Chapter 196: Brewing Storm XII
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The saving grace was how Lan Yixing was a mere owner of a mere dojo to the eyes of the public. His title of "Lan family of September" would only be effective to one who was well-aware of its existence like Rui Bing. The hospitality Lan Yixing received was not as great, and could be said was a total mismatch to his strength. He was naturally a person of low-profile however and that would be helpful for he was very much prepared this time, striving to bombard the crowd towards the end of the tournament to grab their attention, the later the stronger the effect.
As the participation was overwhelming and had gone beyond Hua Tiankai’s expectation, helplessly he also opened up the training room right next to the reception hall to accommodate the guests. Lan Yixing on the other hand, led Ye Chong to sat at one quiet corner of the hall.
"Shang, so this is the tournament between martial artists?" asked Ye Chong as he was left with an impression that Shang had somehow mentioned something like a fighting tournament on Windstar before.
"Mhm," replied Shang.
Frankly speaking, Ye Chong was still a little intrigued of this mentioned tournament. After witnessing the capabilities of Lan Yixing, Ye Chong no longer held even a bit of disdain towards the martial arts practitioners from the 5 major galaxies. Imagining the fearsome dragons and tigers lurking in this hall, Ye Chong could tell some of them could be potentially on par with the experts at Black Coves.
Ye Chong was also highly confident of his learning ability, considering that with the involvement at the tournament this time, one could tell the speeding up benefits for his skills.
There were uninvited guests from the other planets, the dojo owner realized that and would like to express his respect towards them, as he called over one man to break the wall between the reception hall and the temporary hall. One buffed man with a tanned face offered his help proactively, one fist landed to the wall and it began cracking like a spider web, which soon collapsed into countless specks, piling a tiny ruin.
The punch had won over the thunderous applause of the entire hall.
"Such an attention seeker," disdained Shang. "You even want to flaunt wall-breaking? Ye, his punch is even worse than the one you did last time. Man, talking about beginners, they have seen nothing." That punch Shang quoted was from the time when Ye Chong broke the metallic gate in a spaceship barehanded. With his current strength, he was hardly interested in such a performer’s kind of behavior. Similarly, Lan Yixing who shared the same impression, carried on sipping that cup of tea he had been sipping since forever.
Well, that very punch made by that tanned face man obviously had stirred the emotion of the crowds, giving them expectation towards the tournament this time.
Both Lan Yixing and Ye Chong sat at the corner. They recognized nobody from the crowd. They put up their ultimate straight face. No doubt, nobody would bother to take the initiative to talk to them. Meanwhile, Hua Tiankai, being the host of the tournament, had become busier than the bees, more occupied than the waiter at the restaurant where Ye Chong was in, of course he would not remember Lan Yixing being there.
"Hah!" Shang shrieked excitingly, "I knew it!"
"What?" asked Ye Chong in confusion.
"What else? It’s Bing! Bing! Your Bing Bing yeah! Ye, move your eyes to the table at the center, what did you see over there? Did you see it? Wow, B-i-n-g-B-i-n-g…" The flooding excitement seemed to have jammed his audio-producing system… Ye Chong seriously hoped that.
His heart pumped hard once, as the silhouette of her wavy white garb flashed in his head. Well that was just one hard pump. Shang had already informed him the name of the girl being Rui Bing. What has Rui Bing to do with me though? That was the first thought sprouting in his head.
Nonetheless, the admiration lingered. Her standard of combats, her spirit of perseverance, and her demureness of posture, in that grace of eternity, those had left impressions in him.
He glanced at the direction of Rui Bing. That girl in her white garb was still her old self. Her posture on the seat did not even change, although that Wei Yuan by her side was a tiny surprise to him.
Speaking of Wei Yuan, he had been a headache to Hua Tiankai and his apprentices, for he had been somehow glued to Rui Bing since ages. It was Rui Bing who accepted his entry out of sympathy for his young age and pitiful look. She took good care of him. Wei Yuan had been staying with his father back when he was much younger, certainly he would have never experienced that nurturing aspect of a family. Towards Rui Bing’s motherly care, he was touched, thus his obedience day by day. They gradually grew on each other and Wei Yuan even requested Rui Bing to be his sister at one point, well, she nodded her head happily.
Rui Bing immediately discovered his role in this brother-and-sister relationship for somehow Wei Yuan detected her distastefulness towards those guys under Hua Tiankai. As soon as Hua Shangmei and his brothers in apprenticeship came to Rui Bing, Wei Yuan would jump into action and disrupt the entire scene, which was driving these boys crazy yet they were incapable of doing anything in the situation. And Rui Bing’s residence was enjoying better serenity than before.
The reality was, Wei Yuan identified Sister Bing surely being someone related to YC. Furthermore, those pretentious behavior of the boys were disgusting him. He feared Sister Bing losing something in the end, thus his disruption, joining the fun. It was partially out of his sense of protectiveness towards Sister Bing and the other half being the exaltation towards YC.
Thanks to Sister Bing, he managed to become the guest at the centermost table.
"Oh, Bing Bing, Ye… It’s *your* Bing Bing…" Shang sounded like he was moaning.
That was peculiar to Ye Chong’s ears, for he wondered what had made the artificial indulgence even more indulgent today, "Shang, according to the all the information I had been given at the moment, she does not seem to share any kind of relationship with me, but why do you keep saying that she’s mine the whole time?"
"Hah!" Chuckled Shang, "Ye, you would not have understood. It’s a woman after all, a deep study of life. She had already made her statement remember? She would marry no other man than you! Do you really think our Bing Bing would be telling a lie?"
"*Our* Bing Bing? Shang, your statement is contradicting!" reminded Ye Chong.
"Kek! Ye, aren’t what yours ours as well?" rebutted Shang.
Ye Chong agreed, "If she is truly mine, then your statement would make sense." And he tried his very best to find the tape of that very moment of his life and replay it to see if he missed any- "But she does not seem to have mentioned something like marrying no other man than me. She only said she wanted me to marry her."
Oh the pride in Shang’s laugh, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ye, you seriously need to study more romance movies. Tsk, tsk, tsk, this is an effective rite of passage of humanity, the path to the colorful life. Once you got to my place, heh! With my level, clearly you would understand what ‘*our* Bing Bing’ mean… Hehehehehe!"
"I see." Ye Chong could not comprehend a word Shang said as usual. Even though he was speaking English, it unavoidably gave him headache in the end. To retain his sanity, he chose to end the topic.
Since he had been sitting at the corner and Rui Bing never had the habit of looking around, absolutely not once she would notice that cold man. Surprisingly Wei Yuan had the habit, as he set his eyes upon everything around, they were so exciting! "I mean, look at those colorful mechs!" It was a shame for he only recognized mechs and not… humans.
Soon, the tournament commenced!
There were several sections in this tournament. It would begin with a group performance of trainees from Tianhua dojo, then the competition itself, followed by the exchange of the latest mech combats and lastly the explanation from the Master, being the drum-roll of the show.
The group performance was not impressive in the eyes of the experts. It was as if they were watching a bunch of dolls waving their limbs with the unnecessary heyhoos. The outsiders were enjoying every bit of the show however, it was lively and able to capture their interests on martial arts.
The first section was unquestionably successful, judging by the thrilled applause from the audience, with ear-piercing whistle and scream. The experts at the seat felt proud of the reaction as they straightened their back and set off an expression of their prime.
Ye Chong at the corner was enjoying his corner, not the show at all. He was in dead serious wonders on why it took forever for Lan Yixing to finish his tea. Shang in his head was laughing in an odd mechanical utterance. Sounds like a short-circuit or Shang was literally laughing blankly in his head he thought.
The competition part was the main event, the eye-catcher of them all. The participants were of great amount, considering how this would be the one-and-only golden opportunity for them to experience the kicks and punches pulled by the others. There were even a handful of fighters coming across the galaxies just to attend the tournament today.
The training room was renovated for the competition purposes and was furnished with a number of devices of advanced technology to allow the audience to view the field from all sorts of angles in clarity throughout the event. It seemed like Tianhua dojo had dumped in a large portion of their savings in this, with those hologramic projectors of the latest models in all sizes scattered at every corner of the stage. Every spectator was also given a helmet at their seat to choose the match they desired via signal transmittance.
The tournament this time was also the pioneer to martial arts streaming on the Virtual World network, though there were only 3 channels, Hua Tiankai tried his best.
An exciting teaser of martial arts was played and everyone had their blood boiling.
The sharp chimes of the copper bells clouded the galaxy with a sense of the ancient, informing the crowd that the match commencing.
The seniority at the seat were nodding their heads in the dark, as fascinated by the capabilities of this master in producing the right atmosphere.
The panel of judges of the tournament this time consisted of the few celebs or true experts among the martial artists, and here Rui Bing was, sitting by the table, being the only female at the panel. One could tell the inferiority of females in the field.
That was none of Ye Chong’s concern however, as his eyes fixed upon the matching participants. These participants were quite peculiar, with drastically different age groups and color of their apparels. Their movements were the most peculiar in his eyes, with most of them being never-before-seen to him.
Ye Chong in his helmet was selecting the match he found interests in. He had to admit that the latest model was the latest after all, for it could capture the frames at the highest definition possible, expressing details at its finest.
Like that rather underweight man for instance, his movement was inspiring. His body moved like a spinning top in the air of a great velocity, which formed an reinforcing airflow on his kick, moving like a whip. Once he hit the opponent he would grab that inertia to turn the tide of his.
His opponent was a tall, bulky man, who backed off consecutively as hit by his kick.
Such movement was the eye-opener to Ye Chong, as he complimented in his thoughts to express his amazement. This was a prime example of employing all the strength throughout his body to fight the foe while utilizing inertias in brilliance to make motions and changes in his moves. He would then become unpredictable to the foes. Brilliant!
Of course, such move was hardly a threat to Ye Chong, as he could simply think of more than 10 methods to solve this puzzle. But that did not necessarily kill his admiration towards it.
There were too many matches going on simultaneously with dazzling techniques being never-before-seen. He eventually requested Shang to record everything at once and intended to check them out after the match ended.
Ye Chong was fully occupied to the match as he disregarded the flow of time. Out of sudden, a tap on his shoulder woke him.