No Honor in Fighting (Part One)

The second floor of the recreation room was a combat training gym.

The combat coach Bu Liuxing had hired was a bona fide Vale Tudo (no-holds-barred fighting) competitor named Li Zongzhu.

He was twenty-eight, in his prime.

Teacher Li stood 177 centimeters tall and weighed 58.8 kilograms. He made his living in the UFC and was also a lightweight boxer.

Beside the ring, which was enclosed by four corner posts and ropes, Jiang Xueming carefully studied Teacher Li's build.

—His muscles were by no means bulky. A layer of subcutaneous fat served as armor and as an energy reserve for twelve-round bouts.

—There were many small, raised knots around his elbows. They were probably the marks of years of conditioning himself to take hits and sparring with students.

—His reach was a little longer than average. He had large hands, a long torso, and short legs.

"Hey, kid!" Teacher Li Zongzhu called. "Go change."

Xue Ming said nothing. He changed into a clean tank top and shorts, put on fingerless gloves, then climbed into the ring.

"Heh heh." Teacher Li grinned mischievously. "I'm not as easygoing as Old Liu, and I can't always control my punches and kicks. If I accidentally hurt you, don't go badmouthing me to Young Master Xing, okay?"

Jiang Xueming looked reassured instead. "That's good, then. Coach Li Zongzhu, don't worry. I won't say anything bad about you."

Li Zongzhu didn't rush to start. He had to ask about Xueming's fighting experience first. The gap between a professional athlete and an ordinary person was enormous. He was being paid to fight, and if he seriously injured Jiang Xueming, he'd have to pay compensation. Wouldn't that be a massive loss?

"From what Young Master Xing said, he's never seen you fight anyone." Teacher Li raised an eyebrow and teased him. "Can you fight? Have you ever had any experience? You look so fair and proper, I bet you've never even taken a beating."

Jiang Xueming thought carefully. Back when he sold beef offal at Hung Hom MTR station, his shift ended after ten at night. The trains kept running, so he kept working.

At that hour, groups of pickpockets and thugs often went around committing crimes. He'd run into plenty of them.

The pickpockets were usually amateurs. They hired half-grown kids, often secondary school students, to do the stealing. If they couldn't get anything, they'd gather in groups of three or five, work up their courage, and block people's way to demand money.

If that didn't work, the local thugs would bring out iron bars and use force.

Jiang Xueming had dealt with those people, greeted them, and eventually gotten along with them—close as could be.

He never held a grudge overnight.

When he ran into students moonlighting as pickpockets for pocket money, Xueming had already emptied his pockets. He kept all his large bills locked in the braised-food shop's cash register.

When a gang of little punks blocked his way, he'd pull out his crumpled pack of cigarettes and offer them around, smiling apologetically. That was usually enough to settle things.

When he came across local toughs carrying weapons, he usually just ran for it—and ran fast.

In those four years, he'd only once gotten into a real fight with someone.

That time, he couldn't run away. Six people had cornered him in an alley, surrounding him from both ends.

He'd only pleaded that he had no money and didn't want to get beaten up. Offering them cigarettes hadn't helped.

The thugs took the cigarettes, then told him to go back to the MTR station, open the shop, and take money from the register.

He'd pleaded again. The money in the register belonged to the shop manager. He was only a worker from a poor family. If the security cameras recorded something happening in the shop, he'd lose his job and end up in prison alongside them as an accomplice.

The thugs ignored him and showed him their weapons.

He'd pleaded one last time, asking them not to hurt his face. If he showed up with a black eye and bruises, the shop would probably lose half its customers.

"So there's really no room to talk?"

That was the last thing he said—and the last lesson in patience and understanding that Big Brother Ye Bei had taught him.

He could barely remember what happened that night—

—It had been more than two years ago.

In that alley, he'd started by jabbing their eyes, kicking their groins, and taking their steel bar. Then he'd gone to town on them.

He'd fractured the right arm of one of the thugs, the bone sticking out and piercing through the man's leather jacket.

Then the other goons swarmed him from behind and both sides, trying to pin him down.

He ducked behind a garbage cart by the side wall and flung a bucket of slop at them. The club in his hand had bent out of shape from all the heavy blows, so he threw that, too.

Then he grabbed whatever he could and hurled it.

The side wall of the alley was the back entrance to a Hongsheng Market cha chaan teng's kitchen. By the time he'd finished throwing things, the thugs were howling in pain.

One of them was the youngest, a kid who seemed to have been dragged along to make up the numbers and bolster the others' courage. Seeing his companions fall one by one, he tried to flee toward the street, but collapsed halfway there.

Only then did Jiang Xueming come back to himself, emerging from the extraordinary state brought on by his surging adrenaline.

The glass in the cha chaan teng's back door and windows was gone, along with the door handle. He'd torn them off with his bare hands.

The kid who'd been there to bolster the others' courage had a lump the size of a chestnut on the back of his head. He'd passed out.

In the pitch-black alley, only the broken door handle and shards of glass glinted.

Blood kept spilling out toward the street, then flowed into the drains in the pouring rain.

That day, Jiang Xueming did the responsible thing: he searched the men, found a phone, and called an ambulance. Then he raced home.

After that, he never ran into trouble like that again. Once or twice, he'd spotted secondary school students trying their hands at pickpocketing. He'd wanted to go over and ask how the injured men were doing—and whether he owed them money, or had somehow ended up in trouble over a death.

When those students saw Xueming's face and the apron he wore, they ran as if they'd seen the Grim Reaper.

That was all he could remember.

"Hey! Jiang Xueming!" Teacher Li raised his voice. "Jiang Xueming! Stop daydreaming! Answer the teacher properly. Have you ever fought anyone? Can you fight?"

"Uh..." Jiang Xueming gave the most cautious answer he could. "If fighting doesn't count as fighting, then I suppose I know a little."

"A little, a little." Li Zongzhu gave him a look of disdain. "You know a little of everything, and you're so mysterious. All right, listen to my instructions!"

"Okay!" Jiang Xueming straightened up.

Teacher Li said, "Bend your knees and drop your elbows."

Xueming followed his instructions.

Teacher Li said, "Raise both arms."

Xueming followed along.

Teacher Li said, "Get into your fighting stance."

At that moment, Xueming strained to engage his muscles, trying to rouse his exhausted body once more.

During the shooting practice just now, he'd felt that he had almost no energy left. He should have rested before taking another test from a different instructor.

But he thought, the enemy wouldn't give him time to rest.

Just as the man who'd worked all day and dragged his weary body home through the cold rain at ten at night hadn't been given time to rest.

The thugs wouldn't give him time to rest, either.

If selling beef offal was his job, then stealing, robbing, and killing were those people's jobs.

When he was utterly exhausted, those professional criminals might be sleeping soundly, full of energy.

There was nothing fair about it. That was life.

"Too high, too low, too tight, too stiff." Teacher Li gently tapped Jiang Xueming's guard, correcting his stance. "Looks like you really don't know anything about fighting."

Jiang Xueming replied, "That's right. I don't know anything about it."

"Hit me." Teacher Li covered his face with one hand and guarded his chest with the other.

Jiang Xueming asked, "How?"

Teacher Li laughed helplessly. "Use whatever way feels most natural and comfortable to you. How? You can't even get into a proper stance. How am I supposed to tell you how to fight? Fight the way you normally would! Treat the ring like the street. No rules, no restrictions."

Jiang Xueming asked again, "Really, Teacher Li?"

"Are you afraid you'll hurt me?" Li Zongzhu laughed. "I make my living fighting. Don't pit your hobby against someone else's profession, all right?"

"Okay."

Before the words had even left his mouth—

—Li Zongzhu suddenly felt a chill between his legs.

Instinct made him clamp his thighs together and drop his body sharply.

Jiang Xueming had thrown a groin kick with enough force to ruin him for good.

Li Zongzhu's face went green with fright. His powerful thighs clamped tightly around the sudden sterilizing strike.

He reacted incredibly fast. His elbow, guarding his heart, moved with his body to block the attack, stopping Xueming's leg dead between his knees.

Teacher Li was drenched in cold sweat. He looked up and asked, "Do you have no honor?"

"If we were really fighting," Jiang Xueming said frankly, "I should've picked up a brick, or found a pair of shears. Then I could've attacked while you were ducking to protect your groin."

"Oh, come on!" Li Zongzhu was furious, but since this was Young Master Xing's friend, he couldn't blow up at him. "You said it! You said it! I'm not holding back now! Jiang Xueming!"

"Sorry, I won't use such vicious moves anymore." Jiang Xueming lowered his leg. "Please teach me, Teacher."

"No kicking the groin." Li Zongzhu frowned and pointed at Jiang Xueming. "No gouging the eyes and no hitting the back of the head. Those are the most basic rules in the UFC ring. Outside the ring, do whatever you want to people, but at least show some respect for my profession."

"Understood, Teacher." Jiang Xueming thought, That's not what you said a moment ago.

Li Zongzhu switched to defense and immediately barked, "Hit me."

Jiang Xueming threw a punch naturally.

The light tap was like swatting a fly. Li Zongzhu was no slouch, and he intercepted Xueming's fist with ease.

"Slow! Keep going."

Xueming threw another punch, again with his left.

Li Zongzhu again swatted it away. The hand guarding the side of his face was like a net, while his measured footwork looked like a tango.

"Slow! Still too slow! Don't stop!"

The quick, forceful smacks rang out in the combat gym.

Xueming's eyes moved back and forth between the nylon mat and Teacher Li's steps, shoulders, neck, and arms.

His outstretched fists were like arrows in flight.

His muscles were the bowstring, his bones the bow, and his fist the arrowhead. The instant it was released, it twisted and turned. Teacher Li's hand intercepted it halfway, sending it off course toward somewhere completely unrelated.

Li Zongzhu felt his body heating up and his excitement rising.

He thought this kid had real potential.

"Slow! Too slow! Move! Jiang Xueming, move! Power comes from the ground!"