In truth, this method of learning gongfu that Zhang Chengling had adopted was extremely risky. If it were anyone else suffering the torment inflicted by these two, without Zhou Zishu’s burdensome hand on his shoulder inconspicuously helping him to regulate his internal qi, he would have undergone qi deviation a long time ago.

They travelled extremely swiftly on foot. Not many days later, they had already left Dongting, that place of trouble, far behind and reached Shuzhong.

On this day, Zhang Chengling genuinely could not keep walking any further; clenching his teeth, he forced himself to walk for more than ten li. Temple throbbing continuously, he panted heavily with his mouth open, and his heart felt like it was about to leap out of his chest. For every step he took, he had to exert all the energy that he had.

Zhou Zishu’s voice rang frostily by his ear. “Why, it’s only this, and you can’t take it anymore? Keep going!”

Wen Kexing turned his head over to glance at him and raised his eyebrow, like he too felt that Zhang Chengling was pitiable, and could not help but interrupt, “A-Xu…”

“Shut up.” Zhou Zishu’s eyebrow did not even so much as twitch a little, lacking even the slightest bit of humanity as he was. He ordered, “Little tyke, I told you to keep walking.”

It was already growing blurry and dark before Zhang Chengling’s eyes. He wanted to speak, but he could not; once he opened his mouth, his internal qi would start to leak out, and when that happened, Zhou Zishu’s hand, which only looked as thin as firewood, would drive him into the ground like he was replanting a carrot.

Shuzhong was mountainous. All around them, the ground rose and fell in seemingly boundless undulations, and a sense of despair, one of never being able to reach the end of this endless journey, suddenly rose within Zhang Chengling. The trembling of his legs was growing more vigorous, and he raised his head with great effort to look at his shifu’s face. That handsome side profile was still frosty and did not even glance at him. It was like a stone statue with no sentiments and no desires.

"Breaths continuous and unending, passing through the rendu; like hundreds of rivers flowing into the sea, without leaving a trace--"

"There is form to internal qi, as agile as a snake; never extinguished, never broken, it ebbs and flows freely--"

In that split-second, faced with the mountain range of Shuzhong, when it felt like Zhang Chengling had been forced into despair, a line swiftly flashed through his mind--with form, yet no bounds; scatters, but never extinguished!