Chapter 4 The Mysterious Old Man

  The next morning, I really got up at 4:15 and before going out, I specially applied some water droplets to my forehead and chin. Then I went to the dorm mother's place, covering my stomach, looking very painful and weak, knocking on the door while saying: "Dorm mother, open the door quickly, I'm about to die... Hurry up and save me..." After shouting a few times, the small window next to it opened, followed by a face that should be distorted with anger: "Do you want to die? What's wrong with you making such a fuss in the middle of the night?" She directly yelled at me.

  It scared me, then I immediately reacted and said in a very painful tone: "Dorm mother, I'm going to die... Hurry up and save me... My stomach hurts so much..." While saying that, I pretended to wipe the water droplets from my chin. This should have scared her, and she quickly said: "Wait, let me open the door for you." Then the door opened, and she asked me: "Classmate, what's wrong with you?"

  "I was sleeping well, but then I woke up in pain. Can you please help me open the door quickly? I'll go out and find a pharmacy to buy some painkillers or stomach medicine. Let's get a doctor to take a look at what's going on." As I said that, I wiped the water droplets from my chin again, because I found this move quite useful - earlier I wiped the left side, now it's the right side.

  As expected, she directly took out the key and opened the door of the corridor, and then wanted to escort me there. This won't do! I hastily said to her: "Auntie, you quickly go back, tell the security room over there, otherwise I'll have to waste half a day when I get there, I really can't take it!" As I spoke, I wiped off the water droplets on my forehead again.

  "Are you going alone? Or should I see you off?" The aunt asked with concern.

  "Go ahead, I can hold on for a bit longer, you hurry up and make the call, otherwise if I'm delayed any further I don't know if I'll be able to hold on," I hastily said to this ink-stained woman.

  "Alright, alright, you be careful, I'll hurry up and call them to let you go!" She said as she quickly ran back to her office to make the call. Then I walked away while glancing back, hoping not to get caught, or else I would have been in trouble when I got back from my morning exercise. Luckily, I made it out of school smoothly, and checked my phone to see that it was already 4:35. What a waste of time chatting with that woman, I'd better hurry up or I'll be late!

  When I arrived, the old man looked like he had been exercising for a while, and I was really puzzled... Did he come out of his house at three o'clock? I went over to greet him: "Good morning, sir."

  The old man looked at me and smiled, saying: "Well, not bad. You're quite good at keeping promises... Come on, you've just arrived and warmed up too, let's learn a few sets of boxing moves together!" And then he started teaching me boxing!

  I really don't know what kind of fist he taught me, it just feels very strange. And he didn't say what his name was, just letting me call him "old man" or "old master", anything goes. But indeed after exercising, I felt very comfortable, my body had a special feeling that can't be described. As a result, I first found a temporary rental house outside the school, because I really didn't dare to go find the dormitory aunt every day with stomach pain and abdominal pain, she would really kill me!

  Like this, I followed the old man for a whole week. On the last day, after finishing the morning exercise, when it was time to part ways, the old man suddenly spoke up and said to me: "Little Feng, you've also learned enough, from now on just practice by yourself." As soon as I heard this, I felt something was off, and hurriedly asked: "What's wrong, old master? You're not going to exercise anymore?"

  "Well, I have other things to do and will be leaving soon. You should practice well by yourself from now on. Also, take this and practice according to it!" The old man handed me a piece of oil paper with just the right amount of words written on it, but I didn't examine it closely and asked instead: "When are you coming back?"

  The old man looked at me and replied, "Not necessarily, but it's not important. Just practice well yourself, the paper has the method of breathing and exhaling, doing it for a long time will be very beneficial to your body. From now on, it's up to you. Also, I want to tell you, never drink too much wine, it's bad for you. Your alcohol breath is too strong, if it reaches a certain point, who knows what might happen." The old man finished speaking, shook his head, sighed, and looked at me with deep meaning, then waved his hand at me.

  I knew it was time for me to go back, every time we parted ways was like this. Then I smiled and said to him: "Old man, thank you! If I come back someday, come here in the morning, you'll definitely see me practicing hard according to your teachings!" After finishing speaking, I also turned around and wandered back, thinking about it for half a day but couldn't think of anything, so I just stopped thinking about it.

  I got to know this old man, and that's how I got to know him. However, I didn't listen to his words completely. I listened to the part about exercising, but I still drank as usual. But since following the old man, I've slowly started to feel changes in my attention and physical condition, and at first, I thought it was just psychological.

  Later on, I gradually came to realize that the practice of qigong was the most important thing, and the several sets of fist techniques I learned were just for condensing the qi. The final result is that at critical moments, one can concentrate one's attention, increase the speed of brain thinking and physical reaction, of course it's not some kind of iron shirt golden bell cover magical power...

  It's because of getting up early every day, I'm afraid of the dorm mother, secondly, I'm also afraid that others will think I'm mentally ill, thirdly, I feel that living outside is quite good and free. So I found a small room nearby and moved out to live there!

  I'm a simple person, as long as I have enough to eat and a warm place to sleep, I'm fine. Honestly, it doesn't matter what I eat or where I sleep. The only things I really enjoy are playing strategy war games and watching historical war movies from different countries.

  Since I learned to operate a computer, around the age of 10, I started playing various computer strategy games, especially those related to medieval warfare tactics. As long as it was a strategy war game, I would play each one until I mastered it, researching every day. When I got bored with one, I would switch to another and continue researching! As for watching documentaries, I would watch medieval war movies from various countries over and over again, basically until I couldn't get enough of them.

  Next, let's talk about myself. I majored in finance and economics. In school, the male-to-female ratio in my class was 1:10. Alas! But really sorry to say, basically no one met the requirements of being a good match for me. So every time we went out to play, I was always alone. I even doubted my own judgment, wondering if my expectations were too high?