Challenge

There was nothing much happening in the world. The one making trouble was Jiaming himself.

The Huang Family's New Year was a complicated affair, but for an unimportant child like Jiaming, it was easy enough to avoid most of it. The only things he had to attend were the ancestral rites, the New Year's Eve dinner, and visiting relatives for red envelopes the next day. Whenever Huang Haobing and the other children saw him, they looked like they wanted to beat him up but did not dare, which was utterly hilarious. They were like a husband dumped by his wife, who now wanted to hit her every time he saw her after she remarried—except her new husband was rather fierce, so he could only bury that thought in his heart and show it on his face, never daring to act on it.

He had no affection for that large family. After collecting several red envelopes on the first day of the New Year, Lingjing called him to the martial arts school, and from then on, he spent practically every day there. The school was called the Ye Family Martial Arts School. The front was a training hall, separated from the living quarters at the back by a courtyard. There were not many martial arts students during the New Year. Aside from Lingjing monopolizing the small ring every day, two children also hovered around her all day long. Father Ye often sat off to one side of the hall reading a book. Jiaming occasionally took a book from the shelves as well, only to be scolded by Lingjing for putting on airs.

Every now and then, Lingjing called him onto the ring to serve as a target for practice. To Jiaming, seeing all those flaw-riddled punches and not making a move was painful. Thus, whenever visitors came to pay their New Year's greetings, he went down to help serve tea. When they asked Father Ye when he had acquired another son, Father Ye would often reply that this was his real son, while Lingjing was merely a child bride raised in the house. Lingjing would then sulk for half the day.

Naturally, they could not stay at the martial arts school all day. Occasionally, Father Ye took the four children out to play. When Bamboo Dragonfly set off firecrackers, Jiaming even had to put on an idiotic display of enthusiasm and excited cheering. Only at times like that did he hate that phoenix for not sending him back to when he was eighteen or nineteen.

On the fifth day of the New Year, Liu Huaisha arrived as promised, dressed in fiery red, to become his disciple.

It was around nine in the morning when she arrived. On the small ring, Jiaming was holding two pads for Lingjing to use as punching bags. Seeing a child enter, Huaisha first waved at Lingjing. Father Ye assumed she was Lingjing's friend and greeted her with a smile. "Little girl, are you here to play with Lingjing?"

"Ah, hello. Are you Lingjing's father?" Liu Huaisha bowed, took off her fiery red short boots covered in snow, and looked at the two people on the ring. Her finger made a few adorably little circles in the air. "No, I came to... challenge the school!"

"Ah? Challenge the school?" Father Ye was visibly taken aback. Then Liu Huaisha pointed toward the ring. "I want to fight him!" Yet she was not pointing at Ye Lingjing, but at Gu Jiaming, who stood there foolishly holding the striking pads.

Everyone was somewhat surprised by that. Lingjing said, "He... he can't fight." Jiaming shook his head in agreement.

"No. He's wearing your school's uniform, so he's one of your school's people. Yesterday, when someone bullied him, he needed a girl to protect him. I came here because I wanted to learn, but if I still can't even beat a girl after learning, then what would I be learning for?"

"Well, martial arts are for strengthening the body and keeping fit, not for fighting..." Father Ye said as he stroked his beard. He looked at Jiaming on the ring, then changed his tone. "Ahem. But this concerns the honor of our martial arts school. Jiaming, have a match with this young lady."

"Ah?" Jiaming opened his mouth. This Ye Han clearly wanted to see him make a fool of himself. Sure enough, Father Ye continued, "Winning or losing does not matter. What matters is that you have the courage. Our martial arts school cannot let others laugh at us."

Ye Lingjing frowned, then turned back and said, "Fine, Jiaming. You can fight Sister Huaisha once. Anyway... I'll secretly tell her to go easy on you."

"Uh... then how am I supposed to fight?"

"You just... you should just run away with all your might."

"Oh." Jiaming smiled helplessly to himself. Running away it was. It was a good strategy. If they were going to play, then he would play. It was not as though he would be afraid of a little girl.

A moment later, Lingjing stepped down from the ring and secretly said something to Liu Huaisha. The little girl in red nodded. But once she got onto the ring, she said softly, "I hate boys who need girls to help them most of all. Just you wait!"

The two bowed to each other. Ye Han struck the little bell beside him and called out, "Start!" The girl in red shouted and threw a punch. Her punch looked quite convincing, and coupled with that shout, it carried an impressive presence. Yet the punch struck empty air, because at the very moment Father Ye called for the match to begin, Jiaming had already cried, "Help!" and turned to run.

This ring was slightly smaller than an ordinary boxing ring. Though it was still large enough for children, it should have been easy enough to cut someone off within such a limited space. Seeing that the boy was merely running around the ring while yelling, "Help," Liu Huaisha felt contempt rise in her heart. Her father had said that a real man should face any challenge without fear. Let's see how far you can run. With that thought, she charged forward.

A moment later, she discovered that this boy really did run like a loach. He ran, jumped, rolled, and used the rebound of the ring ropes to speed himself up. No matter how she chased, he always managed to flee in a flustered manner to the other side of the ring, brushing past her every time. After chasing him around the ring for roughly five minutes, she had not even managed to touch the hem of his clothes.

"Stop running..."

"Help..."

"Just wait until I catch you..."

"Help..."

"If you keep running, I'll kill you..."

"Help..."

A while later, the chase on the ring had turned into a farce in everyone else's eyes. Lingjing's shouts from below gradually changed from "Jiaming, run!" to "Jiaming, run! Go, Sister Huaisha!" Ye Han clutched his stomach and burst out laughing. His laughter made Liu Huaisha feel even more humiliated.

"Stop running already!"

"Help..."

"I'm not doing this anymore!"

Panting heavily from the chase, little Huaisha finally could not help calling for a stop. The moment those words left her mouth, Jiaming stopped at once, leaning against a post and breathing lightly. "Really?"

"All you know is how to run."

"Then we're tied? I didn't beat you, and you didn't beat me?"

The girl in red panted loudly, shooting Jiaming a sidelong glare. Jiaming smiled and walked toward her. Suddenly, the little girl let out a cry and pounced at him with teeth bared and claws out. "I'm going to kill you!"

Jiaming abruptly stepped back, dodging a kick. He raised both hands to shield his head while lowering his body at the same time. Now that he had been forced into a corner, it was no longer so easy to flee nimbly in his haste. Little Huaisha's second punch slammed into Jiaming's arm. Delighted, she immediately followed with another punch, but this one struck nothing.

It was not that Jiaming had escaped. He had already dropped into a half-crouch. When her punch missed, her body involuntarily lunged forward. Just then, Jiaming rushed in, wrapped his arms around her waist, and the little girl's body flew into the air.

With a bang, the little girl crashed heavily to the ground, while Jiaming landed on top of her, about to throw a punch. If they had been professional fighters, such a move would surely have been seen as an exceptional performance. But in Ye Han's eyes, it was naturally nothing more than little Jiaming stumbling into a lucky accident. Seeing Jiaming's expression in that instant, little Huaisha involuntarily cried out, turned her head away, and squeezed her eyes shut. But the next moment, she realized that Jiaming had only tightly seized both her hands.

"Let me go!"

"No!"

"Let go!"

"You'll hit me!"

"Ah—"

On the ring, the little girl pinned underneath thrashed wildly, shrieking again and again, even trying to open her mouth and bite him. But no matter what she did, Jiaming only held down both her hands tightly. No matter how much she shouted, he absolutely refused to let go.

"Ah—I'm going to kill you—"