the soldier type marked as "perception-type servants," the type of cost obscured by a security stamp. Su Xinpei paused when he saw the words "perception-type servants"—this meant that Duan the Cripple's soldiers weren't combat-type, but rather responsible for detection and early warning. The coldness in his legs when he entered the crossbow alley wasn't from the dampness of the docks, but from the detection-type soldiers scanning his body temperature.

He spent the afternoon rummaging through the Special Bureau's records and found several rare operation reports—all cases of field teams suffering losses due to illusions when capturing sorcerers. Two of them broke down the reasons for the failures in great detail. One was a summary of the South City Branch's operation last year to capture an imposter Taoist priest, and the other was an earlier file from the Iron Thorn Branch. The lessons learned were almost copied and pasted: failure to identify the type of talisman in advance, being fooled by the fake talisman during the first contact; failure to block off the outer side alleys, giving the target room to escape; and failure to equip the team with rune-concealing devices, allowing the troops to sense the field team's location before the capture.

He sat on the hardwood chair in the archives for an unknown amount of time, several old operation reports piled up beside him, the cold light of the metal filing cabinet casting a slanted shadow on his notebook pages. Each time he saw a familiar description, he marked the corresponding spot in his own operation notebook with a checkmark. After finishing, he closed the file and leaned back in his chair. He wasn't the first to have taken the wrong turn in the alley. The last field team member who wrote down these lessons admitted his misjudgment on the first line, then listed all the subsequent remedial measures, filling an entire page. The feeling was strange—not comforting, but a reminder. A reminder that failure could be broken down, as long as one was willing to dissect it step by step.

On the third day, he didn't look through the files or draw any more maps. He sat at the table in his apartment, spread out the operation log, and began to review the entire arrest process line by line.

Firstly, when he climbed over the metal barrier, he only followed the decoy and didn't stop at the entrance of the narrow alley to observe the fork in the road to the north. If he had paused at the corner for a moment, the change in airflow would have revealed the existence of the fork in the road—the temperature difference between the inside and outside of the fork would have been enough for his current sense of air to detect a vague, irregular edge.

Article 2: While Duan the Cripple was slapping the ground, he had already used his other hand to stick the illusion talisman under the forklift chassis. The hard object his left foot stepped on when he chased into the crossbow alley was likely a remnant of the talisman. He didn't notice his footing at the time.

Article 3: After catching up with Duan the Cripple, he should have first blocked the target's escape routes on both sides before closing in. However, relying on his speed advantage from the Tendon Training, he directly reached out to grab him, only to be tricked by the decoy and miss the first contact. Old Iron Head had said in the Tendon Training class, "Combine before striking"—combine your footwork before striking. He forgot that at the time.

After memorizing the three points, he put down his pen and looked at his handwriting. His handwriting wasn't beautiful, but he could execute each one. The first point he needed to improve was his observation rhythm before reacting. He could force himself to pause and scan the area when approaching a narrow space next time; no extra tools were needed, just a correction of his habitual behavior. The second point he needed to improve was his ability to identify the materials used to disguise talismans. This required further study—he needed to spend time making physical contact records of the color, smell, and residual heat of the talisman paper residue; descriptions from files couldn't replace that. The third point required him to specifically practice sticking close to the blocking target during his next training session with Ye Xinghe, using repeated practice to weld the "block first, then grab" sequence into his muscle memory.

He closed the notepad, put on his coat, and went out the door.

The courtyard of Tiegutang was quiet in the evening. Wu Xiong wasn't there. Old Tie Tou sat in a rattan chair, an enamel mug resting on his lap. A legal consultation program was playing on the radio, and the host was answering a listener's question about rental deposits. Su Xinpei pushed open the door, hung his coat on an old nail, and neither went to practice his stance nor to hit the sandbag.

He moved a low stool and sat down in front of Old Iron Head.

"Master, I have questions about the Dharma teachings."

Old Tie Tou glanced at him, then turned off the radio. The courtyard fell silent, save for the soft rustling of fallen leaves from the old elm tree in the corner.

"I've heard about Duan the Cripple." Old Tietou placed his enamel mug on the bench, took a cigarette from his pocket, and put it in his mouth. "First, tell me what you missed—he used a fake identity talisman to move you from your position, then used an illusion talisman to draw your attention behind a fake wall. When you were climbing over the back door barrier, didn't you just pounce on him?"

"Yes." Su Xinpei did not deny it.

"That's the path he's paved for you—the moment you cross it, he knows you'll fall for it, because that narrow alley is perfect for ambush. Anyone who's chased you through three alleys and sees their target fall will want to take them down in one go. He's not running; he's leading you." Old Tie Tou took the cigarette from his mouth and held it to his ear, pausing for a moment. He didn't continue directly, but instead turned to the side and pulled an old deck of cards from the storage basket next to the wicker chair. He shuffled it twice, then drew two cards and placed them on the bench. One heart, one diamond, flipped face down and pushed each one slightly. "The tricks of the Fa Cult boil down to these few things—the Patriarch, the soldiers, and the talismans. The Patriarch is the contracted party, the gambling table behind this card. The soldiers are the executors, using the chips to distract you. The talismans are the light on the table; you think you're staring at the cards, but actually you're staring at the light he's making you stare at."

He paused, then turned both cards face up. Eight of hearts. Ten of diamonds. "The two cards are of different suits. It's not a bet on card ranking, it's about which card you choose. Whichever card you choose, he wins—because there's a third card under the table that he hasn't revealed."

He reached under another playing card, pulled one from under the tablecloth, and tucked it between his fingers. It was an old card, slightly yellowed on the back, with curled corners, and the Ace of Spades face up. Su Xinpei saw it clearly—it wasn't that the other had a third card; this card had been stuck to the crack in the brickwork of the back alley from the beginning. His left foot had stepped right next to it, face down, mixed in with the damp, decaying wood chips, which he had kicked away like a stone. It wasn't just an interception; it was a trap pre-planned from the moment the fake talisman exploded—the two fake bodies had led Ye Xinghe and Xia Liyuan in two different directions simultaneously, and the straightest, shortest alley in front of him was the pre-arranged passage, the one he was supposed to take.

"Talismans are things you must understand one by one. The talisman head sets the target, the talisman core releases the power, and the talisman foot hides the cost. Illusion-type talismans usually have a water ripple-shaped head, and the talisman core is written with purple cinnabar, because purple is the critical color for subspace energy to penetrate into the visible spectrum. Duan the Cripple uses the Purple Cinnabar Illusion Talisman. The talisman core releases its stored essence the moment it is crushed, and the essence will interfere with your perception along the route pre-marked by his troops. You are under his spell—it is because his troops first sprinkled a very thin layer of mirror dust on you, not because the illusion was directly projected into your eyes."

Su Xinpei looked down at the back of his left hand. There was nothing on it, but he remembered the purple powder under his fingernails when he washed his hands after leaving the warehouse that night; he had to wash it twice to get it clean. It wasn't the residue from burning talismans; it was mirror dust.

Old Tietou continued, "The soldiers' vision is spatial, not distance-based. They don't look at people, they look at 'breath.' When you're chasing someone, your breathing becomes rapid, and your dantian energy rises to your chest, actually narrowing your perception range. Duan the Cripple's pulse was unstable, but the soldiers around him had already scanned the entire narrow alley's breath pattern. Before you even crawled into the alley entrance, the soldiers had already transmitted the fluctuations of moisture in your breath to Duan the Cripple's earring. The more urgent you are, the clearer they are about the landing point of your every step."

Only then did Su Xinpei realize something—his left leg had suddenly gone cold before he flipped over the barrier. He initially thought it was the dampness in the warehouse, but it wasn't cold; it was the sound of soldiers passing by. Duan the Cripple's men knew which angle he was going to enter from before he even chased after them.

Old Tietou leaned back in his wicker chair, pulled a lighter from his pocket, lit a cigarette, and took a drag. He said, "Back in the day, there was a group of sorcerer prisoners at the Glacier Fortress, locked in a makeshift interrogation room. I went to deliver their food. A young sorcerer advised me not to stand by the south window, saying that the sensory servant below had just been awakened and was checking for body temperature. I asked him where the servant was, and he said it was against the floor, about two palms' width away from my left boot. I looked down; the ground was empty, but everything below my ankles was cold." He exhaled a puff of smoke. "That man was later taken to the rear. Before he left, he wrote a character on the north wall—not an escape code, just one character, 'breath.' The sorcerer himself told me: the soldiers don't sense your movements, they sense the disturbance of your breathing."

"That is to say, I cannot expose my rapid breathing when approaching a target that may carry sensory troops—I need to suppress my breathing to the rhythm of fetal breathing and use the low center of gravity movement during standing meditation to suppress the fluctuation of my breath," Su Xinpei said.

"First, stop breathing, then move your feet. Before your feet firmly plant on the ground, the air in your dantian should not pass through your chest cavity."

"If the target carries both illusion runes and perception-type troops, which level should I break through first?"

Old Ironhead took the cigarette out of his mouth. "First, break through the perception layer. The soldiers are like his eyes. If you can temporarily blind them, his illusion runes can only be thrown at the predicted location, not guided in real time. Do you know how to break through the perception layer?"

Su Xinpei didn't answer. He recalled something he'd inadvertently discovered that night when he was crouching behind a machine tool, hiding from the patrolling soldiers—he'd focused his energy into his dantian, slowing his heartbeat, and the patrolling soldier's flashlight veered off course when it swept over his head. At the time, he thought it was just luck, but now, in retrospect, he realized it was because he'd unconsciously pushed his breath to the edge of fetal breathing, preventing the patrolling soldier's subspace detection equipment from locking onto his heat source. The working principle of the sensory-type soldiers wasn't to detect volume, but to detect disturbances in breath. If you pushed your breath to the rhythm of fetal breathing, its sensing accuracy would decrease.

Old Tie Tou, watching his calm breathing, filled in the rest: "First, settle your breath. The sensory soldier doesn't recognize your face; it only recognizes the rhythm of the moisture in your breath. The steady state of your body when you're standing in a stance, with the pores of your entire body slightly contracting, makes it think you're part of the wall. But the soldier is just the eyes; the talisman is the hand. Next, you need to recognize the talisman—Duan the Cripple's illusion talisman has a faint triple scattering of dark light at the edges. It's not green light; it's the extremely fine corona generated when the cinnabar oxide layer on the edge of the talisman paper and the magnetic ink used by the Fa Sect are rubbed together. Don't touch the talisman paper directly the first second you recognize it."

"First, notify Team Leader Ye to use directional sound waves to interfere with the frequency at which the talisman releases its primordial essence—it doesn't need to be shattered, as long as its release is delayed, its illusion projection will be misaligned," Su Xinpei said.

"That one beat of delay is enough. Just like people, the talismans of the Fa Sect are effective until the talisman's core is completely depleted. Once interrupted, the talisman is just a piece of burnt paper. Sorcerers dare not stay behind the same wall after the talisman has been interrupted." Old Ironhead stubbed out his cigarette on the rim of the enamel mug and threw it into an old tin can at his feet.

Su Xinpei didn't ask any more questions. He sat quietly for about ten seconds, then put the stool back at the door of the storage room, watching the afterglow of the sunset slowly sink behind the wall. When Old Tie Tou talked about the patriarch, soldiers, and talismans, he used words that were all about gambling tables and playing cards—not academic taxonomy, but a gambler's intuition. But every sentence fit perfectly with his own experience that night.

He recalled that evening last year when he first saw the talismans of the Fajiao sect at the Beihe flea market. He had been hiding behind a pile of old magazines, watching the green light emanate from beneath a black cloth, and felt that light was cold, dangerous, and not from his own world. Now he knew that the light had a structure—a talisman head, a talisman core, and a talisman foot, each layer with a corresponding method of counteraction. Fajiao was no longer some vague, unsettling darkness, but a technological system that could be dissected, identified, and blocked. When ununderstood, it was fear; when understood, it was an enemy, and an enemy can be defeated.

Old Tie Tou turned the radio back on. The legal consultation program had ended, and it had been replaced with an evening news program. The announcer was reporting on the latest developments of the Northern Alliance Fleet's exercises in international waters. Su Xinpei stood up, walked to the center of the courtyard, and set up the stake. He stood with his eyes closed for nearly an hour, deliberately controlling his breathing at the critical point of fetal breathing—five or six times per minute, slow and steady. The warmth in his dantian traveled up along the Ren meridian, then back down the sides of his spine to his perineum. He imagined himself standing in a narrow alley of a dock warehouse, with a metal partition behind him and a fork in the road in front of him, a slight chill approaching his left leg. This time, he didn't pounce. He paused for a moment, sensing the change in airflow, discerning the temperature difference at the fork in the road to the north, then took a half step back, sinking his breath into the soles of his feet, and blocking the escape angle on his left. The movements were imagined, but the warmth in his dantian was real. When he finished the stake and opened his eyes, a new line of text appeared on the panel—

[The Dharma teachings have revealed those who haven't even entered the gate 1/100]

He stared at the line of text for a while, then closed the panel. It was a completely new skill entry, with no history, no training plan—it started from scratch. He didn't show off to Old Iron Head—Old Iron Head was leaning back in his wicker chair, his eyes half-closed, an enamel mug resting on his lap, as if he were asleep. But the radio was still on, and the announcer on the evening news said there would be showers in the lower district that night.

Su Xinpei went to the corner, poured himself a cup of cold tea, and drank it standing up. The rain hadn't started yet, but the air already carried the earthy smell of rain. He picked up the enamel cup and took another sip, glancing at the last glimmer of sunlight fading from the wall. Tomorrow he needed to contact Ye Xinghe to request a simulated combat exercise—find Wang Shu to use runes to simulate an illusionary environment, find Xia Liyuan to simulate the warning signals of the perception-type troops, and actually execute everything he had mentally rehearsed that evening in the Special Phenomenon Bureau's training room. Then he needed to find someone—someone who truly understood the lineage structure of the legal system, someone who could clearly explain the intergenerational chain of the ancestral contract, the classification hierarchy of troops, and the operational logic of cost transfer from the beginning. Old Tie Tou had taught him how to recognize cards at the gambling table, but to know the origin of the gambling table, he had to go to another alley.