Chapter 1 The Beginning

The two guys on the left and right rushed up together, while the other retreated to the mouth of the alley to prevent Gu Fei from escaping.

In the blink of an eye, the two guys were upon him, one throwing a punch, the other a kick. Gu Fei didn't panic. He took a slight step back, dodging both attacks. Then, he swept his left leg, hitting the guy on the left square in the face. But as he went to kick with his right, he noticed that the guy on the right had already retreated in surprise.

Gu Fei smiled wryly. If this were reality, there was no way his *Lao Tzu* kick would have only hit one person. But now, in the game, his speed was completely limited by the mage's terrible stats. He couldn't unleash the full potential of the move, only half of it. And the power was weakened even more cruelly. The guy on the left, after taking a kick from him, was just covering his face and staring at him in astonishment. If this were real life, taking a kick like that to the head would have knocked him out for at least four or five hours.

"He's got some skills, alright," the leader said, his expression changing, but he didn't seem too flustered. Gu Fei's kick had landed, but its power was obviously limited. He immediately shouted, "He's just a mage, don't be afraid." After shouting, he also rushed in to join the fray.

Gu Fei moved through the three of them. Although the mage's physical attributes meant that Gu Fei's strength and physique were extremely weak, the mage's agility was barely passable. At least right now, when everyone was a newbie who hadn't leveled up and added stat points, the difference wasn't that noticeable. Gu Fei threw a punch or a kick every now and then, hitting his opponents with every move thanks to his rich fighting experience. But the three guys hadn't even touched the hem of Gu Fei's clothes. The leader was getting more and more surprised: this guy had more than just a few tricks up his sleeve. It was a good thing he was a mage. If he had been a character with strong power, the three of them would have been beaten down by now.

Gu Fei was feeling quite helpless. Due to various limitations, he couldn't use many of his kung fu moves at all. It seemed that even if he had chosen a job like fighter, he still couldn't use his kung fu without the support of stat points after leveling up. On the other hand, although he was a mage now, he could still have the chance to use his kung fu as long as he used more of his level-up points on agility and strength! Thinking of this, Gu Fei couldn't help but perk up.

The three guys who were besieging him saw that not only could they not do anything to Gu Fei, but the guy was getting more and more energetic. Just now, he even had a very happy smile on his face, which made them even more flustered.

The gang's rudimentary knife and brick skills were full of flaws in Gu Fei's eyes. Gu Fei had no intention of getting entangled with these guys. He withdrew and found an opportunity to get out of the circle, laughing, "Do you want to keep fighting?"

The three of them had taken quite a few punches and kicks from Gu Fei. Although the power wasn't great, the accumulated damage wasn't pleasant. Especially since Gu Fei had deliberately and repeatedly struck the same spot later on. At this time, the guy on the left had a black eye on his left side, the one on the right had a black eye on his right side, and the leader in the middle had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop. He was afraid of drinking the blood in his mouth when he spoke, so he raised his head, wiped it away, and said to the other two, "Let's go!"

"Wait!" Gu Fei said, "You want to leave without apologizing after hitting someone?"

"Apologize?" the leader laughed. "You can't kill me, why should I apologize?" That was true. Gu Fei had been tangling with them for so long, but he had only given the three of them two black eyes and two nosebleeds. These weren't unbearable injuries. As for dying, that was even more impossible. To die in the game, your health had to be zero. And in the current situation, even though they were all beaten black and blue, their health wasn't reduced at all. This had to be said to be a major bug in the game.

Gu Fei just smiled faintly, bent down, picked up a pebble from the ground, and suddenly raised his hand. With a "smack," it hit the leader right on the forehead.

The leader was furious. "You..."

"What would happen to you if I hit you in the eye with that?" Gu Fei asked leisurely.

The leader was stunned. He originally thought Gu Fei was just throwing something at him randomly, but listening to his tone, it seemed like he could hit whatever he aimed at?

"Of course, your eyes will still be fine in reality, but in the game, you'll be blind from now on... Don't forget, this is a fully immersive simulation game," Gu Fei said.

The leader took two steps back in fright, but then he thought about it and wondered, would he really hit his eyes if he said he would? There was no such thing as magic. He immediately felt relieved and laughed loudly, "Kid, who are you trying to scare?"

Gu Fei didn't say anything. He stretched out his foot and hooked up a pebble, then waved his right hand...

"Ah..." A scream rang out. The leader covered his right eye and fell to the ground, rolling around and wailing over and over again. The pain of being blinded was on a completely different level than getting a black eye.

"You still have one eye," Gu Fei said to the person rolling on the ground. After saying that, he stretched out his foot and kicked up two pebbles. Gu Fei waved his hand and held them in his fist. His eyes swept over the other two people next to the leader. "This time, I have two pebbles in my hand."

"S-sorry!" The two of them were completely frightened by the leader's screams as he rolled around on the ground. They stuttered out an apology.

"Go!" Gu Fei waved his hand. The two of them hurriedly dragged the leader on the ground up. The leader was covering his right eye with one hand, his left eye was also tightly closed, and he was trembling with pain. He stuttered out a sentence, "Go... Help me go..." The other two guys were stunned, then hurriedly stepped forward to help him leave. As for the guy who had been guarding the entrance of the alley earlier, he had already disappeared.

A Fa, who was hiding at the entrance of the alley and watching the live broadcast, was dumbfounded. It wasn't until the guys had run out of sight that he came back to his senses, rushed into the alley, and looked at Gu Fei in shock. "Teacher, do you really know kung fu?"

"Of course, your teacher has been practicing kung fu since he was a kid." Gu Fei's words were no different from what he usually said at school. Even his tone and expression hadn't changed.

Gu Fei really did know kung fu.

He was born into a family of martial artists and had been practicing martial arts since he was a child. The family members all had their own careers, but internally they all had a unified goal, which was to carry forward and promote Chinese martial arts. But even so, Gu Fei felt that except for himself and his old man, no one cared about this anymore.

The uncles and elders were all pretty good at it, but in his generation, there wasn't even a sparring partner. Not only that, but they were full of contempt for Gu Fei, who had been focused on martial arts since he was a child: "What age is it now? Airplanes everywhere, computers everywhere. Kung fu? Can kung fu be eaten?"

Gu Fei wanted to prove them wrong, but the result was even deeper contempt.

The truth was helpless. In this day and age, it was really hard to make a living with kung fu.

Gu Fei tried every field in the sports world, which seemed to be the easiest place to use his kung fu skills. Some sports were because he couldn't grasp the rules and repeatedly fouled, such as kicking too high in soccer and charging into people while dribbling in basketball. Some sports were impossible even with kung fu, such as chess. And some sports had congenital defects, such as swimming and diving – Gu Fei couldn't swim.

Even in kung fu itself, Gu Fei couldn't make it.

The kung fu that Gu Fei practiced focused on exercising oneself and fighting skills. This gave him no advantage in performance-based martial arts events, and his father strictly forbade him from participating in combat-based events that could truly showcase his talents.

"We practice martial arts to exercise ourselves and break through the limits of the human body, not to be aggressive and combative!" the old man said earnestly.

"Breaking through the limits of the human body isn't for the purpose of better defeating the opponent?" Gu Fei asked, puzzled.

"You're wrong. The best way to defeat the opponent is with a handgun!" the old man said.

"A handgun?"

The old man nodded solemnly. "Yes, a handgun!"

"But..."

Before Gu Fei could finish his sentence, the old man gave him a beating. They were a kung fu family! If you couldn't reason, you could only settle things with fists and palms. That year, the old man was still quite strong and his kung fu was still above Gu Fei's. Besides, Gu Fei certainly couldn't really fight his father, so the result was naturally that he was beaten to a pulp. That day was the day Gu Fei came to Yu Lin to interview...

In the end, after being eliminated from all sports, Gu Fei barely managed to stay in the sports world, if being a gym teacher counted.

And because the scene of him being beaten up by his father outside the school gate was filmed and spread around, Gu Fei was branded as shameless when he tried to promote kung fu at Yu Lin.

Was it really hard for kung fu to survive in this society? Gu Fei was extremely sad. Now he rarely attended family gatherings. In the past, the older generation would think that Gu Fei was adhering to the tradition of kung fu and regard him as a role model for the family, using him to educate his peers. But now, seeing that each and every one of his peers was dressed in bright clothes and doing well, while Gu Fei was down on his luck as a gym teacher, the older generation began to hesitate. Except for Gu Fei's old man, no one would firmly believe that Gu Fei was the most promising person.

And the old man's greater insistence was still the view that "kung fu is not for being aggressive and combative."

"I will never allow you to use kung fu to hurt anyone!" the old man said firmly.

"Not even bad guys?" Gu Fei asked.

"No!" the old man said firmly. "Bad guys will naturally have the police and the law to punish them!"

"Then, what's the use of kung fu?" Gu Fei was troubled. He hated that he couldn't see through everything like his old man and was always struggling with what kung fu could be used for.