Martial Arts Master

After announcing the names of the players, Geezer Shi grinned and said,

“I’m not going to tell you how to battle. Yan talked it quite well yesterday, which covers all the points. No wonder she’s a good student who can participate in special training and obtain the scholarship.”

His words made everyone in the locker room burst into laughter, which caused Yan Zheke’s beautiful face turned red and she wanted to bury herself.

Yesterday’s afternoon during the practice, she took a notebook and recited all the details on the reasoning of moves under all kinds of situations that were being taught, as well as including the counter attacks for each move.

Lou Cheng, who was sitting beside him and trying to hold his laughter, could still remember the intent face on his girl and her serious tone as she recited.

“… I’ll not talk about the importance of keeping a distance from your opponent. Their intention is clear, which is to divide us into three battlefields. Through the ability to interfere in the battles to create the situation to their advantage and gradually make things go their way…”

“We can’t let the nose lead ourselves and become isolated. We need to collaborate with one another, and make these three different battlefields into one. Only through this way can we make the situation to our advantage…”

“I’ve divided the possible situations as follow.”

“First, if we’re being isolated, Lou Cheng and Lin Que would need to terrorize the opponent. Each of you needs to aggressively attack your opponent so their teammates will rush over to help. If this doesn’t work, both of you need to get closer to your own teammates. This will then again depend on your opponent and the situation we’re in at that point of time…”

“Second, in the case where Lin Que is isolated in a tight situation…”

“Third, in the case where Lou Cheng is isolated in a tight situation…”

“Fourth, in the case where the opponent’s ‘Elephant Trumpet’ impact is greater than expected…”

…

“Ninth, Should the situation suddenly change where we become passive, both Lou Cheng and Lin Que must not care about our defeats or victories. However, we can make use of this. You can pretend to save us and set a trap to counter them. This will create a heads-on situation…”

“Tenth. If the battlefield is in a messy state, senior brother Sun Jian, senior brother Li Mao, senior sister Lin Hua and Qing, we may not need to just fight with the opponent we’re assigned to. We’re totally free to help Lou Cheng or Lin Que in this mess, and let their players lose their flexibility…”

…

“No matter what, the key is first to defeat one of their Professional Ninth Pin fighters. It doesn’t matter which one. Even if our substitutes were forced to leave the ring, we can still win Azure Dragon Squad… so we must know how to play with this idea…”

Lou Cheng heard of a serious man was a handsome man, but yesterday afternoon, he realized that a serious woman was also a beautiful woman, and extremely lovely. Yan Zheke at that time could really exhibit such beauty and graciousness.

That’s the reason why he was somewhat jealous when Li Mao and the others joked about addressing her as “Coach Yan”. He tried to stop them and only allowed them to call her “Leader Yan”!

“Coach Yan” was a term that belonged to him only!

Yan Zheke, with her blushed face, noticed a faint smile on her quiet and calm cousin’s face. She wanted to stamp her foot and snort. However, she knew that it was not the right time for her to flirt with her boyfriend in front of everyone. She lowered her head, looked at the tip of her foot and spoke softly,

“Coach Shi, what I’ve said is just the possible scenarios, but not detailed enough…”

While speaking, she stretched her left arm behind Lou Cheng and gently pinched him.

“I, I never laugh!” Lou Cheng innocently looked at the girl. “I had a hard time enduring!”

“Humph, I thought we promised to share a lifetime of ups and downs!” Yan Zheke secretly glared at him and pouted her lips. She looked slightly pleased as she felt less awkward and embarrassed after pinching him.

It does feel nice to have a boyfriend!

As a “lonely old man”, Geezer Shi pretended to be unaware of their interactions as he smiled and said, “There’re endless permutations in battlefields. Even if you can list them all down, they’ll not be able to remember all of them. What’s important is to grasp the main idea and not the details, so that all of you can be flexible with the idea. The reason why I dislike telling all of you what to do in a battle is that I want all of you to learn how to manage and handle situations. Not every battle that you fight is a Challenge Tournament where there’s a coach to analyze the situation for you and prepare you for it.”

“One only remembers through mistakes, so that you’ll not do it again the next time!”

Lou Cheng thought over his words and nodded slightly. His master was indeed an experienced real combat fighter.

“Great, go out then. Time to test your capabilities.” Geezer Shi turned around, as he led the team towards the entrance to the ring. He silently chuckled as he thought.

I can’t wait for all of you to lose this battle and accept your failures. Why would I still analyze the situations for group battle in details for you and point out those issues?

Naive! Childish!

Wait till the mud settles and the water is clear, I’ll conclude the situation for you all!

At that moment, Geezer Shi felt as if he was the biggest spy in the Martial Arts Club.

…

Just as the Martial Arts Club stepped out of the locker room together, groups of spectators instantly started cheering.

“All the way, Songcheng University!”

Right after that, the live broadcaster started to introduce the names of the players.

“For Songcheng University Martial Arts Club, the players here with us today are Lin Que…”

He purposely paused after reading the name as he watched nearly ten thousand students stand up from the spectators’ stand and cheered in unison.

“Come on, Lin Que!”

Waves of cheers were heard, which were strong enough to rock the stadium. Lin Que, who usually stayed calm and quiet, could not help but shiver a little.

After the cheers began to subside, the broadcaster then continued,

“Lou Cheng!”

He suddenly raised the tone of his voice as he seemed to be full of passion.

This made the whole arena burn with passion again. The students hit their seats with the inflatable cheer stick, creating a loud “Tum, tum, tum” noise as they exclaimed.

“Come on, Lou Cheng!

Lou Cheng shivered as he heard the loud and joyful cheers, which made him feel the adrenaline rush in his body.

He could feel the support from his schoolmates, which indirectly was added to his pressure.

They were too positive and excited, to the extent of not putting Azure Dragon Squad in their eyes. They seemed to think that with Lin Que and himself, the whole of Martial Arts Club could easily defeat the opponent!

The same went for senior brother Sun Jian and the rest of the teammates. They had even started planning how to use the divided money reward after they obtained victory!

If in the end, they did not obtain the victory which they expected, and if he let down everyone’s hope, he really could not imagine how awkward the atmosphere would be…

It seemed that they could not afford to lose this battle, and the responsibility was born by both Lin Que and himself…

Within a split second, many thoughts went through Lou Cheng’s mind. He started to have the urge of winning and the fear of losing. He could not help but turn his head to look at Lin Que, then at Yan Zheke.

Lin Que’s eyes were darkened as it gave out a strong urge to battle, like a frozen lake that showed no ripples. Yan Zheke’s big round eyes gave off a sense of excitement, with a bit of agitation and concern. She, too, could feel that everyone was too positive about the outcome, and it was as if they had overlooked many things.

They looked at one another and nodded their heads. Both of them understood each other’s concerns, but this also made Lou Cheng less anxious.

At least not all of our teammates are excited, and some of them are still aware of the situation.

So what if we have the strong urge to win and fear of losing?

I want to win in every battle, and I fear to lose in every battle!

Lou Cheng took a breath and walked in front of Coach Shi towards the ring.

At the same time, the broadcaster was still reciting the names of the players. The Martial Arts Arena reverberated with the teammates names such as “Li Mao”, “Yan Zheke”, “Sun Jian” and “Lin Hua.” As this was their first time experiencing and facing such joyful crowd, they could feel their rapid heartbeats and the adrenaline rush within them.

Li Mao’s body started to tremble and he felt nervous again. Luckily, he knew that he was only a substitute, not the main players, so his own failure would not affect the outcome. This then made him felt better.

On the other side of the ring, Mo Zicong, Deng Hua and Zhu Tao, who were wearing indigo as the base with Azure Dragon martial arts suit around, confidently and angrily climbed up the stairs made of rock.

Looking at the four black-coated referees on the ring, Mo Zicong shut his eyes and recalled the scene at the locker room with his teammates.

He had purposely exaggerated some of the words. This was to stimulate his teammates’ emotions, not only for today’s battle, but also for their future advancement.

Before “Azure Dragon Squad” was formed, there were only one elderly and one strong Ninth Pin fighters in each of the four ordinary martial arts schools. Not to mention martial arts schools opened by High-ranked Dan Stage family fighters, even to compete against Hongluo Martial Arts School would be too tough for them.

When the four martial arts schools collaborated, “Azure Dragon Squad” was formed. Mo Zicong’s and the others’ fames started to spread widely across Songcheng martial arts circle. They surpassed Hongluo Martial Arts School and was well-established as the second most possible team that could advance in the preliminaries. During this period, not only had they became more popular, they had also benefited a lot from it.

If they were to lose today’s battle, “Azure Dragon Squad” preliminaries journey would come to an end, and it was hard to say whether next year they could achieve a good result for advancing.

It was easy for the frugal to become extravagant, but it is hard to reverse the procedure. Mo Zicong, who was used to be the leader of “Azure Dragon Squad” no longer wished to return to the past, nor to return to his original status of a deputy supervisor at martial arts school. He wanted to attract and gather all the talents from different schools through the preliminaries. He wanted them to understand that unity made them stronger clearly. He wanted to motivate the four martial arts schools to build the “Azure Dragon Club”!

When he opened his eyes, Lou Cheng and his teammates, a total of six opponents, were already standing opposite them.

Since they had requested for the special competition format, they would need to face with the opponent’s advantage of having more members!

“If only I have Lou Cheng or Lin Que’s abilities, everything will be much easier…” Mo Zicong thought as he jealously took a glance at his opponents.

As more people were involved in the battles, the special competition format did not have talk time for both parties. Each of them only had a minute to prepare.

When Li Mao and the others had finally adjusted their moods, the referee waved his right arm downward and announced,

“Begin!”

The moment after he said that, the three Professional level fighters from Azure Dragon Squad dashed toward. Though Mo Zicong was big in size and was famous for his strength, and his movements were swift as well. He expanded his muscles and dashed towards the opponents like a wild elephant. Deng Hua and Zhu Tao had purposely run behind him by half a step.

From the bird’s eye view shown on the large screen, they were like sharp arrows that shot out and Mo Zicong was the arrowhead!

Faced with such situation, Lou Cheng and Lin Que had abided to the analysis by “Coach Yan”. They pounced forward and attacked separately from each side. Yan Zheke and the others kept their distances apart and followed Lou Cheng and Lin Que.

Seeing that the two parties were almost colliding, Mo Zicong suddenly stood still and rooted both his feet onto the ground. He was like a giant elephant that slowly crossed the river as his body muscles moved and his abdomen sucked in.

Woo!

A horrifying “Elephant Trumpet” sounded. Lou Cheng felt a buzz in his mind. His qi and blood in his chest churned rapidly as he slowed down his steps. Yan Zheke and other Amateur fighters were experiencing worse as they stumbled and felt dizzy.

Luckily they were prepared for Mo Zicong “Elephant Trumpet”. They bit the tip of their tongues with their teeth, and the sharp pain awakened their minds once again. They endured the discomfort as they returned to their positions, keeping their distance.

Just then, Mo Zicong bloated his abdomen again. His face turned red then white, and his Adam apple moved.

“Woo!”

Again, another loud “Elephant Trumpet” sounded, and it sounded right beside Lou Cheng, Li Mao and the others’ ears. Though they just bit their tongues, the attack made them stumble once more. All were affected except Lin Que, for he was already well-trained in martial arts. He moved and clogged his ears with pressure, which offset most of the impact.

Mo Zicong had actually continuously launched “Elephant Trumpet” twice. This was never seen in the past!

Mo Zicong stood on the spot after the “Elephant Trumpet”. His body shivered and his face looked pale. For a moment, he had no energy to follow up an attack.

The reason why he did not launch twice consecutively in the past was that even if he did, he knew that he would not be able to seize the opportunity to attack his opponent after that. However this time, he had two more teammates by his side!

Deng Hua and Zhu Tao, who had practiced for this for several times, exhaled via their mouths to offset the impact caused by Elephant Trumpet, and followed by biting the tip of their tongues. Now that their minds were clear, they stepped forward in front of Mo Zicong. One of them blocked Lin Que, while the other pounced towards Sun Jian!