The world hadn't gone looking for trouble. It was Jiaming who'd gone looking for it.
New Year at the Huang house was a drawn-out, tedious business, but for a child of as little account as Jiaming, it could still be dodged, mostly. What he couldn't dodge were the ancestral rites, the New Year's Eve dinner, and the next day's round of New Year calls and red envelopes.
When Huang Haobing and his pack of kids caught sight of him, they wore the look of boys who wanted to beat him up and didn't dare — it was hilarious.
Like a husband dumped by his wife: now that she's married someone else, he wants to hit her every time he lays eyes on her, only her new husband is a bit too ferocious, so the urge stays locked in his heart, written all over his face, and never once dares become action.
He had no love for this big family. On New Year's Day he collected a few red envelopes and was then hauled off to the martial arts school by Lingjing, and from then on he spent basically every day there.
The school was called the Ye Family Martial Arts School: the training hall in front, a courtyard in the middle, the living quarters in back. In the first days of the new year there weren't many students; apart from Lingjing, who monopolized the whole small fighting platform every day, two other kids spent all day circling around her.
Papa Ye usually sat to one side of the hall with a book, and Jiaming would occasionally take a book down from the shelf too, which got him scolded by Lingjing for putting on airs.
Now and then Lingjing called him up onto the platform to be her training dummy. For Jiaming, seeing punch after punch thrown with openings a mile wide and not striking back was agony, so whenever a visitor came to pay New Year's respects, he'd slip down to help serve tea and pour water. The guests would ask, "Old Ye, when did you get another son?" and Papa Ye would usually answer, "This one really is my son. Lingjing's just a child bride we're raising here." And then Lingjing would sulk for the rest of the day.
Naturally he couldn't spend the entire day at the school either. Now and then Papa Ye took the four children out to play, and while bamboo dragonflies whirled and firecrackers went off, Jiaming still had to put on a silly show of huge interest and cheering delight. Only at moments like that did he curse that phoenix: Why couldn't you have sent me back to when I was eighteen or nineteen?
On the fifth day of the new year, Liu Huaisha showed up at the door in head-to-toe red, right on schedule, to become a disciple.
It was around nine in the morning when she arrived. On the small platform, Jiaming was holding up two pads as Lingjing's punching bag. Seeing a kid come in, she waved at Lingjing first; Papa Ye took her for one of Lingjing's friends and came over smiling. "Hello there, little one. Are you here to play with Lingjing?"
"Ah, hello. You're Lingjing's dad, right?" Liu Huaisha bowed, pulled off her red ankle boots crusted with snow, looked at the two on the platform, and spun her finger through the air in a couple of cute little circles. "No — I'm here to... challenge the school!"
"Huh? Challenge the school?" Papa Ye's face was plainly startled, but then Liu Huaisha pointed up at the platform. "I want to spar with him!" And it wasn't Ye Lingjing she was pointing at, but Gu Jiaming, standing there with the hand pads like a fool.
At that, everyone was a little surprised. Lingjing said, "Him? He doesn't know how to fight." Jiaming shook his head in agreement.
"No way. He's wearing your school's uniform, so he's one of yours, isn't he? Yesterday when he got bullied, he needed a girl to protect him. I came here to learn, but if I learn and still can't beat a girl, then what's the point of learning?"
"Mm, well, learning martial arts is for building a strong body, not for fighting..." Papa Ye said, stroking his beard. He glanced at Jiaming on the platform and changed his tune. "Ahem. Still, this concerns the honor of our school. Jiaming, go have a match with this little girl."
"Huh?" Jiaming's mouth fell open. This Papa Ye was obviously hoping for a good laugh at his expense. Sure enough, he went on: "Mm, winning or losing doesn't matter. What matters is that you have the guts. We can't have our school made a laughingstock."
Ye Lingjing frowned, turned back, and said, "All right, then. Jiaming, just have one match with Sister Huaisha. Anyway... I'll sneak over and tell her to go easy on you."
"Uh... so how am I supposed to fight?"
"You just... just run for your life as hard as you can."
"Oh." Jiaming smiled helplessly inside. Running away it is, then. Running's a fine strategy. I'll just play along — it's not as if I'd be scared of one little girl.
A moment later, Lingjing hopped down off the platform and whispered something to Liu Huaisha. The girl in red nodded. But once she was up on the platform, she said softly, "I hate boys who need girls to help them more than anything. Just you wait!"
The two bowed to each other. Papa Ye tapped the little bell at the side and called out, "Begin!" — and the girl in red let out a shout and threw a punch. The punch looked properly impressive, and with that shout behind it, it really did carry some force. Yet it landed on nothing but air, because at the very instant the word "begin" was called, Jiaming had already yelled "Help!" and bolted.
The platform was a little smaller than a standard boxing ring. For children it was still plenty big, but cornering a single person inside it ought to have been easy. Watching the boy do nothing but yell "Help!" and run laps around the platform, Liu Huaisha felt her contempt rise. Her father had said that a real man faces any challenge without a shred of fear. Let's see how far you can run. She charged.
A few moments later, she discovered that this boy ran exactly like a loach — running, jumping, rolling, using the spring of the platform ropes to pick up speed. However hard she chased, he somehow always managed to scramble off to the other side of the platform, and time after time he slipped right past her. After about five minutes of chasing around that platform, she hadn't caught so much as a corner of his clothes.
"Stop running...!"
"Help...!"
"Just wait till I catch you...!"
"Help...!"
"Run again and I'll kill you...!"
"Help...!"
A few moments more, and the chase on the platform had become a farce in everyone else's eyes. Below it, Lingjing's cheering drifted from "Run, Jiaming, run..." to "Run, Jiaming, run — go, Sister Huaisha!" Ye Han was doubled over, holding his belly and howling with laughter, and that laughter made Liu Huaisha feel more humiliated by the second.
"Stop running!"
"Help...!"
"I quit!"
Chased into a breathless heap, little Huaisha finally couldn't take it anymore and shouted for a stop. The moment the words left her mouth, Jiaming's body halted on the spot; he leaned against one of the corner posts, panting lightly. "Really?"
"All you know how to do is run."
"So we're even? I didn't beat you, and you didn't beat me?"
The girl in red was gasping for air, eyes slanting sideways at Jiaming, who came grinning toward her. All at once the little girl let out a huge "Aah!" and pounced, fingers hooked like claws. "I'm going to kill you!"
Jiaming jerked back, dodged the kick, threw both hands up to guard his head, and dropped low at the same time. Now he was pressed into the corner; in a scramble like this, a nimble escape wasn't so simple anymore. Little Huaisha's second punch slammed into his arm. Her heart leaped with joy, and another punch followed right on its heels — but this time it hit air again.
It wasn't that Jiaming had escaped. He had dropped into a half crouch, and when the punch missed, her body pitched forward of its own accord. Jiaming was just about to lunge forward when he threw his arms around her waist — and the little girl's body went up into the air.
With a "bang," the little girl hit the floor hard, and Jiaming came down on top of her, fist already raised to strike. In a professional fighter's match, a move like that would have been seen as an outstanding display; in Papa Ye's eyes, of course, it was nothing but little Jiaming's dumb luck. Seeing the look in Jiaming's eyes at that moment, little Huaisha cried out, twisted her head away, and squeezed her eyes shut — but the next moment she realized that Jiaming was only gripping both of her hands.
"Let go of me!"
"No!"
"Let go!"
"You'll hit me!"
"Aah—"
On the platform, the little girl pinned underneath thrashed and clawed, struggling with all her might, screaming again and again, even trying to open her mouth and bite. But no matter what, Jiaming only pressed her two hands down, and for all her shouting, he absolutely would not let go.
"Aah— I'm going to kill you—"