Elder Ma Ru Da made him and Dong Min choose an opponent at random again. "Damn it, I really wanted to fight her." Even though she was clumsy and you could even say clueless in her fights, he found it amusing to watch her persevere until the end where her opponent couldn't.
"Well, maybe next time." He looked at the piece of paper in his hand, written on it was the name, Ma Long Mei. "This guy really annoys me though." He thought and grumbled in a low voice, looking at Long Mei, who was a beautiful young man, with silver-white long hair reaching his waist, pure white eyes, and he was smiling at him in an almost uncomfortable way. Rue Bu rolled his eyes over at this spoiled young kid and stepped into the arena. "Let's see if you're as strong as you're beautiful."
Long Mei, on the other hand, was a little nervous. 'This guy is a problem. Not only is his talent higher than mine, but he is also a good fighter. I don't know if I can defeat him or not.' Even though he was smiling on the outside, he was nervous. It was something that his grandmother taught him: not to let his enemy know what he was thinking unless he needed them to know.
He stepped into the arena after managing to calm himself a little. As soon as the teacher signaled the start of the fight, both of them, started running at each other. The arena wasn't that big, only 8 meters in diameter. It only took them a bit under 1 second to close the gap. When they reached each other, Long Mei experienced what Fen Fu suffered from before. He couldn't read his movements at all. But instead of getting nervous like Fen Fu, he chose to attack Rue Bu and try to force him to show a pattern of movement when his muscle memory was focused on defense.
Without any hesitation, he swung his leg horizontally at Rue Bu's head in a round kick, but almost as if he predicted his attack, Rue Bu ducked and avoided the kick. On his way up, he threw his fist at Long Mei's chin. The 15-year-old didn't see it coming at all, he hadn't even adjusted his head to look down at Rue Bu. Still, he managed to put his hands under his chin, catching Rue Bu's fist before it could strike its target. He then adjusted and tightened his grip over his hand, changed his position a little, and with a shoulder throw, he slammed Rue Bu on the ground.
Rue Bu gained a new understanding of Long Mei. This kid, even though he didn't see the attack at all, still knew it was coming and took advantage of that to turn the situation in his favor. 'That brat Fen Fu would have never been able to do that. He would have been too nervous to think of the possibilities, even though it's just a simple answer to come to.' He changed his opinion about Long Mei a little.
Not letting Long Mei take control of the fight, he grabbed his hand before Long Mei could let him go and brought him to the ground in a ground-striking position. 'Fuck! I let my guard down.' He was just a little happy that he finally managed to land a hit on this monster whom nobody could even touch, let alone land a hit on, but that little bit of distraction was all it took for Rue Bu to seize the opportunity and bring the fight back to his rhythm.
Rue Bu started hitting him already, sometimes with his fists, others with his elbows. Long Mei didn't have any options but to wait, staying calm and finding an opportunity. So, wrapping his legs around Rue Bu's waist to make him exert less power in his punches and covering his face with his hands, he waited.
'Okay, I must say, my judgment was pretty much wrong about this guy. He made the right choices as soon as he realized the situation he is in. He must be waiting for an opening right now, to try and reverse the situation or get up on his feet.' Rue Bu smiled and adjusted his rhythm of strikes little by little, until finally, Long Mei reacted to it and delivered a punch to Rue Bu when the rhythm of his strikes slowed down enough.
Rue Bu analyzed the situation carefully, seeing that there was no way to block the strike without losing the upper hand. He gave up, abandoning his advantageous position. 'Great job. Most people in this situation would have been enticed the moment they sensed their opponent's rhythm change and tried to attack immediately, disregarding their own defense. Not only did he wait for the exact moment that he could deliver a strike safely, but he also was still defending his vital areas with his other hand.' Long Mei was like a totally different person in his eyes right now. He had subconsciously labeled him as a spoiled young kid earlier, but that wasn't entirely true.
Long Mei finally managed to get up on his legs, panting heavily. He didn't know if he could continue or if he might collapse the next second. After all, he was just 15, mind you. Gritting his teeth and calming himself, his feet firmly planted on the ground, one in front of the other, he put one hand behind his back and the other pointed at his enemy, ready to defend or strike viciously, ripping him into pieces. He squatted a little bit and stared at Rue Bu with a calm mind and determination burning in his milky white eyes.
Rue Bu smiled again, and the idea of him being a spoiled brat vanished from his mind entirely. Running up at Long Mei, he delivered the first attack, a jab straight to the face. Long Mei adjusted his position, bringing his front leg behind his rear leg, and standing sideways, he dodged the strike. Looking at Rue Bu, who was now in front of him after missing the attack, he brought down his hand in a fast and elegant motion like an axe chopping firewood. Rue Bu blocked the strike easily, and standing on one hand, he swept his leg at Long Mei's side. Long Mei changed his position again to avoid the kick. They were now on the opposite sides they started with, how fitting, considering that their physical positions weren't the only thing that changed.
They both ran at each other again, just like they had done in the beginning, with strike after strike, dodge after dodge, and block after block. Long Mei finally saw a flaw in Rue Bu's stance after he got fatigued by the constant fighting. Without wasting even a fraction of a second, he delivered a devastating round kick which landed on Rue Bu's side, he could swear that he heard something break, sending him flying a couple of steps away.
"Please... *huff*... *huff*... don't get up, please... *huff*... *huff*..." Long Mei couldn't speak normally without gasping for air. It showed how tough they were truly fighting despite not even 7 minutes passing.
'After I read his name in the paper, I didn't want to do this because I didn't like him.' he thought to himself while shouting out loud, "I surrender!" Long Mei felt refreshed when he heard his voice, but after relaxing his body, he collapsed on the floor immediately.
"*Huff*... *huff*... *huff*... you are pretty... *huff*... *huff*... strong... *huff*..." Rue Bu pretended to be even more exhausted than Long Mei and said, "But next... *huff*... *huff*... time... I'm going to be... *huff*... *huff*... the winner..." He barely managed to say the last words and just started gasping for air afterward while thinking to himself. 'I'm planning on winning first place to get the primeval essence stones, but since this fight and the next 3 won't affect the results of the last fight, for me at least, I don't mind making it a little more believable.' Losing one fight won't change anything really, and he would absolutely lose more if it would make it more believable when he eventually wins the one that counts.
"You're pretty... *huff*... tough too. When you got... *huff*... me on the ground, I really thought you had won. It was just my luck, your stamina was what eventually brought you down." He complimented Rue Bu while his breathing returned to normal mid-sentence. It wasn't exactly as he said, If Rue Bu wasn't pretending right now and his stamina was truly gone, the thing that would have depleted it would be that last kick, pretending or not, that kick almost broke his ribs to pieces.
'If I didn't adjust and throw myself with the kick, I'm pretty sure he would have broken a rib or two.' He thought. His body was that of a 15-year-old. At the end of the day, he wasn't a superhuman or something like that. The only reason he could do what he could was because of his previous life's training and the life-and-death situations that honed his combat abilities to the peak of what they could be.
"Hahahaha, you're pathetic, Rue Bu. How did you lose to this beautiful princess over here?" The annoying laughter of Rue Gang came from afar, taunting him. He was holding his opponent in his hand like a rag doll. Dong Min looked pathetic, with blood all over her body, especially her face. Both eyes were black, her nose was bleeding, and her cheeks were a little swollen.
After seeing that Rue Bu wasn't interested in his taunts, Rue Gang came back to his situation. "Tsk, are you not surrendering yet? I'm not going to play nice anymore. I'm very pissed right now, you see..." After talking some more nonsense for a while and not getting a response back, he raised his hand in the air, Dong Min with it, and brought it straight down to the ground, trying to smash her head as he had been doing over and over again. But to no avail, as Dong Min refused to surrender. Before his hand could reach the ground, the teacher observing them finally moved and stopped him, grabbing his hand before he could smash her head any longer.
"The winner is Rue Gang. You will be going to the finals against Long Mei." The teacher felt a little regretful. He knew she didn't stand a chance against Rue Gang, not only because of the size difference but also because of stamina, which was how she fought, relying on her stamina. But she would need a miracle to win against Rue Gang with that tactic. He had said the same thing when he saw that Dong Min was fighting Chen Cheng, and she ended up winning without a miracle. That's why this fight ended this late, because the teacher held hope for her that she would change the situation eventually and triumph over all these strong kids like the strong heroines in the fairy tales he heard in his childhood. But alas, this was reality, not a fairy tale, and he finally came back to his senses and realized that she could die if he didn't stop the fight, so he acted fast and declared the winner.
Now the only fight that remained was Ma Rue Gang vs. Ma Long Mei, someone who uses brute force vs. an intelligent fighter, a natural gift from heaven vs. the craftiness of man. No matter how you put it, it was sure going to be fun.