Chapter 145: Aunt Qiong Strikes

The police briefly questioned Hong Tao about the incident and then patted down the pockets of the two men. That saved them even the trouble of an interrogation, as the stolen wallets were still in their pockets before they had a chance to dispose of them. It was an open-and-shut case of catching thieves in the act, and the officers immediately slapped handcuffs on them. Police officers back in those days were certainly no pushovers; even though half of the thief's arm was barely functional, they still slapped the cuffs on him behind his back. When they wrenched his arm, the fellow screamed in agony like a slaughtered pig.

As it turned out, screaming was the worst thing he could have done. The wailing only annoyed the policeman, who planted his foot squarely on the handcuffs, pressing them brutally into the man's flesh. Then they shoved him roughly into the sidecar of a police motorcycle, forcing his entire body to cram into the front half. The officer then climbed into the sidecar, planted his foot firmly on the thief's back, and sputtered away with a loud putt-putt-putt.

"Coach, what was the name of that move you just used? Teach it to us some day!" Seeing the thieves dragged away, Hong Tao picked up his travel bag and sidled up to Coach Pang to inquire. All the surrounding senior and junior disciples nodded frantically, pecking like chicks eating rice. They were all eager to learn such a decisive, one-stroke neutralization technique.

"That move of mine? I call that move 'Late for the Running Laps'! Go on, run ten laps!" Coach Pang pointed toward the courtyard's track.

After much pestering and cajoling, Hong Tao finally managed to get Coach Pang to reveal the secret behind that move. It turned out that judo included many techniques prohibited in official matches precisely because they were too lethal and prone to causing severe injury. These skills were known as striking techniques (Ate-waza) and were roughly divided into three categories: hitting techniques (uchi-waza), thrusting techniques (tsuki-waza), and kicking techniques (keri-waza).

Hitting techniques primarily involved fists, knife-hands, and feet, roughly comparable to sanda, using fists, palms, and feet as weapons to strike the opponent's vital points and secure a swift victory.

Thrusting techniques mainly referred to head-butts and elbow strikes, which were even more underhanded than Muay Thai. They included eye-gouging, finger-bending, and striking the temples.

Kicking techniques mainly relied on knee strikes, toe-kicks, and heel strikes, similar to Taekwondo, using the legs and feet as weapons to attack the opponent.

However, while Coach Pang explained them, he flatly refused to teach any of them to Hong Tao. He stated that these techniques had nothing to do with competition, and if used improperly, they could inflict massive damage. Unless Hong Tao could make it onto the official professional team, he would never come into contact with these skills. Otherwise, he could forget about it.

"A professional team? My foot! If I made it to the professional team, I wouldn't need you to teach me! Just wait, sooner or later I'll wheedle all your little tricks out of you!" Hong Tao firmly refused to believe that Coach Pang could maintain his strict principles forever. Very few people could emerge unscathed from an onslaught of sugar-coated bullets. Even officials with much higher political awareness succumbed; could a mere sports school coach turn out to be a saint? The only reason he was playing hard to get right now was that the bribes weren't heavy enough. Hong Tao decided that starting this week, he would have his eldest aunt's husband invite Coach Pang out for hearty banquets on a weekly basis. Once their relationship grew close, he would follow up with minor heavy artillery like washing machines and refrigerators. He refused to believe the man wouldn't teach him!

Hong Tao didn't particularly care to become some sort of martial arts master. Compared to competitive judo techniques, these vicious and lethal moves were clearly much better suited for self-defense. Moreover, the learning curve was much shorter, making them ideal for a lazy and opportunistic student like himself. As for whether they were prone to causing serious injury, Hong Tao reasoned this way: he had no intention of making street fighting his career, nor would he bump into peerless martial arts experts every single day. Therefore, he wouldn't casually unleash these lethal techniques on ordinary, weaker classmates, meaning the issue of injuring someone simply wouldn't arise.

If he truly encountered a situation like today's, then who cared about causing injuries or not? It was just that he was still a bit short and weak right now; if he could grow to over one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, today's thief might well have had his neck snapped. Even if he ended up in prison for excessive force, Hong Tao figured that was still a much better deal than letting someone else poke a few holes in his own body!

***

"What? You ran into a thief? Sigh! That's far too dangerous! Here's what we'll do: from now on, whenever you go to the sports school, have Uncle Lu accompany you. Don't let Uncle Lu's quiet and taciturn demeanor fool you; he's the kind of mild-mannered man who turns into a leopard when provoked. His ancestors ran armed escort agencies and were old family friends with our late patriarch. Back in the day, the guards who protected our household were all junior martial arts brothers of his seniors. Whether carrying weapons or not, he could take down one or two men single-handedly."

When he got home, Hong Tao didn't mention a word of this incident to his parents, fearing that not only would they forbid him from returning to sports training, but his grandfather would likely object as well. However, he did chat about it with Second Uncle. Having grown up as a spoiled scion and experienced so many setbacks in life, the old man had much more nerve than ordinary people and understood the ways of the world far better.

Sure enough, after listening to the story, Second Uncle didn't stop Hong Tao from continuing his training at the sports school. Instead, he came up with an alternative solution: assigning Hong Tao a personal bodyguard. The manpower was readily available in the form of Lu Yunpeng, the night watchman. Since Lu generally woke up before noon and idled away his afternoons, he was in a position to accompany Hong Tao to training. To Hong Tao's surprise, this Lu Yunpeng actually knew a thing or two about martial arts. No wonder it was others who ended up beaten to a pulp by him during brawls rather than the other way around!

"Oh, Little Aunt, what's wrong with you? Who upset you?" Having finished dealing with his own affairs, Hong Tao strolled down from upstairs, bantered with a few regular customers in the hair salon for a bit, and then slipped into the back of the clothing store, where he found his little aunt sitting before the sewing machine with red, tear-filled eyes, staring blankly.

"Go away, none of your business!" Only then did the little aunt realize her nephew had arrived. She hastily wiped away her tears and grabbed a pair of trousers to cover a book resting on the sewing machine.

"My goodness, Little Aunt, how can you be so careless? Is that money you dropped on the floor?" Hong Tao could tell that the key to her tears probably lay in that book; he had to find out what she was reading. With that, he let out a startled gasp right behind her.

"Where?! Oh... Give it back! Give it to me!" The naive young woman fell completely for Hong Tao's trick. She spun around and lowered her head to search for the money, only to realize she had been duped, while Hong Tao had already snatched her book and sprinted to the other side of the counter.

" *Cloud of Romance* ! Little Auntie! You're done for. One step forward is an abyss, and one step back is a sheer cliff! I can't save you now, but you have to tell me where you got this book!" Hong Tao didn't stop until he reached the outer side of the counter, where he finally had a chance to glance at the title.

The title gave him a tremendous shock. He was far too familiar with it, and a mere glance at the cover told him who the author was—none other than Auntie Qiong, the notorious chronicler of every conceivable extramarital affair and torrid love triangle! Throughout the eighties and nineties, her books practically swept across the entire female population of China, captivating everyone from junior high school girls to middle-aged housewives, all of whom wept into her pages whenever they had a spare moment.

Meanwhile, Chinese men of that era were hardly neglected. A legion of martial arts novelists like Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong, and Gu Long took charge of the leisure and cultural lives of Chinese males, casting an even wider net that snared everyone from elementary schoolboys to eighty-year-old grandfathers.

Hong Tao knew he lacked the power to shield contemporary young women from the temptation of Auntie Qiong, so he had no intention of wasting his breath lecturing his little aunt with moral principles. However, he also had no intention of letting off the culprit who had introduced this spiritual opium to her at such an early age.

"Give it back to me, don't ruin it! I borrowed this from the person selling toad-eye sunglasses in the market next door. I have to return it to them." The little aunt quickly confessed the mastermind behind the deed.

***

"Good grief! You actually dare to target my little aunt? The two of you just wait!" Hong Tao tossed the book onto the counter and strode toward the Fenjin Mall.

The toad-eye sunglasses vendors were a pair of brothers: the older one named Sun Jie, and the younger one Sun Jun. Both were around twenty-four or five, with four older and younger siblings at home, living right behind the Sixth Hospital. The two fellows were quite resourceful and daring. Usually, one would watch the counter while the other traveled south to stock up on goods—toad-shaped sunglasses, electronic watches, cassette tapes, and the like—which they would haul back in massive travel bags and sell in the mall, doing a brisk business. In fact, Hong Tao was the one who had originally pointed them toward this venture, and even provided the startup capital for their inventory.

"Little Sun... where's your brother?" Hong Tao marched straight behind the counter and gave Sun Jun a poke.

"If you call me that again, I'll beat you up! What do you mean, 'Little Sun'? I'm older than your own uncle! Even if you're the boss, you can't push people around like this!" Sun Jun was bantering with a young female customer about sunglasses and making wisecracks when Hong Tao's greeting utterly ruined his dignity.

"Hey! You've got attitude, do you? In a little while, even if you beg to call me grandpa, I won't agree! Was it you who gave that book to my little aunt? That's not something sold openly on the market, is it? Well, well! Daring to read reactionary literature and even spreading it around? That's a massive crime! If you don't get five years, you'll certainly get three! Just you wait, I'm going to call Officer Zhou right now. You've got half an hour, so hurry home and pack your bedding—don't go crying when you check in without a mattress!" Dealing with these educated youth required zero brainpower on Hong Tao's part; a few well-chosen threats were always enough to scare them out of their wits.

"Hey... hey... Grandpa Hong! Grandpa Hong! I was wrong! I was wrong! I bought that book at the railway station just to pass the time when I was bored. Let's not play for keeps!" Hearing Hong Tao's words, Sun Jun immediately caved. Whether it was actually reactionary literature, he had no idea, but he knew very well that the book wasn't officially published domestically and had been smuggled in from Hong Kong.

"Not calling is fine, but I'm confiscating the book. My shop cannot harbor reactionary literature. Hand it over!" Hong Tao held out his hand.

"No... well, fine, guess I'm just unlucky... That's the last of them. At least leave me one, I haven't finished reading it yet..." Sun Jun originally wanted to claim there were no more, but lost his nerve and obediently pulled four or five thick volumes out from beneath the counter.

"Planning to read them in a prison cell? Confiscated!" Hong Tao unceremoniously snatched the books from Sun Jun's hands and hugged them to his chest as he walked away. (To be continued...)