Monkey by Stone Jeff

Author:Stone, Jeff [Stone, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Speculative Fiction, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781417767199
Publisher: Yearling
Published: 2005-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

Very little time had passed, but Ying knew his world had changed forever. As he lay on his sleeping mat inside his tent, he rode a wave of emotions he had never known. He tried his best to relax, but nothing seemed to work. He was just too excited.

Now I know how Malao feels most of the time, Ying joked with himself. Pity I'll never get to tell him.

Ying was immersed in reading the first dragon scroll. His brain absorbed the information like a thirsty sea sponge. For the first time ever, Ying felt a connection with something. It wasn't a person or a place, it was a philosophy—an approach to life outlined within the first dragon scroll. He had always assumed the secret scrolls for each animal kung fu style contained advanced fighting techniques—and they did—but they also contained other things: mental guidelines, spiritual guidelines, and much, much more.

Back at Cangzhen, Ying had always been criticized for focusing all his energy on the martial aspects of his eagle-style training. He had ignored the mental and spiritual components, but he had had good reason— the fighting component was the only part that had ever made sense to him.

But now that he was reading the first dragon scroll, Ying was beginning to understand that there was more to kung fu than fighting. Having the nonfighting elements explained in a manner that his inner dragon could comprehend made all the difference. In fact, even the eagle-style fighting techniques he had perfected over time didn't make as much sense as the fighting philosophies described in the first dragon scroll. Ying now saw why dragon-style kung fu was considered the most powerful.

A dragon stylist's life was to be a rich combination of all things: positive and negative, internal and external, hard and soft. At the very surface was the self-defense component, which took the best attributes of the most effective animal kung fu styles known. Dragon-style kung fu involved the use of pressure-point attacks and joint locks from the eagle-style arsenal, pinpoint strikes from the crane style, heavy-handed blows from the tiger style, and circular evasion movements from the snake style, all combined with the unpredictability of the monkey style.

Beyond the fighting techniques, Ying saw another side of martial training he never knew existed: leadership skills. He had had no idea that some people considered leadership an art. The first scroll outlined numerous psychological techniques that could be used to convince men to do what you wanted them to do. There was even a section on psychological warfare.

Ying could feel his power increasing with every line he read. He was more certain than ever that he was born to be a dragon. Strangely enough, some of the psychological techniques Ying read in the scroll were techniques he recognized Tonglong used when directing soldiers. Ying decided to pay closer attention to Tonglong.

Ying closed his eyes. Once his brothers were out of the picture, he would accept the title of General and become the youngest leader ever to report directly to an emperor.

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