After the Early-Deceased White Moonlight of a Wealthy Family Returns (GL) - Chapter 22

The boss wanted him to throw the fight.

When Jinghou (Skinny Monkey) first found out about this, he wasn’t happy. He liked fighting at Lingang Boxing Ring specifically because it was considered one of the cleaner venues among the major circuits. He hadn’t expected to eventually reach this point himself.

Ji Lan blew a smoke ring and looked at his disgusted face. “The opponent is a friend of my junior,” she said. “She doesn’t know the depth of things and just wants to make some money. She’s just a little girl… Monkey, there’s no need to take it seriously.”

“A little girl?” Jinghou was puzzled; he truly hadn’t seen someone like that come here to fight.

Lingang Boxing Ring didn’t do fake theatrics; every punch hit home, and the nature of the matches was more combat than performance.

“Yes, a little girl.”

As the words fell, a carton of cigarettes was pushed across the table by Ji Lan.

Jinghou opened it; inside were rolls upon rolls of red banknotes.

Ji Lan held her cigarette between two fingers and asked, “How about it? Yes or no, give me a word.”

“Just one match,” Jinghou said.

He and Ji Lan had it all worked out. He would go up and move around a bit first, then choose an angle that was least likely to cause injury and land an elbow strike. Jinghou had a lean, wiry build—not bulky—and among fighters of his class, he wasn’t famous for power. His elbow strike was his trump card. Losing to that move wouldn’t look suspicious.

Even before getting into the ring, Jinghou was rehearsing in his mind exactly how to fake the fight.

It had to look fake enough for the fighter to stay safe, yet real enough for the audience to believe it, and he absolutely couldn’t let the little heiress—who had come to this underground place for fun on a whim—get hurt…

It was too difficult.

If they hadn’t given him so much money, he might have considered backing out.

Jinghou entered the ring first, flipping over the ropes and leaning back in his corner to enjoy a massage from his assistant. He watched the opposite tunnel light up, and a… uh, a rabbit walked out.

A school-uniform rabbit, no less.

Holy father in heaven!

Such a thin frame. Jinghou started to worry that when it came time to act, an elbow strike might actually snap her in half. Looking at this little bunny, it seemed like he could crush her into several pieces with just a finger.

The audience below felt the same way.

Amidst the worried and confused discussions, waves of boos rang out.

“What the hell is this! I came to see a fight! What is this supposed to be!”

Jinghou thought the same: Yeah, what is this?

He saw the opponent walk onto the platform. Under the coach’s guidance, the two approached each other in the center of the ring and touched gloves—a sign of greeting.

Knowing the coach was the boss’s man, Jinghou lowered his voice at an angle the cameras couldn’t catch. “Little sister, I’ll go easy on you later. Find a chance and just fall down, okay?”

He felt like a truly great guy.

Shen You’an said: “I’ll go easy on you too later. Find a chance and just fall down, okay?”

Jinghou: “…?”

Is this girl across from me a lunatic?

How can she even say that out loud?

The ring bell rang, the coach stepped back, and the first round officially began.

Jinghou moved his feet, casually thinking about where to start his performance. A left hook? A right side-kick?

Through the mesh of the headgear, Shen You’an saw the other man’s lack of focus.

She wasn’t in a hurry.

A true hunter knows how to observe their prey with patience.

The two of them circled the stage, using the center as the pivot point like a pair of compasses, constantly drawing circles.

It made the audience incredibly bored. “What are you doing! Are you going to fight or not!”

From the moment Shen You’an stepped onto the stage, Meng Dongdong had her hands clasped in prayer, never stopping. She kept muttering, “God bless, God bless.”

Ji Lan said: “Scared now? Why didn’t you think of this when you begged me to let her fight?”

Meng Dongdong’s eyes were teary. “Auntie, I just wanted to help her fulfill a dream.”

She admitted she had the slight motive of wanting to please Shen You’an.

She was currently holding her breath, wanting to become best friends with Shen You’an so she could reach a status where she could say, “I don’t like Shen Zhirou, so you can’t like her either.”

Who would have thought that once they actually got to the boxing ring, the atmosphere would be terrifying.

Meng Dongdong felt guilty.

“Auntie, she’ll be okay, right?”

Ji Lan: “I’ve arranged everything. She’ll be fine. Jinghou knows how to control his strength.”

“Yah—!”

On the stage, after circling for a long time, Jinghou finally launched an attack toward the rabbit.

A very clean punch.

However.

However.

The rabbit lightly stepped aside, and the punch hit air.

Jinghou stumbled forward two steps due to inertia. He looked down at his red boxing gloves, feeling a bit dazed.

Meng Dongdong let out a “Whoo!”: “That guy’s acting is so real.”

Ji Lan looked down at the ring, her previously indifferent eyes focusing on the rabbit. She curled her lips and said, “Interesting.”

Meng Dongdong didn’t understand. “Auntie, what’s interesting?”

Ji Lan shook her head. “Nothing. Keep watching.”

The audience around the ring reacted differently.

“What the hell! He couldn’t even hit that!”

“Are you putting on a show for me?”

Jinghou took a deep breath, thinking: This girl is quite agile. Avoiding that punch was probably just luck. He gathered his focus and threw another punch. This one was much more serious than the last.

Jinghou had even calculated it: this punch would hit the side of the girl’s face, making the rabbit headgear tilt, causing her to stagger. Then he would follow up with the advantage, knocking her to the ground with an elbow strike—one-round K.O., end of match.

The result—

It felt like you had saved up your ultimate move for five minutes, only to accidentally fire it at a tower.

The rabbit dodged it easily, light as a feather, landing on her feet as if she were a falling leaf.

Jinghou’s eyes widened.

This is impossible!

Meng Dongdong still didn’t see the technicality of it. She clicked her tongue. “Monkey is a good actor. I’m moved.”

Ji Lan raised an eyebrow with a smile, not offering much explanation.

The audience below was nearly going crazy.

“Is there such an obvious fake fight? That damn Monkey! Get out of there! Let me fight instead!”

“Bah! Useless!”

“Glad I didn’t bet just now. If they win with this acting, wouldn’t I lose big time?”

Jinghou’s pride was piqued.

He gritted his teeth and rushed toward the rabbit, launching several consecutive strikes. But the rabbit simply kept her hands behind her back, dodging with elegant steps. One moment her waist was soft, bending like a bridge; the next, she was like a ghostly shadow, flashing directly behind Jinghou.

Jinghou didn’t even know how she did it!

He froze for a second.

The blue school-uniform pants had already swept to the side of his waist. With a swift side-kick, Jinghou staggered. He instinctively raised his hands to protect both sides of his face, but it was completely useless. The rabbit jumped up, and an elbow strike slammed across—Klang!—he fell to the ground.

The coach was stunned, nearly forgetting to step up for the countdown.

All the spectators went silent until the Rabbit Lady’s hand was raised. Only then did the entire venue erupt like thunder.

It wasn’t praise; they were all cursing.

“God dammit, Monkey, acting like that—isn’t it pathetic?”

“Is the Lingang Boxing Ring throwing away its reputation? Shit, the sound of their fake-fighting scheme is slapping me in the face.”

“Refund! Refund!!”

Jinghou lay on the ground, feeling as if a truck had run over him. His heart felt as though death were approaching. In that split second when he faced the rabbit, his years of instinct told him that this time, he might actually die.

As he was helped off the stage, a companion teased: “Monkey, how much did the boss give you to fight like that?”

Jinghou had tears but nowhere to shed them. He thought: I did take the money, but the fake fight wasn’t supposed to be like THIS.

Meng Dongdong still hadn’t recovered. Her mouth was wide open as she turned to ask: “Auntie, can the fighters here really put on a performance like that?”

Ji Lan raised her hand and flicked her head. “Stupid kid, didn’t you see it? Monkey wasn’t acting. That friend of yours really knows how to fight.”

Meng Dongdong was dumbstruck.

She felt like her ears no longer understood Chinese.

“Auntie, ah… what did you say… who knows how to fight?”

In the midst of her bewilderment, on the boxing ring, the rabbit—who was about to walk down—encountered a super-invincible, muscular, bare-chested giant of a man.

“Fight a match with me, do you dare?” the man said.

Shen You’an actually hadn’t had her fill of fighting; the previous match hadn’t even counted as a warm-up.

The battle lust in her heart had only just been sparked a little.

For some reason, after Meng Dongdong told her those things about Su Wu and the Shen family, Shen You’an had been feeling very unhappy.

She scanned the man in front of her.

Mhm, barely enough to be a punching bag for fun. Looks like he can take a hit better than the monkey from before.

However—

“Wait a moment,” the rabbit said. She jumped down from the stage and scurried over to the staff below to ask a question.

The staff member froze for a moment, then picked up his walkie-talkie.

The black walkie-talkie near Ji Lan’s ear lit up.

“Pay? Just tell her that if she can beat the man on the stage, I’ll give her twenty thousand for this match. If she’s willing to keep fighting later, the price stays the same.” Ji Lan blew away a strand of silver hair that had stuck to her lip due to static. “She also wants me to remind Meng Dongdong to bet on her? Fine, I’ll remember.”