173 You Know Her
A new day, a new challenge.
This morning, Wang Heng arrived at the familiar martial arts gym and saw Ye Xun warming up with a jump rope as soon as he entered.
Seeing him arrive, the girl came over and said, “The ring is empty and no one is using it. How about we go up and play? It feels like it’s been a long time since we fought in the ring. Do you want to go up?”
Wang Heng thought for a moment.
Compared to a month or two ago, he felt that he should have made great progress now, and wouldn’t be unable to last even two rounds like before.
Looking around… because it was still morning, the martial arts gym hadn’t officially opened, and there were no customers at all. Most of the apprentices stationed in the martial arts gym had also gone out for a run, and the surroundings were empty, with few people.
In other words, even if he was abused, it wouldn’t be too embarrassing, as few people could see it anyway.
So he nodded. “Okay, no problem. MMA rules?”
Ye Xun: “Whatever rules you like.”
“Then MMA rules.”
With that, Wang Heng took off his jacket, shoes, and socks, and started wrapping bandages around himself—after practicing so many times, he was already familiar with how to wrap bandages.
After the bandages were done, it was time to put on boxing gloves. Logically speaking, MMA rules should use open-finger gloves, but the two were just sparring for fun, so there was no need to be too serious.
Ye Xun brought a pair of ordinary boxing gloves and helped him put them on. Wang Heng originally wanted to do this step himself, but Ye Xun’s movements in putting on gloves for him were quite natural and skilled. Before he could refuse, they were almost on.
Then, the girl put on boxing gloves for herself, pulled open the ropes of the ring, and ducked in.
Wang Heng followed her into the ring. The two stood face to face, a few steps apart.
Looking at the desolation around them, Ye Xun said, “No audience and no referee needed. It’s quite nice. Start now?”
“Start.”
Wang Heng assumed a stance, moving back and forth with small steps, slowly approaching the girl…
He now knew that in combat, one needed to constantly change positions with these small steps, making it difficult for the opponent to judge the distance. But in this process, one couldn’t jump, and both feet shouldn’t leave the ground at the same time, at least not in the novice stage. One had to maintain a state where force could be exerted at any time, and one could dodge forward, backward, or sideways freely at any time, which was a flexible state of balance.
Ye Xun was the same, only her steps were more subtle…
Suddenly, she exerted force with her right leg, a low sweep kick, hitting the side of Wang Heng’s calf.
Wang Heng gritted his teeth and didn’t cry out in pain—although it did hurt, he was already relatively accustomed to this kind of pain. It was precisely because of this adaptation that he understood that as long as he was prepared, Ye Xun’s low sweep kick couldn’t KO him at all.
However, just as he endured the pain and prepared to counterattack, Ye Xun retracted her right leg in time and opened up a little distance again.
This made it hard to counterattack.
Wang Heng licked his lips and continued to wait patiently for an opportunity.
After a few seconds of confrontation, Ye Xun suddenly repeated her old trick, another low sweep kick. At the same time, Wang Heng took a big step forward, so that Ye Xun’s kick hit his leg before it was fully extended. Thus, the power was greatly reduced.
Closing the distance made it convenient to punch.
Wang Heng threw an uppercut, seeing that it was about to hit the girl’s abdomen, he subconsciously removed a lot of force.
Although Ye Xun’s abdominal muscles and vest line were beautiful, he couldn’t help but worry about the ability of this part to withstand blows.
However, this punch didn’t hit at all.
When the fist was still dozens of centimeters away from her abdomen, Ye Xun had already hugged his punching right arm, pulled hard, and exerted force with her whole body to wrap around him.
The next second, Ye Xun pulled Wang Heng to the ground, and their bodies crossed horizontally and vertically, lying in a cross shape, with Ye Xun on top and Wang Heng below—the classic flying armbar.
When the jiu-jitsu move was formed, one of the girl’s legs pressed on Wang Heng’s chest, the other leg pressed on his neck, and her hands held his right arm, locking it between her legs.
Then, holding his locked arm, she slowly lay back, tightened her abdomen, and thrust her hips.
In this way, Wang Heng’s right arm was essentially locked by Ye Xun’s entire body, with force applied against the joint. Of course, Ye Xun didn’t really exert force; otherwise, let alone ligament injury, there would even be a danger of breaking the arm.
“Lost again.” Wang Heng sighed and patted her leg with his free left hand, signaling surrender.
This leg looked white and slender, but when Wang Heng patted it, he found that the muscles were quite tough when she exerted force. The feel was completely different from other girls, almost like beef tendon.
Ye Xun released him, stood up, and smiled. “But the progress is obvious. If you had punched a little faster, I wouldn’t have had time for the armbar.”
At a time like this, saying something like ‘I just didn’t have the heart to punch hard’ would be too tasteless.
Wang Heng just said, “It’s okay, practice slowly. And your armbar was an eye-opener for me. Being pulled to the ground from a standing position and locked, it’s really the first time in actual combat.”
Ye Xun extended her hand in front of him. “Get up. Do you want to rest for a while before practicing again?”
“Sure.”
Wang Heng took her hand and stood up.
The two got off the ring and went to the area they were most accustomed to.
Then, Ye Xun took out her phone from her bag and suddenly said, “By the way, I recently discovered a great original singer. Do you want to listen together?”
“Okay.”
When nodding in agreement, Wang Heng didn’t think much. But when the familiar piano intro sounded, he was stunned.
“I step onto a road in the desert,
Looking at the dust-covered face in the mirror,
Hesitating silently in every dusk,
Lighting a candle for myself,
Sometimes recalling the beginning,
Only to find the way back is long gone,
All youth is always let down,
Pieces of a puzzle scattered into the sea…”
The ethereal girlish voice echoed in the empty martial arts gym.
Ye Xun sat by the wall, humming softly along with the song playing on her phone.
“I know clearly how many thorns lie ahead,
Busy like an ant,
I don’t know how much hope the future holds,
Can’t learn to be mature…”
Here, the chorus ended, and the song entered a piano interlude.
Ye Xun looked at the boy beside her and said softly, “I like both the lyrics and the melody very much. I can listen to it on single-song loop while grinding problems. What do you think?”
Facing the girl’s gaze, Wang Heng was pondering a question. That was, should he reveal it now?
Since he had already let Han Yixuan and Lu Qi meet, letting Ye Xun and Pei Ningle get to know each other should also play a role in making the battlefield of love transparent, right?
The key was, unlike those two actors, Ye Xun and Pei Ningle were both relatively shallow in scheming, especially Pei Ningle… So what would happen after introducing them to each other?
Quarrel directly, or maintain a relatively harmonious friendship?
This depended on his operation—thinking of this, Wang Heng secretly made up his mind.
Two minutes later, “Lost Path” played to the end.
Ye Xun asked with a smile, “How was it? Sounds good, right?”
Wang Heng said solemnly, “Pei Ningle’s songs, of course they sound good.”
Ye Xun’s smile froze instantly. “You know her?”
