Taekwondo Expert

The moment he saw Little He Qing's eyes suddenly turn wet and red, tears starting to patter down for no clear reason.

Lin Zhengran really could not help pinching her soft, tender cheek. "What are you crying for?! I'm not eating your stuff anymore and you're still not happy? Doesn't that mean you get to eat more snacks every day?!"

Little He Qing's face hurt from being pinched. She looked at Lin Zhengran pitifully and mumbled, "But you used to take my things every day. Why don't you want them today?"

Lin Zhengran stopped, at a loss for words. "Are you sick or something? Addicted to getting bullied by me?"

Little He Qing covered her face, still clutching the candy in her hand as she looked at him all helpless and pitiful.

Lin Zhengran was too lazy to keep discussing the candy issue. "Didn't you say before that you wanted your mom to sign you up for taekwondo classes? Have you signed up?"

She shook her head. "I haven't said it yet..."

"You don't want to sign up anymore?"

"I do..."

Seeing that Lin Zhengran was about to say she never spoke up again, she hurriedly waved her hands and explained, "It's not that I don't want to say it. It's just that Mom just divorced Dad recently, and she's been busy with the divorce stuff. I'm planning to tell her tonight."

Lin Zhengran nodded in relief. "That's good. But even though you're indecisive over little things, you're pretty open-minded when it comes to big things."

The kindergarten teacher was already calling people inside the school, so Lin Zhengran walked in with Little He Qing.

Little He Qing said, "It's mainly because Dad and Mom stopped sleeping together a long time ago. Since the two of them weren't happy together, they might as well separate sooner."

Lin Zhengran looked at her with admiration. "The way you talk now is much more pleasant than before. It gives people the feeling that you're smart."

Little He Qing lowered her head shyly, feeling that those words sounded so strange.

The teacher was counting heads in the distance and calling out, "Is He Qing here?"

Before Lin Zhengran could call out by habit, Little He Qing raised her hand first. "Teacher, I'm here!"

The teacher acknowledged her. "If you're here, then line up properly. Don't run around."

Lin Zhengran stared at He Qing's shy little gesture as she raised her hand. His painstaking efforts over the past two months had not been in vain.

During morning self-study, Lin Zhengran sat there staring at He Qing. Little He Qing held the edge of her stool with her small hands and blinked adorably, not knowing what exactly he wanted to do.

Lin Zhengran said, "He Qing, do you want to keep following me forever?"

The system had not taught him exactly how to form a contract, but it should be fine as long as he asked sincerely and the other party answered sincerely.

But Little He Qing did not understand. "What does it mean to keep following you forever...?"

After saying that, she suddenly heard someone in the class reading an extracurricular book. There was a cartoon picture in the book of a bride and groom holding a wedding, with the words "Two people must be together forever" written on it.

Little He Qing's clever little head reacted at once, and her face flushed bright red.

So "keep following him forever" meant getting married when they grew up, becoming a bride and groom, and sleeping together.

Lin Zhengran did not know how to explain it either. "It doesn't mean anything else. You can understand it however you want. You can think of it as us being good frie—"

She looked back at Lin Zhengran and, before he could finish, slowly nodded and said quietly:

"Okay. I'm willing."

Lin Zhengran thought she was quite decisive and held out his hand. "Then pinky swear! Neither of us is allowed to go back on it!"

Little He Qing held out her pinky and hooked it with Lin Zhengran's, copying his words. "Neither of us is allowed to go back on it."

You have successfully formed a bond of fortune with Fairy He and poached from the sect. From now on, whenever Fairy He improves her cultivation, you will receive double the cultivation. However, when Fairy He signed the contract with you, she seemed to develop other thoughts about you.

Forming a contract was pretty simple after all. But other thoughts?

Lin Zhengran asked directly, "What thoughts do you have about me right now?"

He Qing, still hooked in the pinky swear, did not understand. With a foolishly cute expression, she answered, "Wh-what thoughts? I don't have any thoughts. I'm just thinking that I'll follow you from now on."

Lin Zhengran withdrew his hand and placed the kindergarten reading book in front of her. As a transmigrator, he had absolutely no inappropriate thoughts about this five-year-old little girl, so naturally, he did not think in that direction either. "Forget it. Think whatever you want. Read your book."

"Mm."

After the day passed, Lin Zhengran stared at He Qing, who was earnestly flipping through her book, then glanced at the system's cultivation progress bar.

He thought, The progress bar hasn't changed at all. Could it be that for He Qing, reading doesn't count as cultivation?

After school that evening, Little He Qing went to find her mother and said to her, "Mom, I want to sign up for a class."

Aunt He, who had come to pick up her daughter from school, looked genuinely surprised. Back when she had been agonizing over whether to divorce, her daughter had always been quiet and bottled up, barely saying a word.

Now that she had divorced, her daughter seemed to have become more talkative too, which made Aunt He feel for a while as if, after the divorce, even heaven intended for the whole family to head toward a new life.

She crouched down and looked her daughter in the eye. "Qingqing, what kind of class do you want to sign up for? The kind that teaches elementary school material in advance?"

Little He Qing shook her head and took a flyer out from her arms.

This was something Lin Zhengran had accompanied her to the Taekwondo Hall to specifically ask for some time ago.

"No, this one."

Aunt He took the flyer from her hand. After seeing the title, she was even more shocked. She looked at her daughter, who was as obedient as could be, then looked at the cheerful children on the flyer.

"Taekwondo?! You're old enough to know what taekwondo is for, right? It's a bunch of people hitting each other. You want to learn this? Can you handle it? It's very easy to get hurt."

Little He Qing nodded and mumbled, "I can handle it. I'm not afraid of getting hurt."

Aunt He laughed. After thinking it over carefully, she stroked her daughter's head. "They always say children suddenly grow up. Our Qingqing really did suddenly become a big kid. Mom doesn't even know when you became so strong."

She stood up and took her daughter's hand. "Then Mom will go with you right now to take a look. If you really want to learn, I'll pay today and sign you up."

"Thank you, Mom!" Little He Qing grinned.

Before long, Aunt He brought her daughter to the children's Taekwondo Hall in the neighboring mall. As an adult, she watched the children sparring with each other.

She could not help worrying a little for her daughter.

But as He Qing watched those children her own age looking strong and brave, her heart was truly filled with longing.

In the end, after the taekwondo coach promised that safety would definitely be guaranteed, Little He Qing really did sign up for taekwondo, becoming a Taekwondo Expert.

And it was also from the day she started practicing taekwondo that Lin Zhengran discovered the progress bar for immortal cultivation had actually begun to rise.

After Fairy He descended the mountain and left her sect, she wandered for several months before finally finding the cultivation path that belonged to her. Fairy He's current level is Beginner Martial Artist. You, bound to her fortune, automatically advance to Low-Level Martial Artist. Strength +2, Spiritual Energy Level +1.

Overall level has become 11.

So He Qing's cultivation path was taekwondo? He felt like he could already see what this girl would look like in the future...

Time quickly drew close to the end of the year, and this year, the snow actually came early.

Kindergarten had also started winter break.

At the entrance to the Taekwondo Hall, Lin Zhengran stood in the spectator area, watching Little He Qing in her tiny Taekwondo Uniform as she sparred with someone.

That cute face, paired with powerful legs and feet, made her seem extremely strange.

All he could say was that the direction of her talent was truly unexpected. This little girl who had always been bullied in the past—who would have thought she would actually make such a grand showing in the Taekwondo Hall?

In just over a month, she had gone from getting beaten up at the start to now being able to beat quite a few boys.

She had even become a publicly acknowledged expert in taekwondo.

Of course, at least half the credit for all of this went to Lin Zhengran, because in their spare time, Lin Zhengran had been secretly teaching her.