A Valiant Life

The next day.

Cloud Street.

It was the start of a new day and everyone was feeling energized.

“Master Lin is here, Master Lin is here,” a group of people surrounded Fraud Tian and shouted as they pointed at Master Lin.

“What’s going on?” Lin Fan was confused as to what was happening. It was early in the morning and everyone was behaving weirdly.

A group of young men & women surrounded Lin Fan and said, “Master, quick, quick. I am running late for work. I have already gotten the number tag.”

“I will carry him into the shop, Master Lin is walking too slowly.”

Fraud Tian finally sighed in relief. Master Lin had arrived too late. The number tags had all been given out and everyone was on brink of collapsing after waiting for so long.

“You’re so slow, it’s already 9:30.” Fraud Tian complained. As Lin Fan was late, Fraud Tian had been surrounded by these people and he had to explain things to them nicely. Fraud Tian was on the brink of falling apart and if Lin Fan had come any later, perhaps he would really have collapsed to the ground.

Lin Fan was a taken aback and replied, “No way, I woke up at 8 am and it’s only 8:30 am now.”

Fraud Tian rolled his eyes and said, “Look at the time, it’s already 9:30 am.”

Lin Fan took out his phone and showed everyone, “Look, it’s really only 8:30 am.”

The crowd was anxious. They took out their phones and waved them in front of Lin Fan and shouted together, “Master, look, it’s already 9:30!”

“Then my phone’s time must be wrong.” Lin Fan was still in disbelief. He went to open his shop and prepare to entertain these customers.

“Guys, I’m sorry. I’ll be done soon!”

With his well-trained technique, the scallion pancakes were ready in no time. When he witnessed how happy these people were after eating his pancakes, he had a great sense of accomplishment. Those that didn’t get a chance to buy the pancakes were disappointed, but they were still determined to get them and wanted to come back the next day.

Lin Fan washed his hands. Then, he sat there and drank tea while using his phone.

“Come have a look at this video. Can you beat this guy?” Lin Fan showed the viral video to Fraud Tian.

Fraud Tian looked at the video with great interest and then he furrowed his brows several times. “I can knock him down with one slap,” Fraud Tian said it confidently after watching the video.

If Lin Fan didn’t know how Fraud Tian was like, he might have really believed him. “Tell me the truth,” Lin Fan said.

Fraud Tian looked at Lin Fan, shook his head and said, “It’s hard to say. This guy has strength and speed. His punches are rapid and his lower body is stable. If I was ten years younger, I would be at least 80% confident of beating him. But now, it’s just a 50-50 chance. But this Master Lei Lei is a little too embarrassing, he got KO-ed in just 11 seconds.”

“Why are you interested in this? This guy practices the real combat style and an average martial arts master can’t match up to him.”

Lin Fan was a little curious. “Is there really a difference? You mean a martial arts master really has no way to defeat him?”

Fraud Tian just laughed and said, “This is definitely different but it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. If this were to happen one or two hundred years ago…okay, I mean perhaps seventy or eighty years ago, this guy would probably be beaten up.”

“Why is it impossible now then?” Lin Fan asked.

“It’s not totally impossible. Look at the era we are living in right now; martial arts has one of the simplest sequences of movements. If you practice a particular art, you can only say you have ‘memorized’ it and not mastered it. If you really want to practice perfect martial arts, then you have to fight countless battles for the experience. But if you were to go fight with others now, you would probably end up in jail. That’s the reason why it’s difficult to be truly good at this.” Fraud Tian said.

Lin Fan laughed and said, “Looks like you’ve experienced countless fights.”

Fraud Tian raised his eyebrows and said, “Of course. I used to have six to seven hundred fights in a year. Even if you didn’t know any martial arts, you would probably have come up with your own set of skills.”

Lin Fan was getting a little afraid so he decided that it was better to just be honest and not think about challenging these people just to gain popularity. Now that it was all said and done, how was he going to complete the third task? It was getting a little frustrating.

Then, he opened up Baidu and asked a question. “I practice some martial arts and I want to become a well-respected master. What should I do?”

In such an advanced age, Baidu was the way to go to answer any doubts and queries. As long as you had a question, Baidu would be able to give you a satisfactory answer.

After he posted the question, Lin Fan opened up WeChat and just looked through it.

Then, he received a message.

Wu Huan Yue: “Master, are you there?”

Lin Fan replied: “Yes I am.”

After a short while, there was a reply again.

“Master, are you free the day after tomorrow? (Excited emoji)”

Could it be that this girl wants to go on a date? I haven’t gone out to relax in a while.

Lin Fan: “Yes I’m free, what’s up?”

Wu Huan Yue: “There is a ‘The New Voice’ 24-person preliminary competition. If you have time, I would like you to come and have a look. (Embarrassed emoji)”

“Awesome.” Lin Fan hadn’t really been paying attention to this but he hadn’t expected the competition to be so soon. “Sure, no problem. I have to support you since you’re a fellow townsman. What time is it?”

“It starts at 7 pm.”

“Sure, I’ll be there on time.”

After chatting, he went online to look up on the event. It was quite remarkable. The girl was getting pretty famous and had accumulated a number of fans already. Wang Ming Yang’s team had also been pushing her on behind the scenes.

However, things weren’t at the climax yet. Perhaps it would only erupt when Wu Huan Yue won the first prize of ‘The New Voice’ competition. Lin Fan believed that there would not be any hidden details or tricks since the four judges were all rather popular and famous in the music industry. Mr. Qi Ming, in particular, was a strong activist against corruption.

There was a particular music programme which had invited Mr. Qi Ming to be the judge. When he realized that there was corruption happening behind the scenes, he went to blow things up on Weibo during the grand finals. He flamed the programme until every single hidden detail was exposed. The music programme suffered extremely heavy losses. After that incident, any music programme which invited Mr. Qi Ming had to be genuine, with no corruption at all.

As to why Mr. Qi Ming was so fearless, it was out of the question. He had armed bodyguards beside him at all times. No one dared to touch him or even speak ill of him.

Lin Fan switched on the TV and lied down with his eyes closed as he just listened to the programme. “Good day to all judges, I am Wu Huan Yue from Chung Chou…”

Lin Fan nodded at her unique voice which sounded pretty good as well.

It was logical that Wang Ming Yang wanted to lend her a helping hand. She was pretty and sweet and she had a beautiful voice. She was a really capable person and although she wasn’t that popular yet, she would definitely be famous in future.

Fraud Tian sat there and just nodded at the sound produced by the phone. He said, “This girl sings really well.”

Lin Fan said, “Shut up.”

Fraud Tian just rolled his eyes but he really thought that she had a beautiful voice.

Then, afternoon came.

Lin Fan was starting to get busy again as fortune-telling sessions had commenced.

Lin Fan was still thinking about Wu Tian He as he wondered when he would return again. If he could be there earlier, Lin Fan would be able to relax more.