Chapter 214: There Is a Long Way to Go
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Yan Zheke stared straight ahead, not even daring to look at Lou Cheng. She casually picked a jewelry store and rushed into it. While pretending to look at the jewelry carefully, her heart was beating rapidly.
My purpose must be kept from him, or I’ll be so embarra.s.sed!
Thanks to my foresight, I made sure he wasn’t holding my hand before I suggested this, or my little secret would have been exposed by his listening skill!
But how do I give him a hint later?
Lou Cheng followed Yan Zheke’s line of sight and also looked at the rings in the gla.s.s showcase. His heart was also beating heavily, but it due to fear of the prices.
There were diamond rings priced from 17,000 or 18,000 yuan up to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and a few near 15,000 or 16,000 yuan. Even the cheapest rings were at least 10,000 yuan.
Compared with the price of these rings, my secret stash is so miserable and shabby…Most of Lou Cheng’s complacency about having earned more than 13 thousand yuan within half a year had disappeared. He felt eager and desperate to a great extent rather than feel self-abased.
I will take advantage of my young age while I can still struggle for success, I must climb higher in life!
However, according to what my master said, the Dan stage is considered as the real entry of martial arts in the field of fighters!
Yan Zheke didn’t even realize what she was looking at right now, only recovering back to normal after dozens of seconds.
She glanced at the jewelry and then moved a few steps with an easy grace. She came to the counter with the platinum ring and started to study the ring carefully.
After seeing the prices at this counter, Lou Cheng felt like he was back in the real world again. Following Yan Zheke’s sight, he pointed at a cla.s.sic ring of simple style and asked, “Do you want to try this one?”
Uh? Why so active? Yan Zheke was startled for a while and pretended to be very casual.
“Okay!”
Because both Lou Cheng and Yan Zheke had an excellent temperament, the clerk showed them a polite smile while putting on gloves. “Miss, what size ring do you wear?”
“I haven’t bought a ring before, please help me measure it.” Yan Zheke answered leisurely and gracefully because there was no reason to be ashamed of not buying any rings in the past.
Which little child would buy a ring for nothing?
“Okay.” The clerk turned around to look for the measuring tools.
For Lou Cheng, this was a critical moment. He stared at them with bright eyes and listened to them very carefully.
Yan Zheke looked at him and she felt that Cheng was acting a little strange.
“The middle finger is size 11, so this ring will fit you well,” the clerk said as she was looking at the measuring data of Yan Zheke’s left hand.
“And what about the size of her fourth finger?” Lou Cheng could not help but interrupt her.
Yan Zheke experienced an epiphany and was vaguely aware of her boyfriend’s intent. After she thought about it, she suddenly combined the arrival of the prize money, the sudden shopping invitation, and the proposal for trying the ring. She came to an obvious conclusion.
Does Cheng want to give me a ring?
The corners of her mouth pulled up and she couldn’t even cover her smile. Her black eyes were filled with a s.h.i.+ning brightness.
For bodies no fluttering side by side of splendid phoenix wings, for hearts the one minute thread from root to tip of the magic horn… She thought of this sentence suddenly in her mind and she felt very warm and sweet.
“The size of the fourth finger is 9.” The clerk completed the measurement and took out of the ring which Lou Cheng referred to previously. She helped Yan Zheke put it on her middle finger and complimented her with a smile, “It fits so well and looks very beautiful.”
“Let’s look for another one.” Yan Zheke offered this suggestion before Lou Cheng could offer an excuse.
She took off the ring and deliberately looked at her phone to hide her smile, then asked him seriously, “Cheng, I have something to ask you.”
“What do you want to ask?” Lou Cheng was pulled out of the jewelry store by Yan Zheke. As they stopped in the corner of this store, Lou Cheng was very confused.
Yan Zheke bit her lips slightly and said with a faint smile,
“You want to buy me a ring, don’t you?”
“Ah?” Lou Cheng was so surprised by her words.
Was my intent too obvious? What about the surprise!
His girlfriend said with a serious face, “Do not lie to me!”
Lou Cheng blushed, so he had to say frankly, “Yes, I want to. I thought about it once I got the prize money, and I want to give you a ring now that we have dated for almost a hundred days. When children turn a hundred days old, they will celebrate for longevity. Our relations.h.i.+p is like that, like a newborn child. So, on our hundredth day, we also need a symbol celebrating longevity and us growing old together.
This was what he had prepared to say when he gave her the ring. In his imagination, surprising her, along with the appropriate atmosphere, these words would have been quite touching and sincere. But now, without any preparation, he suddenly had to say these words. It made him feel very awkward no matter how he said it.
And his feeling was correct. Under the wrong atmosphere, the more Yan Zheke listened to his word, the funnier she felt. What’s the connection between these two things? What a strange metaphor!
His words had her laughing. She laughed so happily with one hand clutching her mouth and the other pressing on her stomach.
Haha, I can remember, remember this proposal from Cheng for a lifetime and I will laugh at it forever!
Did he say that our relations.h.i.+p is just like a newborn child and also needs a celebration for its one-hundredth day? Hehe, so should we also hold a party for turning 100 days old?
Lou Cheng took a breath and looked at his girlfriend, who was laughing with a doting face.
It could still be considered as a success since it made her laugh…
Yan Zheke laughed for a while, then she gradually stopped to recall what Lou Cheng has said just now. She didn’t know why, but she felt touched now.
Her cheeks became pink and she blushed because of the laughter as she stared at Lou Cheng with her bright and blazing eyes. She grunted and said,
“Since you are so sincere giving me a ring, I will reluctantly accept it~ But all the rings are in pairs. If I’m the only one with a ring then how can we be called a couple?”
As she was saying this, she could not help but look to the other side, not daring to make eye contact with Lou Cheng.
Lou Cheng instantly forgot the previous embarra.s.sment. He nodded heavily and said, “Then, I will buy two rings. One for you, the other one for me.”
“No, it will only have good meaning if I buy your ring!” Yan Zheke led him step by step and finally set the stage to say this line.
Well, I tackled this complicated problem in a very easy manner without referring to anything about money!
“Yes, you are right.” Lou Cheng pulled Yan Zheke along gladly and said, “So, let’s go select the couple rings.”
While he was speaking, he suddenly felt that the development seemed to be pre-arranged.
Who was the one that suggested looking at the jewelry?
I might have fallen for another trick…
He bore the inexplicable smile and warmth in his heart, then asked tentatively, “Ke, had you already planned to take me select a ring today?”
“What are you talking about? I do not understand!” Yan Zheke’s beautiful face blushed at once and she answered “without any doubt” while looking away.
She, at first, intended to answer “no” directly, but she didn’t want to lie to Lou Cheng.
How did Cheng suddenly become so smart?
Lou Cheng stopped asking her because he already felt so happy, just like a weasel who had stolen a chick. He pulled Yan Zheke back into the jewelry store with a big smile, while this time they looked at the platinum rings for couples.
They examined the rings for a while before Coach Yan made the decision to buy a pair of rings with a simple and cla.s.sic style. There were two spiral lines around the ring, which intersected at the forefront of the ring, bringing out the polished water droplets. Because the size was different and didn’t have a fancy diamond, the female ring was cheaper, only 1,100 yuan.
Lou Cheng paid the bill with his credit card. Then he carried lots of shopping bags and looked around in order to find a quiet place where he could put the ring on Yan Zheke. As to which finger he should put the ring on, he had already checked. It should be the left middle finger!
Yan Zheke watched him as he looked for the place, then she pretended to mention, inadvertently,
“There is a cafe on the fourth floor… ”
“Is there?” Lou Cheng asked subconsciously, showing no doubt. Then he sighed and said, “You are quite observant… ”
Today, I enjoyed the happiness of shopping with her and while experiencing both pain and happiness.
Yan Zheke raised her head with a proud look on her face and replied,
“Of course, I’m a famous detective!”
…
On the fourth floor, they found seats near the corner of the Yuan Mu cafe.
This time, Lou Cheng sat on the seat in front of Yan Zheke deliberately, then he opened the box of the female ring and solemnly picked up her left hand.
Yan Zheke lightly bit her lips with a crimson face and her sweet dimples. Even though she was afraid to look at Lou Cheng, she still watched his actions firmly while he put the ring on her middle finger with his serious and solemn face.
Suddenly, she felt the surrounding atmosphere become very solemn and serious. It wasn’t a game, playing house between young couples.
As Lou Cheng was putting the ring on, slowly, he said, half-jokingly with some emotion,
“As long as you wear this ring, you’ll be my wife.”
The moment he said the word “wife”, he felt something heavy, and he felt it would be the scariest responsibility in his whole lifetime.
This time I gave her a normal ring, but next time I will give her better rings for the engagement, the marriage, and the anniversary…
Yan Zheke chuckled and wanted to curse him and say that it was a nice try. However, she just opened her mouth without saying anything. Instead, she just watched Lou Cheng completing this ceremony with her charming eyes.
Then, she also opened the box with the male ring, picked it up, and held Lou Cheng’s left hand. When she was putting the ring on his middle finger, she was slightly trembling. Then she looked at the s.h.i.+ning rings on their fingers, she said gladly and shyly,
“As long as you wear this ring, you are my Cheng… ”
At first, her first voice was so thin and low, just like the hum of mosquitoes. But, as she spoke, the words became smoother, more confident, and firmer.
Hearing this sentence, Lou Cheng felt his heart fill with excitement and satisfaction, wis.h.i.+ng to hold his beloved girl in his arms, to share his feelings and his pa.s.sion with her. But the cafe wasn’t private enough and often had guests walking around. He could only control his emotions and sit next to Yan Zheke so that she could lean on his chest as he touched her sleek black hair.
Yan Zheke leaned on him quietly and listened to his pa.s.sionate heartbeat. She could feel the obvious love that flowed from him as she enjoyed his silent tenderness.
After quite a while, she suddenly laughed, then whispered,
“I thought of a word ~”
“Which word?” Lou Cheng asked her with a smile on his mouth. His voice was very soft because he didn’t want to break the peaceful joy.
Yan Zheke reached out her hand to hold his arm and chuckled while saying, “You can guess ~”
Lou Cheng thought it over and also considered his own feelings, then he asked indefinitely,
“Is it marriage?”
“Yes… ” Yan Zheke agreed with him with her crimson cheeks, feeling there was a kind of tacit understanding between them.
Lou Cheng looked at her shy look and he could not help but begin to flirt with her,
“Ke, since we have exchanged rings, is it time for you to start referring to me in a different way?”
“Then, what should I call you?” Yan Zheke looked very innocent and confused.
“Something used between husband and wife.” Lou Cheng was thick-skinned and he said it with a laugh.
Yan Zheke suddenly felt shy and angry, so she hit his chest with her hand slightly and said,
“That was a nice try!”
…
After enjoying the time in the coffee shop, in which they talked aimlessly but closely, and eating the local dishes which Cai Zongming recommended, they walked through the old campus holding hands, getting on the last school bus which drove back to the new campus while it wasn’t dark yet.
When she was exiting the bus, Yan Zheke suddenly took a deep breath.
“What happened?” Lou Cheng was very sensitive to his surroundings and he always paid attention to his girlfriend, so there was no way he would not notice her abnormal behavior.
Yan Zheke pursed her mouth and turned around as she said a little embarra.s.singly,
“My legs are a little tired… ”
After practicing martial arts for the whole morning and going shopping for the whole afternoon, it was no wonder her legs were tired…
Lou Cheng immediately said, “How about we find a place to sit down so I can ma.s.sage your legs?”
He was not tired, and even his fatigued spirit had disappeared because of the ring exchange. He was completely excited.
Yan Zheke glanced at him with a supercilious look and felt a little annoyed but funny, “I’m wear a skirt today, fool!”
No matter what posture she sat in when he ma.s.saged her legs and feet, she would easily be exposed and she would definitely be embarra.s.sed!
Lou Cheng patted his head and thought to himself that he wasn’t delicate enough. So he then suggested, “So, let’s look for a bench to sit on and rest for a while.”
Because it was the last bus, once the bus was gone, it became quiet. However, there were still fewer people pa.s.sing by.
Yan Zheke nodded, following Lou Cheng to find a bench. Then, because she had a tacit understanding with him, so she took out a tissue from her bag and gave it to her boyfriend to wipe the surface of the bench.
After sitting down, she bent down and rubbed her calf while blinking. Then, she said with a curious and shy smile,
“Cheng, I though you would suggest taking a walk along the lake… ”
Cheng was so excited and happy when we exchanged the rings this afternoon, I felt like he was suppressing his pa.s.sion and he wanted to release it and make out with me.
It’s unbelievable that he is holding back…
After they talked about it on the first of May, Lou Cheng hadn’t kissed her so violently while they were taking a walk. But the environment and atmosphere along the lake was so good and the mood was still fiery. Sometimes they would even do something hot and pa.s.sionate. So, on such a special day, when they had exchanged rings, Yan Zheke thought the suggestion for taking a walk along the lake was a request to make out.
Lou Cheng put his hand around her shoulder and let her lean towards him. Then he turned around and looked into her eyes. Then, he smiled and said, “If I suggested going to the lake now, I would feel that the exchange of rings was an excuse to persuade you to make out with me, or to do something closer. But, in fact, this was very important and solemn for me. It is my promise and my hope, instead of an excuse to convince you to make out with me.”
“I want to prove that you are the most important in my heart. It’s only because I like you that I want to make out with you and why I am so excited and desperate make out. It isn’t because I am eager. I want to prove that I will keep my promise, that I can bear it.”
Although this was an impulsive blur, this was also a burst of what he had thought about for so many days.
Yan Zheke’s beautiful black eyes seemed to have a layer of mist as she bit her pink lips with her beautiful teeth which were as smooth as sh.e.l.l. Finally, she denounced him cutely,
“You are getting more and more nauseating!”
Now you can even say those lovey words which are similar to the dialogues that appear in TV series!
I even like it a little… I like it more than just a little…
Lou Cheng could understand the real meaning of her words, so he chuckled before saying,
“Anyway, I do not want desire to have any part of this particular day for us.”
Of course, I had a pa.s.sionate impulse this afternoon, but I held myself back in the end.
Speaking up to this point, he added with a smile, “In fact, I also like the way we are right now.”
“I also like it… ” Yan Zheke leaned her face on Lou Cheng’s shoulder and then she smiled beautifully and quietly.
After a brief snuggle without any talking, she whispered just like she was playing tricks on him, but also like she was still confused about her own emotions,
“What if, what if I invite you to go to the lake for a walk tomorrow night?”
Badump. Lou Cheng’s heart suddenly began to beat heavily, and he also felt the rapid heartbeat of his girlfriend from their clenched hands.
He suddenly felt nervous and full of expectation as he said, “I would totally love to!”
Yan Zheke slightly opened her mouth and took a quick breath. Then she tried to recover her emotions, to stop being too shy. She murmured with a smile,
“I just said if ~ if!”
I just want to make fun of Cheng, why do I feel like I am getting into trouble inexplicably right after I said that…
But Cheng’s reaction is really funny ~!
Lou Cheng laughed and shook his head. He lightly rubbed his girlfriend’s hair and deliberately said with a ferocious face, “Be careful because the beast in me might come out.”
“I believe you ~” Yan Zheke sat straight and smiled sweetly with her pure and innocent eyes.
Then she jumped up and walked with her hands clasped behind her back, “Let ‘s go back to the dorm now!”
Today is a happy day!
…
Outside the third dormitory building, Lou Cheng pulled on Yan Zheke’s hands, feeling reluctant to let her go.
“See you tomorrow ~” Yan Zheke resist the urge to spend time with him as she spoke with bright eyes.
Lou Cheng looked at the ring on her left hand and then at his own ring. After staring at both of them, he suddenly felt a burst of impulse, so he pulled her back and held him in his arms tightly.
This is my wife…
“What happened?” Yan Zheke felt his excitement, so she blinked her eyes and asked in confusion.
Lou Cheng said with a half-joking, emotional tone, “I noticed the rings on our hands are in pairs, so I suddenly wanted to call you my wife… ”
When he was saying these words, he suddenly became a little shy, “But I still think that I am unqualified to call you that way. I don’t have enough ability to give you the life you deserve yet. So I held myself back.”
“You are so nauseating!” Yan Zheke gently patted him.
After she tried to calm down for tens of seconds, she thought of something and endured the smile. She separated herself from Lou Cheng’s embrace and said, like a delicate water lotus, “So, how about, I call you a sweet name?”
“Really?” Lou Cheng felt so surprised.
Did what I said just now touch Ke? So touched that she even gained the courage to call me husband?
“Really!” Yan Zheke said it with a very “serious” face.
“Good! Okay!” Lou Cheng nodded heavily, and he answered without pause for fear that she would change her mind.
Yan Zheke took two steps towards the dormitory, then she turned around and looked at Lou Cheng shyly. She opened her mouth slightly and spoke in a low voice,
“Wife~!”
Ha ha ha… After she spoke, she ran into the dormitory with light steps, with her beautiful long hair flying in the air, and with her happy laughter. She just left Lou Cheng alone, looking dumb, and she even laughed herself to tears.
Today is a happy day!
Wife… I was played by her again… Lou Cheng wanted to behave like he was annoyed, but he still couldn’t cover the smile on his face.
While he has going back to the dorm with lots of shopping bags, he looked through the bills. Then he found that besides the ring, Yan Zheke also bought him clothes, pants, and shoes which amounted to seven or eight thousand Yuan. Although she didn’t buy too many things, the price of each item was relatively high.
And looking at Zheke’s att.i.tude, she still thought that these clothes and pants were not good enough… Lou Cheng wasn’t a fool, so he could easily notice that Yan Zheke wasn’t sensitive to money at all.
In other words, she has never had to worry about money.
And just thinking about the grace of her mother, thinking about the martial arts of her grandparent’s, I could obviously understand her att.i.tude.
After putting down the bags, Lou Cheng replied to the message from Yan Zheke as he gently let out a breathe of relief.
If I want to marry this girl and give her have a better life, I have to work harder!
If it happened before, he would certainly feel self-abased, but now he had experienced so many things again and again. He felt that he had the confidence to fight and to struggle for success. As long as Zheke and him were always in love, everything else would be okay.
Although I’m not a rich kid, I will become rich on my own!
…
The next morning, beside the lake, Lou Cheng, who was filled with a struggling spirit at first, calmed down and began to do the daily tempering. After he finished most of the homework, he began considering how to rely on the Jindan to complete the combination of the two ways of visualization.
He practiced concealing his spirit and getting rid of stray thoughts. Then he gradually calmed his spirit and approached the Jindan (the Golden Elixir) in his lower abdomen. Before this, he had already considered how the ice and fire were unified.
He was an outstanding student who had experienced the physical course in middle school and high school. He also had two compulsory courses for university physics, so he was already accustomed to the thinking pattern for a.n.a.lyzing natural phenomenon by their pattern. If it was spoken in a similar way or in a bit unclear way, ice was only different from fire on the surface. In fact, they belonged to one of the material states. They are the same material with different forms, different temperatures, different pressures, and different environments!
If you think about it in the extremes, “ice” can be replaced by the “frozen state” at ultralow temperatures, while “fire” can be referred to as the “plasma state” at ultrahigh temperatures. The same material with different minute structure and the same thing with different aspects, they are opposite but unified.
Lou Cheng didn’t study these two aspects deeply. He could barely grasp this point and immersed his spirit in it slowly, which helped him enlarge the inner image of the Jindan (the Golden Elixir) in the “range of visibility”.
Blaze was considered as the sun, as the fixed star which emitted light and heat in the extreme cold and dark universe and which also brought out the color of life for the eternal loneliness.
There were abnormally cold and “ruthless” ice crystals around them that looked like planets and moons. But if you watched them from the outside world, they reflected the light and were s.h.i.+ning like the stars in the sky, which also was similar to the fixed stars.
Lou Cheng thought it went against his understanding and against the astronomical phenomena he observed. So he dared to make a change from regardeding ice crystals as stars or planets, to a symbol of the dark universe at a low temperature. And what they reflected was the vast sky instead of specific stars!
Because his cognitions have changed, what he saw also began to shake. The sky and the nebula in the Jindan (the Golden Elixir) suddenly magnified to the extreme.
In the infinite and cold dark sky, the dust material acc.u.mulated gradually and attracted each other. So they ultimately reached the limit of gravity, and the sky collapsed violently and changed dramatically. It also burned the fire and gave birth to a fixed star…
Lou Cheng at first cognized the “ice” and “fire” in microscopic structure as a diametrical unity, but now they are at the aspect of astronomy.
Minimum and maximum are against each other but also unified together.
And this was slightly different form the essence in the image of Longhu Immortal!
The picture flashed through his mind, so Lou Cheng’s spirit flew up, forcing him to withdraw from his mind and stop visualizing.
He always had a feeling that Longhu Immortal made some mistakes when he was dealing with the star image of the Jindan (the Golden Elixir). Longhu Immortal regarded blaze as a Great Sun and ice crystal as stars. so his success had some lucky factors.
At that moment, he suddenly understood why Peng Leyun chose to take college entrance examination and attend the university, also why, in particular, he chose the department of physics in Shancheng University!
In ancient times, the fighters neither had tools nor did they have relatively realistic theories, so what they could do was to percept the nature by their own feelings and acc.u.mulated them, then pa.s.sed to the next generation. While nowadays, our society had much clearer understanding to the material and to the universe. If we don’t use them on martial arts, then it would be such a big pity!
Geezer s.h.i.+ stood next to him relaxingly and found that his disciple was in a daze instead of practicing Severe Warning, so he asked, “What are you doing?”
Lou Cheng has been embarra.s.sed to talk about his own ideas before because he was afraid of being despised by his master. However, since now he was asked, so he honestly confessed, “Master, I’m thinking that since Longhu Immortal could balance and unite ice and fire, why couldn’t I combine the Thunder Roar Zen with the Frost Force.”
Geezer s.h.i.+ was stunned for a moment, then he laughed himself into fits,
“Okay, good. You have more ideas than I did at your age. Just try it. Having a try won’t make anything wrong.”
Only if you tried could you know what was whimsical, what was the right direction, what lacked training, and the difficulty of the ideas that can be implemented really.
Lou Cheng turned, blushed, and felt slightly embarra.s.sed. But at the same time he received “encourage” from his master, so he began to calm down and to think about what was in common between “Thunder Cloud” and “Ice-bound”.