Chapter 4: The “Wen” aspect

A tall man with a long white beard stepped into the hall, followed by several guards. He wore a dapao robe similar to Elder Gwang-Ho’s, but his demeanor was completely different.

Servants quickly cleared away the tables at the front of the hall, replacing them with a single large wooden chair. The old man walked over slowly and sat down. Without a word, he signaled for us to sit on the floor.

“Seeing your full bellies and energetic faces reminds me of my own youth,” his deep voice echoed off the walls. “This training is designed to break you down and build you back up. Do not slack off.”

My eyes twitched in pure frustration. My body was screaming for sleep.

Was this old bastard about to make us run more stairs?

“...However,” his tone suddenly grew heavy.

“Martial arts alone do not rule the Jianghu. Muscles are just tools. True power comes from knowledge; understanding nature, reading people, and calculating their movements. Where raw strength hits a wall, knowledge breaks through. From this moment on, I will be teaching you Martial Theory!”

His final words boomed through the quiet ward like a crack of thunder.

Martial Theory? What’s that?

Small murmurs spread across the room, and a few tired boys even started dozing off.

“Silence!”

Suddenly, a sharp burst of wind gushed out from the old man. Even though it looked like a gentle breeze, it hit us with a tremendous, crushing pressure. My drowsiness vanished entirely.

“No one is to get distracted when I am speaking! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

“YES!”

We all shouted back in unison, our voices trembling with fear.

Cough. Cough.

The old man smoothed his long white beard, his sharp eyes sweeping across the frozen crowd. When he spoke again, his voice was no longer a shout, but a deep, heavy rumble that filled every corner of the stone hall.

“You brats think martial arts is just about swinging a piece of iron until your arms fall off. You think the strongest man is the one with the thickest muscles. Pathetic. If that were true, a wild boar would rule the Jianghu, not the Heavenly Demonic Divine Cult.”

He leaned forward, resting his calloused hands on his knees.

“Your physical body, your limbs, your bones, your stamina, is nothing more than raw, unrefined iron. The training you did today on the stairs was just throwing you into the furnace to see if your metal would crack under the hammer. But a heap of hot iron is useless on its own. If you just swing it around blindly, it will bend and shatter.

Wen is the structural design of the blade. It is the absolute knowledge of how to hammer the iron, where to sharpen the edge, and how to balance the weight so the weapon doesn't break in your hands. Without it, you are just a blunt piece of scrap metal.”

Listening to the old man, it finally clicked. I slowly started to understand why they were breaking our bodies down so brutally out in the courtyard.

“Inside each of you is a network of rivers called meridians. If you pour internal energy through a river that is too narrow, what happens? The bank bursts. Your veins rupture, your organs turn to mush, and you die a dog's death right on the floor. To cultivate power safely, you must memorize the map of your own body perfectly. You must know every highway, every shortcut, and every blockage. That is the first lesson of Wen.”

The old man reached down and picked up a thick, weathered book with yellowed pages, slamming it flat onto the wooden table in front of him.

THUD.

“The greatest secrets of our Cult are not passed down by word of mouth. They are locked inside scriptures written by ancestors who died hundreds of years ago.

Those ancestors did not write in the common tongue of beggars and peasants. They wrote in the classical script, using riddles, codes, and metaphors to hide their truths from the weak. A single word in a high-level scripture can have three different meanings. If you read it wrong, you train wrong. If you train wrong, you destroy yourself.

If you cannot read the text, the greatest manual in the world is just a pile of useless kindling. Through Wen, I will teach you to read the code of the masters.”

The old man stood up slowly, his long robe swaying. He didn't look muscular, but the sheer presence radiating from him made the air feel heavy.

“Lastly, Wen is your shield and your poison in the Jianghu.

When you leave this cavern, you will face enemies from the Righteous Sects. They will look down on you. But if you have studied their history, their lineage, and their philosophy, you will know their movements before they even draw their blades. You will know that a Mount Hua swordsman always aims for the shoulder on his third strike. You will know the exact scent of the poison the Tang Clan slips into your tea.

Raw strength can fail you when you are tired. Your sword can break. But your mind? Your knowledge? That is a weapon no enemy can strip from your hands.”

The old man stepped away from his chair, his eyes locking directly onto the crowd.

“For three hours every night, your bodies will rest, but your brains will bleed. We begin with the basic characters. If any of you fall asleep, I will use my Qi to snap the smallest bone in your pinky finger.

Now... open the first page.”

Despite the old man’s long speech-I didn't even know his damn name yet-the heavy truth of this 'Wen' clicked in my head. My heart hammered in my chest. The thought of becoming a true monster, someone who could never be stepped on again, was something I used to only dream about in the dirt.

But reading? Staring at basic characters?

It felt like a complete waste of time to me. But with that terrifying, heavy pressure still lingering in the air, I wasn't about to talk back. I kept my mouth shut and listened.

I lost track of how much time passed. When the old man finally left the hall, we were left alone in the dark, marking the end of our first brutal day.

Finally! Time to sleep!

I was overjoyed, but the moment I closed my eyes, I found I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. My whole body was shivering. But it wasn't from fear this time. And it wasn't panic.

Was this... excitement?