deltrittennovels Chapter 7, Brother Cong!
Chapter 7, Brother Cong!
The next morning, just as dawn was breaking.
Ma Cong straddled a rickety old-fashioned bicycle that rattled everywhere except for its bell, slung a faded schoolbag over one shoulder, and wobbled off toward Jincheng No. 16 Middle School.
The morning breeze ruffled the wisps of hair on his forehead, revealing an ordinary yet handsome face.
Who would have thought that this boy, who looks no different from any other high school student, is the "young master" who caused a huge uproar on the internet yesterday by smashing a load-bearing wall with a single punch?
As he walked, students wearing the same school uniform kept greeting him.
"Good morning, Brother Cong!"
"Brother Cong, have you had breakfast yet?"
Respectful greetings came from the roadside.
Ma Cong simply nodded slightly in response, as he was already used to this.
Rewind two years, and he had just entered his first year of high school.
Back then, Jincheng No. 16 Middle School was far from as peaceful as it is now.
There are always some arrogant troublemakers in schools who form cliques and bully their classmates.
Outside the school, a group of idle thugs roamed around, blocking the school gates after school and extorting money, becoming a nightmare for many students and parents.
On his first day at school, Ma Cong ran into several thugs with brightly colored hair at the school gate. They were groping a girl and uttering filthy words.
Without thinking, he stuffed his acceptance letter into his hand, rushed over, and beat up those thugs.
Black and blue, his face swollen and bruised, his teeth scattered all over the ground.
The matter escalated to the disciplinary office, but the school, seeing that he was a freshman and there was a reason for the incident, only gave him a few perfunctory warnings, and that was the end of it.
But the scoundrels don't think that way.
The next day after school, those thugs gathered twenty or thirty people, carrying steel pipes and wooden sticks, and blocked Ma Cong in a small alley on his way home.
A fierce battle.
Back then, Ma Cong was still practicing the incomplete Bajiquan style taught by Old Man Chen, and his strength was far from what it is now.
But his inherent ruthlessness was exactly the same.
He single-handedly, with just a schoolbag, took down all twenty or thirty thugs.
The alley was littered with people, their cries of agony echoing through the air.
He was also injured; his school uniform was torn to shreds, his face was covered in bruises, and blood was still dripping from the corner of his mouth.
But he stood there.
This battle made him famous overnight.
A high school freshman single-handedly took down dozens of thugs from outside the school.
The news spread like wildfire throughout Jincheng No. 16 Middle School overnight.
From then on, whether they were troublemakers in their second or third year of high school, they would all have to take a detour when they saw him.
Those hooligans at the school gate have completely disappeared.
The nickname "Brother Cong" spread quickly within a ten-mile radius, though no one knows who first coined it.
Ma Cong himself felt that the nickname was a bit cringeworthy, but he couldn't stand it when others called him that.
The idol worship during student days is that simple and direct.
If you do well in your studies, people will admire you.
But if you're good at fighting and can protect everyone, then you're a god.
Ma Cong is the idol in the hearts of all ordinary students at Jincheng No. 16 Middle School.
With him around, the school gained an invisible order.
A large group of supporters naturally gathered behind him.
Even the first and second-year high school students who came later, who did not witness the fierce battle that year, heard countless legends about Ma Cong from their older classmates.
That admiration was no less than that.
The bicycles were locked in the parking shed at the school gate.
Ma Cong, carrying his schoolbag, walked into the campus he had been away from for two months.
The class assignment information for the senior year is posted on the bulletin board in front of the teaching building.
The bulletin board was already surrounded by layers of students, chattering and making as much noise as a vegetable market.
Ma Cong hadn't even had a chance to squeeze in yet.
Someone in the crowd spotted him.
"Brother Cong is here!"
"Quick, make room for Brother Cong."
The crowd automatically parted to form a path.
A boy wearing glasses squeezed out and excitedly shouted to Ma Cong, "Brother Cong, you've been assigned to Class 2 of the third year! We're in the same class!"
As soon as he finished speaking, several girls in the crowd let out a sigh of despair.
"Huh? Why isn't it our class? I'm so annoyed."
"My high school years were a dark period."
Ma Cong didn't seem to care about these reactions. He nodded to the boy with glasses, then turned around and walked towards the senior high school building with his backpack on.
Now that we know the class, there's no need to squeeze onto that bulletin board anymore.
Walking on the tree-lined path leading to the teaching building.
He suddenly stopped in his tracks.
After becoming a Ming Jin martial artist, his five senses became exceptionally sharp.
He could clearly feel a gaze coming from a second-floor window of the teaching building not far away, landing on him.
The gaze was gentle, without any malice, simply a passive observation.
Ma Cong glanced in the direction he sensed and saw only a row of brightly lit windows.
He immediately snapped out of his thoughts.
It's probably some junior student peeking again.
After all, I'm considered a celebrity at school, so this kind of thing happens all the time.
He didn't take it to heart and continued walking into the teaching building.
The window of Class 2, Grade 12.
A beautiful young girl with a ponytail was nervously pulling her head back, a blush rising on her fair cheeks.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her throat.
"Oh no, oh no! Was he looking this way just now? He noticed I was spying on him!"
Zhang Li, the girl's best friend, looked helpless and rubbed her forehead.
"My dear girl, is it really necessary? Everyone in the school knows that you, Zhou Xing, have a crush on Ma Cong. If you like him, just go for it! You've been secretly watching him for two years."
Zhou Xing shook his head like a rattle drum.
"No, no, it's enough for me to just watch him like this."
Zhang Li rolled her eyes: "Come on, don't you know what kind of person Ma Cong is? He's a complete blockhead when it comes to emotions. Besides fighting and studying, there's nothing else on his mind. If you don't take the initiative, he'll never realize how you feel."
"I...I just want to protect him silently." Zhou Xing's voice was barely audible, but his tone was firm.
After she finished speaking, as if she remembered something, she carefully took out an exquisite insulated lunchbox from her schoolbag.
Then, taking advantage of the fact that there weren't many people in the classroom, she opened Ma Cong's drawer and gently put the lunchbox inside.
After doing all this, she patted her chest, let out a long sigh of relief, and showed a satisfied and joyful expression on her face.
......
Ma Cong, with his schoolbag slung over one shoulder, slowly walked into the classroom of Class 2, Grade 12.
"Splash—"
The moment he stepped inside, the previously noisy classroom fell silent, and all the students, regardless of gender, stood up in unison.
"Brother Cong!"
A clear and loud greeting echoed through the classroom.
Ma Cong nodded in response.
Many of the students in the classroom were familiar faces from his first and second years of high school. He felt quite warm and fuzzy looking at these familiar faces.
A boy with a buzz cut ran over with a big smile on his face. It was Li Ming, who had just reported the news to him under the bulletin board.
"Brother Cong, this way, this way, we've saved you the best feng shui seat in the whole class."
Li Ming was Ma Cong's classmate for three years, and they had a pretty good relationship.
His uncle is the school's dean of students, and this kid uses that connection to get along very well at school and is well-informed.
Sometimes after Ma Cong finished practicing, he would be covered in sweat, and Li Ming would secretly give him the key to the shower room in the school swimming pool so that he would have a place to shower.