Hu Sanniang said sadly, "I'm not going."
Seeing that Baozi was present, I knew the meeting couldn't proceed, so I said as I walked out, "That's settled then, let's meet in the lobby at 7:30 tomorrow."
Zhang Shun exclaimed happily, "Xiao Qiang is getting married? This is something to celebrate! Let's drink..." He knew he had made a mistake as soon as he uttered the first word and quickly stopped.
I could tell that everyone was genuinely happy for me, so I smiled and said, "Drink up, drink up, one and a half pounds per person."
The bridal shops Baozi mentioned weren't actually wedding dress shops; they were just for show. Once inside, the prices were outrageously high, and the dresses were covered in dust, so we didn't even bother trying them on. We quickly browsed through the shops, and I took her hand, strolling slowly under the cover of night, as if to digest our food. Across the street, an acquaintance encountered a rather embarrassing situation, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Baozi asked curiously, "What are you laughing at?" and glanced across the street as well.
Across the street, a pretty girl was blocked by three drunkards. She tried to run left and right, but the grinning drunks kept stopping her, seemingly trying to take advantage of her. The girl had long, smooth, black hair and a pair of alluring, bright, almond-shaped eyes, though they weren't closed yet—she was the female leader of the New Moon group.
Don't you think these three are courting death?
But Baozi panicked as soon as she saw it. With great experience, she pulled out two bricks from under a phone booth, handed me one, and said hurriedly, "Let's go!"
I grabbed her and leaned against the roadside railing, saying slowly, "I'll treat you to a movie."
Baozi asked, puzzled, "What movie?"
""pain"!"
But after watching for a while, the female team leader seemed to be dragging things out; she didn't actually hit anyone, she just politely tried to leave. Three drunkards surrounded her, making small, menacing gestures, but nothing significant happened. Baozi pinched me and said, "What's wrong with you? Aren't you going to help?"
I thought to myself, "Fine, I'll go over and hear what they're saying." So I led Baozi across the street and moved a little closer. To my surprise, the female leader spotted me immediately, waved excitedly, and shouted, "Brother, they're bullying me!"
I was completely dumbfounded. She called me so affectionately, I almost doubted if I really had such a sister. When I caught a glimpse of smugness and cunning in her eyes, I finally understood: this little vixen was trying to trick me, trying to drag me into this mess.
I should have deduced from the tricks she used in the exhibition match that this little vixen was a real fox.
When she shouted that, the three drunkards took it seriously and pointed their bottles at my nose, warning me, "Mind your own business!" I innocently replied, "I don't care, I'm just watching."
Taking advantage of this moment, the female team leader shamelessly ran out of the encirclement, laughing as she walked, "Brother, give them a good beating!" Looking at her clear eyes and silvery voice, she was as pure as Tarzan's sister, as if she had spent decades in the deep forest, only to emerge into this bustling world. Who would have thought that with a face like a peach blossom, a heart like a serpent? I bet that no matter who beat whom up, she'd be laughing her head off. The three idiots stared blankly, then unconsciously surrounded me. How wronged I was! At that moment, Baozi appeared from behind me, brandishing a brick and gritting his teeth, saying, "Anyone who dares to lay a hand on me, I'll kill them!"
One of the guys, squinting drunkenly, said, "Hey, another chick, pretty hot. I like her." Another chimed in, "She's just a bit ugly." Finally, the one with a streak of red hair chuckled lewdly and said, "It's okay, it's all the same with the lights off..."
Before he could finish speaking, I smashed a brick hard into his head. My brother Xiaoqiang might be a bit shameless, but everyone has principles. My principle is simple: no one will dare to bully my woman.
Enraged by such scum, Baozi's face turned deathly pale. As I slammed a brick into the red-haired man's head, she simultaneously kicked him in the groin. Baozi liked to wear boots, the kind with sharp, pointed toes that looked incredibly painful. The red-haired man, struck on the head and groin by the brick, instantly arched his back like a shrimp, his eyes bulging, letting out a soul-stirring "Oh—".
"Was that fun?" I grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the iron bars, sending a deep, resonant sound through the air. Red Hair collapsed to the ground, and Baozi cheered, rushing over like a little girl who had just seen candy. She poked Red Hair's stomach repeatedly with the tip of her shoe, cursing as she did so: "Bin Laden, you have a pig's head and you still want to be a Hui Muslim!"
Red Hair's accomplice hesitated for a few seconds before rushing forward with the bottle. Baozi was kicking her butt in the middle of the fight, so I could only stand in front of her and immediately got hit on the arm by the bottle.
"Stop hitting it." A cold voice said. The female team leader had returned sometime earlier. She calmly told the two drunkards, "Wait a minute." Then she took the bricks from my and Baozi's hands, placed them on the railing, and smashed them into brick dust like chopping mung bean cakes. One of the drunkards couldn't help but say, "Could this be fake ground?"
The female tour leader shifted her leg, and the bottle in the drunkard's hand snapped cleanly in two. She stomped her foot to remove the glass shards from her shoe, then squinted at them and asked, "Want to keep fighting?"
It's said that alcohol can make people do stupid things, but that didn't happen at all in these two. They shook their heads like willow branches in a typhoon.
Then the four of us stood leaning against the railing and watched Baozi kick Hongmao for a while longer before the three drunkards tearfully parted ways with us.
Baozi was in a much better mood by then. She took out a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead, bought a bottle of ice water from a roadside vendor, gulped down a few mouthfuls, and exclaimed, "Ugh, I'm exhausted!" After finishing the water, she looked at the two of us, who seemed a little embarrassed, and asked, "You two know each other?"
The female team leader and I were at a loss for words, one nodding and the other shaking her head. Baozi, full of suspicion, asked, "What's going on between you two?"
The female tour leader pulled Baozi aside and whispered something to her, glancing back at me a few times as she spoke. Baozi chuckled as she listened, "Haha, don't take it to heart, girl, that's just how he is."
I lit a cigarette and squatted on the curb, feeling excluded by these two women, and quite depressed. After a while, the female team leader came over alone. It seemed she originally wanted to kick me, but after thinking about it, she patted my shoulder and extended her hand to me, saying, "Qiangzi, right? My name is Tong Yuan. Let's forget about the past. Consider this a case of 'no fight, no friendship'."
I held her hand and examined it from all angles for a long time, then exclaimed, "How come there's not a single bit of dead skin?"
Tong Yuan withdrew her hand, glared at me, and greeted Baozi warmly, "Sister Baozi—"
Baozi came over and took her arm; the two of them were incredibly affectionate. Baozi said, "Little sister, you've got some nerve!"
Tong Yuan said a little shyly, "I've been practicing since I was little."
Now I finally had a chance to ask, "Why didn't you deal with those three thugs earlier? Is all you know how to do is break bricks?"
Tong Yuan smiled and said, "We martial artists should avoid trouble and try not to fight if possible. Besides, we are studying bodyguards, so we must learn to lie low and not be exposed in front of others, otherwise we will become useless. Just now..." Tong Yuan suddenly became serious and said to me, "I didn't know that you had Sister Baozi behind you, otherwise I wouldn't have joked with you like that. Consider it a favor I owe you."
"A joke?" I exclaimed, rubbing my arm. "Do you know someone could die?"
At this point, Tong Yuan looked me up and down and said, "Do you even know kung fu? Why do you fight like a thug?"
Baozi laughed and said, "You're not the first person to say that about him."
I replied, "It won't be the last one either."
Tong Yuan, holding Baozi's hand, said, "Sister, you're so talented, why don't you learn kung fu from me?"
I pulled the steamed bun into my arms, glared at Tong Yuan, and said, "Don't you think the world is chaotic enough already?"
...
At 7:30 the next morning, my teammates and I set off for the stadium on time. The 300 team had already been picked up and was in place by the organizing committee. Lin Chong honked his horn to signal the time for the draw at the designated location. I used this time to find the chairman of the organizing committee and told him that due to special circumstances, our team wanted to replace one person, Zhou Tingmeng (a combination of Zhou Tong, Jiao Ting, and Tong Meng), with Xiao Qiang, which is me—I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with this name. Before I could explain my reasons, the chairman said kindly, "Sure, I'd also like to see your iron seal."
...
Then I took the special approval slip from the organizing committee and returned to the VIP section. Lin Chong was already back; today's matchups were all team vs. team. Lin Chong cheerfully handed me the list, saying, "It's true what they say, rivals always meet." I looked at it and smiled too; our opponents were the Jingwu Free Fighting Association.
Next, the lineup for the competition must be determined. Once the lineup is finalized, it cannot be changed, and the players must appear in the order they appear. This is to prevent the two teams from scheming against each other over the order of appearance, which would make the competition neither like a martial arts contest nor a chess game.
Holding the list, I vaguely recalled playing King of Fighters as a child...
Back then, when fighting one-on-one with someone of similar skill level, the order in which you appear was indeed very important. I would usually choose a visually appealing character like Mai Shiranui or Athena Asamiya to test the enemy's firepower, then use Kusanagi's combo to take down one or two, and finally have the hidden boss Luca hold the line. Generally, when I set up this lineup, no one in our area was afraid of me.
Given the current situation, I will undoubtedly remain a hidden character until the end. However, whoever completes the game and encounters me this time will be in for a huge surprise...