Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 18 First Battle of Muscle Strengthening

The escape route was cut off on the return journey.

Old Tie Tou was in front, Su Xinpei behind. The two had just crawled out of the half-collapsed fire door, their feet barely touching the ground, when a very faint, crisp sound came from behind them—like someone breaking a thin piece of ice in two. Su Xinpei turned around and saw a crack in the wall inside the fire door. It wasn't the wall that cracked, but the air itself—a very thin purple crack appeared on the wall surface, quickly spreading from the ceiling to the floor, then slowly opening like an eyelid. A reflection in the mirror, a full size larger than the juvenile in the workshop, squeezed out of the crack. Its back was covered with a purplish-black membrane, making a rustling sound like a wet towel being wrung out as it emerged. Its limbs were longer than a mature form, its back slightly arched, and the fragments at its shoulder blades were not yet fully pieced together, revealing a dark purple light within—it wasn't a juvenile, but only the final piece remained to become mature. As it unfolded its body in mid-air, it emitted a very faint tremor, like someone scratching glass with a fingernail.

Su Xinpei reacted much faster than he had six months ago. The instant the person in the mirror emerged from the crack, he had already taken three steps back, creating distance, lowering his center of gravity, standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, his stance naturally in place. But Old Tie Tou was even faster—the old man took two steps back, crossed his arms, leaned against the broken wall of the ruins, adopting an indifferent posture.

"Hey!" Su Xinpei stared intently at the thing writhing in mid-air, his gaze fixed on it. "What are you doing—"

"Practice lesson," Old Tie interrupted him, his tone exactly the same as when he told Su Xinpei to stand in the corner, as calmly as if he were saying that they'd have fried noodles for dinner. "Don't disappoint me."

A barrage of thoughts flashed through Su Xinpei's mind—a practical lesson? Is this a practical lesson or a murder lesson?! Last time in the apartment building you made me watch, this time you're making me do it myself? This thing is even bigger than the last one! But he didn't say these words aloud. Not because he was afraid to talk back, but because the person in the mirror moved at the same instant. It swooped down from mid-air, its entire body moving like a flung mercury, the fragmented edges of its body leaving a row of jagged afterimages in the air. Su Xinpei turned to the side, his right forearm instinctively pressing the secret hand sleeve-piercing technique upwards—using a spiraling force to send his fist up. The core of the sleeve-piercing technique is wrapping, immediately after contact using the outside of the forearm to rub diagonally upwards, not to block hard, but to force the opponent to deflect. But the instant his fist passed through the body of the person in the mirror, he felt only a chilling sting. The pores on his skin contracted sharply, and then the sensation of his fist grazing through layers of cold glue was like penetrating one layer after another: the edges of each shard of mirror scraped against his periosteum, and the golden lines on his forearm suddenly shone brightly—this was the instinctive reaction of his mastered tendon training; the tendon bundles automatically tightened upon sensing non-physical cutting, isolating the chill outside the fascia sheath instead of letting it penetrate straight into the bone. The fragments of the person in the mirror were flung to both sides by his spiraling force in that instant, but the fragments immediately reformed, like a clump of water that had been scattered and then automatically restored, reassembling into a human shape.

"Fists are useless," Old Ironhead commented from the side. "This thing isn't flesh and blood; you're hitting air."

Su Xinpei took two steps back, leaning against the metal frame of the fire door, her eyes fixed on the person in the mirror, her mind racing. Last time in the apartment building, Old Tie Tou shattered the person in the mirror with a single punch—at the moment of shattering, she didn't see the fist hit the mirror surface, but rather the wind from the punch arriving instantly, the air compressed into a visible heat wave, and only then were the fragments broken apart. No—not just that. The person in the apartment building had flinched before being hit, as if stabbed by something. Old Tie Tou hadn't done anything then; he was even smoking when he threw the punch, but that thing clearly flinched. Su Xinpei recalled something Old Tie Tou had once said: "The person in the mirror feeds on people's fear. The more you fear it, the stronger it becomes; if you don't fear it, it's just a pile of broken glass." But the opposite of fear isn't courage. You can't simply tell yourself "don't be afraid" and then truly become fearless; your heartbeat will betray you, your sweaty palms will betray you. It feeds on physiological fear signals, which you can't suppress with willpower. He took two deep breaths to lower his heart rate, but this was only a defense mechanism—eliminating fear could only weaken it, not destroy it. To destroy it, something else was needed.

There's a clearly directional emotion. Before Old Ironhead smashed it, he was muttering something—not fear, but annoyance at being interrupted while drinking. Annoyance is also an emotion, but it's directional: not "I'm so scared," but "Get out of my way." The essence of directional emotion is to transform mental energy from diffusion to concentration, compressing emotion from a diffuse, passive state into a directional, high-density signal. The person in the mirror's perceptual system is exceptionally sensitive to diffuse fear, but it becomes temporarily confused when faced with a strong directional emotional impact.

Su Xinpei straightened his back, a warm sensation circulating through his body rising from his dantian, flowing along the Ren meridian to his chest. He roared at the person in the mirror—"Get out!"

It wasn't a cry for help. It wasn't a scream. It was an order. He had worked at the neighborhood committee for three years, negotiating with holdouts, arguing with drunks, and slamming his fist on the table with unreasonable complainants—he knew how to deliver "Get out of here" like an iron bar slamming into the ground. The voice rose from his dantian, colliding with the energy he had cultivated as it passed through his chest, making his voice louder than he had anticipated, like a stone wall slamming against a gate in the darkness.

The figure in the mirror abruptly stopped. The constantly spinning fragments on its surface suddenly ceased, as if interfered with by some stronger signal. Its outline began to oscillate slightly, the edges of the fragments no longer so sharp, but began to blur and loosen. The translucent fragments no longer reflected at different angles, but simultaneously trembled slightly in his direction—as if the sound had stirred a unified resonance on the surface of the fragments.

Su Xinpei didn't wait for it to recover. He seized the moment the fragment lost its balance and cut in, pushing off with his left leg, twisting his waist, and unleashing a spiraling, penetrating force with his right arm. This time, he didn't use his fist—the fist has a large contact area, and the force would dissipate—he clenched his fist, raising his middle finger, the knuckle protruding, the force line twisting along the golden veins of his forearm, from his ankle all the way to his fist. His raised right fist, carrying the trembling force of mastered tendon training, struck the center of the blurry fragment. The instant his knuckle sank into the fragment, a bright spark ignited between the golden veins on his knuckle and the fragment. The trembling force of the hot and cold collision caused the surface fragment to vibrate at a high frequency, and a visible crack rapidly spread within the fragment—starting from the central fragment, several snow-white ice cracks exploded across the entire surface of the body, and then all the fragments collapsed like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle being simultaneously unraveled. The sound of the fragments hitting the ground wasn't the crisp sound of shattering glass, but a fine, rustling sound, like raindrops hitting sand. The fragments began to evaporate before they even touched the ground, releasing grayish-white smoke and leaving a faint, acidic smell in the air, like rust.

As the echoes of the collapsing fragments reverberated through the pipe gallery, the torso of the man in the mirror had completely lost its shape. A small fragment remained on the ground, attracting dust, and like a half-earthworm, it blindly writhed towards Su Xinpei, then, driven only by muscle memory, moved towards the heat source, before coming to a stop, its color slowly turning a deathly gray. Su Xinpei felt a faint vibration emanating from the gash in his left rib, as if some persistent pressure had been suddenly released. The periosteum in both arms ached unbearably, and his palms were as hot as if they had just been pulled from boiling water, but the inner layer of skin where his fists had touched the fragments hadn't been broken—a slippery purple film remained on his skin, quickly turning to dry powder when rubbed against his trouser leg. He cursed inwardly, the sound suppressed in his throat. Then he looked down at his hands—his fists were red, his knuckles slightly hot, and several strands of the wristband, pierced by the fragments, hung loosely on his wrists. But his bones were fine, and his tendons were unharmed. The golden skin and jade-like veins withstood the punch.

Old Tietou stood up from the broken wall, walked over to him, and glanced down at the debris on the ground. The last point where the remains of the person in the mirror had dissipated was only a hand's width from the toe of his shoe. Some small fragments were still stuck to the edge of the sole. He gently tapped the toe of his shoe, rubbing the fragments into the cracks between the bricks. He picked up a fragment that hadn't completely evaporated, held it between his fingertips for a moment, then released it, letting it fall and shatter into powder. Then he handed Su Xinpei the military water bottle: "Rinse your mouth. Don't swallow."

Su Xinpei took the bottle and gulped down a mouthful. The cheap liquor rushed into his nasal cavity, but it also pushed away most of the rusty smell from before.

"You've got quite a loud voice." Old Tie Tou took the wine jug back and took a swig. "If you go back like that, the neighbors will call the police."

Su Xinpei leaned against the fire door, panting. The dry, itchy stinging sensation in his throat from shouting earlier still lingered. He had thought of several things to say, but in the end, only one sentence came out: "Last time in the apartment building, I couldn't sense any direction—I could only crouch in the corner. This time, I can see clearly which force to use."

Old Tie Tou grunted an "oh," and placed the kettle on the fire door. "You were yelling with such gusto just now. Go back and make yourself some herbal tea and some dried sea buckthorn."

As Su Xinpei emerged from the ruins, he glanced down at the traces of his earlier struggle. A section of the wall to the right of the fire door was smashed, and several puddles of purple debris on the ground were slowly melting from the moisture seeping up from the sewers. The acidic smell in the air had begun to dissipate, replaced by the familiar coal smoke smell of the lower city at night.

It was almost four in the morning when he got back to his apartment. Su Xinpei untied the hand wrapping and soaked it in a basin of water. The purple powder dissolved in the water, turning the entire basin a deep blue. He changed the water three times before finally washing the hand wrapping clean, wringing it out, and hanging it on the bathroom hook. His knuckles were no longer red, but he could still feel the heat in his knuckles. After mastering tendon training, bones dissipate heat faster than muscles, but the explosive spiral force when he shattered the reflection in the mirror tonight had strained his knuckle tendons severely. He estimated that one arm would be stiff when he got up tomorrow. He sat on the edge of the bed and spread the notepad on his lap.

Tonight, I achieved my first solo kill on the person in the mirror. Success. The boxing stance was ineffective; before making direct, hard contact with the opponent through the sleeve, I disrupted its surface fragmented structure with a directional sound. Once the fragments were unstable, I closed in and struck the core. The key was the directional emotion—not "not being afraid," but transforming passive fear into an active will to attack, turning "I'm afraid of you" into "Get out of here." The incision in my left ribcage felt distinctly different the moment it was shattered; it wasn't pain, but a loosening of some kind of restraint.

My master said I have a loud voice. Next time I practice breathing exercises, I need to specifically work on vocal resonance—I'll ask Master Chen for advice during the breathing class.

Next time I need to wear a finger wrap – my fist is bruised, the knuckles are fine, the bone marrow isn't numb, but there's residue under my fingernails.

He closed the notepad and turned off the light. In the darkness, he stared at the ceiling, recalling the moment the fragments of the person in the mirror collapsed—the instant the pile of fragments stopped flickering and turning. They weren't killed, but their desperately clinging connections were shattered by the shockwave. Next time, he could aim more precisely. Not the vital point—it was the rhythm.