Bidding farewell to Tai Lung, Li immediately headed towards the exit, eager to recover the lost money as quickly as possible.
"Where are you going?"
Jihan turned to the side; an old man was leaning against a support column near the office.
"Jhin? I'm busy right now, I need to leave..." he replied.
"No way, you're late! Do you really think you can skip training again?"
TSK
"Stop grumbling, kid, we should've started over an hour ago!"
"Yeah, yeah..." Li replied, tucking the package with the money into his pants' waistband and heading towards the old man. "So, what do we have for today?"
"Late! That's what we have for today!"
"Come on, I really nee..."
"Here, this is what we have for today." Jhin tossed a pair of gloves to Li. "You need training!"
"But you only make me practice the basics every day..." Li thought to himself.
"Don't make that face again," the old man complained.
"What face?"
"The one that says, 'you only make me practice the basics every day'!"
"Does this old man read minds?" he thought, startled by the teacher's intuition.
"But... isn't it true? I mean, how many times have I repeated these moves?"
"You repeat them because you don't learn them!" he retorted. "If you had learned anything in the last 10 years, I would have taught you more!"
"Are you kidding me? I can perfectly replicate our weekly training session!"
"That's your problem!" Jhin moved closer to help him tie the gloves. "Listen, kid, what you lack is vision. You know what to do, but you can't absorb the training. Repeating an action isn't the same as learning it."
"Old man, you're making less and less sense..."
"Put it this way, when you read something in a language you don't understand, you go through a process of translating it into a sense you know." Pointing to his own head, he continued, "What I want you to do is skip the translation part. Understand the meaning with just a glance."
"Hmm..."
"You have talent, Li, no one can take that away from you." Jhin put his hands on the young man's shoulders. "But you have some issues that prevent you from having a broad vision... you need to get rid of what's holding you back..."
"I can't understand your riddles, old man..." Li thought to say that, but what came out of his mouth differed.
"I understand, I'll try, I promise!"
The teacher, realizing that his advice hadn't sunk in, didn't insist, "If it's not by your own will, you'll never understand..."
The training proceeded as usual, with Jhin occasionally stopping him to complain about his posture and movements, practically the same as always, except for the restlessness the old man noticed in the boy.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Li had known his teacher for over a decade; they trained every day, five hours a day, seven days a week, thirty days a month, every single day.
"What's wrong with you today?" Jhin asked. His movements were more unfocused than usual.
"What do you mean, old man?" He couldn't quite focus. The earlier argument and decision had left him somewhat unsettled. "I'm fine, let's keep going, we're almost done."
"Kid, I've known you for about 10 years, do you really think I wouldn't notice if something was wrong with you?"
Li didn't know whether he should tell the truth or not, but he highly doubted his teacher would agree with his decision to throw a fight. No master trains a student to do something as shameful as rigging results.
"Listen, kid, sit down here."
Jhin pointed to the bench near the wall. Li finished the exercise he was doing and sat down.
"You're almost twenty, and I have to do what no one else will, put some sense into your head," he continued. "There are moments in life when you'll need to make difficult but necessary decisions."
As he spoke, Li stared at him, unsure if he already knew about the argument or not. "This old man is a sorcerer, no doubt."
"In those moments, your head and your memory won't give you your answer." The teacher approached the boy and pointed his finger at his chest. "And in those moments, in those tough moments, that's where your way out will come from."
Li stared at him for a few moments, waiting for the old man to say something else, but upon noticing the silence, he stood up.
"Don't worry, Jhin. I wouldn't do anything to disappoint you," the boy assured as he walked towards the door.
"Then you should start by getting rid of that addiction," the old man reprimanded.
"What? Couldn't hear you properly," pretending not to have heard, he closed the door, leaving Jhin alone in the hall.
"Why do you do this to yourself, kid..."
Leaving the establishment, Li headed to the nearest casino, greeting the guards at the door as if they were already familiar, and sitting down at the first poker table he could find. The night began.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"I'm feeling lucky today!" Riding a wave of victories, he pulled another stack of chips from the center of the table towards himself, he was on fire.
"It's like they say, 'Unlucky in love, lucky at cards'," a young man sitting next to Jihan struck up a conversation. "And I'm sure you don't have a girlfriend!" he chuckled. "But seriously, kid, if I weren't so bad, I'd almost suspect you're cheating."
"I'm not that smart... honestly, I usually don't have this much luck, I almost always leave empty-handed," he replied. "Today the gods are smiling upon me! Maybe it's my moment," Li paused for a second. "Maybe this is also my moment to leave... I should while I'm ahead," and he began to get up.
"Hey, kid, don't leave now! You're gonna bail just when it's getting interesting? Stay a bit longer, come on!" the same young man insisted.
Li looked at the table. "Maybe it's not a bad ide..."
ARGH
Bringing his hands to his head, a sharp pain hit his brain, a pain he had never felt before. His legs suddenly gave way, bringing him to the ground.
"Sir, are you okay?" the dealer asked, puzzled by the man's condition.
"I'm try... AAAH! What the hell is this!" Li screamed again, the pain piercing his eardrums and making his head spin.
"Hey, kid, get yourself together, damn it!" The young man put his hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down.
"Someone makes this stop!"
A wave of emotions hit Jihan's mind. As he thrashed on the ground, in a spasmodic reaction, he hit the arm of the young man trying to help him.
"He must be under the influence of some drug," watching him thrash on the ground, the other participants at the table began to talk amongst themselves, accusing him.
"Enough, I'll call security," the dealer signaled, and seeing the commotion of the situation, two men arrived to handle the problem.
"Wait! I didn't do anythi... ARGH WHAT THE HELL," Li's head felt like it was about to explode with pain. He tried to break free from the men's grip but could barely open his eyes. As he was being carried away, he suddenly blacked out.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Good morning, sir, are you awake?"
A woman dressed as a nurse entered through the door, finding Li with one eye half-open, as if he were just waking up.
"Where am I?" he asked, confused.
"Where else would you be? In a hospital," she replied. "The ambulance found you passed out in front of a casino, someone must have called and notified us."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can afford this..." he remembered, in a low tone of voice.
"You don't need to worry about that. Besides, your emergency contact's wife just arrived and she's already sorting everything out," the nurse reassured him, trying to keep the patient as calm as possible.
"A... woman?"
"Yes! A young woman, she has a mature energy, but doesn't seem older than you... she's quite beautiful. Who is she? Your girlfriend?" The nurse flashed a half-smile and looked at Li with some curiosity.
However, she was surprised when he stood up, ripping the IV line connected to his arm and running towards the door.
"Hey, you can't leave yet!"
But Jihan didn't care, he didn't even hear the nurse's voice. All that was going through his head was that he needed to find her fast.
Running to the lobby, he saw a young woman about to leave. Her short, black hair, along with her formal attire, gave her a responsible air. Her skin, as white as snow, flawless, and her delicate body contrasted with her sharp eyes. She looked exactly like an iron lady.
"Seo-Yun, wait!" Li called out desperately.
"What do you want!?"
The anger in the woman's voice stopped him immediately.
"Why..."
"My number was in your emergency contacts. I already told you I didn't want any more contact with you!"
Yun looked Li up and down, her eyes swollen. Her aggressive tone sharply contrasted with her expression.
"Just look at yourself... have you looked in the mirror, Jihan?"
He didn't respond.
"Were you found passed out in front of a casino this time? What's your problem? Why do you keep doing this?"
"I... I'm sorry..."
"I don't want your apologies, Jihan! How many times do I have to tell you this! I don't want anything from you, I just want you to leave me alone for once."
"Yun... I..."
A knot formed in his throat. The words struggled to come out, torn and ragged. He had imagined this situation and replayed it dozens, if not hundreds of times in his mind. He just never thought it would happen like this, in this situation.
"You what?" Losing patience more and more, her tone gradually rose. "You want to apologize? About what exactly?"
Jihan's memories intertwined with each other and failed to focus on one specific thing.
"About how you invaded my apartment? Or how you used my money to sustain your addictions? Even our savings! The money we were going to use to buy a house!"
He couldn't speak. He wanted to move, to shout to the world how sorry he was, to bow in front of her and ask for forgiveness.
"Maybe it's about how you acted every time I questioned you about these things? About how you made everyone around us think I was CRAZY!?"
But his feet wouldn't move. The woman's eyes welled up and seemed to melt in anguish. It wasn't a conversation; it was a venting.
"What more could you want from me, Jihan? To destroy the last good memories, I have of you?" Seo held herself for a moment, facing him head-on, waiting for any response. "For God's sake! Say something!"
"I…" Li choked up, the words cutting his throat, struggling to come out, squeezing his chest.
Unable to reason, something in his mind instinctively clicked. His torso bent at a 60-degree angle.
"The best I can do now is apologize. Seo Yun, I'm so sorry."
He didn't know where the urge had come from or why he had said that it just seemed natural. The woman, however, said nothing for a few seconds, just watched him.
"I've heard something like this before." Yun turned towards the door. "I don't believe it anymore." And she left, leaving him alone in silence.