53: Chapter 53, "Traditional Martial Arts," trended on social media, with related terms dominating search results.

"At the 13th second, 'Traditional Martial Arts' hit the third spot; at the 48th second, it reached number one; and now it has dominated the screen for a full ten minutes!" The operations director's fingernails scratched sparks against the touch screen. Real-time data showed that the search volume for the term had surpassed 800 million, far exceeding the all-time record. "User-generated content is increasing by 3 million entries per second. Our moderation System is about to collapse!"

Chen Wu's training hall was suddenly surrounded by drones. Hundreds of aircraft hovered over the courtyard walls, their lenses aimed at the "Wu" character pattern on the blue-brick floor—a mark the veterans had pieced together using bayonets and brick dust, now being transmitted globally across countless screens. A streamer climbed over the wall with a phone in hand, only to be nearly struck by Grandpa Wang's long-stemmed pipe: "Youngster, learn martial virtue before learning martial arts. What kind of skill is climbing walls?"

On the cherry blossom avenues of Tokyo, girls in kimonos held up their phones to dance the "Stamping and Grinding Step." A beauty blogger's "Baji Fist Makeup" tutorial suddenly went viral; the eyeliner had to be drawn like the trajectory of Qi Energy, and the blush had to mimic the flush on Chen Wu's face when he exerted force. The background music in the video was actually Grandpa Wang humming the Baji Fist mnemonic, which surprisingly harmonized with the Japanese subtitles.

A peculiar phenomenon emerged in the discussions surrounding the "Traditional Martial Arts" tag: 70% of the participants were middle-aged people over 35. They posted photos of their long-forgotten martial arts uniforms, yellowing boxing manuals, and even the rulers used by their Master to discipline them in childhood. A comment from a certain entrepreneur received 10 million likes: "Today I traded my Mercedes for a bicycle, rode to the park, and practiced a set of Tai Chi. It felt better than signing a billion-dollar contract."

In the big data center of the Bureau of Abnormal Incident Management, Lin Xue stared at the jumping hot word cloud on the screen. The characters "Traditional Martial Arts" were enveloped in a cyan-gold halo, and surrounding terms like "Brute Force," "peace lock," and "Qi Energy" were constantly expanding, even swallowing up the previously dominant keywords like "Grey Shadow" and "Genetic Warrior." "This is the best defense," she whispered into the microphone, smiling. "When the whole world is discussing how to practice martial arts, who will still pay attention to those schemes and plots?"

Long queues suddenly formed at old-fashioned martial arts halls in Shanghai. A 60-year-old retired teacher arrived at three in the morning to save a spot, clutching a registration receipt from 1982: "I didn't get to learn when I was sent to the countryside, but now that my grandson is about to be born, I have to leave something behind for the child." The hall Master's grandson was using a live-streaming device to display ancient boxing manuals in the hall. When the camera swept over a certain page, the barrage comments exploded—it contained annotations from Chen Wu's grandfather, the handwriting identical to Chen Wu's.

In a tent school at an African refugee camp, a volunteer used a branch to teach "Cloud Hands" in the sand. On the children's uniforms, a simplified peace lock was painted in red. The youngest boy always mispronounced "Qi Energy" as "balloon," yet he could accurately set up the starting stance for the "Cross-Strike." When the satellite signal transmitted the image of the "Traditional Martial Arts" trending search, they collectively raised their branches and shouted at the sky: "Chinese Martial Arts, never surrender!"

The front page of The New York Times published an unprecedented breakdown diagram of Chen Wu's "Crushing Fist." The science editor used a full page to explain the possible physical principles of "Qi Energy." Although most were speculations, it sparked a special seminar at MIT. A physicist initiated a "Finding Qi Energy Particles" initiative on Twitter, which received joint support from 20 Nobel laureates. Someone in the comments section joked: "Maybe Newton didn't discover it back then because he never practiced Baji Fist."

In Zhang Tao's interrogation room, the television was playing news about Traditional Martial Arts. Seeing footage of a martial arts student using the "Mountain-Leaning Strike" to push a truck, this criminal, who had been resisting all along, suddenly covered his face and wept. Surveillance showed his heart rate returned to normal at that moment, and the dark green toxin under his fingernails disappeared completely—it was the emotional fluctuations stirred by the words "Traditional Martial Arts" that had accomplished a detoxification that even medicine could not.

The "Traditional Martial Arts Challenge" topic on Douyin surpassed 50 billion views. Delivery riders jumped into a "Cross-Strike" while delivering food, square-dancing aunts incorporated Tai Chi into their fitness routines, and even babies who had just learned to walk were guided by their parents to gesture the "Cloud Hands." The algorithm of a certain platform suddenly discovered that when playing content related to Traditional Martial Arts, users' blood pressure, heart rate, and other physiological indicators became more stable, so it automatically pushed related videos to patients with high blood pressure.

Grandpa Wang's courtyard became an internet-famous check-in spot. Tourists bowed to the bronze statue and posed like Chen Wu, but no one dared to touch the pile of broken bricks—the old man had erected a wooden sign next to the brick pile: "This is the touchstone for Brute Force; those with improper intentions will be injured if they approach." A nosy person didn't believe it and was repelled by Qi Energy the moment they reached out. Their phone dropped to the ground, the screen facing the "Traditional Martial Arts" trending search page.

The Global Martial Arts System's points mall suddenly listed a new item: "Traditional Martial Arts Legacy Gift Pack." It contained virtual boxing manuals, protective gear blueprints, and even online guidance from old boxing Masters. The most popular feature was the "Qi Energy Detection"—users uploaded videos of themselves practicing, and the System used Chen Wu's Brute Force parameters to compare and score them. A certain country's president had a test result showing "Qi Energy Purity 3%," and the tweet with the caption "Still need to work hard" gained 50 million interactions.

The veterans at the nursing home formed a "Traditional Martial Arts Outreach Team." Old Zhao brought a bayonet to the community park to perform "Military Boxing." In the sunlight reflected by the blade, one could always see the flow of cyan-gold Qi Energy. When young people questioned that it was just for show and not practical, the veterans used their bayonets to carve Tai Chi diagrams into steel plates. Every scratch was identical to the trajectory of Chen Wu's Qi Energy, scaring the skeptics into becoming apprentices on the spot.

Li Meng's hospital room became a special live-streaming studio. The teenager sat in a wheelchair, teaching netizens "Tai Chi Cloud Hands." The red string of the peace lock was wrapped around the IV tube, stirring up tiny vortices of Qi Energy in the medication. When he said, "Traditional Martial Arts is not used to defeat anyone, but to protect those you want to protect," the number of online viewers suddenly exceeded 10 million. The screen was filled with virtual gifts, all cyan-gold "rockets."

The dark web forum of the Gray Shadow Organization was silent. The originally lively "Genetic Warrior" discussion area now only had sporadic posts of doubt. A member anonymously uploaded Chen Wu's interview video. The replies below changed from "fake propaganda" to "perhaps we were wrong." When the screenshot of the "Traditional Martial Arts" trending search was posted, the entire forum suddenly fell into a two-hour silence before automatically disbanding.

In the martial arts museum late at night, the curator discovered that the exhibits were secretly "practicing." The bronze sword vibrated gently in the display case, emitting a buzzing sound at the same frequency as the "Crushing Fist"; cyan-gold powder, identical to that on Chen Wu's palms, seeped from between the fingers of the Republic-era boxing gloves. Most miraculously, that copy of "Baji Fist Essentials" automatically turned to the "Traditional Martial Arts" chapter, where the blank spaces were filled with messages from netizens around the world, written in different languages but with the same meaning: "Martial arts are not dead."

As Chen Wu was practicing under the moonlight in the training hall, Lin Mo suddenly rushed in holding a tablet. The top ten trending searches on the screen were all related to Traditional Martial Arts, and there were even ridiculous terms like "Chen Wu's signature long-stemmed pipe." "Brother Wu, look," the teenager pointed to a piece of news, "UNESCO is going to list Chinese Martial Arts as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the nomination reason is 'a spiritual force that promotes global peace.'"

When "Traditional Martial Arts" dominated the charts for over 24 hours, a data analysis company released a peculiar report: globally, domestic violence incidents decreased by 17%, neighborhood disputes reduced by 23%, and even stock market volatility dropped by 5 percentage points. The conclusion was: "The emotional peace brought by collective martial arts practice may be more effective than any economic policy."

Chen Wu's grandfather suddenly appeared in the training hall. The old man was carrying an old wooden box containing a yellowing photo album—the first page was Chen Wu's father in 1953, wearing crotchless pants and practicing the "Cross-Strike"; the last page was taken yesterday, with Li Meng gesturing "Cloud Hands" in his hospital room. "Traditional Martial Arts," the old man stroked the photos with his calloused hands, "has never been just a term on a trending search; it is a thought passed down from generation to generation."

The global live-streaming platform suddenly launched a "Traditional Martial Arts Relay" event. From members of the Antarctic research station practicing Tai Chi to astronauts on the space station demonstrating "Qi Energy" in a weightless state, it finally returned to Chen Wu's training hall. When his "Crushing Fist" landed on the wooden dummy, the 10 million people participating in the relay globally exerted force simultaneously. Virtual Qi Energy formed a giant Earth in cyberspace, with every continent glowing with cyan-gold light.

In the real-time data of the trending search list, a touching change appeared: in the discussions about the "Traditional Martial Arts" tag, the proportion of "how to practice" dropped from 80% to 30%, while the proportion of "why to practice" continued to rise. A comment that received 50 million likes wrote: "My grandfather practiced martial arts all his life and never broke a blue brick, but he used his fists to protect my grandmother when she was harassed by thugs. This is the best Traditional Martial Arts."

In front of Grandpa Wang's bronze statue, a pile of stones appeared at some point. Each stone was engraved with the name of a martial arts practitioner—some were seven or eight-year-old children, others were sixty or seventy-year-old seniors. The stone at the very top was engraved with Chen Wu's name, and next to it was written in small characters: "It is not because you broke the blue bricks, but because you reminded us that we also once had something we wanted to protect."

When the first ray of morning light illuminated the trending search list again, the "Traditional Martial Arts" tag remained firmly in first place. But those who clicked on it would find that the content had changed from initial amazement to calm sharing: where there were Tai Chi classes in parks, which martial arts halls were teaching for free, and even single mothers recording their daily routines of practicing with their children.

Chen Wu looked at the scrolling terms on the screen and suddenly understood the true meaning of "dominating the screen." It was not about making the whole world recognize the magic of Chinese Martial Arts, but about letting everyone who saw these two words remember the power in their own Bloodline—that force capable of shattering prejudice, resisting darkness, and protecting what is beautiful. It never needed a trending search to prove it, because it had always been there, in the heart of everyone willing to believe in the words "Traditional Martial Arts."

In the sycamore tree outside the training hall, a flock of sparrows landed at some point. They chirped as they watched Chen Wu practice, then suddenly flew up together, forming a blurry "Wu" character in the morning light. After circling three times, they flew off into the distance, as if carrying this Legacy to every corner of the world. And the "Traditional Martial Arts" tag on the trending search list was still quietly glowing, like an inextinguishable lighthouse, illuminating the path for countless people searching for their original intentions.