The Hound’s Blade

At night in Jiangcheng District, the spotlights over the ring illuminated only the circle above. Wu Chen scored the most important win of his career: in the second round, a left hook knocked out “Jiangcheng Heavy Artillery” Guo Shiwang. He pocketed the 20,000-yuan prize, enough to keep his mother’s bookstore, Sanwei Bookshop, open for another quarter after seventeen years in business. He thought the hardest fight was already behind him. Guo Shiwang lost the match, but insisted Wu Chen treat him to a bowl of beef noodles. The two men, both trained by the same veteran coach, Feng Baoshan, discovered their connection as senior and junior disciples in a greasy noodle shop. Rivals became brothers. But the real battle had only just begun outside the ring. Property developer Yao Jianlong had his eye on the bookstore’s land. Violent evictions, loan-sharking traps, a midnight smash-and-grab: the tactics escalated one after another. By the time Wu Chen rushed back to the bookstore, his mother had already been pinned to the ground. He took down more than a dozen bodyguards on his own, but fell at the feet of the fighting expert at Yao Jianlong’s side. Guo Shiwang stepped forward with a group of their fellow disciples. From life-or-death bouts in an underground fight club, to alleyway battles in a nighttime manhunt, to the final face-off, the two men used their fists to fight their way inch by inch through this mire. This is a story about boxing, but also about a mother, brotherhood, and a bookstore. When you take a punch in the ring, you have to get back up within eight seconds. Take a beating outside the ring, and the answer is the same.