Sirius Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Anguish

Read chapter 3 of Sirius by Dealer on NovelPedia.

Saying goodbye to Tai Lung, Li immediately headed for the exit; he wanted to recover the lost money as fast as possible. "Where do you think you're going?" Jihan turned to the side. An old man was leaning against a support column near the office. "Jhin? I'm busy right now, I need to get out of here..." he answered. "Get out of here, my foot. You're late! You really think you're skipping training again?" Tsc "No grumbling, kid; we should've started over an hour ago!" "Yeah, yeah..." Li answered, tucking the cash package into his waistband and walking toward the old man. "So, what's on the menu today?" "Being late! That's what's on the menu!" "Come on, I really need to" "This." Jhin tossed a pair of gloves to Li. "You need training!" "But you only ever make me drill the basics every single day..." Li thought to himself. "Don't make that face again," the old man complained. "What face?" "The one that says 'you only make me drill the basics every single day'!" "This old man reads minds?" he thought, startled by his teacher's intuition. "But... isn't it true? I mean, how many times have I gone through those movements?" "You keep going through them because you haven't actually learned them!" he shot back. "If you'd learned anything in the last ten years, I'd have moved on to something new by now!" "Are you serious? I can perfectly replicate our weekly training session!" "That's exactly the problem!" Jhin stepped closer to help him tie his gloves. "Listen, kid; what you're missing is vision. You know the moves, but you can't absorb the training. Repeating an action is not the same as learning it." "Old man, you make less sense every day..." "Think of it this way: when you read something in a language you don't fully know, you have to go through a process of translating it into something you understand." Pointing to his own head, he continued. "What I want you to do is skip the translation step. Grasp the meaning from a single glance." "Hm..." "You have talent, Li; nobody can take that away." Jhin placed his hands on the young man's shoulders. "But you've got some things holding you back, things that keep you from seeing the full picture. You need to let go of whatever's keeping you chained..." "I can't make heads or tails of your riddles, old man..." Li thought about saying that, but something different came out of his mouth. "I understand. I'll try, I promise!" The teacher, sensing his advice hadn't truly landed, didn't push it. 'If it doesn't come from your own will, you'll never get it...' Training went on as usual; Jhin stopping him occasionally to complain about his posture and his movements, practically the same as every other day, except for the restlessness the old man noticed in the boy. Li had known his teacher for over a decade. They trained every day, five hours a day, seven days a week, thirty days a month, every single day. "What's wrong with you today?" he asked. His movements were more unfocused than usual. "What do you mean, old man?" He really couldn't focus. The argument and the decision from earlier had left him unsettled. "I'm fine; let's keep going, we're almost done." "Kid, I've known you for about ten years. You really think I wouldn't notice if something was off?" Li wasn't sure whether to tell the truth, but he doubted his teacher would approve of his decision to throw a fight. No master trains a student to do something as shameful as fixing results. "Listen, kid; sit down here." Jhin pointed to the bench by the wall. Li finished the exercise he was doing and sat. "You're almost twenty, and I have to do what nobody else will; knock some sense into that head of yours," he continued. "There are moments in life when you're going to have to make difficult decisions. Necessary ones." As he spoke, Li watched him, unsure whether the old man already knew about the argument or not. 'This old man is a sorcerer, no doubt about it.' "In those moments, your head and that memory of yours won't give you the answer." The te