Hidden Assassin

Edit: IlkonEbi

It was a common thing for the clubs at Sacred Heart Institute to hold a competition; sometimes it would be clubs against clubs, sometimes it would be a club against a person. Because this school had many wealthy students, they were mostly acquainted with each other. If a few of them had some conflict, they would mobilize all their connections and it could end up evolving into a catastrophic incident. Thus, the school usually had the attitude of keeping one eye open and one eye closed to these somewhat barbarous challenges. If these competitions could resolve the conflict between the two parties, as long as there were no heavy injuries and no one died, they were allowed.

Therefore, when Dongfang Wan and Huang Haobing had accepted the challenge without consulting with Jiaming, even though it was brash, it was actually the simplest way to solve the conflict. If he was unable to fight, as long as he let himself be beaten up, his actions could be considered as an apology. However, according to Huang Haobing’s reasoning, as long as those two girls were allowed on stage, their opponents would be unable to beat them. At most the martial arts club would have to surrender or grudgingly apologize instead.

As it was the first “mediation match” since the start of school, it had attracted a lot of people’s attention. The gymnasium was very large and did not feel crowded despite the few hundred people within it. Some of them had brought their lunches, some had snacks while chatting with each other, there were also some teachers like Yahan and Chen Guxia who were bored and came to observe the situation. Downstairs, on the stadium, the student council president, Dongfang Lu, said a few cursory words of politeness, then stated that the loser of this match would have to make a public apology and take full responsibility for the bet. Then he started explaining the rules of the competition. However, halfway through, Jiaming somewhat embarrassedly raised an objection.

“Uh, that… I don’t feel like it seems too fair?”

“Hmm? Does student Jiaming have an objection?” Dongfang Lu smilingly inquired, while Han Gangcheng thought Jiaming wanted to withdraw, and interjected, “You scared? Forget it, we’re definitely doing this today, so just take the beating!”

When Shasha heard him, she frowned and wanted to rush up to the boxing ring, but Lingjing hurriedly pulled her back. Shasha had a simple plan, she just wanted to rush up there and give that hateful boy a beating, not caring about the consequences as long as Jiaming did not have to participate in that match today. Of the two girls, Lingjing’s personality was gentle on the outside and hard like steel on the inside. She usually seemed good-natured, but was actually quite stubborn and opinionated. Shasha on the other hand, was exactly the opposite — she seemed impatient and reckless, but was actually quite gentle and caring on the inside. As long as Jiaming was alright, she did not care about her pride or what she had to do.

Jiaming threw a quick consoling look at the two girls before saying, “The thing is, I’ve always only been a sparring partner at the martial arts school and have never taken part in competitions. I’ve gotten into fights before, but with so many rules, how would I be able to remember them? He’s different though, he always does this kind of thing and he can adapt to any rules. So aren’t you clearly favoring him?”

Han Gangcheng did not know whether to laugh or not as he raised his eyebrow, “Then what kind of rules do you want to set? I’m not going to back down.”

“Apart from no weapons allowed, anything goes. If one leaves the ring, they lose. If one surrenders, they lose. If one gets beaten up until they can’t get up, they lose!”

“Who’s going to be afraid of that? I see that you’ve never been beaten to pulp before!” Han Gangcheng laughed as they had investigated Jiaming thoroughly. Even though he went to the Ye’s martial arts hall, it seemed that he did not learn anything and mostly assisted with holding the practice target pads. If anything happened, the two girls that were always with him would step up. Even though Lu Jianchuan had been injured quite severely yesterday, it was determined to be an accident. As to the time he kicked the soccer ball, his leg power did not seem bad. However, as someone who had no training, once he entered the ring, it was not like he could fly.

Since both sides had agreed on this, Dongfang Lu announced the new set of rules. When Chen Guxia heard what was said in the ring, he could not help but be amused as well, “Well, it is true that there were too many rules for someone who hasn’t gone through training. However, in an actual fight, things like jabbing at eyes or a sneaky move like kicking at their lower body wouldn’t be that easy to do. Teacher Zhang, what are student Gu Jiaming’s usual tactics?”

“His tactics?” Yahan thought briefly before a smirk slipped through. She nodded her head and then said unhesitatingly, “He’s very deceitful!”

“Oh yeah?” Hearing her assessment, Chen Guxia doubtfully asked, “Does he often use some underhanded tricks when at the dojo?”

“Oh… ah… haha, it’s not that.” Having said that, Yahan felt that she had over-exaggerated. As his friend, she should not have slandered him, so she hurried to explain, “He’s usually very sincere, behaves with integrity, and his grades are average. I said he was deceitful, but I was just joking. When he goes into the sparring ring, haha, he usually just runs away.”

“Runs away? Was there a situation when he was forced to be in the sparring ring?”

“Oh no, I meant that when he’s in the ring, he would just run around in it.”

Chen Guxia looked at her skeptically, “You mean he would just run around within the constraints of the ring without getting caught?”

Yahan smiled helplessly as she shrugged, “Of course he’s not successful every time. He’s afraid of getting into a fight so he would run, jump and roll around when he’s in the arena. If he’s in a situation where he can’t run, he’s really skillful at defending due to being used to holding the target practice pads. Haha, let’s just watch the competition.”

Down on the stage, Jiaming and Han Gangcheng both entered the ring. As soon as Dongfang Lu announced the start, Jiaming instantly protected his head and face with both arms. Han Gangcheng smirked internally, before suddenly sweeping his leg at Jiaming. That move was followed swiftly by a second kick, a third kick and then four sharp punches in a row. This series of seven moves were executed very smoothly. Chen Guxia straightened up when he saw those moves and smiled, “Oh, not bad. But, such a pity…”

Jiaming had easily dodged them all.

Both arms still raised, Jiaming’s position was very orthodox and could even be considered as a teaching standard. However, because Jiaming had passively resisted him, when Han Gangcheng had moved back expecting an attack, but did not get any, his concentration wavered slightly. He watched Jiaming’s posture and where he could dodge to, feeling somewhat puzzled at what Jiaming was doing. Naturally, he did not give it much thought. Afterall, when they had researched him, it had been clearly reported that Gu Jiaming was only good at dodging. Han Gangcheng’s moves from earlier had already forced his opponent to the side of the ring, and with another smirk, he fiercely aimed a sweeping kick at Jiaming’s waist.

Let’s see how you can dodge now!

After this strike, Jiaming retreated another step and was forced to the corner of the ring. Han Gangcheng used this opportunity to continuously throw punches at him. When he saw Jiaming suddenly lower his body, he was long prepared with his knee to block him. If Jiaming were to dodge or flee to the side, then he would be kneed directly in the face. However, just in the last moment, Jiaming actually managed to throw himself out of the corner.

I only managed to knee the air?

“What flexible movements!” Chen Guxia clapped when he saw this, but his applause drowned out by the surrounding booing from the crowd. When Jiaming made this jump, his body had been extremely low and almost seemed like he would have fallen out of the ring, which was out of Han Gangcheng’s calculations. He turned back to look at Jiaming, who was currently standing in the center of the ring with his arms still raised to protect his head. He was professionally bobbing left and right on his feet, without the slightest intention of attacking.

“What are you doing?”

“Just hit him already! What is this even?!”

“You’re not a man, you just keep dodging!”

The audience jeered at the match, but Jiaming completely ignored them and did not attack. Han Gangcheng felt somewhat embarrassed, but he still cautiously advanced forward and took the offensive again. As before, Jiaming’s movements did not change and he kept dodging. Every time he was forced into a corner, he would somehow be able to escape from it by using all sorts of ways and unimaginable movements. After around five minutes of this, Lingjing and Shasha were both laughing so hard they almost collapsed. Shasha had personally experienced this type of oppressing feeling when fighting against Jiaming before, so everytime Jiaming was forced to fight someone else, she would be extremely excited. This was because she was no longer alone in having to experience this type of frustration…

Amidst the boos and jeers of the audience, Han Gangcheng felt like a fool. He no longer felt like he was the protagonist of this match as everyone was watching the running and jumping monkey instead. Somewhere within the crowd, Yahan was clutching her stomach in pain. At school, she was a stern witch, so she had to try very hard to hold back her laughter. By her side, Chen Guxia was laughing heartily. To him, this was just a very interesting performance from the younger generation.

“Fantastic, this is great! That kid has a high aptitude for learning martial arts. He’s extremely flexible and has good instincts. The only drawback is that he doesn’t attack; it must be a mental block. I have seen such children before. As long as they’re carefully groomed, the results would be quite satisfactory. If he was able to put this agility towards attacking… hehe…”

As he said this, the venue suddenly quieted down because at that moment, Jiaming finally attacked. It was the first time he had taken the offensive since he had entered the ring and it hit the target’s face extremely accurately, yielding spectacular results. Before Han Gangcheng could react, Jiaming had already escaped out of reach and returned back to the middle of the ring. His arms were still raised to protect his head and he continued bobbing left and right on his feet.

“You…” Han Gangcheng turned around and rubbed his right cheek disbelievingly. It felt moist, slimy and slippery…

It was a mouthful of spit…

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5/8 chapters before the end of the month (next release is tomorrow, April 28).

Aaaaaaaaa deadlines, so close to the end of the month lol, I hope you’re enjoying the mass release OTL Ebi and I are working hard OTL

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