43: Chapter 43 The Method of Teaching

The candidate had been decided.

But how to get the manual into Cheng Jian's hands remained a thorny issue.

Chen Mo spent another two days observing Cheng Jian's daily routine.

The results were not optimistic; Cheng Jian's schedule was as regular as a pendulum.

He woke up promptly at six every morning, led training sessions, ate at the cafeteria at noon, and in the afternoon, he would either continue training or go out on missions.

If there were missions at night, he continued; if not, he stayed in the base dormitory and rarely went out.

The Yi City Armed Police Detachment implemented closed-off management.

With perimeter walls, guard posts, and rotating sentries, ordinary people had to register just to approach the gate, let alone hand an anonymous package directly to the squadron leader.

Chen Mo sat in the living room of the old house, sketching Cheng Jian's range of activity in his notebook.

The base, mission sites, and occasional temporary stations.

It was a fixed routine with almost no time for personal outings.

The path of direct contact was basically blocked.

Unless—

Chen Mo's finger stopped on a mark on the map.

When he went out on missions.

During this period, due to the impact of the Spiritual Energy Revival, patrol and security missions around Yi City had become increasingly heavy.

The Armed Police Detachment was dispatched frequently to set up cordon lines and assist residents in the deep mountains with relocation.

These missions were all in the wild, far from the base's walls and guard posts.

As a squadron leader, Cheng Jian led the team outside almost every time.

Only at these times would he break away from that closed system.

Only in the wild was there a possibility of contact.

Chen Mo put down his pen and leaned back in his chair.

During these two or three days of observation, he had not only watched Cheng Jian's routine but also seen many other things.

Once, Cheng Jian led a team to help an elderly person living alone in a mountain hollow relocate.

The elderly person was over seventy, had difficulty walking, and had decades of clutter piled up in their home, stubbornly refusing to leave.

The village official in charge of persuading them talked for a long time, but the elderly person just wouldn't budge.

After Cheng Jian arrived, he didn't rush or preach; he simply squatted in front of the elderly person, slowly asking which items in the house were most important, and then helped pack them one by one.

When the elderly person's cat scrambled up to the rafters, he climbed up to bring it down.

Throughout the whole process, there wasn't a single word of impatience.

Chen Mo watched from afar.

The gentleness Cheng Jian showed towards the elderly person was not for show.

He was surrounded by his own team members and village officials; there were no cameras, no superiors, and no need to perform.

Another time, Cheng Jian led his team to clear a drainage ditch clogged with weeds.

The mud in the ditch was knee-deep, and the grass roots were tangled underground like a layer of barbed wire.

More than a dozen armed police soldiers took turns digging, and by noon, they were nearly exhausted.

Cheng Jian didn't say a word; he jumped in himself and continued digging, working until the afternoon.

The look in the team members' eyes wasn't the kind of obedience that comes from following orders.

It was willingness.

This person was worthy of trust.

But being worthy was not enough.

Chen Mo needed to solve a second problem—how to make Cheng Jian believe the content of the manual.

He went through the content of the manual in his mind.

Basic Antagonistic Training, Force Multiplier improvement, Mental Perception cultivation, and the core of the Human Breathing Method.

From the perspective of physics and sports anatomy, the first half held water.

But the second half, the description of "Rhythm between breathing and muscle synchronization," would be considered metaphysics to anyone who hadn't experienced it personally.

Would Cheng Jian believe it?

No.

If he didn't believe it, he wouldn't practice. If he didn't practice, there would be no effect. If there was no effect, he wouldn't continue practicing. This was the vicious cycle he had already considered.

But this time, Chen Mo had found a way to break the cycle.

Evidence.

Not proof in words, nor explanations written on paper.

But evidence placed right before his eyes, carved into the bones, letting him see for himself what level someone could reach using this system.

As for how to present the evidence, Chen Mo had already figured it out.

A video.

In a primitive environment without any special effects, demonstrating power that transcended common sense.

He needed to ensure that after Cheng Jian saw it, all his inner doubts about "this isn't scientific" would be crushed by the facts.

But recording this video meant exposure.

Physique, facial features, voice—any one of these being recorded could become a clue to trace his identity.

Unless he changed these.

Chen Mo deduced the plan from beginning to end in his mind.

First, he could not record this video in Yi City.

It had to be in the deep mountains, far from human habitation, with no signal and no possible witnesses.

Second, he could not use his own face, his own physique, or his own voice.

His current muscle control ability allowed for short-term changes to soft tissue, allowing him to alter his height, physique, and facial contours.

His voice could also be controlled.

Finally, after recording, the equipment disposal, data erasure, and site cleanup—no traces could be left in any of these steps.

This plan could minimize the risk of exposure.

But there was one more prerequisite: he needed a camera.

It couldn't be his own.

He couldn't use any account associated with himself to purchase it.

It would be best to get a device that was completely untraceable.

During the subsequent observations, Chen Mo found an opportunity.

It was a pickpocket living in the urban-rural fringe.

Chen Mo discovered him by chance while observing Cheng Jian.

At that time, the man was loitering near a bus stop with a strange look in his eyes—not the kind of looking around while waiting for someone, but specifically staring at people's pockets and backpacks.

Chen Mo took a couple more looks and confirmed it.

His hands were not clean; his movements were stealthy but revealed a calmness cultivated from years of committing crimes.

Chen Mo didn't do anything on the spot.

He followed the man all the way and found his residence.

It was a single-story house on the edge of the urban-rural area, with no neighbors around; the nearest building was an abandoned car repair shop.

There were no cameras, no streetlights, and the road was a dirt path.

In a place like this, no one would notice anyone coming or going.

Chen Mo waited for a while.

Until late at night, the man went out, and the room was pitch black.

It took him less than a minute to sneak in.

The room was messy. There was an old television and several mobile phones of unrecognizable models.

Several backpacks were piled in the corner, filled with various odds and ends.

Chen Mo's target was clear: a camera.

He rummaged through the pile of electronic products and found an action camera with a waterproof case, probably stolen and never sold off.

Chen Mo picked it up, checked the model, and confirmed it was the type with a built-in battery that could be used completely offline.

He took the camera and left.

He didn't touch anything else, nor did he leave any traces behind.

The action camera was different; it had no GPS module, no SIM card slot, and data was stored on a physical memory card. As long as it wasn't connected to the internet, it was just a brick.

After returning to the old house, Chen Mo took the camera apart and checked it carefully.

There was no GPS; he snapped the WiFi module with a needle tip and physically removed the signal antenna.

Then he put in a brand-new memory card, confirming that the camera only retained the most basic recording function.

That was enough.

The next morning, before dawn.

Chen Mo left his mobile phone in the drawer of the old house.

He carried only the necessary supplies and that action camera.

Then he pushed open the back door and started running toward the mountains.

Heading west.

The further, the better.

Until he was completely out of the range of Yi City, away from any location that could possibly implicate him.

He couldn't record this video in the forests where he trained daily; those places were too close to the old house, and the terrain was too easily recognizable.

It had to be the kind of unfamiliar deep mountains that couldn't even be linked through satellite photos.

Chen Mo sprinted through the forest.

His speed was pushed to the limit; he could span dozens of meters in a single stride.

The ground beneath his feet swept backward rapidly, and the tree trunks blurred into dark green streaks in his vision.

The sound of the wind filled his ears, but his breathing remained at a stable frequency. The Human Breathing Method continued to operate even while running; with every breath, he extracted the dispersed Spiritual Qi from the air to replenish his physical exertion.

One hundred kilometers.

Two hundred kilometers.

He crossed the border of Yi City, crossed a provincial highway, passed through two nature reserves, and ran all the way into the hinterland of Sichuan Province.

The surrounding forest became increasingly dense.

The vegetation here had completely spiraled out of control.

The paths that could originally be identified in the forest were completely swallowed by shrubs and ferns, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of last year's fallen leaves and this year's new sprouts.

The crowns of the fir trees crowded together high above, cutting the morning light into fragmented spots.

The air was filled with the damp, pungent scent of vegetation.

Chen Mo stopped in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides.

Steep cliffs surrounded a small, relatively flat patch of woodland, with a few fir trees as thick as a person's reach in the middle.

There was no road in, no traces of human activity.

This place would do.

Chen Mo stood in the center of the valley, closed his eyes, and focused his attention on his body.

He began to change.

The movement of his bones was accompanied by muffled clicking sounds. His height began to stretch from 1.85 meters; his vertebrae opened up one by one, and his shoulder blades pushed outward.

His muscle tissue adjusted accordingly; his pectoral muscles became thinner and wider, the attachment points of his latissimus dorsi were redistributed, and the arrangement of his rectus abdominis changed completely.

His face was also changing.

His brow ridge lowered, his cheekbones shifted backward, the angle of his jaw changed, and the thickness and shape of his lips adjusted.

The fat pads under his skin were redistributed, altering the entire light and shadow contour of his face.

The whole process took less than two minutes.

After everything stopped, Chen Mo opened his eyes.

He looked down at his hands.

His fingers were nearly two centimeters longer than before, his metacarpal bones were wider, and his knuckles were thicker.

Not a single data point of this body matched his original one.

He was over two meters tall, his physique was a different kind of inverted triangle structure, bulkier than before, but the proportions of his arms and legs were completely different.

As for his face, it was a composite he had pieced together by randomly mixing facial features of several people from his memory.

Even the world's most advanced facial recognition algorithm couldn't find anyone corresponding to this face.

A person who didn't exist.

Chen Mo bent down and rummaged through his backpack for a set of clothes.

He had bought them in advance with cash at a market in a remote town: the most ordinary blue work pants, a gray synthetic fiber jacket, and a pair of Liberation shoes.

There were no brand features, no unique signs of wear.

He put on the clothes and then set up the action camera.

The lens was aimed at the relatively open space in the center of the valley.

He pressed the record button.

Then he walked in front of the camera.

He needed to speak the following words with his own voice.

But not Chen Mo's voice.

He controlled his throat muscles, adjusting the vibration frequency of his vocal cords to a completely unfamiliar range.

The airway was deliberately altered to make the timbre deeper and raspier than before, carrying the unique coarseness of a middle-aged man.

"Hello, Cheng Jian."

"I have been observing you for a long time."

In the lens, this stranger stood in a clearing surrounded by dense forest, with the dim primeval forest behind him.

His physique was massive, his face was unfamiliar, and his voice sounded like sandpaper rubbing against rock.

Anyone who saw this video would not be able to find any shadow of Chen Mo in this image.

"By the time you see this video, the Xia Kingdom should have already announced the changes of the Spiritual Energy Revival."

"Yes. I call the source of the current changes Spiritual Qi. It will bring about the evolution of the entire planet."

"And what I want to tell you is a method that leads the whole world. At the same time, it should be the only Cultivation Technique capable of actively absorbing Spiritual Qi. It is something I realized and summarized through observing Spiritual Qi. I call it—the Human Breathing Method."

He paused, his tone calm.

"After successfully Cultivating through this method, the human body can actively absorb Spiritual Qi, initiating true evolution. The speed of absorbing Spiritual Qi is more than ten times that of passive reception. This can allow humanity, and the Xia Kingdom, to stand at the very forefront of evolution."

He continued.

"You might think I am joking right now."

"This video is left for you. Keep watching."

Chen Mo turned and walked toward the fir trees in the center of the valley.