On the mountain.
"Come on, Li Kong, you almost did it. Just a little more." Li Kong grunted and pulled his body toward his chin.
Suddenly, a butterfly landed on his nose.
"You almost scared me to death. What are you doing here? Get off from me. Huff, huff." Li Kong blew up air from his mouth.
Accepting his command, the butterfly got off from him and flew directly toward his eyes and covered his vision with its wings.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" He tried to lean his body forward and hardened his leg muscles while using his arms as a stabilizer. While stabilizing himself, his shoulders shifted a little and the buckets he had carrying on top of his back fell down and dragged him down with it and once again, he tumbling down the mountain.
"Ah!!!" Li Kong screamed before something caught his collar and hang him up in the air.
"How many times should I tell you to not be distracted?" Disappointment apparent in his voice.
"Wh-White." Li Kong's voice a little squeezed.
White then looked carefully at Li Kong and found that his face already swelled up as he tapped his own chest a few times.
White quickly released his grip on him and then he continued to tumbling down the mountain.
"White, help me!" The youth screamed once again as the bead hurriedly chased him down.
The next day.
Li Kong once again was faced with the tree. A bucket of water, placed not far from him.
Li Kong then took a stance and unleased a fist toward the tree.
Puff
A tiny flame materialized in front of his fist before disappearing.
"Argh!!!" Li Kong dropped his body down and rolled on the ground.
The next day.
Li Kong was practicing with his steps and immersed himself with the feeling of becoming a wind.
'Become like a wind.' Li Kong recited the words.
Li Kong began stepping and carefully controlled the Qi around his leg.
At this point, he had already tried Wind Steps for dozens of times, each attempt ended up in a big failure but this time, he could feel something was different.
As the Qi started accumulating on his feet, Li Kong began doing the set of movements recorded inside of the manual.
Slowly, he picked up his pace.
Breezily, he started to accelerate.
And finally...
Li Kong felt like he was flowing through the air. His feet was light as he felt the air was brushing his cheek with a gentle caress as he breezed through distance and by the time he opened his eyes, he had already travelled 20 meters in 3 seconds.
Li Kong dumbstruck for a moment before he regained back his consciousness as he started to cry out, "White, white! I did it! I did it!"
The white bead peeked out one of the nearby bushes, "You did it? Let me try and see it."
Li Kong nodded and started immersing himself with the wind and began to step.
Everything was looking fine before he miscalculated the amount of the Qi and then he launched forward like an arrow to infinity and beyond.
"Ah!!!" He screamed before landing on top of bushes and coming out with bugs on his hair and quickly shook it all off.
"Damn it! Again!"
Not long after that, Li Kong flew like a bird and landed right on his face.
While the white bead stood there, floating, absolutely out of words.
The next day.
Li Kong closed his eyes before unleashing the knives on his hand and throwing it all simultaneously to the mark in front of him and all of them hit the mark.
Right before Li Kong wanted to brag, something heavy hit his head.
"Practice properly!" White sternly scolded.
The impact caused him to crouched down and seethed his teeth to held the pain at bay.
Days continued to pass by and at a peaceful evening, Li Kong lied on the grassy field near the giant tree and looked up at the clouds absentmindedly.
'It almost a week by now but I still can't figure out how to do Flame Fist properly.'
Li Kong had even snuck out late at night and practiced on his backyard but no matter how hard he trained, he couldn't make sense about how to enlarge the flame he emitted.
'I tried the same trick as the one I did with Wind Steps but it just didn't work at all.'
He closed his eyes and pinched his chin 'Hmm... What could be the different between Wind Steps and Flame Fist. They both are technique that have elemental attribute. Wind Steps generated wind to push off my body and the footwork is a way to make use of the push properly. Wait!'
Li Kong jumped off and struck his forehead with his palm.
"Aiya! Why am I so stupid?" He couldn't believe he realized it only now.
'If Wind Steps have its own footwork to do it correctly, then Flame Fist must be the same! But I don't recall seeing anything like that in the manual.'
Li Kong dropped himself back at the ground.
'Am I screwed then?' Li Kong asked himself. 'No, it can't be! There must be something else but what could it be? Hmm... Maybe learning how to throw a punch? Yeah. Maybe that could work!'
Clarity came to filled Li Kong's mind but as he answered a questions, another appeared.
'Now how do I learn how to throw a punch?'
...
"So you came here to ask me to teach you how to throw a punch?" Ye Cheng calmly asked.
"Yes, uncle. Please teach me!" Li Kong clapped his hand above his head and sincerely begged.
"Sigh... I've heard from Zheng Liyang that you're up to something. Saying you practiced your bow in the forest or some bullshit like that." Ye Cheng glared at him for a second.
He sucked in his lips and trembled as a cold wind brushed through Li Kong and drops of sweat formed on top of his forehead.
"But I figured that maybe it won't hurt much teaching you. Come in." Ye Cheng turned back and entered his house.
Li Kong gritted his teeth as he waited for his uncle strike to reached his head but shortly after, he took a quick peek at his uncle and quickly followed his uncle suit.
"Who was that hus- Oh, Li Kong. What are you doing here?" Feng Rouyi peeked her head out of the hallway and noticed Li Kong following not far behind from Ye Cheng.
"Hello, Auntie." Li Kong smiled politely.
"Hello too, Li Kong." Feng Rouyi replied back with a smile.
"This brat asked me to do something. So I told him to come in." Ye Cheng said.
"Oh. Then don't mind me." Feng Rouyi stepped out from her husband way and Ye Cheng continued walking to the backyard.
As the breezy wind of evening greeted them, Li Kong was about to asked Ye Cheng on what are they doing here before suddenly his uncle threw a bow and its quiver at him and he grabbed it.
Without uttering a single word, Ye Cheng loaded his bow with an arrow and aimed forward. On there was a mark made of a wood, stood silently about twenty meters away from them. The mark filled with innumerable amount of scars.
After a while, his uncle released the arrow and it whistled through the wind as it made its final destination at the center of the mark.
"Your turn." Ye Cheng said.
Li Kong took the place where his uncle was before and recalled his uncle's teaching at him. He fixed his posture to suit a stance and steadied his breath as he focused his attention to the wooden mark. He put the arrow on the string and pulled slowly until it reached the perfect spot. After that, he affixed the arrow position for a while before...
Swoosh
The arrow traveled through the wind and leaving a silent sound trailing behind it and landed on the mark and missed the center by few centimeters.
Li Kong recovered from his position and shifted his attention to his uncle who had been waiting for him.
"What did you use when you shoot that arrow?" Ye Cheng asked.
"I use my feet to hold the ground and my hand to draw the string." Li Kong answered.
"Correct but that's not all of it." Ye Cheng grabbed the bow and took a stance before drawing back the strings. "When you shoot an arrow, you didn't just use your feet and arms but you use your whole body at it."
After saying that, Ye Cheng released the string and put the bow back at its place before looking at Li Kong, "The same applies when you are punching something."
Ye Cheng raised his palm and told Li Kong to punch it.
Li Kong punched it as instructed but the blow was weak as it barely fazed Ye Cheng's palm.
"See? If you just using your hand the blow would be weak but what if you make use of your entire body?"
Ye Cheng prepared a stance Li Kong had never seen before and took a step forward at him. He shifted his left shoulder behind, making a forward way for his right arm and then, he shot his fist straight at Li Kong but before it reached Li Kong's face, the fist stopped at its track.
Right as the fist stopped, a crisp sound sounded.
Just by the sound Li Kong knew if that fist ever reached his cheek, he would immediately knocked out into a deep sleep, possibly for eternity.
"This is what will happen." Ye Cheng stated calmly.
Sweat rolled down as Li Kong looked nervously at the fist. The fist was too close to his face for his own safety.
Shortly after, Ye Cheng draw back his fist and packed up while Li Kong praised the heaven for letting him live for another day.
Ye Cheng packed the bow and the quiver and sauntered back to the house. "Get in and have some dinner first before you go home and..." Ye Cheng sent an ambiguous smile to Li Kong.
"And don't think I forget what you said to Zheng Liyang before!" Li Kong's face immediately contorted ugly in response.
"You better prepare yourself tomorrow for practice! You didn't go to field again, right? Then come as early as possible." Ye Cheng added on before disappearing into the house.
"Okay." Li Kong reluctantly agreed and dragged himself inside of the house.
...
After having dinner at Ye Cheng's house, Li Kong told White about everything happened and about the change in the schedule which White quickly approved saying, "There's not much thing to lose to learn something new," which killed any last resemblances of hope inside of Li Kong and they continued their cultivation session before the light dimmed and they both went to a rest.
At the middle of the night, Li Kong opened his eyes and checked at the bead beside him, laying down on the fabrics peacefully and when he finally checked White wasn't going to awake. He jumped out from his bed and sneakily treaded his way to the backyard as the cold wind of the night welcomed him.
"Use your whole body." Li Kong recited before following Ye Cheng's step before.
He took a step forward, rotated his body and at last, shot his fist forward.
"It should've been like this right?" Li Kong assured himself before doing it again and again and again.
After he had accustomed himself with the new feeling, Li Kong emptied his mind and recalled the content of the Flame Fist. It wasn't that much but one thing stuck strongly at his mind.
Beside introductions and unclear instructions the manual contained, on it also written some kind of sentence. Li Kong read the sentence and couldn't make what it meant before he practiced the Flame Fist and frustrated because no matter how hard he tried, flame wouldn't come out even though he already controlled his Qi to his fist.
At that time, he recalled a strange and long sentence and he decided to recite the sentence while doing the Flame Fist and to his surprise, a tiny flame erupted from the tip of his knuckles. He rejoiced and jumped around before grumpily frustrated of stuck at the same place for days after.
But throughout the days he spent practicing, he found out you didn't need to recite the whole sentences for the flame to erupted as long as the meaning stayed the same, the flame would come out fine and after series of experimentation, Li Kong had shortened the sentence to its shortest form.
'O' Flame, heed my call.' Li Kong recited and unleashed his fist forward.
Blazing red fire flared through the air, sending heatwaves everywhere as it burned down the air before disappearing.
Li Kong stood there utterly dumbfounded and his mouth unknowingly opened up before he gathered his fist and thrusted it up high in the sky.
"Yes!!!" He landed on his feet and pulled his both of his elbow backward and started laughing and jumping around.
On the rooftop, while watching all of this happening, a smile appeared on a blurry figure cladded in white clothing.
'You stupid kid. You didn't think that I would notice you sneaking out here?'
I guess it all worked out. The blurry figure watched the youth smiling and warm filled his heart before disappearing altogether as if someone was never there.
Li Kong suddenly realized that he was making too much commotion as he frightfully treading his way back carefully and peeked at bead, who still lied peacefully on top of a piece of fabric.
Fortunately for him, the bead didn't seem to be awaken yet as he breathed a relief. He silently went into his bed and slept until the next morning.