Republic of China era: Actor? Please call me Martial Arts Master!

Chapter 179 Seventy-Two Hammers

The next day, at the Temple of Heaven Square.

There were more people than yesterday.

Yesterday's sermon was like a fire that burned brighter in the city overnight than it went out.

Those who didn't make it yesterday arrived early this morning.

Some came overnight from Tianjin, Baoding, and Shijiazhuang, covered in dust and mud from the journey.

The temporary porridge stalls outside the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests Square have been bustling with people since early morning.

Shunzi and Xiaodouzi, along with a few martial arts brothers, set up a tent there, serving large pots of rice porridge with pickled vegetables and dumplings—enough to go around.

No money required.

Ordinary people, holding bowls, squatted against the wall, drinking hot porridge, and asking each other what else was interesting to watch today.

No one could explain it clearly, but no one was willing to leave.

Just squat there and wait.

The platform is the same one as yesterday; it hasn't been removed, nor has anything new been added.

The Kui Niu drum is still standing heavily on the stage.

As the hour of Chen (7-9 AM) was about to pass, a sudden commotion arose in the crowd.

It wasn't cheering, just a kind of restlessness, like the sound of wind blowing through a wheat field.

Because a stranger came onto the stage.

The man was extremely thin, wearing a faded gray cloth jacket and old cloth shoes.

Standing next to that big drum, with his back to the audience, head bowed, he used a fine cloth to wipe the drumstick bit by bit.

Nobody knew him.

The veteran opera enthusiasts in the audience were buzzing with discussion, all asking which senior this was and why they hadn't seen him yesterday.

Those martial arts masters in the front row, those who were recognized, sat quietly without saying a word.

Shang Yunxiang squinted and stopped eating the walnuts in his hand.

Yang Chengfu took off his gold-rimmed glasses, examined them carefully, and silently put them back on without saying a word.

Grandpa Han sat in his wheelchair with his hands on his knees, head down, seemingly lost in thought.

Behind the crowd, on the side of the curtain.

Lu Cheng stood there, dressed in a moon-white long robe, with his hands behind his back.

Beside him, Shunzi, who was holding back her words, looked left and right, but finally couldn't hold back and leaned close to Lu Cheng's ear.

"Master, his body—"

"Watching a play."

Lu Cheng did not turn around, his tone calm.

Shunzi swallowed the rest of her sentence and stopped talking.

On stage, Zhang Sanjia finished wiping the drumsticks, folded the fine cloth, and placed it in the corner next to the drum stand.

He turned around and faced the audience.

This was the first time in thirty years that he had stood facing so many people.

Below the stage, tens of thousands of dark faces were looking up at this unfamiliar old man.

Zhang Sanjia looked down at his right hand, which was still trembling slightly.

It trembled, it was a real tremor.

I quit opium less than two days ago, but the effects haven't worn off yet, and this trembling will last for a long time.

But at this moment, that tremor is no longer important.

He raised his head, glanced at the square, at the people with their faces turned upwards, and at the towering dome of the Temple of Heaven's Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in the distance.

Finally, his gaze fell on the martial arts masters sitting quietly in the front row below the stage.

It paused for a moment.

Then, slowly move it away.

He picked up two drumsticks.

"My name is Zhang Sanjia."

His voice, without any internal energy cultivation, was just an ordinary voice, hoarse like sandpaper, unpleasant to hear, but clear.

"The top military scholar in the 24th year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign (1898)."

"The Qing Dynasty, the last one."

In the square, some people whispered among themselves, while others gasped.

Some people looked blank, not knowing what the title meant, while an elderly man suddenly widened his eyes and nudged the person next to him with his elbow.

The fat man selling fried cakes, who was standing on tiptoe watching the commotion through the gap in the wall, whispered a question to the person next to him.

"Who is that person?"

The old man next to him didn't say anything, he just looked at the stage, and his eyes slowly reddened.

Zhang Sanjia did not wait for the square to quiet down.

He continued, speaking softly, yet everyone could hear him clearly.

"In the year of Gengzi, I led three hundred disciples to guard Zhengyang Gate."

"The foreigners' Maxim machine guns swept through the area, and three hundred men fell."

"I survived."

"Then, after smoking opium for thirty years, he rotted in the stinking ditch of the Eight Great Hutongs."

The square fell completely silent.

That kind of stillness is the stillness of tens of thousands of hearts in the crowd being gripped at the same time.

Zhang Sanjia lowered his head, looked at the platform under his feet, and then raised it again.

"Yesterday, Lu Cheng brought out all of those old codgers' most treasured possessions."

"I don't have anything good, no secret manuals, and no special techniques."

"I only have these seventy-two hammer blows."

"Once it's over, there's nothing left."

He paused, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. That movement wasn't a smile; it was something even harder to define than a smile.

"That's enough, we've finished."

He raised the drumstick.

In the audience, some people wanted to applaud but were unsure whether they should. The applause had barely begun when it was drowned out by the surrounding silence and ultimately did not erupt.

Everyone held their breath.

The first strike, Yuyang mixed with force.

This is the entrance posture of Mi Heng when he takes the stage in "Beating the Drum and Cursing Cao Cao".

Ordinary drummers emphasize grandeur and making a grand entrance when they strike this drum, aiming to convey the spirited and high-spirited demeanor of a brilliant talent making his debut.

-

But Zhang Sanjia's hammer fell.

"Thump"

low.

stuffy.

It looks like it's seeping up from underground.

It wasn't a brilliant talent making his debut; it was a cripple who had been wallowing in the mud for thirty years, finally finding his last breath again.

The sound pierced through the chill in the square, entered everyone's ears, and pressed directly against their chests.

Shunzi stood by the side curtain, her hands involuntarily clenching.

The second blow followed immediately.

The third strike.

The drumbeats began to move, gradually gaining rhythm.

This rhythm is unlike the professional style of a typical opera stage, which is characterized by its clear and meticulous steps. Instead, it carries an extremely strange force, like an old man breathing heavily in the middle of the night, each breath heavier than the last, yet each breath more steady than the last.

Below the stage, those seasoned opera enthusiasts who knew their stuff slowly straightened their backs.

Shang Yunxiang quietly placed the walnuts in his hands on his knees and flattened his hands.

He closed his eyes, as if listening, or perhaps sensing the energy emanating from the drumbeats.

"This old man,"

Shang Yunxiang thought to himself.

"They've hidden something in the drum."

The twelfth strike, with a feather fan and silk turban.

This passage describes Mi Heng standing in the imperial court, neither humble nor arrogant, displaying a scholarly air of looking down upon the world.

Zhang Sanjia's playing was surprisingly light, with sparse drumbeats, like spring rain pattering on a bluestone slab, drop by drop, unhurried and unperturbed.

But that lightness is not softness; it's a lightness that has contained all the force, leaving only a thin layer on the outside.

Below the stage, there was an old boxing master from the south who had originally just come to enjoy the spectacle, but now he felt that the drumbeats were hitting something—

He raised his hand and touched his chest, seemingly touching something.

The twenty-fourth strike, he enters shirtless.

This segment marked the first climax of the entire performance.

The drumbeats became denser and more urgent, as if the weather had suddenly changed, from sparse spring rain to a torrential downpour pounding on the roof.

Zhang Sanjia's right hand trembled.

But that tremor, ironically, becomes the most authentic element of this passage.

An old man with trembling hands beat a drum, and a shirtless, fearless madman was brought out.

The contradictions and paradoxes, when captured in the drumbeats, became the most plausible language.

Someone was crying in the square.

I don't know where it started, but I just started crying quietly, without making a sound, only two lines of tears.

The thirty-sixth strike landed squarely in the middle.

Zhang Sanjia paused for a moment.

-

This pause is not the end of the movement, but a "resting beat" in the drum music, a respite in the middle.

But this pause caused the atmosphere in the square to suddenly become somber.

Because everyone, suddenly, in that brief silence, could clearly see what the person on the stage looked like.

The gray cloth shorts were soaked with sweat on the back, with two deep water stains extending down from the shoulder blades.

Those hands, the right hand was still trembling, and the knuckles of the left hand had turned white from gripping the drumstick too tightly for too long.

That face was sallow and sunken, already bloodless, and now it looked like a thin sheet of paper, exuding a pallor that sent chills down your spine.

But he stood there.

Standing perfectly straight.

From the first blow until now, his back has never bent once.

Shunzi, standing to the side of the curtain, bit her lip until it bled, but still didn't move.

That's what Master said; this is Mr. Zhang's business.

After the pause, the thirty-seventh strike.

The drumbeats resumed, deeper and slower than before.

This is the second half.

The latter half of "Beating the Drum and Cursing Cao Cao" no longer speaks of high spirits, but rather the desolation of knowing the ending yet still moving forward.

Zhang Sanjia's fight was like walking in the dark.

Step by step, very slowly, but only when the foot is firmly planted can it be lifted.

There were no streetlights, and I didn't know what was ahead, so I just kept walking.

Below the stage, among tens of thousands of people, not a single one thought of leaving, nor did anyone dare to utter a sound; they even suppressed their coughs.

The fat man selling fried cakes, at some point, stuffed the unfinished steamed bun in his pocket and forgot to continue eating it.

He stared at the stage, not daring to blink, afraid that if he blinked, he would miss something.

After the forty-eighth strike, the people below the stage began to realize that something was wrong with the old man.

His drumming began to pause very briefly.

It's not the pauses in the music, but the kind of pauses you force yourself to make when your body can't keep up with your mind.

Each pause lasts only a second or two before the next hammer blow falls.

But those one or two seconds, in the eyes of those in the know, were of immense weight.

"I can't take it anymore—"

In the front row, an old boxing master with white hair and beard whispered half a sentence, then swallowed the rest.

Liu Wenhua gripped his cane tightly, remaining silent with a grim expression.

Yang Chengfu's chest rose and fell slowly, as if he were calming himself down.

Grandpa Han raised his head and looked at the stage. Two lines of turbid tears silently fell down his face, but he did not wipe them away.

The sixtieth strike.

Zhang Sanjia's right knee bent slightly.

Just like that, like an overloaded pillar, it sank down in the most painful moment, and then straightened up again.

Someone in the audience let out a soft "Ah".

But he straightened up.

-

The spine remains straight.

The sixty-third strike.

The sixty-seventh strike.

The drumbeats slowed down, but became heavier.

It wasn't that they lacked strength, but rather that each strike felt like smashing even more material inside.

The lives of those three hundred disciples.

Those thirty years of opium and mud.

That yellow jacket that had been taken off and was left to rot in the opium den.

And last night's bowl of braised noodles, the one where I said "delicious" at the end.

Everything is inside.

Seventieth strike.

Zhang Sanjia loosened his grip on the drumstick with his left hand.

The lever slid down half an inch, and with his last bit of strength, he gripped it tightly again.

There was no sound in the square.

Tens of thousands of people held their breath.

Those who were originally standing on the periphery, just intending to take a casual look, somehow found themselves craning their necks, standing on tiptoe, their eyes fixed on the white-clothed figure on the stage.

The seventy-first strike.

The sound of the hammer falling was the lightest of all seventy-two strikes in the entire match.

Light as a feather, it landed on the still water.

But at this moment, the water's surface had been blasted open by the seventy-one blows, creating a bottomless pit. The ripples stirred up by that feather as it fell were wider and farther than those from any of the previous blows.

Down in the audience, Old Xu had been clutching the newspaper package containing the steamed buns tightly to his chest for some time now.

He couldn't tell what he was thinking, nor could he pinpoint exactly where the drumbeat had struck his heart.

All he knew was that something was burning in his chest, so hot that his back teeth ached.

The seventy-second strike.

Zhang Sanjia raised his right hand, and that trembling hand was the steadyest it had been all night.

He held it very high.

It was higher than any of the previous blows.

It's as if they're taking something up with them and sending it to the highest point.

Then, he landed.

"boom!!!!!!"

The sound produced by this final strike was the only one out of the seventy-two strikes that truly utilized internal force.

It wasn't the external aura of a Grandmaster like Lu Cheng, nor was it the terrifying aura capable of shattering bluestone slabs.

It was an old martial arts champion who had been wasting his life for thirty years and whose foundation had long been hollowed out. He poured all the last bit of righteous energy, which was hidden deep in his marrow and which even opium could not completely corrupt, into this hammer blow.

The sound lingered and lingered beneath the dome of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, never dissipating.

Like an old dragon, it coiled up one last time in the sky, and then slowly descended.

on the square.

There were no cheers, no applause.

Tens of thousands of people stood there, completely still.

Some people cried, some didn't, but everyone's eyes were red.

Zhang Sanjia withdrew his hand.

He lowered his head and glanced at the Kui Niu drum.

The drum was intact, without a single scratch.

He slowly placed the two drumsticks side by side on the drumhead, neatly arranged, horizontal and vertical.

Then, he turned around and faced the audience.

His face was bloodless, like a wall plastered with lime, even the scar couldn't show its color.

But his eyes were bright.

For the first time in thirty years, it's this bright.

That's the look in a person's eyes that comes after they've finished the last thing they absolutely had to do.

He slowly bent down.

It wasn't a bow to end the performance, but rather a martial arts practitioner performing the most ancient form of respect for the tens of thousands of people below the stage.

He clasped his hands together and bowed deeply.

Then, he straightened up, turned around, and walked step by step backstage.

Behind the curtain, Lu Cheng stood motionless.

Zhang Sanjia walked to the side of the stage, passing by Lu Cheng without saying a word.

Lu Cheng remained silent.

He stepped aside to let Zhang Sanjia pass by him.

Zhang Sanjia took three steps, then stopped.

He didn't fall, he just stood there, but couldn't stand steadily, so he grabbed a pillar next to him for support.

"Shunzi" (a type of Chinese character)

Lu Cheng spoke.

Shunzi, who had been waiting nearby, rushed forward and grabbed Zhang Sanjia's arm.

Zhang Sanjia didn't push him away, but let Shunzi support him and catch his breath.

His hands were still trembling, but even more so than before. It was the most honest reaction of his body after he had exhausted the last bit of his energy.

But his eyes were still so bright.

"Walk,"

Zhang Sanjia said to Shunzi, his voice a little hoarse, but still steady.

"Help me back and eat that bowl of porridge."

Shunzi's eyes instantly reddened, but she grinned and nodded vigorously.

"Alright, Mr. Zhang, come on, the porridge is still warm in the pot."

In front of the stage, in the square.

I don't know who made the first move.

Old Xu, who was carrying a steamed bun, opened the newspaper bundle he was holding, stuffed the steamed bun, which had already been squeezed until it was warm, into his mouth, and took a big bite.

As he chewed, he turned his head and said something to the person next to him.

-

The words were spoken softly, but they were overheard by those nearby, who then passed them on to those next to them.

It spread out in circles like this.

By the time the sound reached the gap in the outer wall, it had turned into a buzzing murmur, but everyone was saying the same thing.

"To live, you have to stand tall."

The Lu residence.

That evening.

Zhang Sanjia fell asleep on the bed in the east wing.

To play it safe, Mr. Le asked a highly respected senior fellow disciple to take his pulse. After the examination, the senior disciple said two words to Lu Cheng.

"fine."

Then, the old Chinese medicine doctor paused for a moment and added a sentence.

"This old bone is tougher than I thought."

"If you quit opium and take good care of yourself, you'll still have years to live."

Lu Cheng nodded without saying much, and had someone start brewing the medicine and bring it in to the bedside.

He walked out of the east wing and stood under the corridor for a while.

As night fell, the branches of the old locust tree swayed in the wind, obscuring and revealing the first star in the sky.

Shunzi came over carrying a bowl of wontons.

"Master, have something to eat."

Lu Cheng took the bowl, sat down on the bench under the eaves, scooped up a wonton with a spoon, and blew on it.

"Those seventy-two blows today,"

Shunzi stood to the side and rubbed his hands together.

"That sounds really good."

He paused, then continued.

"But I can't quite put my finger on why it's good."

Lu Cheng took a bite of the wonton. The soup was chicken broth, with a thin wrapper and a generous filling, and it was savory and delicious.

When do you find a song unpleasant to listen to?

Shunzi thought about it.

"At first, I thought it was just an ordinary drum, nothing special."

"Later, well—it's hard to say."

Lu Cheng nodded.

"That's called getting into character."

"He went in himself, and you went in after him."

"This is the principle of drama, and also the principle of martial arts."

The real skill lies not in technique, but in the heart.

Shunzi stood there thoughtfully, muttering the words to himself as if he were memorizing them.

Lu Cheng finished the bowl of wontons and put the bowl back in Shunzi's hand.

He stood up and walked towards the study.

On the desk, the book "Zhang's Hundred Battle Techniques" was still there.

Lu Cheng sat down at the desk, opened the book, and turned to the first page.

The first page contains Zhang Sanjia's calligraphy, which recounts his duel with Huo Yuanjia.

The handwriting was messy, but every stroke was firm, showing that the writer had something on their mind when they wrote it.

Lu Cheng stared at it for a long time.

The wick burned quietly inside the lamp.

In the courtyard, the occasional chirping of insects could be heard; they were the first autumn insects to awaken this year. I tried to sing them.

The cold snap in early spring is truly over.

Lu Cheng turned the page and continued reading.

In the book, Zhang Sanjia meticulously recorded the details of the battles, the feats of fighting against hundreds of enemies on the battlefield, and the insights gained from competing with various masters, word by word.

There are no fancy theories, just solid, practical stuff.

What kind of footwork is effective against what kind of formation?

What kind of force can break what kind of weapon?

And, when surrounded by guns, how to find a way to survive within a three-zhang radius.

Lu Cheng's "Exquisite Heart" flows gently through these words.

There is a passage in the book that Zhang Sanjia wrote to himself.

It was written on a certain night in a certain year. He was still in that opium den that night, but for some reason he picked up a pen.

The handwriting was messy, as if it was written while drunk, but it was still legible.

"I have lost, truly lost. Not by the guns of the foreigners, but by my own heart. When the heart dies, the body rots."

"But those three hundred, it's not their fault, it's my incompetence."

"If there is a future, if I can stand up again, I will leave these things behind. It's better than letting them rot inside me."

Lu Cheng closed the book after reading this.

He placed the book in the very center of the desk and weighed it down with a paperweight.

The wick flickered slightly.

In the courtyard, the chirping of insects gradually grew louder.

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