Chapter 107: Spare a Hand?
Translator: Noodletown Translated Editor: Noodletown Translated
Yue Yang sent Hao Ren to school the next day and pretended she didn’t know that the Class President was teaching him how to play basketball. She dropped Hao Ren off at the entrance of the school and left.
Hao Ren saw that it was still early and went to wait at Hongji Square on purpose.
A moment later, Xie Yujia, who was in a tennis outfit, rode her bicycle and appeared in Hao Ren’s sight. She came to the booth of the shredded pancake and was slightly surprised to see Hao Ren there.
“I knew you are going to treat me again, so I came early to wait here,” Hao Ren took out some money and bought three shredded pancakes.
Xie Yujia smiled, got off her bicycle, and took the pancake that Hao Ren handed over. She ate as she walked her bike to school.
Xie Yujia gave Hao Ren a comfortable view in this pleasant breeze. The students who pulled all-nighter playing games just came out from the Internet Cafe.
They saw Xie Yujia and Hao Ren eating breakfast and entering the school together and were jealous. Who would stay up all night playing games if they had girlfriends?
The basket on Xie Yujia’s bicycle held a basketball, and she pushed the bike with one hand.
It was a quite pleasant view when the elements of basketball and girl were matched together.
“I didn’t return the basketball yesterday and brought it back to the dorm,” she explained.
“Um,” Hao Ren swallowed two shredded pancakes in one gulp. Then, he took away the paper bag in Xie Yujia’s hand, ran to the side of the road, and threw it away with his own paper bag into the garbage can.
When he returned, Xie Yujia took out a napkin from her pocket and handed it to him as she said, “Wipe your mouth. Your mouth is so greasy.”
“Thank you, Class President,” Hao Ren took over the napkin and wiped casually.
“You didn’t wipe here properly,” Xie Yujia pointed at the left side of Hao Ren’s lips.
Hao Ren wiped casually again, but he still couldn’t wipe off the crumbs at the corner of his mouth. Thus, Xie Yujia took the napkin from Hao Ren’s hand and said, “Don’t move!”
Hao Ren stood straight and didn’t move. Xie Yujia looked at Hao Ren’s cheeks, raised her small hand, and wiped the crumb and greasiness off the corner of his mouth.
After she finished doing all this, Xie Yujia threw the napkin into the garbage can. This precise shot looked like she was shooting a basket.
Hao Ren touched the corner of his lips and suddenly fell into a state of bliss.
Xie Yujia didn’t think that much of it and continued to push her bike towards the school.
They soon arrived at the basketball court in Zone B. Xie Yujia parked her bike on the side, grabbed the basketball from the basket, and started today’s lesson – shooting.
“Shooting is actually not hard. The key is two specific movements. One of them is your posture when you shoot, and the other is the way you hold the ball…,” Xie Yujia held the basketball as she demonstrated and explained at the same time.
Then, Xie Yujia corrected Hao Ren’s posture one by one from his palms to wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist, and legs.
Seeing her being so meticulous, Hao Ren didn’t want to disappoint her and practiced with more effort.
Two hours passed by fast. The accuracy of Hao Ren’s two-point shots raised from 10% to 70%; it was a miraculous improvement.
“As a Power Forward, the accuracy isn’t the most important. The movement of shooting is to confuse the opponents and create chances for your teammates. Yet, because of this, the opponents won’t defend against your shots as much. Therefore, if you have great accuracy and could score unexpectedly, it’ll achieve great results…”
Xie Yujia looked at Hao Ren who was practicing shooting as she stood on the side and explained.
Hao Ren admired the Class President even more. Not only was she good at basketball, but she was also great at the strategies. She was indeed the younger sister of Xie Wanjun, who led the school’s Basketball Team to the national college championship.
It was almost eight thirty, and their first class of the day was about to start. Xie Yujia asked Hao Ren to stop shooting, returned the basketball to the stadium, and went to the cafeteria with Hao Ren to eat.
After the interactions these few days, they seemed to have gotten closer to each other. However, Hao Ren knew that Xie Yujia wasn’t into him, so they maintained their current relationship.
Hao Ren also thought that an outstanding girl like the Class President would either like a Prince Charming who was handsome and had very good grades or a bright and athletic guy. He definitely had no hope because he was nowhere close to either side.
After eating breakfast, Hao Ren and Xie Yujia went their separate ways to classes in different Academic Buildings. Because they didn’t select the same courses other than the major courses, many of their courses were different.
He returned to his room after two classes and found Zhou Liren and Cao Ronghua still sleeping; these two guys overslept and skipped classes. Sure enough, they had taken one step closer to the attitude of a third-year student.
“Room inspection!” Hao Ren yelled loudly.
Zhou Liren and Cao Ronghua jumped up abruptly and said, “We’ll wake up right away, right now. Don’t deduct points!”
Their faces were solemn when they saw it was Hao Ren. “Damn, it’s you! Why didn’t you come back again yesterday?” they yelled.
“I went back home to grab some stuff. Where’s Zhao Jiayi? He’s not back yet?” Hao Ren asked.
“He has been practicing basketball so hard now. He woke up at five and hasn’t come back yet; probably still practicing at the stadium. He still practiced basketball at night for the past two days and didn’t come back until the dorm is almost closed,” Zhou Liren said.
“Is that so…,” Hao Ren somewhat admired Zhao Jiayi for his effort. He then looked up at Zhou Liren, who was sleeping in the upper berth, and asked, “Why don’t we go see him at the stadium?”
“Can we go inside?” Zhou Liren doubted.
“We should be able to. Zhao Jiayi is training inside, and it shouldn’t be a problem to watch him!” Hao Ren said.
Zhou Liren was suddenly interested. “Sure, I’ll get up now. Let’s go together, Cao Ronghua!”
“Okay!” Cao Ronghua removed his blanket.
Thus, the three of them departed from the dorm to visit Zhao Jiayi in the stadium. As it was almost ten o’clock, the weather started to get hotter. They were all covered in sweat after walking the long distance to the stadium.
When they arrived at the entrance of the gym, they heard the piercing sounds of shoes scraping the floor and loud yells before entering.
Through the iron gate, three of them went in sneakily and saw a dozen players on the basketball team having a scrimmage.
Because the stadium was sealed and didn’t turn on central air conditioning for the game, the seemingly huge place felt like an enormous steamer and was hot and stuffy.
Zhao Jiayi, who was playing in the scrimmage, didn’t notice Hao Ren and the other’s entrance from the corner. He ran quickly and yelled, “Bear! Pass!”
A tall and robust man threw the ball at Zhao Jiayi as if it was a bullet. Zhao Jiayi jumped high, caught the basketball, turned quickly, and jumped again for the shot!
Chance!
As the basketball left his hand, Xie Wanjun suddenly appeared like a huge mountain and blocked it solidly.
The basketball dropped to the floor.
However, Zhao Jiayi landed quickly, turned his body, and grabbed the ball again!
He did a layup!
Passing through Xie Wanjun’s mountain-like body, Zhao Jiayi utilized his amazing vertical jump ability and approached the basket!
Yet, Xie Wanjun’s heavy-looking body suddenly turned!
Pa!
The basketball got slapped away again!
Zhou Liren and the others were dumbfounded.
In a few short seconds, many offense and defense moves happened continuously. They couldn’t imagine this intensity as it wasn’t at the same level as their regular games.
Zhao Jiayi fell to the ground but didn’t cry in pain. He crawled up immediately, ran toward the other half court, and yelled, “Blacky, defend Kitty closely!”
Xie Wanjun who was bigger and Zhao Jiayi who was smaller were both the commanders of their team. Zhao Jiayi had become one of the leaders of the Basketball Team in only a few days.
Seeing the continuously changing situation, offense and defense kept on switching. The team members wearing red shirts and blue shirts kept on running back and forth like they were training for a shuttle race. Cao Ronghua turned his head and asked Zhou Liren, “You still want to join the Basketball Team?”
Zhou Liren shook his head like a dice. “You got to be kidding me! Can normal people endure such intense training? Don’t even mention an hour; one would be tired to death in half an hour!” he replied
Zhao Jiayi, who had the best stamina in the dorm, was covered in sweat, and his legs were trembling!
Peng!
Xie Wanjun went for a layup and did an explosive dunk, and the whole stadium resonated with the sound.
“Okay, break time!” Xie Wanjun stood on the ground and waved his hand as he said.
He looked at the direction of the entrance and yelled, “You guys, don’t be sneaky and come here!”
Zhao Jiayi grabbed the towel on the side, wiped his sweat, and saw Hao Ren and the others.
Hao Ren couldn’t help but admire Xie Wanjun’s sharp observation. He could not only notice the situation on the court but could also pay attention to what was happening outside of the court in the distance.
Since Xie Wanjun called them over, Zhou Liren and the others didn’t hesitate and walked across the wide stadium.
“You did great!” Xie Wanjun threw a sports drink at Zhao Jiayi.
Zhao Jiayi caught the drink and unscrewed the cap as he replied, “Thanks a lot!”
Zhou Liren walked in front of Zhao Jiayi and patted Zhao Jiayi’s sturdy shoulder. “Zhao Jiayi, you got much better!”
“F*ck! I’ve always been this good! When I played with you noobs before, I only used 50% of my strength!” Zhao Jiayi jabbed Zhou Liren with his elbow and replied.
Hao Ren smiled and knew that Zhao Jiayi was bluffing on purpose. How could Zhao Jiayi conceal his strength as he was the type of person who got anxious when they were down in score?
However, from the scrimmage just now, Hao Ren could tell that Zhao Jiayi’s basketball skills improved at a fast pace. Even though the blue team he led still couldn’t defeat Xie Wanjun’s red team, his performance already made him look like a master!
If it was the official game, his movements could totally win the screams from the girls!
This proved that he had learned a lot from Xie Wanjun’s special training! No wonder he didn’t want to come back from the stadium; it was because that as a basketball lover, learning new things continuously and improving his strength quickly were more addictive than gaming!
“How’re your practices with Yujia lately?” Xie Wanjun drank up all the drink and asked Hao Ren suddenly.
“Uh…,” Hao Ren didn’t expect Xie Wanjun to talk to him and thought, “I pretty much learned all the basic movements.”
Xie Wanjun picked up the basketball beside him and dribbled twice as he said, “Why don’t we try?”
Hao Ren took half a step back and replied, “Maybe later.”
He still knew his advantages and disadvantages. He might not lose against this big guy, Xie Wanjun. in terms of strength. However, if they competed in basketball skills, he was definitely no match for Xie Wanjun.
“I’ll spare you one hand. Let’s play for a bit; I want to see what Yujia has been teaching you in these past few days,” Xie Wanjun said as he threw the basketball to his left hand and hid his right hand behind his back.