Dong Qingfeng practiced Sanda for more than a week, and he really worked hard.

In the morning, he invited the poor female classmates from the targeted support program to tour Yuzhou, took them to eat Yuzhou’s specialty grilled fish chain at noon, and then sent them back to the dormitory in the afternoon before rushing home for a nap and coming to the martial arts gym to train.

After experiencing the restaurant threat incident, Dong Qingfeng was incredibly eager to become stronger.

"Thanks to Coach Du." Dong Qingfeng said, he really wanted to know now the gap between himself and the strong ones.

Coach Du and Shang Zhengyu put on protective gear and stepped onto the ring.

Another coach at the martial arts gym served as the referee, with students originally hitting sandbags all gathering around amidst the lively atmosphere.

Shang Zhengyu wore a cold expression, whereas Coach Du’s demeanor was sharp.

The sparring was about to begin, and Shang Zhengyu was aggressive, stepping forward to attack while Coach Du guarded with his hands in front.

Suddenly, Shang Zhengyu threw five or six punches, two of which even hit Coach Du’s face.

However, Coach Du shook his head, grinned, and stayed nimble on his feet.

A student who had trained for half a year commented: "Our Coach Du is really tough, being hit by the opponent feels like itching to him."

The two exchanged kicks to probe each other, with Shang Zhengyu fiercely kicking Coach Du’s knee with his left leg, then quickly following with a right leg kick to the head, sharp as it was, even though Coach Du blocked it with gloves, his body still tilted from the impact.

Shang Zhengyu kept on with the kicking flurry but unfortunately this time, Coach Du dodged it by repositioning.

Seizing the opportunity, Coach Du hit a few wild punches, one of them a heavy punch hitting Shang Zhengyu’s side, but it seemed Shang Huiyu was unbothered.

"Brother Shang has great rhythm, and strong kicking skills."

"Coach Du’s uppercut mostly hits accurately on the head; I feel like Brother Shang stands no chance."

"It’s not just a feeling, he really stands no chance, Coach Du isn’t serious."

After sparring for a few minutes, both sides stopped at a draw.

Shang Zhengyu leaned against the wall to rest, and a yoga pants-clad woman came up with a Red Bull to chat him up.

He was coldly handsome and slender yet powerful, his prowess no less than a coach’s, drawing significant allure for the woman.

Shang Zhengyu accepted the Red Bull and exchanged a few words, and the woman’s body nearly leaned onto him.

The student who had trained for half a year said sourly, "She has a husband, isn’t she afraid of him finding out?"

Dong Qingfeng shook his head: "Probably can’t beat him."

After watching the spar, he also felt itchy to try and approached saying, "Coach Du, can you spar with me?"

Coach Du glanced at him, smilingly saying, "You should at least train for two months before sparring, right?"

Coach Du had once taken on a student, a wealthy big shot with significant influence, who after a month wanted to spar; Coach Du couldn’t refuse and arranged for him to spar with a student who had trained for a year. The big shot, great in the outside world, was beaten harshly and ended up embarrassed, his ego hurt, and never returned.

Therefore, since then, Coach Du preferred training students longer before sparring to prevent hurting their self-esteem.

Dong Qingfeng: "I just want to see the gap between us and you top experts."

Coach Du waved his hand: "I’m far from a top expert. In fact, to speak frankly, we don’t have top-tier talent in our country right now."

Dong Qingfeng was surprised: "What do you mean?"

Over the days, Coach Du had come to understand this young man’s family background, having parents who both worked in government positions with close ties to local prominent families.

He was generous with advice: "By my standards, a top-tier athlete needs to have won a UFC title or have title-contending strength, and right now among our billion-plus population, we don’t have one."

It indeed was this way in 2015, and it took another four years until 2019 for Zhang Weili to become China’s and even all of Asia’s first UFC world champion. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Next is the first tier, those capable of challenging champions or former champions but not threatening current champions, and there are very few of those..."

"Then the second tier, those who’ve entered division matches and gained rankings... Third tier is years of UFC participation but hard to rank... Fourth tier is local champions who mainly lose after joining UFC... then the fifth tier, can’t enter UFC, nor reach the top locally..."

Having never been involved in martial arts before, listening to Coach Du, Dong Qingfeng instantly felt like a creature looking at the vast sky.

"Then what about you, Coach Du, which tier are you?" He couldn’t help asking.

Coach Du chuckled bitterly: "Probably seventh tier."

Dong Qingfeng was stunned, really??

In his eyes, Coach Du was already very strong.

Coach Du said, "This line of work depends highly on talent—take President Shang for instance, if he trained properly, he would be much stronger than me."

At this time, the yoga-clad woman had already added him on WeChat and left, and Shang Zhengyu remarked, "I almost went pro back then."

Coach Du laughed enviously, "You’re much better off than going pro now, the game you made is really fun!"

"Fun is no use, it’s criticized daily as trash mobile games." Shang Zhengyu replied.

Hearing this, Dong Qingfeng thought for a second, being a seasoned single-player game enthusiast, he suddenly suggested: "Since you have a Sanda background, perhaps you could use motion capture technology to create a martial arts action game."

Shang Zhengyu, startled by this, pondered for a few seconds, his business intuition exceptional; otherwise, he wouldn’t have created a game with over ten million revenue in its first month, hitting a hundred million last year.

Early this year, he visited Japan, meeting many excellent game creators like Hideo Kojima, though they weren’t willing to collaborate.