In a huge room, the stereo was blasting Blink-182's “All the Small Things.” Sunlight streamed through the window. As the minutes passed, it slowly invaded farther into the house. Amid the clanging of machines colliding here and there, we arrived at the source of the noise: a young man.
“What time do you think it is? Get down here and help already! Are! You! Asking! To! Get! Your! Ass! Kicked!” An adult woman's shrill, furious yelling rang out. When the tirade ended, it was followed by hurried footsteps and the creaking, clattering sounds of the wooden staircase. At the stairwell deep in the hallway, the final and loudest impact finally arrived. The one who had caused it was sprawled at the dimly lit stairwell, having shared an intimate kiss with the wall face-first. He rubbed himself, then rubbed the wall to make sure he hadn't damaged it, and staggered out with a stupid grin.
“Lily... Auntie... I... I'm coming down,” he said with a toothy, goofy smile.
Lily Auntie planted both hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “It's noon already, An-An. Are you asking to get your ass kicked? Hurry up and go buy lunch boxes!”
“Okay... okay! Beautiful Lily Auntie, you want roast-duck rice, right?” An-An danced excitedly as he left the doorway.
His name was Zhao Ding'an. He was twenty-three years old and worked at his Little Auntie's flower shop. He was single, handsome, and blessed with “astonishing” bones. He could be a little slow sometimes, wore his emotions on his sleeve, and spent every day cheerfully grinning. People had a very important medical term for friends with an image like that: Down syndrome. In short, he was a sunny, guileless young man. After watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies at the age of thirteen, he became obsessed with martial arts. His life motto was: “Call me a hero!”
At around ten that night, An-An was patrolling the small town where he lived on his own, as usual. Music played in his ears. He walked with a casual side-to-side duck waddle, muttering and singing along. Suddenly, an unidentified flying object came hurtling toward him. When it was only four inches from making intimate contact with his head, he clapped his hands and effortlessly saved himself.
An-An groped around in the dark and picked up the mysterious object. It turned out to be a beer bottle. He angrily searched for the despicable thrower. “Who was that?! Who... who throws trash... trash... around like that?!” He widened his eyes and stuck out his butt as he looked around in every direction.
“It was me, you idiot!” A delinquent with a Mohawk made a cool entrance, skating in on a skateboard, contempt filling his eyes.
An-An's heart jolted. “You... how do you know it was me? Last time, the hero wearing a mask saved my auntie. You... you useless... useless bad guys...” As he spoke, he unconsciously pulled the mask from his jacket pocket and gripped it.
The Mohawk delinquent sneered. “You idiot. You're holding the evidence in your own hand. We didn't have enough people last time, so this time I brought more friends to play with you. We've got more than ten.”
In the blink of an eye, An-An was surrounded by more than ten delinquents in black T-shirts. Every one of them had a vicious, deeply unfriendly expression and held clubs, knives, and all kinds of other weapons. Yet An-An wasn't afraid in the slightest. Instead, he concentrated intensely on scratching his head and counting exactly how many people there were.
“12, 13, 14, 15, 16! Why aren't there ten people?!” An-An screamed in despair. “I want to fight ten! I want to fight ten!” After saying that, An-An took off his headphones and cranked the volume all the way up. Good Charlotte's “Movin' On” was playing. When the guitar intro began, he started warming up. As the verse chords kicked in with the heavy beat, An-An launched into his passionate battle with his duck-like stride!
One: A vicious elbow strike plus a side kick efficiently dropped one attacker to the ground, and An-An ran forward with heavy, low steps.
Two: A front kick sent the victim flying backward without any wasted motion.
Three: With a stance pivot and his hand leading, he clapped into the opponent's cheek, leaping into the air and spinning two and a half times in place.
Four: One huge step and a headbutt. Five: A side kick took down two people at once.
Six, seven, and eight: He snatched a chain from one of the black-T-shirt delinquents. Swinging it in his hands, An-An spun and flung the chain along with his momentum. Its length happened to loop around the feet of two delinquents who had obviously been standing around pretending to help. Three men went down.
Nine: A delinquent holding a knife exchanged a mocking smile with An-An, then viciously stabbed at his chest. But An-An's footwork was astonishingly nimble. He dodged the attack, then raised his left leg above his shoulder and brought it crashing down on the delinquent's head. The delinquent hit the ground.
Ten: A delinquent in a basketball jersey struck a martial-arts pose and prepared to fight An-An. He raised his left palm high, then raised a claw high, posing and gesturing for a long while. An-An couldn't take it anymore. He tilted his head in confusion and drove a straight punch into the delinquent's chest without any hesitation.
An-An raised both hands, clenched his fists, and waved them with a goofy grin. “I finished fighting ten... ten! You six wait here for me!” After saying that, he put on the mask he had been gripping.
“Okay... okay! I'm... I'm ready! All of you come at me together!” An-An hopped around in a bizarre dance, waving the others over.
The six remaining delinquents had roughly the following weapons: two aluminum baseball bats, one full-face helmet, one collapsible baton, and two nunchucks. The reason for introducing these weapons was that every one of them would soon have its own bizarre and ridiculous fate.
The six delinquents felt deeply provoked by An-An. Furious, they cursed as if their eyes were shooting flames. With the proud bearing of a bunch of wannabe gangsters, they charged straight toward the dancing freak, determined to tear him apart and swallow him alive.
The two delinquents with aluminum bats gripped them in both hands. Ignoring every rule of fair play, they jumped high and came crashing down with gravity and acceleration, then twisted their waists and swung at An-An's head with the force of hitting a home run through everything in existence.
Clang! The muffled metallic boom did not produce the brain-splattering or blood-soaked spectacle the audience had been expecting. The two men looked terrified, dropped their bats, and backed away several steps. The other four even kept their distance, not daring to approach for a long time.
An-An's head took the bats from both sides while he was completely defenseless. One bat broke violently when An-An raised his hand to block it. The other struck his extraordinarily hard head squarely and solidly, bending into an elegant semicircle. Though An-An's head was exceptionally hard, blood still poured down like a fountain, creating a gruesome rain of red that left everyone speechless.
An-An took off his mask and wiped the blood from his head with his sleeve. He smiled stupidly and said with a slight sob, “It really hurts... it hurts so much. I... I promised... promised Dad I wouldn't cry for no reason.” When he finished, he slowly put the mask back on.
He bent down and picked up the broken bat. Using brute force, he snapped it in two. He snorted heavily through his nose, puffed out his lips, and glared with his eyes wide open. “I’m going to... make you hurt too!!!” He charged forward holding the bat in both hands, gripping the thin handle in his right hand and the thick end in his left, searching for a target.
An-An glared furiously at the delinquent holding the helmet. The helmet delinquent sensed An-An's killing intent and put it on preemptively, secretly congratulating himself. “A helmet this tough won't let anything happen to me,” he murmured.
An-An narrowed his eyes and locked onto his target in an instant. He hurled the end of the bat in his left hand straight at the helmet delinquent's... “feet.” The bat end spun at high speed and struck the delinquent's shins. There was a crisp crack—the sound of bones breaking.
The helmet delinquent pitched forward from the force of the impact. The helmet's visor shattered, and shards stabbed into his face. The helmet absorbed the impact when his head hit the ground, leaving his head completely unharmed. Both his legs were broken, however, and the pain robbed him of all ability to fight. He was down for the count.
The two nunchuck-wielding delinquents saw how vicious An-An had suddenly become and began shouting in fear and guilty panic. They spat at him, trying to keep him from approaching. The baton delinquent joined in. Together, they looked like three wild Squirtles.
An-An dodged the flying spit by moving left and right, retreating several steps. He grinned through bared teeth and narrowed his eyes again. Then he threw the bat handle in his right hand toward the two nunchuck delinquents. The two of them nervously gripped their nunchucks with both hands, intending to use the chains to knock the handle away. But how could things possibly go their way? Because the blood pouring nonstop from An-An's head had obstructed his vision, the bat handle missed its mark, slammed into the ground, bounced, and struck one of the nunchuck delinquents right in the crotch. His balls aching and his asshole clenched, he rolled around on the ground in agony. Nunchuck Delinquent One was down for the count.
An-An took off his mask again, wiped away the blood, and glared at the fallen delinquent. “Who told you... to make me hurt?” Tears spun in the corners of his eyes, but he still couldn't bear to let them fall.
An-An gripped the blood-soaked mask in his left hand. He stopped walking with his duck-like stride and instead approached the other two delinquents one powerful step at a time. Nunchuck Delinquent Two panicked and swung his nunchucks wildly, trying to attack An-An but repeatedly injuring himself instead, until his own face was swollen and bruised. An-An sidestepped and closed in, then drove an elbow into his head without a word. Nunchuck Delinquent Two was down for the count.
At the very end... the baton delinquent saw how good An-An was at fighting. He swallowed, dropped the baton, turned around, and ran for his life.
And now, only An-An and the abandoned Mohawk delinquent remained. The Mohawk delinquent was sitting off to the side on his skateboard, playing with his phone.
Although An-An had just fought one exhilarating battle after another, these delinquents were really just a bunch of useless nobodies who couldn't do anything. So An-An's solo beatdown of all sixteen had taken only eight minutes—the same amount of time it took the Mohawk delinquent to scroll through a dozen brainless videos.
An-An picked up the fallen baton and casually tossed it beside the Mohawk delinquent's feet. The baton bounced and struck him. Looking displeased, he cursed, “You bunch of losers still haven't beaten that id—” He stood up and swept his eyes across the area. When he saw the pool of blood and the pile of people sprawled on the ground, his heart jolted. Then he saw An-An standing there with blood all over his head. “Id... iot?” he mumbled, the three syllables blurring together in his mouth.
An-An grinned through bared teeth and slowly walked toward the Mohawk delinquent. The delinquent grew more and more frantic. In his eyes, An-An's footsteps moved in the slow motion of a horror-movie monster coming to get him, bringing him endless terror. He backed away several steps, then his legs gave out and he fell. “What the hell are you... or... or what kind of monster are you? Don't... don't come any closer!” he said in a trembling voice.
An-An smiled with narrowed eyes. “My name is Zhao Ding'an. You can call me An-An!” He didn't stutter at all. His eyes suddenly became resolute, and his words rang out with force.
The Mohawk delinquent scooted sideways on his butt until he felt a knife nearby. He picked it up with trembling hands and gripped it tightly. “Don't come... any closer... I have a knife! Be careful... be careful, or I'll kill you!”
An-An paid no attention to the Mohawk delinquent. He simply walked past him, turned his back, and headed toward the place where he had left his music playing. “Do you like music? I love rock!” He picked up his headphones and MP3 player.
The Mohawk delinquent still held the knife tightly. “Who even listens to rock music anymore? Idiot... idiot, what an idiot. Of course someone like you would listen to it. A refined person like me only listens to EDM.”
An-An ignored him completely. Fall Out Boy's “This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race” began playing. An-An bobbed his head to the music, lost in his own excitement, and shouted, “I love punk music the most! When I was thirteen... thirteen... I got to know Jackie Chan and Jet Li... and... and... one big brother. He was the one who introduced me to this kind of music!” He held his headphones with both hands and kept swaying his body.
The Mohawk delinquent was utterly dumbfounded. How could this idiot be so freaking funny? Gradually, he wasn't as afraid anymore. He slowly stood up, swallowed, and tightened his grip on the knife. Without hesitation, he viciously stabbed at An-An, who was still lost in his own high and had his back turned.
At the critical instant, An-An, his eyes tightly shut, seemed to trigger some kind of mechanism. He performed a stance pivot, a spreading block, and a chain of straight punches that perfectly matched the beat. Finally, in time with the last crash of the cymbals, he clapped his hands directly into the Mohawk delinquent's brow and knocked him flat. The music ended.
An-An crouched down and looked at the Mohawk delinquent's pathetic sprawled-out form with a goofy smile. The force of that slap had already scared the piss and shit out of him. “That big brother also introduced me to Ip Man... My favorite... favorite thing... is... punk rock and... Wing Chun... Wing Chun. My iron fist... iron fist... is... Punk Wing Chun.”
When he finished speaking, An-An took off his headphones. The camera slowly pulled away, leaving behind a cool, cinematic silhouette.