Morning light spilled into the small bedroom through the half-open curtains, drawing pale gold lines across the faded quilt. Yogan blinked his eyes open. A dull ache rippled through his muscles before his brain even fully woke up. The pain was everywhere—his shoulders, his thighs, especially his right arm that had absorbed the shock of blocking heavy punches the night before. His legs, which had danced like springs under him, now felt like they were filled with lead.
It was his fragile, teenage body protesting, screaming at him about its limits.
Yet Yogan's lips curved upward in a faint smile. This was exactly the feeling he had been craving. The stiffness in his muscles, the bruises hidden beneath his clothes—these were proof that the previous night's fight hadn't been a dream. They were proof that step by step, he was reshaping this weak, high-schooler's shell into the durable weapon it had been in his previous life.
He sat up slowly, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and inhaled deeply. The air tasted of detergent and the faint smell of last night's cooked beef still lingering in the small apartment. His mother must already have gone to work; the living room was silent. Yogan pushed himself off the bed, joints clicking, and began a series of gentle stretches. Every movement made the pain flare, but he welcomed it.
For a fighter, pain wasn't an enemy; it was a companion. Learning how to breathe through it, live with it, and draw lessons from it—that was an essential part of becoming strong.
---
When Yogan walked into his classroom on Monday morning, the familiar chatter sounded strangely sharper. It was as if a faint current of electricity buzzed in the air. He could feel eyes glancing his way, then darting back. He dropped his schoolbag onto his desk and sat down.
Li Hao, his chubby deskmate, leaned in with a conspiratorial grin plastered across his round face. His voice dropped to an exaggerated whisper.
"Yogan Ge, you're amazing!"
"What?" Yogan asked lightly, pulling a textbook from his bag as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
"You're still pretending!" Li Hao hissed. "My cousin went to an underground boxing match yesterday. He came back bragging that a high-school kid your size knocked out a big man named Bao Ge with one punch. Was that you?"
Yogan raised an eyebrow. He hadn't expected word to spread this fast. He neither admitted nor denied it—just smiled faintly.
In Li Hao's eyes, that was as good as a confession. He slapped the desk with a muffled thud.
"Oh my gosh, it really was you! Yogan Ge, since when did you become so fierce? Teach me some moves after class!"
Like a stone cast into a still pond, Yogan's fight created ripples through the school. At first, most classmates still saw him as the same quiet boy with average grades and a shy demeanor. But among certain circles—boys who idolized strength, sports, and street legend—the name "Yogan" started to acquire an aura.
During breaks, students from other classes would peek through the doorway, hoping to glimpse the high-schooler who had supposedly "knocked out a nightclub bodyguard with one punch." The legend inflated with each retelling: some said he'd dodged dozens of blows like a phantom; others swore Bao Ge had flown three meters before landing.
Yogan paid the whispers no mind. His daily routine stayed as precise as a clock: school, training at Zhenwei Martial Arts Gym, and home.
---
With the two thousand yuan he had earned from the fight, Yogan made immediate changes to his diet. He began visiting the wet market himself, inspecting cuts of beef with a careful eye, feeling the weight of fresh chicken breasts, bargaining over vegetables. He carried the groceries home and cooked them himself, controlling the ratio of protein, carbohydrates, and fat more precisely than most nutritionists.
His mother, Zhou Hui, didn't know whether to be relieved or alarmed. Relief, because her son had grown overnight into a disciplined, self-sufficient young man. Alarm, because he had become almost obsessed with eating "the right way." But she said nothing. In her heart she sensed that something important was happening inside Yogan—a transformation she couldn't yet name.
---
At the Zhenwei Martial Arts Gym, Yogan's status also changed overnight.
Previously, the older trainees had dismissed him as just another teenager with quick reflexes. But after witnessing—or hearing firsthand about—his one-punch defeat of Bao Ge, their eyes held a new mix of curiosity, admiration, and respect. No one called him "the weak high-school kid" anymore.
Among men fueled by testosterone, the most direct and violent display of ability always earned recognition. Yogan had taken the fastest route.
Even Coach Zhang Lei's attitude shifted. Where before he'd held back some of his deeper knowledge, now he taught with full dedication, as though unveiling a treasure chest. He drilled Yogan in Sanda combinations, Muay Thai elbows and knees, and simple but brutal wrestling and ground-defense techniques.
And each time, Yogan learned so quickly it unsettled him. Zhang Lei would demonstrate a move once; Yogan would replicate it perfectly. He didn't just copy—he refined. Sometimes he'd make small adjustments that even Zhang Lei had to admit were improvements.
It often felt to the coach less like teaching a student than exchanging notes with an experienced colleague.
Of course, Yogan already knew these techniques. But he wanted to rebuild everything from the ground up—lay a foundation so solid that when he unleashed his true strength, nothing would collapse.
Time flowed silently, measured in sweat, bruises, and repetition.
---
A month slipped by.
That Friday, Yogan's mood was different. Today marked the end of the bet he had made with his father, Sun Jianjun. After school, instead of heading to the gym, he went straight home.
The hardware store downstairs was already shuttered. His father sat on the living-room sofa, cigarette case on the table, face expressionless—a man who had seen too much to be easily surprised.
"You're back?" Sun Jianjun asked.
"Yes."
Their conversations were always spare, like two swords clashing once then withdrawing.
"The computer's on. Check it yourself," his father said, pointing toward the study.
---
Inside the cramped study, the old desktop hummed faintly. Yogan sat down, fingers steady on the keyboard. He opened the familiar trading software, entered his account and password, and waited.
Behind him, his father stepped into the doorway and folded his arms, expression unreadable.
Numbers bloomed on the screen. For a moment, time froze.
In the "Total Assets" column glowed a figure that made Sun Jianjun's breath hitch: 63,450.88 yuan.
His eyes went wide as brass bells. He bent closer, rubbed them violently, thinking he had misread. But the number remained.
It was true.
Sixty-three thousand, four hundred and fifty yuan and eighty-eight cents.
A month ago, his son had invested only five thousand yuan—money he himself had lent, half as a joke, half as a test. Now it had multiplied more than twelvefold.
"This… how is this possible?" His voice trembled. He pointed at the screen, then at his son, as if words alone could summon an explanation.
Yogan's expression stayed calm, as though he had been expecting this result all along. He had followed the tech world obsessively; he knew exactly why Tencent's stock had rocketed. Only two weeks earlier, the company had rolled out a major update to WeChat, introducing the "Moments" feature. The effect was explosive, triggering a wave of social-network frenzy and sending Tencent's share price soaring.
"Dad, I won," Yogan said quietly.
Sun Jianjun stared at the glowing numbers, then at his son's steady face. His mouth opened but no sound came out.
Shock, excitement, disbelief, pride—emotions swirled in him like a storm. He thought of the hardware store, of the year's worth of sweat and late nights that still hadn't netted a profit this large. And here was his son, the boy he'd always thought needed protection, creating a miracle in a month with nothing but a keyboard.
Something inside him shifted.
Without a word, he turned and went back to the living room. He lit a cigarette, drew the smoke deep into his lungs, and sat still. The rising gray curls blurred his weathered face, which now held an expression too complex to name.
---
From that evening on, the balance in their family changed. Yogan's father began looking at him differently—not as a child but as someone who might, in time, stand as an equal. Zhou Hui noticed it too when she came home from work: a strange quiet between father and son, heavy with unspoken recognition.
And Yogan, who had been fighting quietly to build himself piece by piece, allowed himself one small breath of satisfaction. This was only the beginning.
---