On the eighth day, it was a day of rest. Coach William Clark said that all members of the training class should completely relax for a day, sleep and rest. In both civil and martial pursuits, there must be a balance between tension and relaxation. After seven days of hard farm work, everyone was wound up tight and needed to relax to recover their energy.

However, Scott Miller had prepared a physical training plan for himself, planning to do push-ups, squats, barbell lifts, crunches, planks, and more. He didn’t want to waste any time, but his phone was broken, so he asked James Carter to help him buy one in town.

“No problem.” James Carter’s own training wasn’t that complicated; he figured that the hoeing and digging move could be practiced anywhere.

The school was five or six kilometers from the town, with no buses, let alone a subway. Generally, if students wanted to go to town to buy things, they either called a nearby farmer’s motorcycle or ran there themselves.

After eating, James Carter decided to walk to town. As he walked, he could practice the hoeing and digging motion.

Recently, he had come up with some insights into the offensive and defensive aspects of this move.

Raising the hoe was actually a blocking motion, then stepping forward and swinging down was the attack. When someone punches at you, you raise your arm to block quickly, then chop forward fiercely.

Block, attack.

You could also attack directly.

The movement was simple, like an ordinary person flailing wildly in a fight, but on closer thought, this move contained human instinct. Moreover, Coach William Clark had explained in detail the power generation techniques and training points for this move: when raising the hand, the arc should spiral upward, shooting toward the sky like a rocket, to leverage the body’s strength; when bringing it down, it should be as swift as thunder, like an eagle swooping on a rabbit; when retracting, you should grab and step to turn the soil over for deep plowing.

These things, when applied to combat, were very useful.

However, William Clark only focused on how to dig more efficiently and with less effort, never mentioning fighting at all.

Fortunately, James Carter was good at learning. He searched for information online, watched videos of martial arts masters, and gained insights while acting as a punching bag for Scott Miller. Gradually, he realized that this move was indeed full of subtlety.

Just the simple motions of raising the hand, dropping it, stepping forward, and digging seemed to have many variations.

He now eagerly hoped that a true expert could explain this move to him. Unfortunately, if he asked William Clark, he definitely wouldn’t say anything.

James Carter could tell that William Clark’s martial arts class only taught training methods and would never tell you how to fight.

It was still the same saying: they teach you how to make money, but when it comes to spending it, you have to figure it out yourself.

Step by step, digging as he went, James Carter left the school and headed toward town, not caring at all about the looks from others. Of course, in this area, it was all martial arts schools, martial arts culture was strong, and people running while kicking, practicing boxing, sanda, and even doing somersaults could be seen on the road. James Carter was actually pretty normal.

It took James Carter a long time to reach the town.

The town was bustling, full of shops and people, and even some high-end hotels. Most of the people were foreign tourists.

James Carter had no intention of strolling around the town. He bought a phone for Scott Miller and headed back. His time was tight; he had to make some progress in his skills during the two-month summer break.

“Thirsty, I’ll buy a bottle of water first.”

He was sweating from his walk and feeling thirsty, so he stopped by a roadside convenience store, spent three yuan on a bottle of mineral water, and gulped it down. In this hot weather, water loss was fast.

“This one? Ten yuan a bottle.”

At that moment, a foreigner also came to buy water, but the shopkeeper directly quoted ten yuan. James Carter heard this and turned around sharply, ready to say something, but held back. He knew that the shopkeepers here were all locals, and causing trouble might get him beaten up.

This foreigner was a middle-aged man, about forty-something, carrying a large travel backpack—clearly a tourist, and alone. He didn’t speak when buying, just pointed with his finger, apparently not very fluent in Chinese.

The shopkeeper gestured ten yuan, and he didn’t bargain, just bought the water and left.

James Carter quickly caught up, put together seven yuan of his own, and spoke fluent English: “Hi, sir, the shopkeeper just now made a mistake. It should be three yuan a bottle. Let me return the extra money to you.”

“Interesting, interesting.” The middle-aged foreigner turned around and, to James Carter’s surprise, spoke standard, fluent Mandarin, as clear as a TV news anchor: “Young man, it wasn’t the shopkeeper who gave you the money, it was you who paid out of your own pocket. Your English is pretty good.”

Hearing this, James Carter blushed, but quickly recovered: “I didn’t expect you to speak such good Chinese, sir. We Chinese are actually very nice people. That shopkeeper was probably just being a little greedy—don’t think we’re all like that. My name is James Carter. The ‘Su’ with the grass radical, and the ‘Jie’ without the ‘li’ radical.” He gestured to explain his name.