Martial Arts Master

In the locker room, a few fighters were resting to attain mental composure and waiting for the next competition. And Lou Cheng sat in the corner and held his phone to chat with Yan Zheke online wholly relaxed.

“My battle is the seventh competition in the morning, so I have to wait for a while.” He sent the message added a sticker which an onion was in the hot spring.

To keep with Yan Zheke, he also downloaded new sticker packages.

Yan Zheke replied with a sticker which an onion was blinking. “Are you nervous?”

“No, after fighting with the mighty one of Professional Ninth Pin, I get used to the battle with the mighty ones of Amateur First Pin. It’s no big deal. Well, of course, I won’t be arrogant or despise any opponent. I know that my overall strength is still inferior to the fighter of Amateur First Pin.” Lou Cheng sent an emoji of a dog with a sinister smile.

Yan Zheke replied, “You have stated a good reason, what should I say? Do you want to continue this conversation or not?” (The other party does not want to talk to you, and throw a dog to you)”

“Thanks for the good guidance from you-Coach Yan that I can have such a cool mind.” Lou Cheng snickered and said to his master secretly in his heart. “I am sorry to wrong you this time, but it is all for getting a girlfriend…”

Yan Zheke replied with a sticker which an onion was pushing up its glasses: “Well, you have got the point. Last night, I saw the competition video of Tang Yue and I found that you could play the same style just like your last competition with Wang Ye. And he is much weaker than Wang Ye because his action is not agile enough that he cannot compress your movement range. So you can beat him in any way.”

“How professional Coach Yan is! As long as he fails to use fists several times and with his heavy body, his consumption will inevitably increase. So my chance is coming.” Lou Cheng sent a small monkey emoji which was wagging the tail and showing red heart.

Yan Zheke sent a small complacent monkey emoji and said, “But he should have seen your competition yesterday, so he must have realized these things. Today he would make changes, you shall pay more attention.”

“Stay easy, I will also change my play style correspondingly!” Yan Zheke soon replied with the emoji of a giggling monkey.

The fighters were in and out. And some went to the ring to play the combat. Others went back to the locker room bath to change clothes. Unconsciously, Lou Cheng and Yan Zheke had talked until the fifth competition began.

“I have to go to have a rest and adjust my condition.” Lou Cheng sent an emoji with a hard-working face.

Yan Zheke sent a smiling emoji. “Do you still want my encouragement today?”

“Of course!” Lou Cheng said, laughing secretly, “At first I want you to sing a song to encourage me, but this kind of heavyweight encouragement should be put into the battle with Zhou Yuanning. So today you can do it easily.”

He advised it because he thought of that he had sung for Yan Zheke.

Yan Zheke sent a fake annoyed emoji, “You think too much. Can’t believe you want me to sing a song!”

After this message, she immediately sent a voice which was slightly different from the past.

“Cheng, Fighting!”

Feeling warm and delighted, Lou Cheng collected the voice with a smile. He quit his QQ, put away his phone, and closed his eyes to rest his mind.

Compared with the slightly nervous he felt before the competition with Wang Ye, he was calm at this time. He seemed to have no concerns, so he didn’t use the Jindan (the Golden Elixir) to achieve concealment of spirit and qi. Although ideas went ups and downs, these all disappeared with no trace. All the sounds around him were amplified, but none of them could affect his mind.

This state was very wonderful as if all the emotions and the thoughts about the battle had been released.

If you even didn’t experience, how could you see your true heart?

Lou Cheng suddenly awakened from this subtle experience and he seemed to get some reflections.

Without looking at the electronic clock, he stood up by instinct, went to the locker room entrance, and opened the door.

Outside the door, the staff just was there with his right hand curved, yet he had no time to knock on the door.

Seeing the door just opened by Lou Cheng, the staff looked surprised. He paused and said, “Your competition is about to start, you can go to the ring now.”

The staff thought that Lou Cheng should have seen the electronic clock that he could come out just before he knocked…

Lou Cheng smiled. “Okay, thank you.”

The wonderfully peaceful state had gradually faded, he felt that he experienced a little change, but he could not tell what the change was.

He began to walk and keep the harmonious rhythm. Lou Cheng adjusted his own state so that his muscle and spirit became active.

It was dark in winter, while the road from the locker room to the ring was bright under the lights on both sides.

…

In the stands, Ye Youting was drinking nutrition which was used as supplements for herself, because she had just won the competition with a fighter of Professional Ninth Pin. She sat there alone without the company of Jiang Lan who had been so close to her these days.

When Lou Cheng was almost stepping on the stair and his momentum gradually upgraded, Jiang Lan came out of the aisle leisurely then reached the seats.

“Hey, Lan! Where did you go?” Ye Youting asked.

Jiang Lan smiled and answered, “Just go out to make a phone call. By the way, I went to the betting station outside and I betted on the victory of Lou Cheng.”

“Isn’t it a violation of contract?” Ye Youting didn’t even look at the contract carefully.

Her father and Liu Zunyu were good family friends. And before the Warrior Sage Challenge Tournament, her father had looked through the contract and even provided some amendments. So she signed up this contract with the greatest reliance.

Jiang Lan sat down and put off her fur hat, “Of course I don’t violate the contract. I do not bet on my own competition. Why should I care about others for I just want to earn some money?

“That makes sense, I also want to bet on Lou Cheng.” Itching to have a try, Ye Youting intended to gamble with her private money.

Jiang Lan glanced at her and said, “You don’t need to do that. After two fights yesterday, people all regard Lou Cheng as the winner. You wouldn’t win so much by betting on him. I just did it for I passed by the betting station.”

“Well, OK.” Ye Youting nodded and gave up this idea.

Yesterday, Lou Cheng almost beat the seeded player—Wang Ye, while Tang Yue had struggled for a long time and at last lost the competition with a former professional player of Professional Ninth Pin. The apparent contrast between Lou Cheng and Tang Yue made the audience had clear tendency to bet, so the odds changed.

“If Tang Yue wins this battle, people who bet on him would earn a lot.” Jiang Lan said.

But as a professional fighter, she was still very confident of her own insight, especially this was just a fighting between fighters in the degree of body refining.

While Zhou “Road to the Arena” Yuanning was adjusting his state to prepare for the fight with Wang Ye, at the same time he was watching the confrontation between Lou Cheng and Tang Yue on the ring.

“I hope Tang Yue can waste some energy of Lou Cheng…” He sighed.

“Invincible Punch” Jin Tao by his side said weirdly, “Consumption… After I have watched so many competitions about Lou Cheng, I find that Lou Cheng basically has no consumption, in other words, he can recover extremely fast… He is a monster… He didn’t get hurt by the Iron Palm yesterday.”

“Haha, I know, this kind of thing would not happen very often.” Zhou Yuanning had the experience as a former professional fighter, so he behaved rather calmly and said, “Take it easy. Today’s competition is in the morning while the competition tomorrow is in the afternoon. So that is to say, I have a day to recover my energy. My physical weakness will not influence me in the first few minutes. All I hope is not get hurt in the next competition…”

Fighters were discussing the competition. The audience was cheering for Lou Cheng. Some of them appreciated Lou Cheng for they felt pity for him after they watched the competition yesterday. Some were the supporters of Lou Cheng from the beginning. But most of the cheering people were the audience who had bet on him.

On the ring, Tang Yue looked at Lou Cheng, and said with a wry smile.

“I saw your competition yesterday, and I know that your play style would completely restrain me. How pathetic I am! But since I stand here, I would never give up. I have made some adjustments. Hope they can be useful.”

He seemed to be so calm that he had said his plans. However, Lou Cheng couldn’t tell whether it was his trick which was to disrupt his plans to find an opportunity or not deliberately.

Looking at this overweighted opponent, Lou Cheng showed no emotions and said with a calm smile,

“Everyone has his own characteristics. What I played with Wang Ye may not be perfectly suitable to deal with you, and my comprehensive strength is worse than you. The reason why I looked sharper than you is that people have their own strengths and weaknesses, I and my strength seems stronger compared with your weaknesses.”

“And of course, I will play my strength at full stretch, so that not to give you the opportunity to find my weaknesses.”

He said very naturally without showing off but filled with strong confidence.

The confidence came from all the fights he had played these days; the confidence came from the good chance he had made in the fight which he played with a fighter of Professional Ninth Pin.

Seeing that Lou Cheng was so confident, Tang Yue had lost some of his momenta. He even fell in a trance and recalled the past.

Once upon a time, he was so confident, too.

Once upon a time, he front swept all the opponents below the Amateur Third Pin relying on this piece of the body. His fame rose like a rocket.

However, the subsequent failure gradually made him lose his indestructible confidence. Although he also had the desire and the belief to win the competition, and he also had the basic confidence, all of them were not strong enough and not tough anymore.

He often told himself that this was all belonged to the inevitable outcome of life, and this was bound to the price of maturity. But within his heart, he still admired such free will and such confidence.

He did not speak again. It seems that he wanted to borrow some confidence from the past which was so strong that he thought he could kill any opponent.

“Fight!” Suddenly, the referee waved his right hand down.

Lou Cheng began to walk towards Tang Yue with Snake Steps.

He adjusted his muscles to make the center of gravity slosh like mercury. Due to it, people could not determine which side he was going to hit.

Then Tang Yue took a deep breath and sit down his crotch to make a defensive stance. He stretched out his long and thick arms and looked like a sumo wrestler in the street fighter competition.

With his gravity floated a little, Lou Cheng suddenly changed his directions, and then he moved to the left side behind Tang Yue like a ghost, at the same time he stretched out his right palm as quickly as electric with strong momentum and no sound.

Tang Yue didn’t realize this for he still kept his stance. It seemed that his ribs were going to be hit by the Biting Chill Palm of Lou Cheng.

However, after having a fierce fight with Wu Shitong, Lou Cheng had an instinctive intuition, so he realized what Tang Yue would respond next after he adjusted.

“Tang Yue would take the advantages of his fat to take the non-critical attack beating on his unimportant body parts. And then at the same time, he would fight back. In such a limited time, maybe I can’t completely escape from his attack by Mercurial Balance. Once I move carelessly for only one time, I would be hit by his terrifying arms and fat legs, and then I would probably be hurt.”