Hell’s Handbook

Ye Yun started banging on Su Jin’s door very early the next morning. Perhaps it was because Su Jin had a renewed outlook on life, but he went from never sleeping in to sleeping in two days in a row.

After he washed up, he was still bleary eyed as Ye Yun dragged him into a Ferrari. Once he got in, he saw Tang Ning in the driver’s street greeting Ye Yun.

“I was just thinking that this car looks really familiar. So, it’s yours!” said Su Jin after greeting Tang Ning and rubbed his eyes sleepily.

Tang Ning noticed that Su Jin looked really sleepy, so she asked curiously, “You didn’t have to go to work for the past couple of days. Why do you still look so tired?”

“He hasn’t been exercising for too long, that’s why I’m bringing him along today,” said Ye Yun with a big grin on her face.

Tang Ning continued driving as she said, “Exercising? Are you referring to that sort of exercising? I thought you gave up on that!”

“I did give up before, but I noticed that there are a few new ones in town lately. I don’t have anything to do anyway, and I’ve got a cousin to entertain, so I thought I’d bring him around.” Ye Yun gave Su Jin a cheeky wink and Tang Ning couldn’t stop laughing too.

Su Jin had a really bad feeling about this, but he was already in the car, so he had no choice but to go along with wherever they were bringing him to.

The car soon arrived at the heart of town. This was the busiest district in S City and every inch of land here cost an arm and a leg. There were a lot of tall buildings, fancy restaurants, gyms, clubs and more.

“A taekwondo school? Wait, are you… are you here to challenge someone to fight?!” For some reason, that was the first thought that entered Su Jin’s mind. And judging from the expressions on Tang Ning and Ye Yun’s faces, he was probably right.

Su Jin followed the two of them into the taekwondo school they had arrived at. He had never been to such a place before, since the monthly membership and lesson fees here were sometimes even higher than his salary. He had only seen such places on TV.

“Hello there, are you here to register for a class?” asked the receptionist politely with a smile.

Ye Yun replied, “No. I would like to have a sparring match with the instructor of this school. Please help to pass him the message.”

The receptionist didn’t look too surprised by Ye Yun’s words. She nodded and said, “Sure. Please wait here for a while.”

Su Jin was surprised by the receptionist’s response, so Ye Yun explained, “It’s very common for instructors of these martial arts schools to meet martial artists of other schools or even martial artists trained in a different martial art from their own. When someone comes to challenge them to fight, the school will also get their students to watch the fight and take notes.”

“Well, if the instructor wins, that’s good for them. But what if he loses? Wouldn’t that be really embarrassing for the school?” asked Su Jin.

Ye Yun shook her head. “To a martial artist, there is no way anybody can keep winning forever. And even if the instructor does lose, it’s still a good time of learning for the students. Sparring matches between martial artists are really not as cruel or bloody as the way those novels and movies portray them to be. Everyone just wants to put their own skills to the test and whether you win or lose the match, it’s all part of the journey to achieving excellence.”

“If that’s the case, the match isn’t going to be exciting anymore, right?” Su Jin was surprised that challenging someone to a fight was actually not meant to be violent.

“And what were you hoping for? Did you think that every sparring match was supposed to end only when one party died?” said Ye Yun as she glared at him. Just then, the receptionist put the phone down and walked over to the three of them.

“Which one of you will be challenging the instructor? I will need you to sign this agreement.” The receptionist took a document out and placed it in front of them.

“Him!” Ye Yun pointed at Su Jin immediately and started filling his name out on the agreement.

“Me? Hey, I’m just here to watch! Besides, if it’s just a sparring match, why do I need to sign an agreement?” Su Jin reached for the document, but Ye Yun dodged him nimbly.

“You’ll go first, and I’ll go after you. The better fighter always appears last. As for this agreement, well, we’re going to fight, so both sides are in danger of getting hurt. We’ve got to sign an indemnity form so that neither side has to be liable for each other’s injuries,” said Ye Yun with a grin.

Su Jin didn’t know what to say. He whispered to Tang Ning, “Miss Tang, be honest with me. Miss Ye didn’t say so, but she’s really unhappy with the fact that I’ve suddenly appeared, isn’t she?”

“Don’t worry so much about it! If you don’t think you can win the fight, just admit defeat and the match will end. As for my cousin’s attitude towards you… I think she’s fine with you. Besides, if you had someone constantly watching you, I’m sure you’d get a little annoyed from time to time too, right?” replied Tang Ning with a smile.

Su Jin shook his head and sighed. But he didn’t particularly mind doing this, actually. He didn’t have any experience in fighting, so if he could get some experience in the real world, it might come in useful when he had to go through a challenge in the future.

It didn’t take the school long to get everything ready. The instructor had brought some of his students along for the match and they were all waiting.

“Sir, would you like to get changed? We have doboks available in all sizes, so we can lend you one,” one of the staff said to Su Jin.

Su Jin was dressed casually, and his clothes weren’t tight fitting, but it would be a little difficult to fight in, so he nodded and followed the staff to the back to get changed.

Once he had gotten changed, he started stretching his arms and legs. He hadn’t learned any form of martial arts before at all, but his stamina, speed and strength had reached the highest level a normal human could reach, so even if he had to fight, he wasn’t particularly worried.

“This is our school’s instructor, Mr. Yoon Jeongrok, an eighth dan black belt!” A staff member of the school introduced their instructor to the three of them and the instructor bowed slightly at Su Jin.

“Su Jin… I don’t belong to any school of martial arts!” He too, bowed towards Yoon Jeongrok.

The staff member was their judge, so once both sides had greeted each other, he took a step back and motioned to them to proceed.

Su Jin didn’t have any experience, so he chose not to attack first. He took a step back carefully so that he could observe the situation first. But to his surprise, the moment he took a step backwards, Yoon Jeongrok lunged forward and aimed a quick and powerful kick at Su Jin’s waist.

Su Jin’s body was still moving backwards, and it was hard to suddenly move forward to attack, but it was also impossible to dodge the attack. And because he didn’t have any experience, he wasn’t sure what was the best way to defend himself either, so the only thing he could do was to quickly raise a leg to block the attack.

Dong! Yoon Jeongrok’s foot landed on Su Jin’s calf, but that didn’t stop him. He bounced off Su Jin’s calf and used that momentum to launch a roundhouse kick that was aimed at Su Jin’s neck.

Yoon Jeongrok had a black belt in taekwondo after all, so he had plenty of sparring and actual fighting experience. That first kick was actually to test the waters. After making that first kick, he realized that while Su Jin’s reflexes were pretty quick, he didn’t seem to have any experience at all. He was surprised that Su Jin’s first move was to actually retreat and even after retreating, he didn’t have any moves up his sleeve either.

Su Jin had no choice but to use his arm to block Yoon Jeongrok’s oncoming kick. But he knew that he couldn’t keep this up forever. He might be stronger and faster than Yoon Jeongrok, but Yoon Jeongrok’s experience and use of techniques was going to defeat him eventually.

“I can’t let him take the lead anymore,” thought Su Jin to himself. After he had blocked Yoon Jeongrok’s kick with his arm, the next thing he did caught everyone by surprise.

Su Jin took a step forward and suddenly wrapped his arms around Yoon Jeongrok’s waist. Yoon Jeongrok was stunned for half a second before concluding that Su Jin must be trained in judo or some form of wrestling. So, he raised one of his legs and brought his foot down hard on Su Jin’s thigh.

Even a trained martial artist would have buckled if they had been stepped on like that by a taekwondo expert. But Su Jin merely winced a little and didn’t let go of Yoon Jeongrok at all.

Instead, Su Jin used both arms to throw Yoon Jeongrok onto the floor. His level of endurance was very high, so he started punching Yoon Jeongrok with both fists. His punches were fast and powerful, plus Yoon Jeongrok was completely confused after getting flung to the floor by Su Jin. He couldn’t even do anything when faced with Su Jin’s furious punches besides raising his arms to protect his face while waiting for Su Jin to finish expending his energy.

All the students of the taekwondo school, Ye Yun and Tang Ning watched the match with their eyes and mouths wide open. Su Jin had not displayed any technique whatsoever throughout this match. All he had done was to forcibly press an eighth dan black belt taekwondo instructor against the floor and punch him in the face.

“What… what sort of martial arts is this?!” Tang Ning exclaimed in shock.

“Hmm! If I’m not mistaken, this is the legendary… Douchebag Boxing!” Ye Yun pretended to be really impressed and marveled, “I didn’t expect my cousin to know this technique! That’s amazing!”

Meanwhile, the match between Su Jin and Yoon Jeongrok had ended. Yoon Jeongrok had a lot of experience and had judged Su Jin’s situation accurately, but he had underestimated Su Jin’s stamina. Su Jin’s stamina was actually at a level higher than the average human, so by the time Yoon Jeongrok realized this and figured that he was going to lose if he didn’t fight back, he had run out of energy to launch a counterattack and ended up getting knocked out instead.

“Gosh! I didn’t know that fighting was so tiring!” Su Jin exhaled deeply as he got off Yoon Jeongrok and stood up. If his stamina weren’t this good, he would have collapsed from exhaustion before the fight was over.

The students of the school looked completely flabbergasted. They knew that it was possible for their instructor to lose a sparring match, but to lose to someone with zero technique really blew their minds.

“Okay, I’m done fighting. Can we go now?” Su Jin asked Ye Yun and Tang Ning.

“Yup! Good job! Let’s go to the next school!” Ye Yun nodded.

“What? You want me to fight some more?!” Su Jin stared at her in horror. He did have a lot more stamina than the average person, but each fight required too much energy out of him. If he had to go through this one more time, he was going to pass out first.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going to watch you continue embarrassing yourself with the way you fight, so you can watch me fight the rest.” Ye Yun left the agreement they had signed behind on the floor, said a few things to the staff, then left with Tang Ning and Su Jin.

After they left the school, Su Jin asked, “Why do I sense that the staff seemed really angry when we left? I thought we were just having a friendly match and we’re not responsible for each other’s injuries, no?”

“Your douchebag boxing ‘technique’ knocked their instructor out! How was that a friendly match? At least they didn’t turn on you and bash you up! Even though martial artists treat all sparring matches as an accumulation of experience regardless of whether they win or not, they still want to be treated with respect and they would want others to know that they put up a good fight. If others found out that Mr. Yoon got thrashed by some fellow with absolutely no technique, he’d be too embarrassed to even say he’s learned taekwondo before.” Ye Yun felt really bad for Yoon Jeongrok. He had run into a challenger who didn’t have any technique but had herculean strength, so he didn’t get any chance to display his techniques and got flung to the floor and punched repeatedly like a ragdoll.

After they had left that first taekwondo school, Ye Yun proceeded to walk into several other martial arts schools. But regardless of what sort of martial arts that school taught, once the fight started, it would take Ye Yun only a few moves to defeat their representatives. Her fighting technique was incredible.

This routine continued for about a week and Ye Yun had gone through every new martial arts school in town. She lost interest in them and decided to groom an opponent for her to spar with.

“So that’s why you decided to send me sprawling first thing in the morning?” Su Jin was lying on the grassy yard of the bungalow as he looked resignedly at Ye Yun.