The Fake Mo Zhicheng received a reply and immediately called Zhuge Wanjun.
"My people checked, there is indeed a Foreigner who matches the conditions, but his confidentiality level is very high. My people couldn’t find specific information."
"Alright, I understand."
"Don’t forget what you promised me."
"Okay, I won’t forget."
The Fake Mo Zhicheng hung up the phone, satisfied.
Zhuge Wanjun was also satisfied. Although she didn’t find specific information, the fact that the confidentiality level was so high was itself a crucial piece of information, which made her even more excited.
If there was nothing at all, she would think that Su Yue’s side was simply good at hiding things, or maybe there was never any impressive background.
After all, judging from Su Yue’s demeanor that day, he didn’t seem like someone who was especially skilled at hiding himself or being secretive.
Now that she had checked at the Scorching Sun Department, and there was a record there, with a very high confidentiality level, it spoke volumes.
The power behind the other party was probably very low-profile, not interacting much with modern society, but at the same time extremely strong. According to the Scorching Sun Department’s usual strategy, they mainly try to appease such powers.
Puppeteering Technique is so strong, but now that cremation is popularized, its effectiveness is greatly reduced; it’s harder to find suitable corpses.
If it were in the chaotic times of ancient history, a force with such a strong Puppeteering Technique could quickly raise an Army of the Dead.
She began to ponder how to keep raising the stakes to win the other side over.
Given her current predicament, and the importance of the other party, it had already increased two notches compared to yesterday.
One reason was that among her allies, some had dropped out and some were on the fence; another was the confidentiality level in the Scorching Sun Department’s data.
The next morning, Lady Lie returned from the Water Ghost Domain. Zhuge Wanjun immediately took Lady Lie aside to give her instructions.
On the other side, in the early morning, before the sun had risen, Wen Yan had already practiced the Scorching Sun Fist twice in the courtyard.
He held a horse stance, steady and solid. Yang Energy had naturally and easily circulated to both his thighs and calves, blessing them.
Yang Energy flowed like water, running swiftly and smoothly through both legs.
According to the Scorching Sun Guiding Technique, the First Stage is to use External Skills to guide one’s Yang Energy to form a rough large cycle around the body.
Once this stage is completed, daily radiation of Yang Energy will greatly decrease, and when moving, energy loss will drop significantly too.
The First Stage is the most exhausting; at least ninety percent of the Yang Energy is washed away and dissipated.
But the First Stage is all about laying the foundation; only with this natural flushing of Yang Energy can one fully unite it with oneself and establish the perfect foundation.
Because there is no ready-made boxing technique or guiding technique that fits any individual perfectly.
Only the creator could possibly achieve a perfect fit.
Or, some martial masters who reach the level of grandmaster with their training might, at this point, make subtle adjustments so the boxing technique fully matches themselves.
But the imperfections left behind before still cannot be made up for.
It’s like how starting martial training in childhood gives a better base—when young, the body is growing, highly adaptable, so martial training during growth helps mold the body in line with the boxing technique. Even if it doesn’t fit perfectly, it will be a lot closer.
Wen Yan wasn’t sure if his progress was fast or slow, so he could only trust in "Qin can make up for clumsiness" and train as hard as he possibly could, as long as he didn’t die.
Zhang Laoxi said the whole Fuyu Mountain started training the Scorching Sun Fist’s External Skills as kids, but even so, that was just practicing External Skills; no one trained with the matching Guiding Technique.
With no one else to use as reference who also practiced Scorching Sun Fist, Zhang Laoxi didn’t know if Wen Yan’s progress was fast or not, but compared with people practicing other boxing techniques, this was already very fast.
Wen Yan decided to be more cautious and keep it steady.
After all, Zhang Laoxi himself said his main focus wasn’t martial arts, but rather the Daoist skill path.
Anyway, slow and steady could never go wrong.
It’s only been two days, and now, while practicing, the Yang Energy in his legs already flowed very smoothly. He felt he should keep strengthening his basics—there’s nothing wrong with a good foundation.
The classics mentioned the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, the Twelve Primary Meridians, and various acupoints, but right now he didn’t feel any of those, and the manual from Zhang Laoxi didn’t specifically mention them, at least not for the First Stage.
He still needed to work hard.
Back to a normal day at work, once he arrived at the unit, it was just another ordinary day. There were fewer clients today—even counting those who were redirected elsewhere, only about a dozen came to the Virtue City Funeral House.
Old Zhang was so free he could sit in the courtyard drinking tea and enjoying the morning sun.
Big Sister Ye from the remains-handling department also had nothing to do, since she’d finished all her work.
When she saw Wen Yan arrive, Big Sister Ye’s eyes lit up and she pulled Wen Yan to chat about makeup for half an hour. When they finished, she gave Wen Yan a handmade bar of soap, supposedly very effective at removing oil—good for men.
Other colleagues were also pretty idle, so Wen Yan had even less to do. He went alone to the back of the office building in the front yard to practice boxing by himself.
Practicing boxing under the sun, he didn’t feel the heat; the Yang Energy consumption was so great that even with the blazing sun, the consumption was indeed a bit lower than at night, but for someone with the Scorching Sun within like Wen Yan, this didn’t really matter.
After another full day of training, when it was time to leave work and he could feel Yang Energy naturally circulating through his arms like a whirlpool, he finally stopped and called it a day.
He counted: he’d practiced sixteen sets in the morning, and after lunch another twenty sets.