Iron Shirt

Chen Shi was the most unremarkable boy outside Zhenbei City. Every day, he chopped wood and hauled water for the city's martial arts school in exchange for two copper coins and a meal of coarse rice.

The apprentices at the school were always making fun of him, laughing that he was as thin as a stick of firewood and had no business hanging around martial artists. Chen Shi never talked back. When nobody was watching, he secretly copied the instructors' horse stance. Even when his calves shook like a sieve, he forced himself to hold the pose until the moon was high.

His secret lay in half a tattered manual he had found at the age of seven. On its yellowed pages, the words “Iron Shirt” were written with forceful strokes, followed by crude illustrations of breathing and energy-circulation techniques. Others who practiced this hard-body art would find themselves unable to move after three months, their vital energy and blood stagnating. But Chen Shi was different. He could clearly feel his meridians widening by a hair every time he circulated his energy. After the pain came bones and sinews made even tougher.

This was his inborn gift: as long as he kept practicing, he would grow stronger without end.