Lãnh Phong made Minh work without khí.
No pulse. No burst. No red heat under the ribs. Only stance, step, guard, breath, recovery.
"Again."
Minh moved.
Lãnh Phong's bamboo stick tapped his shoulder before the turn finished.
"Late."
"I know."
"Knowing late is still late."
Again.
Minh stepped on the half-beat and this time the stick passed through empty air.
Lãnh Phong smiled faintly.
"Better."
The word should have pleased him.
Instead Minh saw Lâm's ball miss everything.
His body was improving while Lâm's body negotiated with ordinary movement. Every correction Lãnh Phong gave him felt like interest charged on someone else's injury.
Minh reset his stance.
Gomboc warmed under his ribs.
"They broke him. We break them."
Thiên Phú surfaced separately, colder.
"Revenge route predictable. High probability of manipulation."
Minh breathed through both and hated that both could sound right.
Lãnh Phong tapped his knee. "You are thinking too loudly."
"Lâm can't shoot."
Lãnh Phong did not answer.
"He can use his hand," Minh said. "That's what they told him. Like that should be enough."
"For daily life, it is."
Minh looked up sharply.
Lãnh Phong's expression did not change. "Do not glare at truth because it has bad manners."
"Basketball was his life."
"Then life changed."
Minh stepped forward before choosing to. Lãnh Phong's stick rested against his throat.
Not hard.
Enough.
"See?" Lãnh Phong said. "You made his grief your permission."
The words hit cleaner than the stick.
Minh stepped back.
Rain tapped the roof. Somewhere outside, boys shouted over a football match on a phone. The ordinary world remained rude enough to continue.
"What am I supposed to do?" Minh asked.
"Ask."
"Ask what?"
"What he wants done with his pain."
Minh's mouth tightened. "What if he wants them hurt?"
Lãnh Phong lowered the stick.
"Then ask whether he wants that before or after breathing."
That sounded cruel until Minh understood it.
Lãnh Phong was not protecting the Thälmann boys.
He was protecting Minh from becoming the easiest answer to someone else's wound.
Minh reset his stance.
Again, no khí.
Again, no monster.
Again, the body learned.
The heart lagged behind, limping.
Lãnh Phong watched Minh fail three more times before offering correction. He did that deliberately. A wrong movement repeated under pressure told more truth than a perfect movement copied once.
"Your shoulders are fighting your feet," Lãnh Phong said.
Minh wiped sweat from his jaw. "That supposed to mean something?"
"It means your upper body wants revenge and your lower body wants to survive. Pick one."
Minh hated how often Lãnh Phong could be insulting and accurate at the same time. He reset his stance, lowered his center, and tried to move from the floor instead of from the fists. The movement became smaller. Less heroic. Less satisfying. It also worked.
Lãnh Phong's stick passed near his ear instead of across his ribs.
"Again."
Minh obeyed. The training room smelled of dust, old wood, and rainwater leaking somewhere behind the wall. It was not a cinematic place to become stronger. No banners. No dramatic music. Just an adult with too much knowledge teaching a boy how not to die while pretending he was only correcting posture.
Every improvement made Minh angrier.
If he had learned this earlier, maybe Lâm would not have fallen. If he had understood cameras earlier, maybe Huyền Kha would not have collected him so easily. If he had controlled Gomboc earlier, maybe every person around him would not have become bait.
Lãnh Phong saw the thought forming and struck his shin lightly.
"Past tense is also a trap," he said.
Minh breathed through the sting. The lesson sounded simple. It was not. Past tense was where guilt lived. Leaving it meant admitting he still had choices.
Lãnh Phong did not soften the lesson after that. If anything, he made it smaller and meaner: one step, one breath, one choice of angle repeated until Minh's thighs shook. Big emotions wanted big movements. Lãnh Phong forced him to survive inside little ones, because little choices were where boys either stayed human or became useful to men like Huyền Kha.
When training ended, Minh stayed on the floor longer than necessary.
Lãnh Phong did not tell him to stand. He sat on an overturned crate, drinking water from a plastic bottle with the bored cruelty of a man who had seen boys confuse exhaustion with growth too many times.
"You want the lesson to hurt enough to count," Lãnh Phong said.
Minh stared at the ceiling fan. "Is that wrong?"
"It is convenient."
"For who?"
"For anyone who wants to sell you pain as progress."
Minh turned his head. The answer had Hạ Yên in it, and the pills, and every cheap promise Huyền Tinh had pushed through desperate hands.
Lãnh Phong continued, "Pain can be useful. So can rest. So can walking away. Weak boys think only pain is honest because pain is hard to fake."
Minh sat up slowly. "You saying I'm weak?"
"I'm saying you are easy to market to."
The insult burned because it made sense. Huyền Tinh sold power to people who hated waiting. Lao sold violence to people who feared being sheep. Even Gomboc sold certainty from inside Minh's own ribs.
Lãnh Phong tossed him the water bottle.
"Drink. Then do the footwork again. Slower."
Minh caught it and drank.
Slower felt like humiliation at first. Then, after the tenth repetition, it became more frightening than speed. Slower meant he had time to know what he was choosing.
Lãnh Phong watched Minh write the rule down and said nothing. Silence from him was rarely approval; it was usually permission to discover the next mistake alone. Minh preferred insults. Insults had shape. Silence made him hear his own thoughts, and his thoughts kept returning to Lâm's wrist, Hạ Yên's pills, and the terrifying idea that getting stronger did not automatically make him less dangerous.
When Minh finally left, Lãnh Phong remained in the room and looked at the marks on the floor. The boy's steps had changed. Not enough. Never enough. But enough that Huyền Kha would notice. Lãnh Phong hated that progress and danger had started using the same measurements.