A Valiant Life

After the car was parked.

Jiang Fei followed Master Lin and explained the origins of Shanghai’s Chinese Martial Arts Association.

It was founded in 2004 by a group of like-minded people that had the same vision. It was established after the agreement between various government agencies and organizations.

“Elder Jiang.”

A middle-aged man walked over and greeted. He was wearing a white robe and he looked full of energy.

Jiang Fei smiled and greeted, “Chairman Wang.”

“I heard you received instructions from the headquarters to recruit the young man who KO-ed Han Lu, how did it go? Also, just calling me Instructor Wang will do. Chairman seems a little too formal,” Wang Yun Jie smiled and replied. He didn’t look very pressured and seemed like he wasn’t really bothered by Lin Fan. As for the request from the headquarters, he wasn’t really agreeable to it but he couldn’t challenge it.

Jiang Fei laughed, but he didn’t change his salutations. He quickly introduced the man beside him, “Chairman Wang, this is Master Lin. I brought him here for him to familiarize himself with the place.”

Then, Jiang Fei introduced Chairman Wang to Lin Fan, “This is the Chairman of the Yang Tai Chi Group of Shanghai Chinese Martial Arts Association, Chairman Wang.”

Lin Fan stretched out his hand and said politely, “Nice to meet you, Chairman Wang.”

Chairman Wang just took a glance at Lin Fan but didn’t shake his hand. He smiled and said, “This chap looks decent. He’s young and fit, perhaps he’ll learn a lot after joining us here. I have to excuse myself now, I gotta go teach the trainees so that they will perform well in front of the management.”

“Elder Jiang, please guide him well. The organization needs new blood like him,” Chairman Wang said before leaving. He didn’t even take another look at Lin Fan after that one glance.

Lin Fan withdrew his hand but he didn’t look embarrassed.

It seemed like he wasn’t very welcome in the organization which was probably due to his reputation. Jiang Fei stood there awkwardly and said, “Master Lin, don’t take it to heart. Chairman Wang didn’t mean it that way.”

Didn’t mean it that way? What else could he have meant?

Jiang Fei didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s okay,” Lin Fan smiled and said as he wasn’t bothered by these things.

In the Vice-President’s office.

*knock knock*

“Come in.”

Jiang Fei opened the door and said, “Vice-President Guo, I have brought Master Lin here and I would like to report to you.”

Vice-President Guo just said ‘Oh’ without raising his head to look at him as he was still busy with work. After a while, he placed his pen down and stood up. He smiled and said, “He looks young and promising, a valuable asset to our organization indeed.”

However, he didn’t care much about Lin Fan. He was just a small fry. If not for the instructions from the headquarters, he wouldn’t have bothered to recruit him into the organization.

Lin Fan stretched out his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Vice-President Guo.”

“Hi, please have a seat,” Guo Chen said as he sat down. Then, he looked at Lin Fan and asked, “Which type of Martial Art does Master Lin practice?”

“Ba Gua Zhang,” Lin Fan said.

Guo Chen clapped and said, “That’s good! Chairman Huang withdrew from his position as the Chairman of Ba Gua Zhang. In about two weeks’ time, the team has to go to Shanghai for a performance and the programme has a segment for Ba Gua Zhang. It’s been giving me a headache since Chairman Huang left but now that Master Lin is here, would you take over his position?”

Jiang Fei said anxiously, “Vice-President Guo, Chairman of Ba Gua Zhang’s…”

Guo Chen glared at Jiang Fei and he stopped talking.

Lin Fan happily agreed, “Sure, no problem.”

Jiang Fei was restless as he said, “Master Lin…”

Lin Fan waved his hands and implied that there weren’t any problems with that.

Vice-President Guo smiled and said, “I hope Master Lin won’t disappoint us. The trainees are waiting for you. I’ll get Jiang Fei to bring you around later. I still have some work to do so I won’t bring you around personally.”

…

Outside the room.

“Master Lin, you shouldn’t have agreed. It’s difficult to be the Chairman of Ba Gua Zhang,” Jiang Fei said.

Lin Fan smiled, “What’s wrong with it? Could there be a man-eating tiger in the class?”

Jiang Fei shook his head and replied, “It’s not that. Forget it, I’ll just bring you over there to take a look.”

When they reached an old and tattered classroom, Lin Fan stood at the door and looked inside.

The paint on the walls had started to peel off and the lights on the ceiling were extremely old. His first impression of the place was extremely bad. What shocked him even more was that there were six young men practicing the Ba Gua Zhang in the middle of the classroom and all of them were handicapped. Lin Fan was dumbfounded.

Jiang Fei said bitterly, “Master Lin, now you’ve seen it. The Chinese Martial Arts Association is collaborating with the Association of the Handicapped next door. That’s why some of these handicapped teenagers are here to learn martial arts. Chairman Huang was forced to take up the position of teaching Ba Gua Zhang, which caused him to quarrel with the organization and resulted in his resignation.

“It’s okay. Although they’re handicapped, they look determined. That’s impressive,” Lin Fan said. Why did he have to resign? It’s just teaching students who are slightly disadvantaged.

Jiang Fei didn’t know how to reply, “Master Lin, there are still two weeks left to the annual Shanghai Martial Arts Show. The programme includes Ba Gua Zhang. The chief of the entire Chinese Martial Arts Association will be there and you can’t afford to mess up. I believe the main reason why Chairman Huang resigned was that he couldn’t handle the pressure.”

The two of them chatted at the door for a long time and the teenagers in the classroom had stopped to look at the both of them. They didn’t know who they were.

Then, Lin Fan and Jiang Fei walked into the classroom.

Jiang Fei waved at them to ask them to come over. Then, he said, “Come over. Chairman Huang has resigned. In future, Master Lin will be the one that’s teaching you. He is an expert in Ba Gua Zhang. You guys have to put in the effort to learn from him.”

“Hi, everyone,” Lin Fan smiled and greeted.

“Hi, Master Lin,” the six students said at the same time.

Sometimes the Heavens could be really fair to a person and really unfair to another person. These people were indeed different from the rest.

“What’s your name?” Lin Fan asked as he pointed at the first girl with a ponytail.

“Master Lin, my name is Huang Ya Yue.”

The second person was a teenager who was roughly 15 or 16 years of age. He was a little tanned and had a brilliant smile.

“I am Zhang Tao.”

The third person was a teenager of around the same age and she was a skinny girl.

“Master Lin, I am Liu Ming Ming.”

…

Lin Fan was at least six or seven years older than them.

He started to chat with them. Jiang Fei saw that Master Lin had started to conduct his lesson and he slowly left the classroom.

Lin Fan was a little surprised as he hadn’t expected some of them to have a year of experience in learning Ba Gua Zhang and the newer students also had at least three months of experience.

“Master Lin, please train us. We would like to perform at the annual show in two weeks’ time,” the tanned Zhang Tao said.

“Master Lin, please train us,” the rest of the students all started to ask Lin Fan to teach them Ba Gua Zhang. They looked very eager and determined to learn.

They haven’t had a teacher to guide them in a long time and they mostly taught themselves.

Then, Lin Fan realized that his current situation was more meaningful than fortune-telling and selling scallion pancakes, which made him even more excited.

“Okay.”