Chapter 266: From Little Meng to Master Meng
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“He looks so familiar!”
“You don’t recognize him? He’s that Iron Hero guy you told me about.”
“It is him! Why is he working out here?”
“Of course he works out, he’s not born that strong.”
“Have you seen him before?”
“No. He probably just started here.”
“Maybe he’s had a private coach. Coach Yang always comes with him.”
“It’s nice to have money!”
“Feng Ji is pretty good, even people at the Iron Hero level choose to train here.”
Just because Lao Hei didn’t know Meng Fan, it didn’t mean other people at this training place didn’t recognize him. In fact, there were quite a few people who did. News of that fight with the K-pop star traveled everywhere, the stunning scene really impressed everyone in this field.
Yang Feng turned away happily as he heard the students’ gossip. Meng Fan was a celebrity student now.
The celebrity effect was quite powerful. Even a celebrity like Meng Fan, who wasn’t in show business, could attract more students in Yang Feng’s opinion. At the very least, people would think Feng Ji was a good place to train.
“Let’s come this way.”
Lao Hei didn’t hear all this talk as he led celebrity student Meng Fan to an empty part of the s.p.a.ce. He smiled as he asked, “Did you do Brazilian jiu-jitsu with Coach Yang? How long have you done it?”
“I didn’t really study Brazilian jiu-jitsu, it was very casual. I started today.” Meng Fan answered honestly.
“You started today? Then you can practice with any student, no need to spend this much money.”
Lao Hei was a straight shooter, so he blurted out the comment. Then, seemingly regretting the coaching fee at twice the usual rate, he added, “Well, if Coach Yang recommended you to train with me, you must be pretty good. You haven’t studied long, but you must be a fast learner. Yes, that must be it.”
He was secretly pleased. This crazy Coach Yang wasn’t that bad; he actually looked out for him. The next time they practiced, he’d make it easy on him, and let him win. He had to give Yang courtesy. After all, Yang was the chief coach.
“Coach Yang said I improved very fast.” Meng Fan followed Lao Hei to the practice area and explained his goal. “For now, I’ve only done throws and s.n.a.t.c.hes. I’m more interested in s.n.a.t.c.hes, so I just want to practice that for now. It might be kind of boring, I hope you understand.”
“You’re so polite. Practicing skills is always boring. Hey, you can call me Lao Hei, everyone calls me that. What’s your name?” Lao Hei asked Meng Fan’s name and smiled. “I’ll call you Little Meng. Let’s get started. Don’t hold back. Do everything you did with Coach Yang, you can use double the strength. I’m very tough.”
Lao Hei stood there, a smile on his face, waiting for Meng Fan to fight him.
“Here I come.”
Meng Fan did a s.n.a.t.c.h pose. When he saw Lao Hei standing so relaxed, he also took down his strength a little. He heard from Yang Feng that even practice partners needed to tighten their muscles or they’d get easily injured. Lao Hei seemed so confident that he couldn’t really say anything, he had no choice but to try for a s.n.a.t.c.hing.
“Your speed is not bad.”
When Lao Hei was caught by Meng Fan in one move, he was surprised. “I’ll do a counter-s.n.a.t.c.h now. Pay attention to my moves. If you learn the counter-s.n.a.t.c.h skills, it’d be very helpful to you.”
As he spoke, Lao Hei turned his wrist and grabbed Meng Fan’s wrist, reacting and moving very quickly. Seeing this, Meng Fan realized Yang Fan really found him a great coach with good counter-s.n.a.t.c.hing skills.
Meng Fan was observant and fast. While Lao Hei was flexible, he still had trouble catching Meng Fan. In fact, Meng Fan didn’t even let Lao Hei finish his counter-s.n.a.t.c.hing skill set before he flipped his hand, s.n.a.t.c.hed Lao Hei, came forward, and flipped Lao Hei to the floor.
“Huh?”
Lao Hei was taken by surprise, but he didn’t panic. Plenty of people have flipped him, but how many have really dominated him? Other people would yelp with pain when s.n.a.t.c.hed, but he didn’t.
Lao Hei turned his joint and got up. As he got away, he stood up and said, “Let’s go again. I told you I’m tough. You have to use your strength. Miracles come from great strength, right?”
Meng Fan nodded. The previous episode confirmed Lao Hei’s level of skills.
He needed to dominate him to grow his experience. Lao Hei was obviously a fighter who was hard to dominate. Coach Yang wanted to give him a tough partner, which also meant this level was hard to pa.s.s.
Might as well. Consider it a hard fight to grow experience.
“Little Meng, s.n.a.t.c.hing is all about fast, accurate, and hard. You’re fast and accurate, just not hard enough.”
“Right, use your strength!”
“More!”
“Lao Hei likes being tough!”
Meng Fan was gradually increasing his strength to be safe. Lao Hei was tougher than he had imagined. Everytime he thought the older man would be dominated, he never quite managed it.
“Argh!”
Thump thump thump!
After some time, Lao Hei finally slapped the floor.
“Lao Meng, keep your strength the same!”
“Brother Meng, easy, easy!”
“Master Meng, take a break!”
In the following ten minutes, the honest Lao Hei kept calling Meng Fan by different t.i.tles. In just fifteen minutes, the tough Lao Hei started to beg for mercy.
Lao Hei and Yang Feng felt the same about Meng Fan. The man wasn’t here to practice, he was there to make them slap the floor and lose.
If practice was about training one’s skills, then it’s about using the right skill so there’s no need to use your strength after the skills worked. If you were already winning and still used your strength, then it’s about making your opponent beg for mercy.
Lao Hei was a tough practice partner. While he needed a break after ten minutes or so, within the practice time, he was always able to keep up with Meng Fan’s high level output. After a break, Lao Hei always recovered.
For building experience, it was hard to build the first point, then it got easier. Lao Hei was also resilient, he didn’t talk too much like Coach Yang either.
After an hour, Lao Hei helped Meng Fan grow more than 130 points. His total experience was now at 221.
“I’m out.”
After Lao Hei slapped the floor, he lay down and refused to get up. He looked up at the big clock on the wall and said, “Master Meng, it’s been an hour. Let’s call it a day. Are you even human? If I knew it’d be like this, I’d not do this job at three or four-times the pay! I’m not afraid of seven, eight guys attacking me, but I’m afraid you’ll f*ck me up!”
Maybe the two men got close after training for an hour, so Meng Fan was used to talking like this, he actually joked, “No, no, I’m used to you now. Plus, you said you were the toughest at this dojo. If it’s someone else, I wouldn’t be having fun. Fine, let’s call it a day. I’ll be back tomorrow morning and pay you five times the rate, how about it?”
Lao Hei shook his hands and sat up. He smiled, “I was kidding. Double rate is fine. Actually, I liked doing this too. I’ll think of it as joint-lock training. No one else could do it as well as you.”
Meng Fan was glad to hear this. This Lao Hei was a straight-forward guy. “Let’s talk no more of money. Do you have any more cla.s.ses? Let’s eat, my treat.”
“Sure!”
Lao Hei was happy to stand up. Meng Fan was his kind of guy. It was a good time to eat anyway.
Just then, a door opened on the other side of the practice room and out came a dozen or so female students in taekwondo uniforms, at least half of which were very pretty. They had beautiful faces and great figures, attracting a lot of attention with their appearance.
Lao Hei swallowed hard as he looked over, so did Meng Fan; everyone else did the same.
After the dozen or so female students came out, a man appeared. He was tall, fit, very good-looking, and wore a cool smile.
“Coach Jin, we’re leaving now. See you next time.”
These female students all looked like they had a crush on their coach and were reluctant to leave