After practicing qigong all night, Zhang Lei did not feel energetic at all. Instead, he felt tired and weak, and his muscles ached. This was completely different from the refreshing feeling described in the novel.
Perhaps it was due to lack of sleep, but Zhang Lei also had an uncontrollable thought in his heart. It might not just be due to lack of sleep, but Zhang Lei always felt that the vortex drawing energy from his muscles was not a good thing.
However, that was just baseless speculation, and we couldn't let it ruin our hopes.
Xiong Yong placed a blackboard eraser on the top edge of the blackboard, which looked at least a head and a half taller than him.
"Do you believe I can kick this blackboard eraser down?" Xiong Yong moved his shoulders and arms back and forth, but it was unclear why he was moving his shoulders and legs instead of kicking.
"Keep bragging!" The person who could say such a thing is definitely not Xiong Yong's enemy. Not to mention in this class, no one in this school would dare to say such a thing. The only person who could say such a thing is his brother, or, according to Zhang Lei, the guy who is in cahoots with him.
"Exactly, they're exaggerating!" Xiong Yong was surrounded by his gang from the foot of the mountain. These people had been together since kindergarten. Because they lived close by, they naturally formed a small gang, which was definitely the number one gang in this class of only a dozen or so boys.
Xiong Yong glanced at Zhang Lei seemingly unintentionally. In fact, Zhang Lei's actions yesterday had made him a little uneasy. He couldn't understand where Zhang Lei had learned such a thing. There's a difference between learning and mastering, especially being able to use it in actual combat. Xiong Yong understood that, because what he learned from his older brother was far more than what he could actually use.
Kicking the blackboard eraser now also carries a warning meaning: 'I only did it by accident yesterday, don't get cocky, if you dare to provoke me again, I'll teach you a lesson!'
Zhang Lei kept his head down, seemingly looking at something, but he avoided directing his gaze at Xiong Yong. Not only him, but none of the other boys in the class dared to stare at Xiong Yong, for fear that Xiong Yong might pick a fight at any moment.
Suddenly, Xiong Yong crouched down, swung his hands downwards, and used the momentum to jump up. "Hey!" he shouted, and the chalk dust in the blackboard tray seemed to be shaken out. In the midst of the dust, the blackboard eraser resting on the top edge of the blackboard was actually kicked up by him.
Needless to say, the difficulty of this task is immense. Not to mention a primary school student, how many adults could actually do it? Xiong Yong looked around smugly amidst the flattery of his subordinates. He was incredibly pleased to see the students below peeking at him with surprised expressions, especially Zhang Lei, who had caused trouble yesterday, whose mouth was agape in astonishment.
He had no idea what Zhang Lei was thinking. Zhang Lei was thinking that once he mastered his internal energy, he would be able to do much better than him, maybe even fly all the way to Little West Mountain. His mouth was open not out of surprise, but because he was so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed it closing. However, Zhang Lei hadn't considered that even if he mastered his internal energy, his ligaments wouldn't necessarily become loose. To kick like Xiong Yong, poor ligaments were essential.
Xiong Yong felt he had established enough authority, and his high-level performance just now gave him more confidence. Imitating a gangster from a Hong Kong movie, he swaggered up to Zhang Lei, grabbed Zhang Lei's collar across the desk, and said, "Zhang Lei, want to fight?"
He deliberately acted as if yesterday's events hadn't happened, not mentioning them at all. This was just a routine matter. If Zhang Lei acted as before, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to pretend it never happened, since he had already seen Zhang Lei yield to him. If Zhang Lei showed any resistance again, then that was perfect; he couldn't accuse him of seeking revenge later.
"Huh? I don't want to!" "Why?" "Because I'm afraid of you!"
Sure enough, Zhang Lei reverted to his previous cowardly demeanor. Xiong Yong, having saved face, walked away smugly, leaving Zhang Lei, who was hanging his head, with a look of contempt. Children's sense of justice is basically not yet formed, but this trend of despising cowards is very popular. Perhaps the only thing that is despised even more than a coward is someone who tells on someone to the teacher.
Zhang Lei wasn't stupid. The people following Xiong Yong today weren't the same group as yesterday, even though they were all part of the same gang. Among them, Zhao Luwei and Leng Weifeng were top-notch fighters, incredibly skilled in combat, but even at such a young age, they knew to respect their status and wouldn't bully Zhang Lei. In their words, what kind of skill was it to bully a child, especially since Zhang Lei was more than two years younger than them.
The others, standing next to Xiong Yong, aren't particularly strong in a one-on-one fight. Their specialty is taking sides and muddying the waters. If they were to actually fight Xiong Yong now, these guys' dirty tricks would be enough to knock him down. Don't even mention that Zhang Lei knew yesterday's fight was just luck; he definitely couldn't beat Xiong Yong. Even if he could, with these guys around, he would still be at a significant disadvantage.
Actually, Xiong Yong and his team didn't think much of these guys. They were often bullied within their organization. But in this situation, these guys were far more useful than those who were too proud of their status. This shows that everyone has their uses. Xiong Yong is good at using people. If he were in a big company, he might even be a CEO!
It was Wednesday, the day when middle school teachers who were Party members would have their organizational activities. This was also the only time of the week that Zhang Lei could go home by himself.
"Zhang Lei, let's go together!" A tall, slender, and handsome boy asked Zhang Lei to go home together. His name was Tian Zhiguo, and he was Zhang Lei's best friend. He was a little over a year older than Zhang Lei, but he was well-developed. Although he was younger, he was considered tall among boys a year older than him.
Zhang Lei also had a good friend, his deskmate Hu Zhongwei. However, these two friends seemed to get along very poorly. Although they wouldn't fight when they were together, they were never friendly to each other. Therefore, Zhang Lei would either walk home with Tian Zhiguo or with Hu Zhongwei; the three of them rarely walked together.
This was originally a difficult choice for Zhang Lei, since both of them were good friends of his. However, Hu Zhongwei recently started riding a bicycle, which saved Zhang Lei the trouble of choosing.
Since Hu Zhongwei was Zhang Lei's deskmate, he naturally wasn't very tall. Back then, there weren't mountain bikes or anything like that; the only bicycles available were old-fashioned bicycles or women's bicycles. The one Hu Zhongwei picked up was an old bicycle that his family had replaced—an old-fashioned bicycle that was difficult for even shorter adults to ride.
However, kids naturally have their own ways, commonly known as "crotch-strap riding." They would stretch their legs under the crossbar and ride at an angle. It looked dangerous and was tiring to ride, but it was still very cool for elementary school students to ride such a bike. At the time, it felt similar to college students driving a sports car.
Moreover, Hu Zhongwei has been getting very close to Xiong Yong and his group recently, which is also related to the fact that Xiong Yong and his group would pester him to borrow their bikes after class.
Zhang Lei didn't know who started it, but he felt that his relationship with Hu Zhongwei wasn't as close as before, and they often had some friction during class.
Episode 1: Internal Strength Like Drugs; Chapter 3: The Distant Friend
I don't know why, but the relationships between boys and girls here, especially among elementary school students, are very...
How to put it? It's the kind of feeling where there's not much interaction between them. In this small town that's mainly a power plant, it's rare to see male and female students walking together. If they do, they're mostly siblings. The relationships between men and women are overly reserved and shy.
At his old school, Zhang Lei not only had a harmonious relationship with his male and female classmates, but he also often went to the girls' restroom together with several female classmates who lived nearby. Of course, Zhang Lei's cute appearance when he was a child also played a part.
Therefore, when Zhang Lei first transferred here, he did not adapt to the atmosphere. At that time, Zhang Lei, who was still a second-grade student, was at the entrance of the movie theater with a few new friends. One of them was a girl. A group of children got tired of playing on the slide by the stairs and started looking for new ways to play.
Zhang Lei habitually suggested playing house. In the past, there were many girls around his home, and Zhang Lei was used to playing house with them. He suggested that he play the father and the girl play the mother. Zhang Lei couldn't remember if they continued to play house like that.
All he could remember was that someone had spread the word in class, and the next day it became a laughing stock, being ridiculed for more than two months. From then on, Zhang Lei got used to avoiding girls and trying not to talk to them. If he couldn't avoid them, he would just blush first, which might have been a bit of an overreaction.
Now, Zhang Lei either doesn't talk to girls at all, or when he does, he deliberately speaks very stiffly, even more so than the original children here.
They traveled in silence. After returning home, Zhang Lei ate some of the food he had prepared that morning and couldn't resist practicing his self-created kung fu again. The allure of that pleasure was something no child could resist.
Zhang Lei's parents, both Party members, didn't return home until after 11 p.m. When they got back, they tiptoed back to their room, completely unaware that their son was still awake and afraid of waking him.
In the following days, although Zhang Lei's parents did not attend the organization's activities every day, they did not expect that Zhang Lei would lie in bed and not sleep, practicing his qigong that he had not yet named.
Zhang Lei's qigong never required sitting upright from the very beginning, which is why he was able to lie in bed pretending to be asleep while enjoying wave after wave of pleasure.
Normally, a man's ten-plus minutes of intense thrusting is all for those few seconds of pleasure. While the pleasure Zhang Lei experienced through his qigong was slightly less intense, it far surpassed that feeling in terms of duration and persistence. Although Zhang Lei couldn't yet compare the two sensations, he couldn't help but become captivated by it.
Long-term sleep deprivation can lead to poor concentration, slow reaction time, weakness in the limbs, and irritability. If it continues for a long time, it may even cause a decline in intelligence.
Practicing Qigong cannot replace sleep, especially since Zhang Lei's self-created Qigong, which is of unknown origin and completely nonsensical, is even less likely to have that function. Therefore, in the past few days, Zhang Lei has experienced almost all of the other symptoms except for his irritability. This is also because his temper is generally good, and even though he is more irritable than before, he still appears very gentle.
However, it's not yet apparent in terms of intelligence, since there haven't been any recent exams.
...
In elementary schools in Northeast China, there's a game boys play where they draw a large pair of scissors on the ground. A person inside the scissors tries to jump out along the drawn blades, and the people on the arms of the scissors have to push that person out of bounds. The rules, of course, aren't that simple, but there's no need to go into all the details here.
A small incident occurred when they were being divided into groups. Zhang Lei casually said, "Carrot, come to our group!" Carrot was Hu Zhongwei's nickname. Because they were deskmates and had a good relationship, Zhang Lei always called him that.
Unexpectedly, this call caused trouble. Hu Zhongwei immediately turned hostile, saying, "Who are you calling a carrot? Who are you calling a carrot?!" He grabbed Zhang Lei by the collar and pushed him forward, causing the stunned Zhang Lei to stumble backward until he was pushed against the wall more than ten meters away. Hu Zhongwei then raised his hand and gave Zhang Lei a crisp slap across the face.
In just a short while, the two were pulled apart. Zhang Lei was still in a daze, raising his hand to rub his still numb cheeks, tears slowly streaming down his face.
Zhang Lei had been sleep-deprived for the past two nights due to the stress of the night, but there was another reason: he never expected one of his best friends to treat him this way. Rather than being terrified, he was simply caught off guard by the suddenness of the event.
Zhang Lei's timidity was mainly directed at Xiong Yong, who had built up his reputation over the years. He didn't have that kind of fear of others. If he hadn't been completely unprepared for this situation, Zhang Lei might not have won in a fight, but he wouldn't have suffered too much either.