“Here, watch my hands. This is how you properly hold a bow.” The instructor showed Meixiu how to hold a bow.
Meixiu then followed her hand motions and gripped onto the bow.
“Good, now you bring it up like this and hold it here.”
Meixiu followed her again.
“Good. Now grab an arrow with your other hand and hold it like this. Then you put it in this position on the bow…”
A few minutes later, the instructor said, “Good. Now that you know the basics, you need to familiarize yourself with them. Spend a few more minutes repeating the motion of lifting your bow and putting the arrow into the bow. Once you’re ready to head into the next step, we can learn how to draw the bow and then shoot the bow.”
Meixiu proceeded to spend about fifteen minutes repeating what she had learned thus far.
Once she was comfortable with holding the bow, the instructor taught her how to pull the strings back and her body position while doing so.
“Now all you have to do is release the string, but make sure you don’t make any random movements. Simply release your fingers and let the bow do the rest of the work.”
Meixiu followed her instructions and released the arrow, sending it flying towards the target that was 50 meters away from them.
Whoosh!
The arrow flew straight over the target and went straight into the wall that was reinforced with special material to catch arrows without damaging them.
“Nice try, but your movements were great. Now you just need to aim and hit the target. Give it a couple more tries.”
Meixiu continued to shoot the bow afterward, and by her third try, she was able to hit the target in the outer areas.
On her fourth and fifth shots, she got closer and closer to the red circle in the middle of the target.
On her sixth shot, her arrow barely missed the red.
Finally, only her seventh shot, Meixiu managed to hit the red circle dead in its center.
“Not bad.” The instructor said, thinking that it was merely luck.
However, Meixiu continued to shoot, and on her eighth, ninth, and tenth shot, she struck nothing but red, dumbfounding the instructor.
“Are you sure this is your first time using the bow? You’re very precise…” The instructor eventually said, doubting that this was her first time using the bow.
Meixiu then said, “Yes, this is definitely my first time. Though this isn’t my first time shooting at targets with a weapon since I have experience with guns.”
“G-Guns…?” The instructor was left speechless by her words.
She knew that Meixiu was a young lady by her voice, but what kind of young lady would have experience shooting guns?
However, if she thought about it a little more, Meixiu was Player Yuan’s caretaker. It must require extreme skill and talents to take care of someone like Player Yuan, so it sort of made sense.
Meixiu proceeded to shoot a couple more arrows at the target, and after a dozen shots, she’d managed to hit 11 of them in the red with one barely missing it.
It was clear to the instructor that Meixiu was very talented when it came to using the bow.
Meixiu also felt that using the bow was much easier than she’d anticipated. However, she felt that hitting a still target was too boring.
“Excuse me, do you have any moving targets that I can practice on?” Meixiu suddenly asked the instructor.
“Yes, we do. Follow me.”
The instructor then led Meixiu into another room that was on the same floor.
Inside this room that looked a little similar to a firing range, there were a couple of puppets made of straw moving in a set path at the end of the room.
“How’s this?” The instructor asked her.
“This is perfect.”
Meixiu then looked for an available aisle before practicing on the moving targets.
She missed her first shot, but she immediately fixed it on her second shot, and on her third shot, she’d managed to hit the human-shaped puppet in the head.
“Who’s that masked figure?” The instructor inside this room asked the instructor that came with Meixiu.
“That’s Player Yuan’s caretaker. I’m sure you’ve heard of them by now.”
“Player Yuan’s caretaker? No wonder why she’s in that getup. But heavens, she’s very good at the bow.”
“You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but today is her first time using the bow, and she started only an hour ago.”
“What?! How is that possible?!”
The instructor smiled and said, “I asked her the same thing, and she told me that she was used to hitting targets with guns and that archery was similar.”
“And you believe her?”
“There’s no reason why she’d lie about such a thing. And the way she handled the bow at first convinced me that she’s definitely new to the bow.”
“So not only Player Yuan is an amazing individual, but even his caretakers are geniuses? Just what kind of household does he come from?”
“Who knows.”
A few minutes later, the instructors approached Meixiu and said to her, “If you’re already accustomed to the moving targets, you can try adjusting it using these buttons. You can not only increase the speed they’re moving but also the distance.”
“Once you’re bored of this place, I can show you the outdoor training area.”
“There’s an outdoor training area?” Meixiu was interested in this place.
“Yes. You’ll have more room to move around there, so you can practice moving and shooting at the same time,” said the instructor.
“Just let this instructor know when you want to go. I will return to the other room for now.”
“Okay.”
The first instructor returned to her room training room shortly after, leaving Meixiu and her new instructor behind.
Meixiu continued practicing her archery skills that were improving at a tremendous rate, and she would remain in that room for another hour and a half before making her way to the outdoor training area with the instructor.
