Martial Arts Master

After coming back to his room, Lou Cheng changed his clothes for the navy blue Longhu Club martial arts suit. He was about to walk out of the door when he suddenly turned back to the bed. He took out two one-hundred-RMB bills from his wallet and put them together with the room card.

Mobile payment applications freed people from the need to carry cash most of the time. However, it was still better for travelers to take some bills with themselves when they were outdoors. After all, who knows what might happen when they were in unfamiliar territory?

Lou Cheng went down the stairs, got out of the hotel and into the fresh air. He took two deep breaths and felt refreshed both physically and mentally. After identifying his path through the thin mist at dawn, he started jogging slowly along the street on the right side according to the map he had seen earlier. After passing through two streets, he reached a temporarily empty square.

Lou Cheng found a corner and squared off to exercise his stance. Today’s stance training started from the Ying-yang Stance, with the main focus being the internal training of ‘Thunder Roar Zen’.

He visualized thunderclouds in his mind, vibrated his stomach muscles and caused a series of rhythmic, low thunderous rumbles to exit his throat. His muscles tightened and stretched occasionally to the rhythm of the sound, producing a slight internal vibration that tempered the bones, marrow, blood, and organs.

Compared with the old Lou Cheng who was facing Mo Zicong’s Elephant Trumpet, he now had condensed marrow and surging blood as if a wild river with natural exuberance, washing and polishing everywhere it flowed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Lou Cheng controlled his heartbeat slightly, making it race up for a while and then slow down for another. He did it to exercise other organs to coordinate the vibrating thunder sound, completing simultaneous peristalsis.

It was a sign of his martial arts penetrating into his bones and soon into his internals, the zenith of body refining. By then, he would achieve the integration of in-and-out of his body and made his strength all over built up in the chorus. That would enable him to manipulate the muscles and bones which were not easily controlled to realize something inconceivable.

For example, a fighter of Danqi State was able to curl his outer ear to cover itself.

Training time was always fleeting, fifty minutes as if in a flash. The moon left and the sun came, which lightened the sky and dispersed the mist. More and more morning exercisers, old and young, came to the square where there was only Lou Cheng here earlier.

The low thunder sound was sent out from Lou Cheng’s body, attracting passers-by’s attention. The faces of those who knew the martial arts turned colorless. They looked at Lou Cheng with reverence and admiration.

Long-time training did harm to the exercisers’ body. Lou Cheng slowed down his rolling blood and peristalsis of his stomach.

In the beginning, he could hold onto the internal training for twenty minutes. But for now, forty-seven or eight minutes was fine. It showed the improvement of his physique and the strengthening of his marrow, blood, viscera, and bowels.

He opened his eyes and started series of practice routines, from 24 Blizzard Strikes to Big or Small Hand Wrap, and to Thunder Roar Zen. He spent most of the time on the last one.

It seemed that no difficulties were on his way after crossing the threshold of Thunder Roar Zen. However, Lou Cheng had gained new understanding every day and dug out much inner aroma since he started practicing it. Until recently he thought he had mastered this skill a little bit.

Nevertheless, he underestimated the difficulty of integrating Thunder Roar Zen and Frost Force. He barely touched the threshold of Severe Warning, the killer move, with more than one-month hard work.

But Lou Cheng was not anxious about it. He was clear that his physical body had not reached the zenith of body refining, which was the basis of other improvements. His master had told him that Severe Warning was the simplified version of physical invulnerability moves, absolutely not that easy to grasp.

After he finished the whole set of routine exercise, he started to practice still stance again and cultivated Ice Mirror, because there were too many people passing by which made him unable to practice martial arts moves.

Lou Cheng tried again and again but failed as expected even with the help of the inward vision of Jindan. However, his sense organs such as eyes, ears, mouth, nose and his spirits were changing qualitatively in the long-time practices.

The young man let out a turbid breath and stopped his practice at 7:40. He wiped off his sweat and walked back to the hotel along the street with turned-off lamps, with high spirits, vigorous qi and blood and undefined confidence.

Lou Cheng felt that his relationship with Yan Zheke was too beautiful to let him believe it to be true and feel safe from the very beginning. It was just like a dream without anything left once he woke up. However, after their intense conversation last night, he realized that Yan Zheke had sacrificed a lot to keep their beautiful relationship with obedience, compromise, and tolerance. It would have induced quarrels, disputes or even break-up between them, a process from a quantitative change to a qualitative one, if he had not been aware of it, allowed it to sustain and not conducted himself better.

Ke’s words hurt him indeed. However, it was especially true that he would keep it in heart and every remembrance made him fear.

When the unreal veil of purity and beautifulness was raised up, the differences between men and women in thoughts and habits began to manifest themselves and they needed to run in with each other. Lou Cheng did not feel distressed, on the contrary, he felt peaceful because only in this way their relationship would last for long.

The fairy was always floating in the wind, far away to be touched. When his fairy came back to the earth as Yan Zheke, it would be the girl who he would spend the rest of his life with.

Yan Zheke talked it with him because she cared much about him and thought about their future.

Lou Cheng looked ahead confidently and his sense of insecurity of losing Yan Zheke had been easing up a lot.

Walking for a couple of minutes, he saw rows of breakfast stalls outside the district ahead. The food was steaming, a taste of life.

“What to eat? What brought to Ke?” Lou Cheng looked around and selected a noodle stall. He had a look and ordered a bowl of noodles with soybean paste and a blow with simmering beef.

The stall owner had seen too many customers who had a huge appetite. He did not ask Lou Cheng whether the food he ordered was for one or two. He just shouted out once happily, picked up sufficient noodles and put them into the big iron pot.

Lou Cheng sit down at a table casually, watching the poor employees who had to do overtime pick and choose on the breakfast stalls and then rush about on their way to work. He felt more at ease for some reason he did not know.

Two bowls of noodles were served soon. Lou Cheng took a picture of them, not in his hurry to eat. He intended to send it to Yan Zheke and ask her what she wanted to eat as breakfast. If she did not wake up, he would decide what to do with it.

He gorged on the noodles with many sounds made. The noodles of this stall had adequate ingredients, well-simmered beef, and delicious sauce. It was pretty good except the noodles of poor quality.

Lou Cheng finished the two bowls of noodles quickly and pulled out bills after confirming with the stall owner that he could not pay for the meal with mobile payment applications.

He then strolled about among the breakfast stalls at a leisurely pace, having a bowl of wonton and one portion of soup dumplings.

It reminded him that the company where his father worked in almost went bankrupt in the later years of his primary school life and during his junior high school time. Life was also hard for people who lived in the same district with his family, some going out for work, some starting to run small stalls to make a living. Therefore, he could see many acquaintances when he strolled about among the breakfast stalls outside the district and his school. They served Lou Cheng with breakfast for free when he had a normal appetite, not like the one nowadays who was able to eat the food from one stall after the other.

Wang Xu developed early and was strong enough to eat food from three or four stalls as his breakfast. His family was more badly off than Lou Cheng’s. He had to buy breakfast on credit sometimes, but he paid all back later. Even after he joined gangs, he was never a freeloader.

His good conduct in dealing with some details made Lou Cheng believe that he was not intrinsically bad.

When he was nearly full, Lou Cheng sent the picture to Yan Zheke on QQ and recommended the breakfasts that he identified as clean and tasty.

He put away his phone after waiting for Yan Zheke’s reply for several minutes. Lou Cheng came back to the stalls and ordered a portion of soup dumplings and a bowl of noodles with simmering beef.

He held the bags filled with two portions of food in his right hand and quickened his pace, trying to send it to Yan Zheke before it became cold and distasteful. When he was about to turn a corner, Lou Cheng suddenly heard somebody was shouting in panic.

“Thief!”

“There’s a thief!”

Uh… Lou Cheng turned around, raised his eyes and saw a girl in her twenties was staggering after a very thin young man.

Pursing his lips, he observed for a while and made two steps to the left. When the thief passed by, Lou Cheng stretched one of his feet to the side quietly.

Pong!

The young man stumbled and lost his balance at once. He was a little bit late to restore balance with his two-bit martial arts and felt on the ground severely. The girl was a couple of feet away in a moment.

The thief stood up hurriedly and took out a dagger from his waistband. He waved the dagger in a ferocious manner.

Lou Cheng stamped the ground and sprang at the thief swiftly. His left hand grasped the thief by his wrist and twisted it with delicate force. The dagger fell on the ground immediately.

Lou Cheng then slanted his body and knocked onto the thief slightly. The thief was almost stopped breathing and fell again. The girl caught him and took back her phone from his pocket.

Many people gathered to help and the thief was temporarily unable to hit back. Lou Cheng turned around and went away in his hurry to send the warm breakfast to his girlfriend.

His right hand kept the bags in balance in his smooth moves to fight with the thief. Not even a drop of soup spilled out.

Some passers-by helped the girl press the thief. She turned around quickly and shouted at the back of Lou Cheng.

“Thanks!”

“Wait!”

She was shouting while chasing after him. It seemed that she would like to thank the hero face to face.

Lou Cheng did not turn around. Instead, he quickened his pace, waved his left hand and said at ease,

“You’re very welcome!”

Call me a red scarf!

The girl was extremely worn out after chasing the thief for a long distance. She had to stop to catch her breath and seized the time to take a photo of Lou Cheng’s back.

Click!

The girl saw Lou Cheng wore navy blue Longhu Club martial arts suit which prevailed on the street and took two packaging boxes with his right hand. She let out a long breath and posted this picture in her friend circle with some words written down.

“An awesome deliveryman!”

…

Lou Cheng saw Yan Zheke’s reply when he almost came back at the hotel.

“Where are you, Cheng?” She sent a pathetic emoji.

“You are missing me?” Lou Cheng replied with a cheeky grin.

Yan Zheke replied with a pathetic emoji holding a handkerchief with teeth. “Hum. I feel a little afraid when I wake up in an unfamiliar place. I’m a little… a little missing you… ”

“Haha, I’m coming into the elevator!” It was the first time that Lou Cheng felt the attachment from a girl, which put him in an excellent mood.

It seemed that our relationship had moved further after the conversation last night.

Stopping at the door of Yan Zheke’s room, he knocked twice when the door was opened.

He saw Yan Zheke was smiling at him, wearing the set of light-color sleepwear with cartoon patterns on it. “I guess you bought me noodles, dumplings, and deep-fried dough sticks!”

“You are right, except the deep-fried dough sticks!” Lou Cheng laughed, “we have an unspoken consensus!”

“Haha… ” Yan Zheke laughed and took over the breakfast. She started to eat at table. Lou Cheng stood beside her and enjoyed watching his girlfriend gulping the meal.

He found Yan Zheke’s eye sockets were still slightly red and swollen. He said unwittingly,

“I thought you might cry last night… ”

Yan Zheke gently tapped her chin with the chopsticks. She said while thinking,

“I cry when reading novels or watching TV series, because it touches me. But I won’t cry because of grievance or pain. My threshold is quite high.”

“Humph, you want me to cry?”

“No. I’m just curious. I have never seen you cry since I knew you.” Lou Cheng smiled.

Yan Zheke took a soup dumpling and sent it to her mouth when she cast a glance at Lou Cheng.

After Yan Zheke finished her breakfast, Lou Cheng intended to come back to his room for a shower and to change his clothes. He planned to go into the mountain later.

Just a couple of steps he walked out of the door, he heard Yan Zheke called gently,

“Cheng… ”

“Uh?” Lou Cheng turned around, seeing the girl leaning on the door and showing up half of her red face. “What I want is more getting-along between us like what we did last night… ”

No desires, but heart-to-heart affinity.

“I like it, too.” Lou Cheng looked back at the girl, smiling.

What Yan Zheke said last night suddenly occurred to Lou Cheng’s mind for some reason that he did not know. “Sometimes, she doesn’t like me to be too affectionate toward her.”

So, for other times, she likes it?

Sigh, it was so complicated to make clear what girls were thinking about.

They smiled at each other and came back to their rooms respectively. Lou Cheng was about to take a shower when he heard his phone rang. He took the phone and found it was from the Casanova Little Ming.

“Talker, why are you not whispering sweet nothings to your girlfriend? Why do you call me early in the morning?” Lou Cheng taunted.

Cai Zongming gave an evil laugh. “When will you come back to Songcheng? My girlfriend thinks you as a helpful friend, because you exert a good influence on me, making me give up smoking and alcohol mostly and giving me new target and motivation. She wants to treat you to dinner as thanks. Um, it’s exactly what she said, not my thoughts. It’s me who is always teaching you as your affection adviser and helping you be mature, OK?”

“Holy crap! How arrogant you are… ” Lou Cheng almost burst out laughing, but he said with a tinge of emotion,

“So we are friend and mentor for each other?”

It is lucky for one to have a good friend. They help each other forward.

Cai Zongming remained silent for a while and said, “Cheng, do you still have a normal head? Are you possessed by goals? I think it quite normal for you to taunt me, call me bitch or let me get out. But the words “friend and mentor” should be uttered by your mouth. It is sickeningly disgusting and makes my hair stand on end.”

Lou Cheng’s sensation was thrown cold water on. He twitched his mouth. “I never see people ask for scolding rather than praise… ”

“All right. When will you come back to Songcheng?” Cai Zongming yawned.

“The afternoon of the 3rd.” Lou Cheng honestly replied.

“OK, I set the dinner at night. My girlfriend will come here by plane in the morning of the fourth. I give a warm welcome to Yan Zheke if she would like to. You will restrain yourself with her company. If you dare to say something bad about me, I’ll tell her your dark history!” Cai Zongming added “ferociously” and hung up the phone.

Lou Cheng held the phone and smiled. He was interested in this invitation not for some special reason but merely out of curiosity. He wanted to see what the girl was like who was able to make the Casanova yield.