blueteamnovel Chapter 77 Playing with Toys
Chapter 77 Playing with Toys
The afternoon of the day after the agreement was reached.
Ling Kuo appeared in the courtyard right on time.
Unlike his previous silent observation from afar, this time he walked straight to the center of the lawn and squatted down in front of Jiang Yun.
His knees, clad in military uniform, were pressed against the damp grass and stained with mud, but he didn't care.
"Don't rush to stand up."
The first words he uttered stunned Jiang Yun, who was about to demonstrate the Heavenly Starfall technique.
Ling Kuo raised her hand, placed two fingers on Jiang Yun's forearm, and gently pinched it.
The force was controlled with extreme precision, neither hurting the baby nor irritating the subcutaneous muscle fibers.
"A bone density of 1.2 is already monstrous for a two-month-old baby."
He withdrew his hand, his tone as calm as if he were reading a medical report.
"But your muscles and nervous system are in terrible shape. Even if your bones have a stardust-like power to protect your muscles."
Jiang Yun: "..."
"The bones are like the car's engine, the muscles are like the control system, and the nervous system is like the driver. No matter how good the engine is, if the driver and the control system are not good, it will wobble as soon as you start driving."
Ling Kuo extended her index finger and gently nudged Jiang Yun's shoulder.
Jiang Yun leaned back and landed hard on the cushion.
...Okay, it is indeed shaky.
"Your current state," Ling Kuo straightened up, standing with her hands behind her back, "is such that you can't run, and you can't hit your target.
"That chop to the neck yesterday—"
Jiang Yun's heart tightened; he was referring to Tianxingluo.
"--The power is not bad, but the control is terrible."
Ling Kuo walked to the ironwood tree with the white scratch from yesterday and pointed to the hair-thin scratch: "You originally wanted to cut here."
His finger moved down two inches.
"The actual cut was made here. It was off by almost three centimeters."
Jiang Yun opened her mouth, wanting to explain something, but after carefully recalling the feeling when she made her move yesterday...
It seems I didn't actually switch to the position I was aiming for.
"Three centimeters, on the battlefield, is the difference between the head and the shoulders."
Ling Kuo's voice was flat. "One strike, and you either die instantly or expose an opening and get killed. There is no middle ground."
He squatted down again, looking Jiang Yunping in the eye.
"So, the first lesson—"
Jiang Yun sat up straight, ready for anything.
"Be a good baby."
"……what?"
Ling Kuo took something out from behind her back.
It is a fluffy, pink bunny doll.
Its ears drooped softly, its black bean-like eyes were bright and shiny, its belly was round and plump, its limbs were short, and when you pinched it, it made a "chirp" sound.
Extremely childlike.
Extremely cute.
"Pinch it."
Jiang Yun stared at the pink rabbit, then looked up at Ling Kuo's cold, hard face, which was as if carved by a knife.
The contrast left him momentarily at a loss for what expression to make.
"Use your right hand, only your thumb and forefinger, to pinch its left ear, but don't flatten it."
Ling Kuo's tone was exactly the same as the deployment of the battle plan.
"Hold for three seconds. Release. Then pinch your right ear. Also, hold for three seconds."
"Then switch to your left hand."
Repeat thirty times.
Jiang Yun stretched out her little hand, her two chubby fingers pinching the pink rabbit's ears.
I grabbed it, but I didn't control my strength well and ended up squeezing the whole ear into my palm.
"Relax. Start again."
Jiang Yun loosened her grip, then squeezed again.
This time I only managed to pinch the tip of the ear, but my fingers trembled and it slipped away again.
"Again."
The third time, he concentrated all his attention and carefully brought his thumb and forefinger together.
I've got it.
One second. Two seconds.
My fingers are shaking.
three seconds.
"loose."
Jiang Yun exhaled, her fingertips already slightly red.
This is even more tiring than getting a set of meteorite bones.
"Do you understand now?"
Ling Kuo looked at his hand,
"Your bone strength is enough to leave a scratch on ironwood, but your muscle precision is so poor that you would have trouble even pinching a rabbit's ear."
"How can someone who can't even hold a rabbit's ears steady talk about swordsmanship control?"
Jiang Yun remained silent.
He did indeed overlook this.
His past life experiences and his current wisdom have made him far superior to his peers in terms of mental capacity, but the muscles, tendons, and nerve endings of this body are only at the developmental stage of a little over two months.
The bones were strengthened by the meteorite bone and the innate Dao body, but the soft tissues did not keep up at all.
It's like a supercomputer connected to a copper wire for data transmission; no matter how powerful the computing power is, it's all in vain if the bandwidth is insufficient.
There are no shortcuts to muscle training and neural development.
Ling Kuo stood up, picked up a cloth bag from the side, and dumped it onto the lawn with a thud.
Dolls of various colors, wooden building blocks, rubber balls, rattles with bells...
A bunch of baby toys.
They're all the most common kind available on the market.
"One hour of grasping training every day, starting with the simplest pinching, holding, lifting, and releasing."
He picked up a fist-sized triangular building block and placed it in front of Jiang Yun.
"Pick it up with your five fingers. Don't support it with your palm, just lift it with your fingertips."
"Pick it up and put it in the red bowl on the left."
"Take it out of the bowl and put it in the blue bowl on the right."
"One hundred times back and forth."
Jiang Yun: "..."
Isn't this just like the brain-training exercises in kindergarten?
He looked at the colorful toys scattered all over the floor, then glanced at Ling Kuo's unchanging, icy face, and the sense of absurdity in his heart just wouldn't go away.
"This ball," Ling Kuo picked up another smooth metal ball, "pinch it with your fingertips, don't let it roll, and don't let it touch your palm."
He paused, then pointed to a yellow rubber screeching duck next to him.
"And this too. Squeeze it a hundred times, and the duck's body shouldn't show any obvious deformation."
So, over the next hour, an extremely bizarre scene unfolded in the courtyard of the family quarters in the eastern section of the Imperial Star Military Region compound.
A general as tall as an iron tower stood with his hands behind his back, like a statue, coldly looking down.
A baby, just over two months old, sat amidst a pile of colorful toys, his brow furrowed and his forehead covered in a fine sheen of sweat.
He used his chubby little fingers again and again to pinch building blocks, grab plush toys, and struggle with a slippery glass ball.
Around two or three in the afternoon, it's the time when the families in the compound return from grocery shopping.
Several middle-aged women carrying shopping baskets passed by; they were all family members of government agencies or research institutes, and they knew each other well.
"Oh, isn't that General Ling? Seemingly enjoying some free time today, playing with her grandson?"
A young woman with a refined and scholarly demeanor greeted him with a smile.
"Old Ling's little grandson is really handsome. Look at his appearance, he's sure to amount to something in the future," another person chimed in.
Their gaze fell on the lawn, where they saw a delicately sculpted doll clumsily moving a building block from a bowl on the left to the right, looking incredibly adorable.
No one knows what kind of torment that baby, who is playing and sweating profusely, is going through at that moment.
Holding the triangular blocks from above looks simple, and his bones are thick, but it puts a great strain on his muscle control.
And that screaming duck is even more of a devil.
If you use too little force, it won't make a sound.
With increased strength, he squeezed the whole duck into a pancake, making a muffled "pfft" sound as he farted, and Ling Kuo's deathly gaze swept over him.
To make it produce a crisp "crack" sound without deforming it requires an abnormally high level of explosive power and control in the fingertips.
Needless to say, metal balls and plush toys are another story.
I finally got to practice everything once, and after resting for a short while, I was asked to play with building blocks again.
He felt a wave of despair.
I, with my dignified innate Dao body, had already reached the second level of Body Tempering while still in my mother's womb. I possess the Heavenly Starfall and can borrow the supernatural powers of the Dao.
But now, on the lawn of the Imperial Star Military Region compound, they are seriously... playing with toys.
But he didn't complain.
Ling Kuo is right. If the foundation is not solid, the higher the building is built, the harder it will fall.
If Ling Kuo hadn't reminded him, he might have had to suffer several setbacks before he learned these things, and now he's just avoiding some detours.