Chapter 24: Ace Fighting Club

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Chapter 24: The Ace Fighting Club

The martial arts gym was completely empty, without a single student in sight. Liu Xingsheng sat in a chair by the entrance, wearing fight shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops, his legs crossed as he smoked and scrolled through TikTok.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Daria…”

Gao Yun had just stepped inside when the sound from the phone struck him as strangely familiar. He leaned closer and, sure enough, it was the video he had posted only the night before.

The video showed his visits to three restaurants in Hang City with Daria. Its TikTok title was “Comrade Gao Yun and Comrade Angel’s Three Meals in Hang City.” The description listed the names of the three restaurants: Manshu Kaiseki, Jinsha Hall, and Imperial Garden Chinese Restaurant.

Liu Xingsheng looked up, noticed Gao Yun, then lowered his head and continued watching the phone.

“This video of yours is pretty good. It went viral. It already has 488,000 likes.”

“Damn!”

Gao Yun stared at the 488,000 red hearts on the screen, his feelings complicated. The nearly one hundred videos he had posted before did not add up to even a fraction of that number. This one had earned no money at all, yet in less than twenty-four hours it had surged past 480,000 likes.

What was the reason? There was no need to think too hard about it. Hang City cuisine plus a beautiful Russian woman was a powerful combination.

All three restaurants were high-end establishments in Hang City, with very high average prices and plenty of built-in buzz. Having all three appear in one video was enough to attract attention on its own.

Add Daria’s fluent Chinese and her sincere, completely unscripted commentary on the food, and its sudden popularity no longer seemed impossible.

Gao Yun took out his phone and opened TikTok to check his account. His followers had risen from twenty thousand to three hundred and twenty thousand.

Three hundred thousand new followers?

WTF?

What a damned society obsessed with appearances. So shallow! Unbelievably shallow!

Then again, wasn’t this handsome young man handsome enough? Why had he never gone viral before?

Well, it must have been the irresistible appeal of the food. And Daria, being a beautiful Russian woman, came with her own built-in traffic. Everyone, this worship of foreign things was getting out of hand. Where would it end?

What was happening to this country? I’m deep in thought!

Gao Yun was both delighted and aggrieved. He was delighted that he seemed to have become famous, but aggrieved because the reason for his popularity appeared to have little to do with him.

He casually opened the more than twenty thousand comments. The one with the most likes came from an old follower, which offered him a little consolation.

“Furious. It’s over, it’s all over! A fitness blogger has turned into a couple’s food streamer. My youth is gone! What happened to your promises? What happened to lifting iron? Didn’t you say that lifting weights released far more dopamine than falling in love? How did you end up falling in love anyway? Traitor!”

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Gao Yun casually replied, “There has to be weightlifting, and there has to be romance. We have to seize both with both hands—and handle both firmly.”

“Crying. I’m stuffed with this Sino-Russian bowl of romantic dog food. What about you?”

“Three meals a day, and those three meals probably cost this poor man three months of wages. Is the life of rich people always this extravagant?”

“This is the best-looking Ferrari owner and Ferrari passenger I’ve ever seen. You two make a great match. I’m jealous.”

Smiling. “As expected, it really is a food video. You eat gourmet food while we eat dog food. Either way, we end up full. What a considerate blogger.”

“Daria is so beautiful, and her Chinese is excellent! The manager of the Japanese restaurant is gorgeous too. She looks a lot like Yuki Amami!”

“Sure enough, our world is called life, while the world of the rich is called paradise. All the girls around them are angels. I’m dead inside.”

…

After skimming through the ridiculous comments, Gao Yun found that most were filled with envy, jealousy, and resentment. He completely ignored the few malicious attacks.

Next, he opened the Bilibili app on his phone. He wanted to see whether the same video performed differently on another platform and whether its popularity varied accordingly.

The result startled him.

Perhaps because the editing style suited Bilibili, the video had actually been recommended by an editor to the front page of the Lifestyle section. It had already reached five hundred thousand views.

It had to be remembered that no matter how high a video’s views and likes were on TikTok, if you did not livestream or advertise products for sale, your earnings were still zero. You would not make a single penny.

Compared with TikTok, however, Bilibili views could be monetized directly. A thousand views were worth three yuan, while coins, collections, and support payments added even more. In other words, based on views alone, Gao Yun had already earned fifteen hundred yuan from this Bilibili video.

Well, that covered the cost of one meal at Jinsha Hall. Better than nothing.

Gao Yun thought back to why he had filmed the video in the first place. His original intention had been to hone and improve his filming and editing skills, yet he had accidentally planted a willow and grown a whole grove.

It had gone viral!

Where was the justice in that?

Afterward, Gao Yun and Liu Xingsheng discussed the contents of the video for a while and reminisced about old times before getting down to business.

By “expansion,” they meant adding another one hundred square meters to the existing one hundred, renting the dance studio next door, which was already on the verge of shutting down, and combining the two spaces into a total of two hundred square meters.

“Since training institutions aren’t allowed to resume work, the dance studio can’t hold on any longer. I’m planning to rent it.”

Standing in the empty dance studio, Liu Xingsheng gestured animatedly as he painted a picture of the future, his face filled with anticipation.

“We’ll put in a few more punching bags, add some training equipment, and set up an octagonal cage. Then we can hold a few city-level fight tournaments and make a name for ourselves. Once our reputation spreads, plenty of students will come to sign up! What do you think?”

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Gao Yun was not optimistic. He shook his head.

“Even after expanding, how many people can your two-hundred-square-meter gym hold? It would still be small-time operation. Besides, expanding won’t bring in many more students.”

“No matter how impressive your fighting skills are or how good your business is—even if you’re a champion with a gold belt—the gym’s surroundings are right here for everyone to see. People who care about appearances won’t come. The only ones who will are devoted fight enthusiasts, and they’re the only ones who won’t care about the environment.”

“But every serious fight enthusiast in Gourd City already knows you. They’re all here now, so expanding won’t help.”

Gao Yun’s argument was logical and forceful. After taking blow after blow, Liu Xingsheng grew thoroughly dispirited.

Then Gao Yun changed direction and brought up the five-thousand-square-meter fitness center he was preparing to build in Huashang New District. He truthfully described its excellent location and superior access to a large population.

Finally, he suggested that Liu Xingsheng shut down the fight gym altogether and join him at the fitness center in the new district. They could set aside eight hundred square meters as a dedicated fighting zone, with its own separate fees and membership cards that would not be interchangeable with those of the fitness center. The fitness center’s membership staff would also help sell memberships for the fighting zone.

As for revenue, the two of them would split all course fees and membership income from the fighting zone fifty-fifty. Liu Xingsheng would not need to pay rent, utilities, or any investment costs. All he had to do was sell classes and teach them. The sole requirement was that he teach Gao Yun fighting techniques whenever and wherever necessary.

The terms were so generous that Liu Xingsheng could hardly believe them. He asked several times whether Gao Yun was serious, and after realizing that he was, he agreed without hesitation.

“That’s enough talk, Yun. You’re a real friend!”

Liu Xingsheng clasped Gao Yun’s hand and bumped his shoulder against him, his gratitude plain on his face.

Liu Xingsheng had the typical temperament of a fighter: somewhat impulsive and reckless, fond of drinking but well-behaved when drunk, loyal and generous, yet exceptionally polite and rarely given to profanity.

Two years earlier, when Gao Yun had first begun learning to fight, Liu Xingsheng had charged him three hundred yuan per one-on-one lesson. Gao Yun bought a package of twenty lessons, and by the time those twenty were over, the two had become friends. After that, Liu Xingsheng never accepted another payment from him and continued teaching him patiently and carefully for free.

Unfortunately, as Gao Yun gradually mastered the techniques and advanced to a high level, his workload grew heavier. He visited the gym less and less, and the two men saw each other increasingly rarely.

Seeing Liu Xingsheng’s smile, Gao Yun was happy too. First, he was pleased that he had once again performed a great act of charity and helped someone in need. Second, he was delighted that there was now hope of advancing his fighting skills to the professional level.

“So, is it settled?”

“Settled!”

Gao Yun nodded. “Once the design company finishes the plans, I’ll forward them to you. If you have any opinions, discuss them with the designers. You’ll be entirely responsible for setting up the fighting zone; I won’t be handling that. My only suggestion is that all the equipment should be professional-grade. Don’t worry about the money—make sure it’s professional.”

“Absolutely,” Liu Xingsheng replied. “It has to be professional. And don’t worry. A martial arts gym doesn’t need nearly as much equipment as a fitness center, so even professional-grade gear won’t cost that much.”

End of Chapter