The next day, Wan Feng woke up very early, thanks to his habit of getting up in the morning to exercise.
Although he couldn't use his fists and legs here, he still did dozens of push-ups on the bed, and then woke up Zhang Xianchu to have breakfast.
In the 1980s, you couldn’t find the breakfast stalls on the streets that are ubiquitous today. You still had to go to a restaurant for breakfast.
It was the same restaurant where we had dinner yesterday. Wan Feng had a bowl of rice porridge and a salted duck egg, and Zhang Xian had an extra bowl of porridge, a salted duck egg, and a scallion pancake, spending a total of 20 cents.
"Where are we going now?" Zhang Xian asked after finishing breakfast and going out.
It's about 6:30 in the morning, and it seems a little early to visit someone.
"Let's go for a stroll first, and then go see someone to recognize the door."
The two of them wandered along the street until the shops along the way opened.
After strolling for a while and seeing that time was almost up, Wan Feng and Zhang Xian bought some gifts in a store and took the tram to Sigou.
Sigou, close to Bohai Port, was called the Red House before liberation. From the period of Tsarist Russian rule, this was the area where coolies working in Bohai Port gathered until after liberation.
It was named after a Gratitude Temple that existed in a ravine here during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. When the reservoir was built later, the ruins of the temple were submerged in the reservoir.
After arriving at Sigou, an enthusiastic person told Wan Feng the place he wanted to find, and they easily found a large courtyard.
"Excuse me, is this Mr. Zhang Xitang's home?"
After receiving a positive answer, Wan Feng was invited into the yard by a young man in his twenties.
The yard is very large. In addition to the left and right wing rooms, there is also a large open space outside, which is also very interesting. The yard is full of exercise equipment such as stone locks, barbells, and horizontal bars.
An energetic old man in his fifties or sixties stood at the door of the main house, thinking that Wan Feng was there to learn skills.
Now it’s time for Wan Feng to introduce himself.
"I am Zhang Guangpu's disciple, but not a formal disciple because he did not formally accept me as his apprentice. This time he asked me to bring some local specialties from Hongya." Wan Feng took out the things Zhang Guangpu asked him to bring from the bag. No one knew what was in the two bags.
Wan Feng respectfully handed the bag to the young man and also handed the gift to him.
"This is my gift, a token of my respect."
Wan Feng's gift was two bottles of Xishui Laojiao and two tin foil bags for Jiang Fan. These gifts cost him more than ten yuan, which was considered a generous gift at the time.
If Zhang Guangpu formally accepted him as his apprentice, the old man at the door would be his master's master, and the young man who opened the door for him would be his uncle's master.
But even so, Wan Feng has to call the old man "Grandpa" and the young man "Uncle".
The young man was Zhang Guangpu’s third brother Zhang Guangdong. What Wan Feng didn’t know was that Zhang Guangdong was a very famous person in Sigou.
Zhang Guangdong is a master of wrestling, and it takes three or five ordinary people to get close to him.
Zhang Guangpu never quarreled with him about these things.
Before liberation, this was a place where coolies gathered, mainly to load and unload ships. They worked for the Tsarist Russia and the Japanese, and they had to work without strength and good health, and also to protect themselves.
There are all kinds of people here, and it's really not good if you don't have some skills to protect yourself.
So some people spontaneously began to practice martial arts and wrestling.
The Zhang family came from the interior of China and quickly became famous for their ancestral wrestling. Before liberation, they had many disciples. In the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, they had dozens of open and covert struggles with the Japanese and had sent valuable intelligence to the party's underground organization many times.
Now, although the Zhang family no longer teaches disciples, wrestling enthusiasts in the city still gather together to practice and compete with each other.
Wan Feng had been sitting here for only half an hour when no less than four or five people came to the yard to discuss and exchange ideas with each other.
When Zhang Guangdong heard that his elder brother gave the wrestling book to Wan Feng, he was surprised, and when Wan Feng had already started practicing the last set of wrestling techniques, his eyes widened.
"Have you mastered the first two sets?"
Wan Feng was a little confused by the question and nodded vaguely.
He didn't think there was anything special about the routines in the wrestling book.
"Have you practiced the cracking method?"
"Master taught me."
"Come on, let's have a couple of falls." Zhang Guangdong pulled Wan Feng up.
Isn't this ridiculous? With his thirteen-year-old physique, how could he be a match for Zhang Guangdong? Although he had tied with Zhang Guangpu at home, the other party only let him use one hand.
In wrestling, the difference between having one hand less and one hand less is huge.
"I'll let you use one hand." Zhang Guangdong inserted one hand into the training belt.
Wan Feng still dared to use one hand to cut, at least he would not be broken into pieces. It would be pretentious to be polite anymore, so Wan Feng walked into the venue without any hesitation and put on a show.
Zhang family's fast wrestling originated from Baoding. It is a traditional wrestling technique and is very different from the improved Chinese wrestling. The basic movements are throwing, separating, carrying, pulling, picking, collapsing, chopping, Kuai, grinding, and bumping.
Because it had not been improved, the Zhang family's wrestling was mainly practical and lacked those fancy performance moves, so Wan Feng and Zhang Guangdong only confronted each other for no more than two seconds before they fell together.
Here Zhang Guangdong did an Oolong Claw, Wan Feng responded with a Rhino Looking at the Moon, Zhang Guangdong then did an Elbow Lock, Wan Feng did a Twist Run...
The two of them were having a lot of fun wrestling back and forth.
Even though Zhang Guangdong gave way, Wan Feng knew that he couldn't fight him head-on, no matter how big the age gap was. So he moved around Zhang Guangdong quickly, thinking, "If I get the chance, I'll attack. If I can't catch you, I won't let you catch me."
The two men wrestled for a while, but Zhang Guangdong failed to knock Wan Feng down.
"No, you are cheating. Stop running around like a mouse." Zhang Guangdong was so angry that he laughed. How could his elder brother accept such a cunning apprentice?
Wan Feng curled his lips and said, "Uncle Master, if you let me wrestle you head on, I can't defeat you even with just one hand. I'm not stupid."
"How about I let you back up?"
Wan Feng shook his head like a rattle: "No, my master did this before. He rolled over and pinned me down. I can't handle your size. I won't suffer this loss."
"But how can you practice this?"
"I'm not going to compete, and I don't rely on this to make a living. I just practice a few times to buy myself some time to escape in case of an emergency. Why should I practice it?"
Zhang Guangdong was speechless. Are there such people?
At this moment, the door opened and a person came in.
"Master, I'm here to see you again. Hey, are you sparring with someone?"
Wan Feng turned his head and after seeing who was coming, a strange expression appeared on his face.
This guy is actually learning wrestling here?
Something seems wrong. There must be something wrong with this world.
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