Martial Arts Master

Panda Novel

“Are you alright?” Yan Zheke asked with concern the moment they met.

Lou Cheng swung his right arm, forced a smile and replied, “Everything is fine, just that the injury here seems to have worsened a little.”

Yan Zheke found it amusing yet at the same time mad at him. She commented. “You didn’t take care of it. You keep on injuring the same area. You should apologize to it!”

After witnessing that the man who wanted to commit suicide was successfully rescued, her mood was back to normal.

“I’m so sorry. I promise to treat you better from now on!” Lou Cheng “accepted her good advice” and apologized to his right arm. In fact, he was actually indirectly promising Yan Zheke that he would never act bravado and injured himself again.

Of course, if he were to face a matter where a life was at stake, as long as he could help, he would still meddle with the matter.

“You’d better remember what you said!” Yan Zheke took a glance at the suicide scene at the first school building where everyone had gathered as she sighed and said, “Actually what you’ve said there is kinda inappropriate as well. When someone commits suicide, it’s not about whether he’s afraid of death or not, it’s because they can’t feel any happiness in their lives. They felt that their lives were filled with darkness, and to them, no matter how severe the warning you’ve given them, they only feel the more they should die. Forget it, we’re also not sure why the man would want to commit suicide. Since you’re just being kind and had done your best, you’re already doing him a very good deed. There’s no need to consider other things.”

“Eh?” Lou Cheng was baffled and speechless.

Yan Zheke smiled softly, as she gently and elegantly explained, “Because my cousin has mild autism, so I often look at studies relating to psychology. Sometimes I’d initiate a discussion with professional lecturers, where I understand that psychological illnesses don’t only come from one’s heart and spirit. Sometimes they’re produced from pathological changes. Verbal therapy is useless to them, and they need to seek medical treatment.”

“I guess I understand what you mean.” Lou Cheng answered as he nodded his head with his mind in deep thoughts.

“Let’s not talk about the man. We don’t know him anyway. Since you’ve saved a life and as the old saying goes ‘Saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-floor pagoda’, whatever happened to him in the future is not something we should or can control.” The attitude that Yan Zheke displayed was similar to the attitude she showed when they talked about Wang Xu.

Lou Cheng could not help but think that in term of interpersonal relationship with others, Yan Zheke might be more mature than him even though he had experienced many things and was rapidly maturing. She seemed to have already acquired herself with world view, values of worth and philosophy on life.

“You’re right, let’s not bother about him and go for our lunch appointment. Your dorm mates are still waiting for us, so better not be late.” Lou Cheng restrained himself from sighing with regrets and said.

Yan Zheke’s eyes immediately became round like apricots. “Still thinking about eating? We should head to the hospital first. Didn’t your injury worsen? ”

“Just a little, it’s fine. We can go after eating.” Lou Cheng moved his right arm slightly to show her. “Moreover, this is the first time I’m treating your dorm mates, I can’t possibly stand them up right? What if they badmouth about me in the future?”

“Humph, if you’re good, there’s no point for them to badmouth you. If you’re bad, similarly there’s no point for them to praise you. Furthermore, isn’t it more important to treat me well and listen to me?” Yan Zheke reasoned with him and pouted.

“That’s quite true…” Lou Cheng agreed.

However, Yan Zheke was also a nice girl who did not wish to tarnish her own reputation, and to stand her dorm mates up was not a nice thing to do after all. She suspiciously stared at Lou Cheng and added, “You’re certain it just got a little worse?”

“Of course! Afterall, I’m someone who has mastered meditation and can have inward vision.” Lou Cheng said with the intention to boast about his abilities.

Based on his understanding of his own body and muscles, he was clear to the degree of his own injuries.

Yan Zheke smirked as she replied calmly, “After our lunch, I’ll accompany you to the hospital.”

“Yes, I’ll abide to Coach Yan’s instructions!” Lou Cheng grinned and answered. He was still feeling joyful that he had managed to save a life.

…

As no students were allowed to be out of school except for weekends and holidays, the businesses at the “second to none” Chinese restaurant, the Academy Cafeteria, in the new school campus area was extremely good. Lou Cheng initially wanted to book a table but it was not allowed. Luckily, Zong Yanru had no class during the second period in the morning and had come over early to get a small room in the cafeteria. This helped them to skip the long queue.

Lou Cheng and Yan Zheke had arrived two minutes earlier than agreed time. The three ladies had already gathered at the location and were waiting for them.

“You’ve met Zong Yanru, so there’s no need for me to introduce.” Yan Zheke then pointed towards a small-sized and quiet-looking lady before she added, “She’s Li Liantong. Don’t be deceived by her innocent appearance.”

Lou Cheng did not expect that a demure looking lady to be Dirty Tong. He was slightly taken aback, but he still managed a polite smile before introducing himself. “Hi, I’m Lou Cheng, Ke’s boyfriend.”

“You don’t have to say that. We all know about it.” Li Liantong joked.

Yan Zheke ignored her and turned to introduce her last dorm mate to Lou Cheng. “This is Shi Xiangyang, the Surgical Killer.”

Lou Cheng noticed that the Surgical Killer was pretty tall, almost his height. Her skin was slightly tanned with a healthy glow, while her eyes looked unfocused and blurry. He somewhat started to doubt about the girls’ capabilities in giving nicknames, yet he smiled politely and greeted. “Hi, I believe all of you know about me?”

He took the chance of using Li Liantong’s joke to self-mock, which instantly made Yan Zheke, Li Liantong and Zong Yanru giggled.

Shi Xiangyang obviously did not get the joke, as she replied blankly, “Yeah, we do.”

“I’ll sit beside Lou Cheng. He injured his right arm during his battle in the Challenge Tournament, so he’s temporarily handicapped. I’ll need to help him continue his daily life activities.” Yan Zheke naturally and gracefully pulled Lou Cheng to sit down, as she prepared to take the food for him.

“Battle in the Challenge Tournament?” Li Liantong curiously asked, “You’re one of the leading players in Martial Arts Club?”

“Yes.” Lou Cheng answered honestly.

Li Liantong did not probe further. Based on what she remembered, their school’s Martial Arts Club was very weak and the only strong fighter was Lin Que. Moreover, though the Martial Arts Club had made a big hoo-ha last semester, they were still defeated in the group competition. This meant that the other fighters were weak, and being the leading player did not mean anything.

Shi Xiangyang was also not interested in this topic, so she first helped Yan Zheke to order the dishes, then grinned and asked, “Lou Cheng, heard from Ke that you two were schoolmates in high school?”

“Right, our classrooms were right next to each other.” Lou Cheng said straightforwardly.

The only thing that he would mind, would be how this beloved girl would make him act foolishly…

Zong Yanru hurriedly followed up and asked, “Ke should be quite popular in your school, I guess?”

“That’s for sure, don’t you know…” Lou Cheng had initially wanted to tell them about the incident where many boys had walked pass Yan Zheke’s class intentionally, but Yan Zheke reached over and pinched him quietly. So he had no choice but to shut up immediately.

“Then were you a little in love with her at that time?” Li Liantong looked curiously at Lou Cheng, waiting for some juicy gossip.

Lou Cheng smiled secretly and said, “Not just a little.”

Pfft… His reply caused Yan Zheke to shoot a glance at him, while the three ladies looked rather entertained. Shi Xiangyang laughed and mocked at him. “So you were secretly in love with our Ke long ago. Then have you joined the Martial Arts Club because of her? To purposely get close to her?”

“Well, you can’t really say “purposely”, you should say that I’ve “planned” it.” Lou Cheng smiled gently, deprecating himself once more.

Oooohhhh… The three ladies gave a long approving sigh, which caused Yan Zheke to roll her eyes at Lou Cheng. She wanted to pinch him but he grabbed her hand and held it tenderly.

“Not bad.” Li Liantong praised Lou Cheng for cooperating with them, and added, “So you managed to get Ke’s contact number after that and started your pursue?”

“I didn’t dare to reveal my intention at first. I just started off by chatting with her as an old friend.” Lou Cheng chuckled and replied.

Zong Yanru looked stunned and murmured, “No wonder Ke always looked at her phone…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Yan Zheke stretched out her hand and covered her mouth. Both of them broke into the fit of giggles.

The dishes were out one by one. They started to eat while chatting merrily. As for the juicy gossip, Lou Cheng would only reveal those he could say, and made use of others’ curiosity to flirt with Yan Zheke as they recalled those sweet memories that they had. The lunch with her dorm mates was a heartwarming and a joyful one.

Finally, the three ladies were satisfied with his answers. They each took out their phones and replied their messages.

“Eh? Someone committed suicide just now! The first jump at new school campus area!” Li Liantong exclaimed loudly.

“What, what?” Zong Yanru and Shi Xiangyang asked, feeling astonished about what they heard.

Li Liantong instructed. “Pak Choi, take a look at our class group chat. Ru, refresh the school forum and you’ll see it.”

Shi Xiangyang always loved to say that girls were fragrant, soft and fair. She was also a little white mouse and little white rabbit killer. Moreover, she often appeared lost, so Li Liantong gave her another nickname called Pak Choi.

“We happened to be at the scene on our way here.” Yan Zheke then curiously asked, “Did it indicate the reason for jumping?”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Li Liantong was focusing on her phone screen. “The man is from School of Management. According to his dorm mate, that man was from an average income family, but due to his greed, he borrowed some money from the loan sharks. The interest accumulated so much and eventually became too big a loan for him to repay. When he was forced to pay up the loans, he started to cheat money from his classmates, but that didn’t help to repay the debts. Seeing that he had no other way, he thought of jumping off the building and commit suicide.”

“Pooi! This kind of people shouldn’t even be alive on this planet.”

Lou Cheng and Yan Zheke looked at one another. They never thought that it would be this kind of situation.

“Well, at least now his classmates can still get back their money and you’ve prevented his parents from taking on the heavy debts while suffering the loss of their son.” Yan Zheke whispered into Lou Cheng’s ear. She consoled him as she did not want him to feel unhappy for rescuing such person.

Lou Cheng sighed and said, “Just take it as I helped his parents…”

“Eh, he was rescued by someone? That’s good, for every debt there is a debtor!” Li Liantong, Zong Yanru and Shi Xiangyang started their discussions about this incident.

…

After a somewhat joyful lunch, Yan Zheke “supervised and sent” Lou Cheng to the school’s hospital.

“Actually, you don’t have to go with me. Your afternoon class is about to start, and the hospital might need me to go to town for an X-ray.” Lou Cheng told his girl. He was worried about her.

Yan Zheke replied with a snort, “How can I not miss a single class in university? Yet I never thought that my first missed class ended up like this…”

Just then, Lou Cheng’s cell phone rang. He took it out and saw a call from his master.

“Mas… Coach Shi?” He kind of guessed the reason for his call.

“Not bad huh, you can even save people now.” Geezer Shi mocked at him. “So how’s your arm? Is it okay?”

That timing, that agility, he could easily guess that the person who saved that man was Lou Cheng—Since Lin Que was still resting and didn’t attend the Martial Arts Club training for these two days.

“It got a little worse. ” Lou Cheng answered honestly.

“Come over to my place, I’ll give you acupuncture and some ointment. The doctors in the school hospital can only cure colds and flu.” Geezer Shi taunted.

“Sure, where do you stay?” Lou Cheng did not fancy the trouble of going to the hospital in town for an X-ray as well.

After writing down Geezer Shi’s address, he immediately told Yan Zheke about it.

“Alright, I’ll go for my lesson then.” Yan Zheke felt relieved and gave a gentle smile.

“Bye bye, see you at the same old place tonight.” Lou Cheng grinned and waved his hand.

By the old place, he meant Changqiaokou, a place where they would have dinner together.

Yan Zheke turned around and walked two steps before she suddenly turned her head. She smiled beautifully and commented.

“Cheng, when you were saving that man, erm, you were really extremely cool~”

She immediately turned her head and skipped her way to class.

“Really extremely cool…” Lou Cheng felt pleased with himself as he touched his chin and looked at his girl until she was too far to be seen.

…

On the way back to the dormitory, Shi Xiangyang asked Li Liantong,

“Dirty Tong, what do you think of Lou Cheng? Is he suitable for Ke?”

Li Liantong thought for a moment before replying, “He’s quite generous and humorous. Appears to be much more mature than other guys of his age. If you, Ru and me could get such a boyfriend, it’ll be good enough. However, I still feel that he’s not good enough for Ke.”

“I think he’s not too bad.” Zong Yanru had a good impression on Lou Cheng.

Li Liantong shook her head and explained. “He’s not good-looking enough, so he can’t possibly earn a living with a face. As for his clothing and shoes, I’ve observed they’re normal brands, so I won’t say they’re good. In other words, his family should be average, and I’ve heard that his results are average as well… It’s not that I find him not good, but I just feel that Ke is a nice girl that deserves a much better guy.”

“I thought so too, but you can’t really categorize everything so clearly in a relationship.” Shi Xiangyang said with a sigh.

Back in the dormitory, Zong Yanru packed Yan Zheke’s and her textbooks before she hurried to the school building.

Li Liantong turned on her computer and started looking at the school forum with interest. She was interested to know if there were anymore updated news about the suicide incident. On the other hand, Shi Xiangyang lay in bed and decided to take a short afternoon nap, so that she would have enough energy for her lesson later in the afternoon.

After reading the forum for a while, something caught Li Liantong’s eyes. She saw someone posted:

“Live video! Strong martial arts just make one looks terrific!”

“Rescue video?” Li Liantong immediately played the video. She watched a silhouette dashed over in a split second to catch the suicider as he plunged down from the building. The silhouette was as agile as a fierce tiger.

At that moment, the silhouette’s leg moved a little and caused cracks to form on the cement ground. Next, the silhouette used an unknown strength to throw the suicider off his arms as the man landed onto the ground safely.

Watching all these made Li Liantong popped her eyes, as she felt deeply impressed and she could feel the beauty of a strong physical body.

It was not that she had not seen a battle of a Mighty One with physical invulnerability, but abilities like blaze and lightning were too fictional, while battle scenes like breaking of rocks were too lack of impact, so she did not have much feeling about those.

However, what she had watched just now was a real life suicide. It was something that you could often hear in real life and could sometimes experience. The moment she saw a man actually catch hold of a suicider from such a height with his bare hands, she felt rather shocked as an average human being. This also made her respect the Mighty Ones.

“That’s really awesome. Such manliness… I wonder which school he’s from.” Li Liantong moved her cursor, replayed the video and watched it excitedly.

Now that she watched again, she was stunned. That was because she recognized the clothes, and that pair of shoes! They were so familiar!

It’s him?

Li Liangtong stared blankly at the video with her round eyes, even after the video had ended for some time.

…

Lou Cheng arrived at the teachers’ apartment which Geezer Shi stayed in. He noticed many plates and cups were placed in a mess, and there was junk all over the apartment. This totally fit the image of a lonely and lazy old man.

After he expressed “concern” with his master’s living condition, and was about to call out for his master, Lou Cheng heard a hollow laughter from Geezer Shi, who then explained, “A few of my old friends came over just now, and I didn’t have time to clean up.”

“Old friends?” Lou Cheng casually asked.

“Yes, old friends who I’ve not seen for over ten years. Hehe, to break through the restricted region, he actually thought of searching the ancient cultivator’s remnant to fix the pieces together, hopefully to comprehend it by analogy.” Geezer Shi chortled before he added, “He mentioned that there might be Longhu Immortal’s remnant nearby.”

Lou Cheng was shocked upon hearing it. He almost could not hide his fear.

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