CHAPTER 16 :You dare to challenge me?

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The next day, Bai Luoyin came to school late again. Gu Hai stole a glance at his uniform, it was the same one as yesterday, and thus wasn’t stitched yet. Gu Hai had been bold enough to cut holes into Bai Luoyin’s uniform because he understood the extent of the sloppiness from the father and son of the Bai household. He guessed that Bai Luoyin probably didn’t take off his clothes and went to sleep in his uniform instead.

Great, now that everything was ready, all that’s needed was the East Wind.[1]

More’s the pity that the East Wind didn’t blew smoothly that day.

Gu Hai kept on staring at Bai Luoyin, waiting for him to fall asleep. But unfortunately for him, Bai Luoyin was wide-awake and very energetic throughout the two classes today— even his back was ramrod straight.

Sleep, sleep… Gu Hai chanted repeatedly in his mind.

Finally, near the end of the second period, Bai Luoyin’s back slumped a bit and he gradually leaned on the desk. Gu Hai waited silently. Right when Bai Luoyin’s whole body had stopped moving, he extended his claws.

Ring, ring, ring…

The class ended leaving Gu Hai to grit his teeth and withdraw his hand with a heavy heart.

The third period was Physical Education; Gu Hai temporarily placed the needle and thread into his drawer, saving it for the fourth period.

Their school had employed a new Physical Education teacher, who was a retired military officer that carried an aura of fearlessness and presumptuousness. Just as the class began, he cussed and scolded the entire class about their standing posture, calling them a bunch of spineless cowards.

“You, hurry up and line up the students.” The PE teacher called out Ti Wei to the front.

When Ti Wei shouted out the order, the PE teacher immediately howled, “You haven’t eaten yet?”

Ti Wei felt wronged, “I have eaten, but I am still hungry.”

As the whole class laughed, the PE teacher was taken aback.

I am the instructor, and you have the audacity to laugh at me!

“Go back to your position. I will appoint a new person.”

With a look of disdain, he walked past every single student till the end of the line. His eyes finally rested upon a person whose stance was completely different from the other students. This student’s concealed expression implied aggressiveness. Looking at his figure and posture, he could definitely become the PE teacher’s successor.

“You, come out here.”

Gu Hai walked forward, carrying himself confidently with an impressive demeanour.

The face of the PE teacher finally showed satisfaction.

“Shout twice, I will be listening.”

Gu Hai glanced at the PE teacher, noting and dismissing him as an insufferably arrogant type of person.

As if shouting twice would give you a reputation! Even if you hadn’t asked me to shout like a loon, just as the flowers wither away, so would have my opinion towards you.

“Orders are not meant to be shouted. If you do not have the trust of the people, they won’t listen to you even if you shout until your throat bled. But if you have the trust of the people, they will know what they must do even if your mouth is closed.”

A collective silence fell on the gathering at the end of his impressive little speech.

No one had expected anyone to be brave enough to utter such a fine speech in front of the fierce and unreasonable PE teacher. They muttered amongst themselves, this person is damned, yet they couldn’t help but cheer for him all the same. Everyone despised this kind of teacher, the person who dared to oppose the teacher naturally became an admirable yet tragic hero in their minds.

The PE teacher reacted as if a man possessed.

Why is his manner of speaking very familiar? Looking into his eyes, why do I feel that our positions have reversed? That’s not right. He is just a student! I am the teacher! I ordered him to do one thing, and he did it the other way around. How did he manage to reverse our roles? This is outrageous!

“What qualifications do you have, talking back to me like this?”

Gu Hai retorted snidely, “What then, are your so-called qualifications?”

The PE teacher’s face turned livid, pointing to the ground, he said, “If you can do fifty pushups in a minute, I will pretend that I didn’t hear what you just said.”

Gu Hai just smirked, both hands at ready, waiting for the PE teacher to say ‘start’.

The PE teacher brought out a stopwatch, casting a scornful look at Gu Hai.

“Begin.”

“1, 2, 3, 4…”

The whole class started counting and cheering Gu Hai at the same time. He moved at such a speed the likes of which you only ever saw on the television. When the count reached fifty, there’s still half a minute left. Some of the boys were sweating, whether it was due to the sun or because they were truly anxiously excited, nobody knew.

“106.”

A burst of enthusiastic applause erupted from the ranks of the students.

“What are you guys applauding for?” The PE teacher roared loudly until the whole class went deadly silent. He faced Gu Hai, “You think you are brilliant? Pei! The students don’t know what a joke you are! People will look at you as a monkey and I, as the monkey trainer! You think people truly admire you? Do not flatter yourself!”

“Then show us how brilliant you are!”

Gu Hai’s provocation caused some male students to jeer continuously from the back.

“Teacher, show us some of your abilities too! We also want to see them. You have recently retired from the army, haven’t you? We also want to see what the integrity of a soldier looks like!”

“That’s right! You have great skills, so share it with us!”

“…”

The class’ jeering and Gu Hai’s aloofness pushed on the PE teacher’s nerve slowly to the point of explosion. He realised that he should allow the students to witness his capabilities, so that they won’t dare to question him any further.

“Quit your fussing. See that horizontal bar? Each of you will do pull-ups and do as many as you can. After all of you have finished, I will do it. Listen carefully, the number of pull-ups that I can do will be definitely more than the sum total of you all combined!”

The whole class erupted with excitement. A small group of male students walked toward the horizontal bar. The female students were exempted and stood around them to cheer on. Some students from another class also came closer to watch the excitement. The previously silent sports ground was rapidly bustling with excitement.

The PE teacher did a single pull-up, explaining that the chin must pass the bar while the feet remained straight, not touch the ground. Only this way would it be counted as one complete pull-up.

“1, 2… hey you, that’s not counted, next student come forward… 3, 4, 5, 6… 41, 42…”

Although each male student did the pull-ups, none of them was particularly outstanding since a lot of them simply couldn’t sustain their own weight. In the science class, where more than half were boys (with more than forty students in total), even if each boy could do three pull-ups, the total would be more than one hundred. The people who had never undergone special training realized that it would be a miracle if you managed to do several tens of pull-ups.

Looking around the ranks, only three boys remained: Bai Luoyin, You Qi and Gu Hai.

The boys had managed a sum-total of 89 pull-ups. Because of the PE teacher stipulations, some hadn’t even managed to do one pull-up. Therefore, the PE teacher was quite confident of his chances. He could easily manage 200 pull-ups without losing much sweat. No matter how powerful Gu Hai was, it was unlikely that the sum total of the three boys would cross 100.

[1] Great, now everything is already prepared, all that’s left is the east wind: this is an idiom, meaning that everything is ready except the most important thing (which is ‘the east wind’).

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