The Limits of Human Strength—How Much Can It Bear? Hundreds of Jin? Thousands? Strictly speaking, it is infinite.
My name is Jenny Jane, a security observer dispatched by the United Nations Security Council to Country C. My duty is to monitor the activities of local individuals with extraordinary abilities, so that we might learn how to handle certain special incidents.
My colleagues here, however, preferred to give me a name that rolled more smoothly off the tongue—Jian Zhenli, derived from the phonetic sound of my original name.
Strictly speaking, I was not merely an observer. Rather, I was more like a foreigner given the chance to study, in detail and in depth, a peculiar field they themselves called the Jianghu.
Thanks to a relatively "clean" résumé—Pulitzer nominee, veteran reporter of international crisis response missions, with fair reviews of my work—the locals treated me with courtesy. To be fair, they extended the same courtesy to any international guest. I was no exception.
Before my first close encounter with their so-called Jianghu, the department chief responsible for liaising with me offered a cryptic remark:
"Ms. Jian, this Jianghu is separated from real history by nothing more than a thin veil. From either side, one can faintly glimpse the other's outline."
A veil's distance.
His words conjured the image of interwoven threads on a tapestry—different yet entangled, coexisting side by side. But you know how it is: nothing in this world proceeds smoothly. Where there are people, there are misunderstandings, disputes—what they call Jianghu.
That day it was raining. Crowds pressed in layer upon layer.
In the front row stood special crisis-response personnel in Zhongshan suits—called "masters" internally, though outsiders referred to them simply as "insiders."
Behind them, armed police and public security officers kept tense watch, fingers on their triggers.
In the outermost ring were the non-combatants—officials, clerks, and liaisons like myself.
Opposite us stood locals clad in Daoist robes, men and women, young and old. Of course, there was no shortage of "third parties" eager to stir up trouble.
Don't ask me how I spotted them right away. Anyone with an IQ over 80 could see the difference between those sharp-suited foreigners and the locals with their simpler dress.
According to my chief, one sect—that is, one association of gifted individuals—had fallen into a grave misunderstanding with the authorities, and certain ill-intentioned actors had twisted it further.
Years of reclusion had left these sect leaders unable to grasp the government's deeper motives for reconciliation, but the whispers of schemers reached their ears with unnerving clarity.
Let me cut straight to the end…
I had never been so close to such a confrontation. Everything happened too fast. A sudden blast—a soundwave that shook the very air—knocked me unconscious before I could even react.
The last image burned into my vision was a plaque inscribed with "Vanished Clouds of Yesterday", crashing down toward a group of children. At the same time, the opposing crowds surged in the same direction, racing to shield them.
Distant shouts thundered in my ears, yet grew fainter, farther away…
The official report noted multiple injuries and partial structural damage. The disaster was contained to a minimum. The so-called "suit-wearing birds"—the foreign troublemakers—were blacklisted and permanently expelled.
Soon after, the local government built a Hope Elementary near the sect's compound, followed by a middle and then a high school. The sect's reclusive leader, aged ninety-eight, proudly earned his high-school diploma there. His grades, I heard, were respectable, if somewhat unbalanced.
When I awoke, the first thing I did was clutch the arm of the chief sitting at my bedside and demand:
"What was that?"
"Nothing—merely the usual Jianghu dispute…" he replied.
"I mean that force… that burst out of nowhere!" I interrupted, unable to hide my impatience.
The chief studied me in surprise, then, with a faint gleam of admiration, said:
"Ms. Jian, how much do you think the limit of human strength weighs? Hundreds of Jin? Thousands? Strictly speaking—it is without end."
"You mean a force flowing freely through nature?" I asked, puzzled.
"Not from nature. From within. And it does not flow everywhere—it can be guided, channeled through the meridians of the body. This is internal energy. Humanity's inward journey is as boundless as its exploration of the cosmos."
"Inward exploration… boundless?"
A strange thought compelled me to ask a question he found naïve:
"Then how many people in this country are born with such energy?"
"Internal energy is not innate. It is cultivated."
"Anyone can cultivate it?"
He did not answer directly. I found out myself, later, in the field.
There was a boy, fifteen or sixteen. He had watched his parents slaughtered by an overseas sect for the sake of a martial manuscript called The Dragon-Subduing Palm. They had already stolen every digital copy on a USB drive, yet they still pursued the source. Perhaps to erase the lineage of its transmission—or for reasons deeper still.
That night, in Xinjiang Province near the western border, we found their corpses—those foreign "beasts"—in an abandoned refinery. Snake-tattoos on their bodies identified their sect. Each skull had been shattered by an immense force of internal energy.
Their cranial cavities were pulp; their faces unrecognizable. Their heads, swollen like water-filled balloons, leaked a viscous fluid—red, yellow, and white—oozing slowly from eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths.
I had been a war correspondent. I'd seen dismembered corpses, burned remains. But even my seasoned gut revolted.
The local breakfast specialty, "milk-skin porridge," came back up violently. To my horror, its pale, curdled texture resembled the sludge leaking from those ruined heads. Soon, my colleagues joined me, retching helplessly.
The boy, however, paid us no mind. Kneeling eastward, toward the coming dawn, he kowtowed three times, then lifted his gaze to the starlit sky.
He must have known we were there. I did not doubt he could sense our ragged breaths, our racing hearts, from hundreds of meters away.
"My parents told me, when they die, they will become stars in the sky and stay with me."
"…My condolences," I stammered in imperfect Mandarin, carefully choosing the words.
"I have company. But my parents would be lonely. So I sent some others up there, to be stars for them."
Terror froze my mind. My training alone kept me from doing something reckless. Behind me, my colleagues and the "masters" flailed in panic, signaling for me to withdraw.
But the boy only looked at me and smiled, relieved. From that smile, I knew I was safe.
"Sister, look—the stars. Some bright, some dim. People meet and part, just the same, don't you think?"
"…Yes," I whispered.
"Will I ever see them again?"
"You will. Your parents are the brightest two stars in the sky," I said, daring to place a hand on his shoulder. Perhaps I meant it more for myself—pretending he was only a child—so that I could step into the role of an elder, steady my heart, and do my job.
In the end, the boy was taken quietly into custody. He did not resist, obediently allowing the police to clasp the special shackles around his wrists.
Had it not been for the fingerprint results linking him to the scene, I could never have imagined this child as a killer.
My fellow "masters" later told me he had lived an ordinary life, grades average, sports average, looks average. The year tragedy struck, he had been preparing for his entrance exams. His parents had high hopes. His youth might well have gone on a normal track.