Chapter 37: Encounter with a Wild Boar at Night

When he was a child, wild boars were a common sight in the countryside near Chen Village. Chen Jue remembered that when he was six or seven years old, the entire village had strung up electrified wire fences around the fields to keep these beasts from ruining the crops.

There were even a few occasions when a large wild boar, electrocuted by the wires, was dragged to the entrance of the village to be butchered and sold. The whole village would gather to watch, a scene that left a deep impression on young Chen Jue.

Back then, wild boars were fierce creatures that everyone would chase and hunt. But times had changed: now, they had been elevated to the status of nationally protected animals, and hunting them was illegal.

These days, Chen Jue had assumed wild boars were all but extinct in the countryside. He never expected that, after so many years, he would run into a whole family of living wild boars head-on—a testament to how well the ecosystem around the Chen Village reservoir had been preserved.

“Damn it! I didn’t bring my phone. If I had, I could at least use the flash to scare them off.” Chen Jue stood his ground. Thanks to his martial training, he was braver than most, and didn’t panic or turn to flee at the sight of the wild boar. Instead, he locked eyes with the leading animal.

Under the dim streetlight, Chen Jue could just make out a row of sagging teats on the boar’s belly—a sow, evidently.

“Hey there, mind if we make a deal? You take your path and I’ll take mine, how about it?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you!” Chen Jue quipped, half to himself.

But the sow, of course, didn’t understand human language. Perhaps out of maternal protectiveness, she snorted at Chen Jue several times, then let out a sharp squeal before turning to lead her piglets into the roadside weeds.

Thinking the matter was settled, Chen Jue was caught off guard when another, even larger boar erupted from the thicket to his right. This was clearly the boar of the family, and, having heard the sow’s cries, probably thought she was in danger. It charged at Chen Jue, wild with rage.

Startled, Chen Jue quickly employed the footwork of the Eight Immortals’ Stance, dodging to the side. But the boar was relentless; missing its mark with the first charge, it wheeled about and lunged again, swift and ferocious.

There was no room to dodge further. Chen Jue’s body tensed, pores clamping shut instinctively, and he lashed out with his right foot in a powerful kick.

A muffled thud sounded.

Chen Jue’s kick landed like a whip, striking the boar’s flank. The beast, weighing over three hundred pounds, was sent tumbling like a great rubber ball, rolling four or five meters before coming to a stop.

Yet, tough as it was, the boar suffered little from the blow. After a few snorts on the ground, it rose, limping, and glanced warily at Chen Jue, the fierceness in its eyes replaced by fear, as if it had met its natural enemy. It turned and plunged back into the weeds, fleeing the scene at top speed.

Watching the boar escape, Chen Jue breathed a sigh of relief. In just those few seconds, his heart had been pounding wildly—clearly, the fright had gotten to him. Though he had trained in martial arts, he realized he was still, at his core, an ordinary person. His body responded to danger as any human would, though he remained calmer than most.

“Introverted and easily nervous since childhood,” he thought to himself. “Looks like I still need to practice my courage and willpower.”

Chen Jue checked his right leg. The kick had torn his pants, and the skin beneath was scraped—no doubt from contact with the boar’s bristly hide. He examined the spot where the boar had landed and found a few drops of dark red blood, evidence that his kick had inflicted internal injury.

With his internal strength now at its peak and his physical abilities far beyond those of ordinary people, sending a three-hundred-pound boar flying was no great feat. Yet, the beast’s thick hide and tough bristles made it remarkably resilient. To absorb such a blow and remain vigorous was a testament to the ferocity of wild creatures.

“Let’s hope you’ve learned your lesson, old boar,” Chen Jue muttered. “Next time, steer clear of humans.”

Once he was sure the wild boar family had retreated far enough not to threaten anyone, he left the scene.

After that commotion, Chen Jue lost the urge to continue practicing by the reservoir and headed down the mountain. At home, he changed into a fresh pair of pants and disinfected the scrape on his leg, spraying on some herbal medicine.

His right hand was still healing, and now he had a fresh wound on his leg. Although it was just a scrape, barely bleeding, Chen Jue resolved that he would focus on training the Shaolin Iron Shirt technique the next day.

With this hardening skill, his resistance to injury would greatly improve, and minor scrapes or mishaps would be less of a concern in the future.

With that in mind, Chen Jue climbed onto the solid wood table in his living room and began practicing the Eight Immortals’ Stance at home.

He had spent a good deal of his free attribute points earlier, working on the Twelve Forms of the Tendon-Altering Sutra, and needed to earn them back through continued stance training. His leg injury was minor and didn’t interfere with his practice.

After two hours, he accumulated 0.04 free attribute points. At nine in the evening, he stopped, wiped off his sweat with hot water, and went to bed.

Before sleep, he watched an episode of “Legend of Martial Arts,” then closed his eyes and drifted off on schedule.

The next morning, Chen Jue found his health index had recovered to 99%. The fracture in his right hand had completely healed, with no more lingering ache, and the scrape on his right leg had also vanished overnight, replaced by new skin.

“Unnoticed, my constitution is up to 1.91!”

“This recovery ability is getting more and more outrageous!” Pulling off the last of his bandages, Chen Jue felt more superhuman than ever.

He stretched his limbs, strapped on his weights, and habitually set out for his morning practice at the reservoir.

Maintaining the closed-pore state, he drilled his forms and stances for two and a half hours, accumulating 0.27 free attribute points. After breakfast down the mountain, he returned home and set a pot of nourishing soup to simmer.

Today, Chen Jue was determined to raise his Shaolin Iron Shirt technique to the next level.