Li Lin quickly walked up to Roland and said in quite a surprised manner, “Roland, why are you here?”
Roland looked at his head, crinkled his nose, and said, “No, ask about that later. What’s with you dyeing your hair blue?”
Now that Li Lin had dyed his hair blue, he looked extremely strange.
“Red and blue match,” Li Lin said with a smile. “I recently got together with a girl and she dyed her hair red, so I dyed mine blue.”
Roland was speechless. “Another one you found at a nightclub?”
“Right,” Li lin said without a care. “As you know, I usually only like to hang out in places like that.”
“But you should have been playing the game lately, so why are you at nightclubs again?”
“I just go to have a few drinks, sit around, and be home by ten o’clock.”
Roland sighed helplessly. At ten o’clock, nightclubs aren’t even considered officially open, yet you still managed to get a girl like this?
At this moment, Li Lin took a look at the simple bamboo protective gear on Roland’s body. “You’re practicing the saber here? You’re the one the coach said was very talented yesterday?”
“I’m really the only student here; whether I’m talented or not is another story.”
Oh! Li Lin nodded and said to Qi Shaoqiu, “Coach, I’ll pay my tuition now.”
Qi Shaoqiu gazed back and forth between Li Lin and Roland for a moment and asked, “So you guys know each other. By the way, aren’t you going to think about it a bit more? After all, it’s thirty thousand yuan, and once it’s paid I won’t give it back.”
“My brother is learning here, you guys must teach well.” Li Lin took out his phone and shook it.
“Straightforward!” Qi Shaoqiu gave a thumbs up, then shouted to the back of the kitchen, “Little sister, come here, time to collect the money.”
Shortly after, Night Tide Sands came over from the kitchen.
She already had a rather cold personality, and her expression became even colder when she saw Li Lin’s blue hair.
However, Li Lin’s eyes lit up a bit, and he couldn’t help but look at Night Tide Sands a few more times as if he were interested.
Expressionless, Night Tide Sands showed her QR code, and after Li Lin scanned it, she walked over to Roland, gently tugged on his shirt, and said, “Come help me move some stuff, I can’t move it by myself.”
“Okay.” Roland immediately agreed and didn’t think much of it.
The two of them left.
But when Li Lin looked at Night Tide Sands’ small gesture of lightly tugging Roland’s sleeve just now, he contemplated this. The look of interest in his eyes quickly faded and soon disappeared without a trace.
He laughed lightly and muttered to himself, “I didn’t think that this kid Roland would pick up a girl over here without a word.”
Then he asked Qii Shaoqiu, “Coach, how long has Roland been studying here?”
“It’s been four months.”
Qi Shaoqiu wondered why Li Lin would ask this question, but thinking that the two of them were also friends, he thought it wouldn’t hurt to say it.
“This guy, he’s done a pretty good job of keeping secrets. He came here right when he saw a pretty girl,” Li Lin muttered.
nas
Qi Shaoqiu vaguely understood, and he was tempted to say that these two weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but thinking that his little sister did have feelings for Roland, he held back for fear of saying something that would ruin their relationship.
Not long after, Roland returned from behind the kitchen.
When Li Lin saw him come over, he smiled and said, “Why don’t you spend more time with the pretty girl?”
Huh? When Roland was stunned for a moment. He knew that Li Lin had misunderstood and said, “Night Tide Sands and I are just friends.”
“Just keep pretending.” Li Lin had a look on his face that said “I see through you.”
Sighing lightly, Roland asked in return, “Why did you think of coming here to learn saber arts?”
“I only learned a basic military sword technique in the game, and then I hit a bottleneck,” Li Lin said helplessly. “Because the Barbarian profession is very discriminated against in the game, I wanted to learn better sword skills but no one taught me. So I reckoned I’d learn a set in the real world, but I ended up going to a fencing hall and felt like those students were so awful. I said this to the owner of the club, who wasn’t happy about it and insisted on fighting me, but I ended up beating them all up by myself, including their instructor.”
Roland was caught between laughter and tears. “You haven’t changed your violent temper.”
“I didn’t actively cause trouble,” Li Lin cried out rather aggrievedly. “They’re awful and they won’t allow others to say so, and they still wanted to beat me up to prove me wronghow could I not retaliate?”
At this time Qi Shaoqiu interjected, “So you’re also playing that virtual online game. No wonder yesterday I saw that although your movements were swift and fierce, your fundamentals were unstable. It’s reasonable to say that you have plenty of combat experience and the right posture, but your foundation is too poor. I wondered what the reason was… this must be it.”
Roland blinked. “So you and Brother Qiu exchanged notes yesterday afternoon?”
Li Lin was a little guilty. “He bragged so much about his saber arts, of course I had to try.”
Roland snickered. “You lost, right?”
“I lost, but not by much.” Li Lin defended himself.
Qi Shaoqiu laughed at the side, quite happy. “That’s because I was pulling punches, afraid that if I beat you badly you’d be shamed into anger and wouldn’t come as a student. Now that you’ve paid your tuition, I’ll tell you the truth, you’re actually this…”
He finished his sentence and held up his little finger[1].
“I don’t believe it.” Li Lin jumped up in anger. “Let’s fight again.”
“Me competing with you is bullying you.” Qi Shaoqiu put on his signature dead-fish eyes. “Roland can pin you down and hammer youif you don’t believe me, try it!”
“Try me.” Li Lin shouted to Roland, “I’ve fought no less than a hundred life-and-death battles in the game, and I don’t believe that I can’t beat a Mage in melee combat!”
Then, Li Lin went to the storeroom to get a set of protective gear and a longsword.
Although this was the miaodao arts club, other wooden weapons were also available.
The two of them stood facing each other in the large shed.
Qi Shaoqiu shouted weakly beside them, “Start.”
As soon as the word was said, Li Lin’s expression immediately became fierce and he banged his long sword randomly on his right side diagonally behind him—the repeated clacking of wood hitting cement-as he slowly walked forward.
At this time, Night Tide Sands also walked to the edge of the field. She frowned and said, “What an annoying way to fight.”“That’s the way the sword arts of the Western barbarians[2] is. It focuses on a preemptive show of strength and powerful strikes. Although it looks crude, with the quality of the swordsman’s stature over there, it’s still quite troublesome. A heavy sword slash coming down with frightening strength… One without a shield wouldn’t dare to parry it, they can only dodge.”
Night Tide Sands wasn’t too happy to hear this. “You mean Roland will be in trouble?”
“How is that possible-Li Lin isn’t even a Western barbarian. Although he has good physical qualities, Roland’s physical qualities aren’t bad either, so there’s no qualitative difference between them. But after Roland practiced for such a long period of time, and me sparring with him, he’s already used to the fighting style of cold weapons.”
Night Tide Sands let out a slight sigh of relief.
As Li Lin entered the field, the tapping of Li Lin’s sword on the floor was getting louder and louder, and he was swaying his upper body in time with the tapping.
Combined with his fierce appearance, he seemed quite imposing.
[1] insignificant, clumsy
[2] people living outside the borders of ancient China
