Severing Time & Space

Sparring Match!

Hou Jingshu remained mad for the rest of the day.

That morning, after their normal exercise, the group ate breakfast in silence, then traveled to the training hall with the other students. Instructor Lan was already waiting for them and had everyone line up in rows, lectured them on the importance of increasing their strength, then had them begin doing our stretches.

After that...

...They sparred.

"I want to spar with you," Hou Jingshu said suddenly, pointing her finger at Wu Jian.

It was a bit of an unusual request. She normally sparred with Wu Meiying, though she sometimes sparred with the other girls. Perhaps that was why he couldn't respond right away, and when he did, his response wasn't what he would have called intelligent.

"You want to spar with me?" Wu Jian pointed at himself.

"That's right. Spar with me. Right now."

There was a demanding quality to her tone that she hadn't used before and it set him on edge, though he also didn't see a reason to deny her request. Nodding once, he and Hou Jingshu walked over to a section of the sparring mat where they wouldn't get in anyone else's way, and no one would get in theirs. They stood a few feet apart. Wu Jian could see Wu Meiying out of the corner of his eyes. One of the boys in their class had asked to spar with her.

If he's using that as an excuse to touch her inappropriately...

"I'm the one you should be looking at, not Wu Meiying," Hou Jingshu snapped.

Wu Jian's eyes swiveled back to her as he twisted his neck around so fast he thought he heard a loud crack. Hou Jingshu glared at him with stern disapproval. Her eyes were like fire. She had already set herself in a basic martial art stance.

The martial art Hou Jingshu was learning was called Wing Chun, and it was a concept-based martial art and form of self-defense that utilized both striking and "sticking" or controlling while specializing in close-range combat. It was an exceedingly popular martial art. It was especially popular among women because of their slighter frames and body mass.

According to legend, it was created by Ng Mui, a cultivator who had reached the pinnacle of cultivation many centuries ago and passed this martial arts down. She was a legendary figure who created this style because of a traumatizing event in her past. Nobody knew if that was true. However, the style had grown in popularity recently, especially in the Shang Kingdom. It was a very practical style that could be learned in a short period of time and could be practiced by people of all shapes, sizes, and degrees of athletic ability.

Wu Jian set himself in his style, which he called "Formless Style" because he still didn't have a martial art to call his own. None of the ones he had looked at felt right.

A moment of tension ran between them. Hou Jingshu narrowed her eyes as Wu Jian waited. She tapped her foot against the ground. She rolled her shoulders back. He knew it would only be a matter of time before she attacked. Hou Jingshu lacked the patience that he did.

As expected, she burst from the ground seconds later and sped toward him. Her first attack was not a punch, but a low kick aimed at taking his knees out.

He stepped back. Her foot flew past him in a wide arc, but she didn't stop moving. Planting her foot back on the ground, Hou Jingshu used the momentum gained from her original kick to spin around and threw another kick at him, this one aimed at his chest.

He sidestepped that one too, allowing her foot to sail past him. He could have followed up with a counter, but he didn't.

"Why won't you fight back?!" Hou Jingshu shouted at him.