Chapter 20: Training in the Back Mountain

Xiaojiu smacked Scarface on the head and said, “What are you scared of? A gentleman takes his revenge even after ten years. Don’t be such a coward.”

To Xiaojiu, if someone dared to provoke her, she absolutely had to get back at them. She couldn’t sleep soundly otherwise.

Scarface looked at her with anticipation. “Can I train with you tomorrow when you all practice martial arts? I promise I’ll work hard in the village too.”

Xiaojiu replied, “Sure. But—what are your names?”

She didn’t want to keep calling him “Scarface” all the time.

Scarface immediately introduced himself. “My name is Lin Qi,” he said, then pointed to the scrawny man beside him. “This is Lin Chong, my servant who fled the capital with me. He’s my little brother now.”

Then he pointed at the rest of the group. “These folks are all commoners from poor families. Life got too hard, so they followed us to town, just trying to earn a living.”

“Have you ever done anything truly evil?” Xiaojiu asked Lin Qi.

“Just that one time we tried to rob you. Before that, we only collected small stall fees—nothing serious. And even those weren’t high. The money and broadsword you found on us last time were from some black-clad corpses. Swear to god,” Lin Qi said, hastily swearing his innocence.

The others quickly nodded along in agreement.

Xiaojiu decided to believe them for now. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll train with Mr. Yan. In the meantime, you’ll help build the school. Once it’s up and running, I plan to form a village security team to patrol and protect both the school and the village. Are you in? We’ll pay you monthly, and you’ll get food and lodging.”

The group agreed immediately. This was way better than scraping by in town. At least now they’d have a roof over their heads and regular meals. Best of all—they’d get to learn martial arts! That was something they’d dreamed about. Without martial arts, they’d always be scared and powerless.

As for the few hundred taels Xiaojiu had taken from them earlier—not a single one dared mention getting it back.

After all, it came from corpses. They chalked it up as a lesson from their first misstep into wrongdoing.

—

The next morning, Xiaojiu brought Cuihua and the villagers to gather at the foot of the back mountain bright and early.

When Yan Jue arrived, everyone shouted in unison, “Good morning, Teacher Yan!”

Yan Jue suddenly felt a strong sense of responsibility weighing on his shoulders.

Seeing the crowd settle down, he cleared his throat and said loudly, “Training in martial arts doesn’t happen overnight. It takes perseverance and determination. For now, we’ll focus on building a solid foundation. Starting today, everyone will begin morning runs.”

Then he handed out leg weights, instructing everyone to strap sandbags to their legs and begin jogging around the mountain.

Cuihua saw everyone tying sandbags to their legs and quickly stretched out her chicken leg, gesturing for Yan Jue to give her one too.

Yan Jue was speechless. Was this chicken really just a chicken and not a person in disguise? Even though he didn’t understand it, he still tied a small sandbag to Cuihua’s leg.

He looked over at the running kids and encouraged, “Keep your steps steady, breathe evenly. Follow your village chief. I’ll be waiting for you at the finish line.”

With that, he leapt and disappeared from sight.

He had scouted this trail the day before. It was perfect for kids to train on, and it didn’t lead too deep into the mountains.

The children below were full of excitement. They thought this would be easy—after all, they were used to going up the mountain every day to cut pigweed and pick wild vegetables.

But the mountain path wasn’t flat. Unlike their usual leisurely walks, they now had to run continuously with weights strapped to their legs. Several kids stumbled and fell not long after starting. But seeing their village chief—someone younger than them—still running without slowing down, none of them dared to complain. Gritting their teeth, they pushed on.

Among the group of children, Xiaojiu and A’dou were the youngest. The only one younger than Xiaojiu was Shitou, who was only three years old—far too young—so Xiaojiu had Aunt Zhou carry him back home.

Da Ya saw that A’dou had fallen several times but didn’t give up and kept running. She felt that her little brother was very brave.

At first, Lin Qi and the others stayed close, watching over the children, afraid they might fall or lag behind. But later, they realized the kids were actually very united—the older ones would take care of the younger ones. If any younger kid fell behind, someone would pull them along; if someone tripped, the nearby kids would quickly help them back up.

It was the first time Lin Qi had seen such a tight-knit village, and he felt quite envious.

After an hour, not just the kids—even Lin Qi and the others—were too exhausted to keep running and just wanted to lie down and rest.

Seeing that the children were too tired to continue, Xiaojiu said, “We’ll rest here for a quarter of an hour. After that, we’ll continue.”

“We’re still running? Village Chief, we really can’t go on anymore. Let’s run again tomorrow,” one child cried out.

“No way. It’s only been less than an hour. Just hang in there a bit longer—we’ll be done soon. Teacher Yan said he’s waiting for us at the finish line up ahead.”

Upon hearing that Teacher Yan was waiting, everyone perked up again. They didn’t want to leave a bad impression on the very first day.

So, dragging their tired bodies, they kept running forward. After a while, they finally saw Teacher Yan standing leisurely, leaning against a lush tree branch, waiting patiently for their slow arrival.

Yan Jue leaped down from the tree, instantly making the children’s eyes light up with admiration.

Just thinking that one day they might be able to learn even a little bit of what he could do made their fatigue seem to melt away.

Yan Jue was surprised to see that everyone had made it to the finish line and that no one had given up halfway.

Once everyone had rested enough, Yan Jue led them to a wide open space.

There, Xiaojiu and the others saw that Teacher Yan had somehow prepared rows of balance beams and gradually rising stone pedestals—from low to high.

Yan Jue instructed them to first walk steadily across the balance beams, then start jumping from the lowest stone pedestal up to higher ones step by step.

“Remember to breathe properly and make your body feel light,” Yan Jue reminded them.

At first, the children had poor balance and couldn’t jump very high. They kept falling off again and again, but each time, they grit their teeth, got back up, and kept walking and jumping.

When time was nearly up, Yan Jue looked at the exhausted but determined children and said, “That’s all for today. Go back and rest well. We’ll continue tomorrow. Remember—learning martial arts isn’t easy. The key is perseverance.”

“Master, we’ll remember! Don’t worry—we’ll definitely stick with it!” the children promised with firm determination.

Under the village chief’s leadership, they ran back the way they came.

At the foot of the mountain, the villagers, seeing their kids return from martial arts training, rushed forward in excitement.

“Why do I feel like my child already looks sturdier after just one morning?”

“You’re not wrong! Just this morning, they look more grown up—the look in their eyes is different!”

“Hu’er, train hard. You’ll be a great general one day! Hahaha!”

“Exactly! Become a general and earn your mother a title!”

“Da Ya, train well! When you get married, if your in-laws dare bully you—beat them up!”

“That’s right! Now I don’t have to worry about my daughter being bullied after marriage—she’ll beat them until they cry for their parents! Hahaha!”

“….”

The villagers all began praising their children one after another in high spirits.