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Sure enough, Zhao Xiaodao had posted a nine-photo grid: selfies with the Northeast tiger, photos of her stroking its belly, and shots of her pouting with a V-sign right next to it.
Caption: Wish fulfilled!
Switching to the [Wulin Alliance] chat, Lu Zheng spoke up.
Lu Zheng: Pretty good luck!
Zhao Xiaodao: Lu ge! Lu ge! I got to stroke a big kitty too! It felt amazing!
Lu Zheng: (dog head.jpg) Location scouting?
Zhao Xiaodao: Hehe, of course we can’t tell the truth about this (cute.jpg)
Lu Zheng: @Lin Wan, you’re famous now!
Lin Wan: We ran into the tiger suddenly, I didn’t have time to deal with the person filming (helpless.jpg)
Zhao Xiaodao: My fault. By the time my assistant reached her, she’d already uploaded the video.
Lin Wan: It’s fine. My face wasn’t shown, and I didn’t go beyond mortal limits. It just looked like top-tier fighting skills.
Zhao Xiaodao had already apologised to Lin Wan. She apologised again now, and Lin Wan spoke up for her. After all, coming to the Northeast had been Lin Wan’s idea too.
Lu Zheng was momentarily lost for words. Sending a Northeast tiger flying with one elbow strike wasn’t exactly something an ordinary fighter could do.
Still, as Lin Wan said, the internet was full of shocked exclamations, but no one was seriously thinking “superhuman”. They just took her for an elite combat expert.
After all, not long ago there had been news about a female bodyguard who could draw her gun in 0.2 seconds and knock out ten huge men on the ring.
Plus, jokes about “slide-tackling a Northeast tiger to death” were everywhere. People who had seen tigers only in circuses or zoos had lost some of their awe and slightly misunderstood how strong wild ones really were.
By comparison, merely flooring one Northeast tiger didn’t seem completely unbelievable… absolute rubbish!
Everyone isn’t stupid. Apart from the idiots who get out of their cars in wildlife parks, any normal person could see how terrifying Lin Wan was.
Lu Zheng scrolled and found a post from Zhang Weili, the UFC champion, directly tagging Zhao Xiaodao.
[Xiaodao jie, is that expert your friend? She’s insane!
How can someone with that figure produce that much power? Unbelievable. Does she train Sanda or traditional martial arts? Can you introduce me?
Interested in ONE or UFC? I can hook her up with a pro team! If she steps into the cage, the belt is hers for sure!]
Zhang Weili was basically China’s top female combat athlete, so the moment the video dropped, loads of people tagged her asking for her opinion.
Ordinary netizens only knew Lin Wan was awesome but couldn’t explain why. Zhang Weili, as a pro, saw the horror instantly.
A tall woman who probably weighed just over fifty kilos sent a tiger weighing at least two hundred kilos flying with one elbow. That’s ridiculous!
That strike required perfectly coordinated full-body power. Extremely hard to pull off in real combat, let alone against a charging wild tiger.
Zhang Weili reckoned that if she were in that situation, she might manage a couple of exchanges if she picked up a stick, but she could never handle it as casually as Lin Wan did in the video.
And that was before the punches to the tiger’s head and the suplexes. The tiger ended up showing its belly in submission. Even Zhang Weili was speechless.
Beating a tiger bare-handed? In history only Wu Song managed it, and that’s a legend.
If someone had told her before this video that a model-looking girl took down a Northeast tiger with her bare hands, Zhang Weili would have shown them why her fists were the size of sandbags and why she wore gold belts.
But now the video was right there, clearly real. Zhao Xiaodao wouldn’t risk her reputation on a fake, and the Heilongjiang Forestry Department had already issued a statement.
[At approximately 5 p.m. today, an adult female Northeast tiger suddenly appeared outside the forest near Xiaogang Town, Heilongjiang Province. Disturbed by nearby construction work, it charged out of the woods towards Ms Zhao and her party who were scouting locations outside the town. Ms Lin from the party stopped the tiger. No one was injured. The Forestry Bureau has taken the tiger for examination.
Examination showed no obvious external injuries, no internal injuries or fractures. The tiger is emotionally stable and cooperative. Professional keepers have fitted it with a tracking device and named it Wanda Mountain No. 2. It will be released back into the wild at an appropriate time.]
The statement was weird too. Why specifically point out there were no injuries, fractures, or internal damage?
Because the tiger looked so pitiful in the video?
By now the story had completely blown up. The internet was exploding again.
“Hahaha! Emotionally stable and cooperative, why does it sound so clever?”
“Female tiger couldn’t beat the ‘tigress’?”
“One word: surrender!”
“Wanda Mountain No. 2: I never want to see those two-legged monsters again!”
“I’m tired. Let’s just end it all…”
“This is real kung fu. To everyone saying Chinese martial arts are dead or fake, how about we send you a wild Northeast tiger?”
“Piss off, she clearly used a Japanese karate throw.”
“Mate, you’ve been kneeling too long to stand up. That first move was obviously Baji heart-topping elbow!”
“Wu Song reincarnated as a pretty girl!”
“So cool! I’m in love!”
“Those long legs could crush a man to death. No thanks, I’m out!”
“Zhao Xiaodao must have hooked up with some hidden martial sect. Remember that Lu ge from last time? Authorities should investigate. If there’s no secret society I’ll eat poop live.”
“Support big sis going to UFC!”
“Heterosexuality is heresy. True love is same-sex. Xiaodao, hurry and win that girl over. She can protect you forever!”
Lu Zheng scrolled some more and saw Zhao Xiaodao’s reply to Zhang Weili.
[Back in Beidu, dinner on me!]
Lu Zheng shrugged. He could only hope Lin Wan didn’t crush Zhang Weili too badly.
Ding-dong!
A message from Zhao Wenyu.
Clearly everyone at Wuyue Club had recognised Lin Wan. The group chat was full of rainbow flattery again.
“Wan jie is awesome!”
“Wan jie and Lu ge are truly a match made in heaven!”
Lu Zheng replied to Zhao Wenyu, saying he hadn’t gone this time but happened to be planning a trip to Beidu anyway.
Since Zhao Xiaodao and Lin Wan had found their tiger, and the tiger had been taken away by the forestry people, and they had exposed their location, there was no reason to stay. They had already driven back to Harbin and were flying to Beidu.
Lu Zheng had nothing else to do and realised he had never seen the Great Wall despite his age, so he decided to head to Beidu and visit the Wall while he was at it.
Since it was a leisure trip to meet people, flying was out of the question, so Lu Zheng booked a plane ticket online for the next day, replied to a few messages, then washed up and went to bed.
