Life had been moving with startling speed for Yogan ever since the evening he sat across from his parents and laid his plans bare.
The profit of more than sixty thousand yuan he had pulled from the stock market felt less like a mere windfall and more like the spark that sets an entire prairie aflame.
Without a second thought he rolled all of it into his next round of investments.
This time he didn't throw everything into one basket.
His memories from a previous life were an inexhaustible gold mine, and he had spent nights combing through them, remembering dates and trends with almost photographic clarity.
In late 2012 and early 2013, when China's mobile-internet wave was just beginning to surge, a handful of companies that few people had ever heard of were about to explode.
He moved like a silent ghostbuster across the financial battlefield.
Part of his money went into a firm specializing in mobile-security software.
Another portion slipped, through slightly more complicated channels, into a digital asset called "Bitcoin," which at the time traded for barely twelve U.S. dollars.
All of these moves were cloaked in secrecy.
To his father, Sun Jianjun, it simply looked like a streak of uncanny luck: a boy who spent twelve minutes a day glancing at numbers on a screen while the balance in his account kept climbing.
What he didn't know was that each move Yogan made stood at the cutting edge of future economic tides.
The entire accumulation of capital had only one purpose—to give wings to his dream.
Sweat on the mats
While his money multiplied quietly, Yogan's main focus was still the sweat-soaked mats of the Zhenwei Martial Arts Gym.
Coach Zhang Lei had become more than a coach; he was a manager, a guide, and, increasingly, a believer.
Ever since he'd witnessed Yogan's terrifying strength, Zhang Lei had been using every connection he had to find real combat experience for the young fighter.
The circle he operated in was small but comprehensive, balanced on the edge between the legitimate and the gray.
There were boxers who had left the ring, Sanda champions looking for side income, judo black belts, and other dangerous men who drifted in from out of town.
It was the perfect laboratory for Yogan's evolution.
The second match
A month later Yogan stepped into his second bout.
The venue this time was a boxing gym hidden inside a large fitness club.
The lights were brighter, the spectators more numerous, the atmosphere slightly more formal.
His opponent, known in the underground as "Iron Fist," was a retired professional boxer in his early thirties.
His hands were calloused from years of wrapping tape and pounding heavy bags.
He had built his reputation on precise, devastating counterpunches.
Many in the crowd whispered that Yogan's tricky footwork would meet its limit against an experienced boxer who knew how to wait and punish mistakes.
When the bell rang, Yogan opened with the same pattern he had used to dismantle Bao Ge.
He didn't rush in.
He floated around Iron Fist like a butterfly, his light steps constantly changing angles, his jab testing the distance without committing.
Iron Fist kept his chin tucked, arms welded to his ribs and head, absorbing the light strikes without a flinch.
He looked like a patient tiger, crouched, waiting for the foolish moment when the prey would come too close.
The opening came in round two.
After a subtle feint, Yogan suddenly accelerated forward and launched what looked like a heavy back-hand punch.
It was a trap he had been setting since the first bell.
A glint sparked in Iron Fist's eyes.
He slipped, parried the punch with a textbook swing-zigzag motion, and let his own counter rip—a lightning-fast hook honed over ten years aimed straight for Yogan's exposed jaw.
The audience gasped.
This was the perfect defense-counterattack combination.
Then everything flipped.
At the very instant the punch should have landed, Yogan's rear hand snapped forward again, wrist tilting slightly downward, his center of gravity dropping like a stone.
His head slipped just under the arc of the hook.
A perfect duck.
Not only did he evade the counter, he used the momentum to spring inside Iron Fist's guard.
Before the boxer could reset, Yogan's body wrapped around him like a constricting python.
His arms cinched the waist, his shoulder dug in, and with a powerful lift he executed a textbook "bend-and-pick-up" throw.
Iron Fist's upper-body defense meant nothing here; his legs, built for boxing not wrestling, gave way.
With a crash that echoed through the gym, the larger man slammed onto the mat.
Before the stunned crowd could react, Yogan slid into side control.
He didn't try for a big slam finish; instead, as Iron Fist pushed up, Yogan's arms shot under the armpit, locked the neck, and clamped down.
A guillotine choke.
The muscles in Yogan's arms turned to steel cables.
Color drained from Iron Fist's face and then returned as a beet-red flush.
He pounded the mat in surrender.
For a heartbeat the gym went utterly silent.
Bao Ge's knockout had showcased Yogan's uncanny defense and precision striking.
This match announced something different: the boy was no mere stand-up artist.
He was a true mixed martial artist.
"Kung Fu Dasheng"
The announcer bounded into the ring, microphone in hand.
"Amazing! Perfect tactics! From stand-up to ground game, our Kung Fu Kid has shown us what comprehensive technique really means! He's like the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven—omnipotent, transcending everything!"
The crowd roared.
"Kung Fu Dasheng! Kung Fu Dasheng!"
The childish nickname "Kung Fu Kid" vanished that night.
Although Yogan still found the new moniker a little embarrassing, it beat the old one, so he let it stand.
Four more fights
Over the next two months Yogan blazed through the city's underground fight scene.
Four matches, one every two weeks, each against a different style.
Against a Sanda champion whose leg kicks cracked like whips, Yogan darted inside with faster hands, smothering him with boxing combinations until a short hook dropped him.
Against a judo black belt built like a bull, he used footwork like a mirage, never letting the man so much as brush his sleeve.
When the judo fighter's gas tank emptied, Yogan snapped a high kick to the temple and finished him.
Six fights.
Six wins.
Six finishes.
Four knockouts.
Two submissions.
The most terrifying statistic?
By the crowd's rough count, Yogan had been hit clean exactly zero times.
He moved like a ghost, every attack of his opponents slicing nothing but air, every counter of his own as precise as a surgeon's scalpel.
Video clips shot on shaky phones began to leak online.
The name "Kung Fu Dasheng—Yogan" traveled beyond the city, whispered in neighboring gyms, posted on small forums, debated by martial-arts enthusiasts who wondered if this mysterious high-schooler was for real.
The million
One night, after another exhausting bout that earned him a 3,000-yuan prize and left his body aching, Yogan returned to the martial-arts hall.
Zhang Lei met him at the door holding a printed bank statement.
"Kid," Zhang said, his expression complicated, "this is the account you asked me to track. See for yourself."
Yogan took the paper.
The total assets had quietly crossed 1.2 million yuan.
His snowballing capital had reached the target he had set three months earlier.
He now had everything: the money for travel and training, and a highlight reel of wins that looked impressive even to professionals.
Every condition for America had been met.
He stared out at the night skyline through the gym's glass wall.
To most people this would be a triumph.
To Yogan it was just the warm-up.
The real war waited on the far side of the Pacific.
He pulled out his phone and dialed home.
"Dad," he said when Sun Jianjun answered, "I'm coming back tomorrow.
Get your wallet and bank cards ready.
Here's the million I promised you."
As he hung up, the city lights glittered below him like a field of stars.
His knuckles were bruised, his muscles sore, but his eyes were steady and bright.
Kung Fu Dasheng was ready to leave the nest.
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