Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Chapter 52: A mind like a newborn, a willpower like iron (Second)

The snow continued to blanket the entire city for three entire days without clearing up. Only snow could be seen on the ground as the cold winds cut into everyone’s faces as if knives with a painful sting. This type of snow was so strong that it would be weird for people in the city to be seen driving a car, let alone in the village.

Each step Wang Chao took towards the forests had sunk deep into the snow so that it covered his trousers and had a soft sound to it.

The road he was on now was neither concrete or asphalt, but dirt. It had already been three days, but he had finally reached Shaoshan in the Xiangtan province.

The snow had already stopped in this area, but the climate was harsh, making travel difficult. Everyday he would wake up at the crack of dawn and continue walking until night. Sometimes he would stay at a hotel, sometimes it would be at the house of a farmer.

One day when the snow was extremely difficult to walk on and his shoes were drenched with the snow, he was already in the countryside. After a difficult walk, his shoes had finally broken and forced him to carry on barefoot. By nightfall, his two soles were already numb with the cold.

It was a good thing that he had tempered his body over the course of two years to cover even the toes of his feet. With the pores sealed, the cold was not able to enter, an ordinary person would had lost his feet to frostbite already.

Because of the heavy snowfall and the great winds, his umbrella had been broken apart from the stress. The snow on his head would dissolve and flow down his neck to make his entire body cold. Despite his body was far stronger than the average person’s, by the time it was night, his vision was already starting to get blurry. The frostbite was finally kicking in.

Fortunately after walking another 50 kilometers, Wang Chao had been able to find the home of a farmer. This house had only a single person, the rest of the family had long moved out to find jobs. The warmhearted old man had given him some hot ginger and brown sugar tea to warm himself up from the cold.

Seeing how there was a bamboo hat,a raincoat weaved from the hairs of a palm tree and straw sandals, Wang Chao immediately bought all three. On the morning of the next day, he was no longer afraid of the snow or wind with his new attire. But while the sandals were resilient, they did nothing to hold back the cold.

So after every step, Wang Chao would curl his toes so that the snow water wouldn’t freeze it.

After three days of walking, Wang Chao’s legs had taken the most of the sufferings.

Climbing up the nearby hill with difficulty, Wang Chao looked about the area. The trees were filled with icicles and the entire area was a wretched wintry sight.

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By morning, Wang Chao was standing on top of the nearby mountain and looking all around. The northern wind blew against his raincoat harshly, but he could only feel a heroic spirit well up inside his heart as he thought of the first signs of the spring snow.

“This scenery and feelings…” After a while, Wang Chao descended down the mountain and headed towards the south west.

After a month of traveling, Wang Chao had made it to the border line that divided Hunan and Guizhou. By this point, the snow had already started to melt and the temperature began to rise with the coming spring. On the road, the rain water had already mixed into the ground to form mud. With each step, Wang Chao continued to leave behind a muddy trail.

At the beginning, Wang Chao wasn’t adapted to this lifestyle. But after a month, he had gradually grew accustomed to thinking while he walked. Even the amount of times he had swapped out clothing was lost to him.

Every few days, he would come by the nearest town to buy a new set of clothes and changed into them. With the hundred thousand bill he had on him, he was in no shortage of money.

But the bamboo hat, the rush raincoat, and the straw sandals had never once been replaced.

When the road became hard to travel on, he was most likely traveling on a mountainous path or an isolated forest path. The road was always quiet and isolated, causing Wang Chao to gradually forget about the noise and clamor of the mundane world while also causing his heart to soar into the sky with feeling.

Each movement he made was naturally in accordance with all the martial art he knew. Everything else had forgotten with only the essence of martial arts taking up his mind.

Yunnan was comprised of mainly mountains, so instead of taking the main path, Wang Chao had taken the road less traveled despite the strain. On the way, he had admired the sights the revolutionaries had once traveled. This process was exceedingly slow and had taken three quarters of spring before he had arrived at the Zun’yi province in Guizhou.

By May, Wang Chao had traveled past Chishui and into Sichuan.

Over the course of these several months, his body had been tempered by the frost and the wind. His previously white skin had transformed into an ashy brown and after spending the nights out in the open, his body hadn’t grown weak at all. Instead, it grew sturdier and his legs even stronger.

Sometimes when he traveled, Wang Chao would close his eyes shut and reflect upon himself. Sometimes, he could hear the blood flow through his body.

Under the work of the heart, the blood in his veins had continued to circulate around his body without pause.

When one had been trained to a specific point, they would be able to hear their blood flow.

Unbeknownst to Wang Chao, his martial arts had already reached this detail stage where he could sense all of his inner organs. His body had also managed to coordinate with the very essence of several other martial art disciplines and essence, and his heart had submerged itself into a state of mind that could be seen in the previous century.

A plateau was already forming in Sichuan. The road was even more perilous than Guizhou with the mountainous terrain slowly taking over. The road continued to wind around unpredictably almost as if it was the body of a giant dragon.

The weather was growing hotter, but Wang Chao hadn’t noticed it.

He could only feel that his mind and body was like a crude and unpolished gem. Each step he took was yet another polishing or another cut into this gem to rid it of its impurities.

In this half year of traveling, Wang Chao had only felt depressed and the entire trip to be difficult at first. But in the end, he had grown more and more comfortable with himself. He had forgotten about the problems with the world, and so his heart had grown lighter almost as if his entire body was floating now. Thinking back to the words and experience of his predecessors, he thought, “Martial arts must be done with a feeling of comfort and ease. If there is only pain, then it is wrong.”

He knew he had practiced correctly.

The mountain grew dangerous, the roads even more precipitous. Beneath him, the river water was rushing with a rapid pace while the sun above him was burning with a vicious heat.

With such a perilous situation like this, each day grew even more difficult for Wang Chao. If he did not carefully watch himself with each step, then his body would not be able to take the consequence.

In the middle of June, Wang Chao came across a wriggling river, by this point, the cities and customs of the places he traveled to had gradually changed. Sometimes, he could see the clothes of Tibetans instead of the mainland Chinese he was used to.

After several days, the gigantic mountains he had crossed were starting to be covered with snow.

By the time Wang Chao had arrived at the next range of snowy mountains, they had already blocked his path.

When Wang Chao looked at the snowy mountains, his heart knew that this journey ahead of him would be a hundred times harder than what he had just accomplished.

The thousand mile journey had only just begun.