A Cold and Aloof Top Student Is Relied Upon - Chapter 28

Chapter 28: The Match

◎The Result◎

Hearing her propose a basketball match, everyone’s face twisted into a strange expression, and they looked at Lin Ye as if she were some kind of peculiar, dirty object.

Lin Ye’s malicious smile vanished, and her expression soured instantly. “We’ll only compete in shooting, not anything else.” She pointed to Huang Tingxi. “She was on the city’s youth basketball team in middle school. In terms of skill, she’s no less than me. It’s not too much to ask for her to participate, is it?”

Everyone turned to look at Huang Tingxi in surprise. She was tall and slender and looked so frail, not at all like a basketball player, let alone a city-level one. In all the time they had been in the same class, they had never even seen her touch a basketball. For a moment, a few of them hesitated and didn’t speak.

“My issues don’t involve other people,” Gu Zhu said, shaking her head first. She was about to say something else when Huang Tingxi interrupted her.

“I can do it.” Huang Tingxi rotated her wrist. Her left hand wore a pink Jerry Mouse wristband. Seeing everyone looking at her, she picked up the basketball from the ground and chuckled. “Why are you looking at me like that? I just stopped playing because my hand was injured before. It’s almost fully recovered now. Basketball is just a hobby for me; my focus is on my studies now. Don’t think about anything else.”

Her words were true. During the summer break after her high school entrance exams, she had represented the city in a provincial competition. After that, she realized her own limitations. She wouldn’t be able to go far on the basketball path. In addition, she had broken a bone after falling awkwardly on the court, and after surgery, she entered high school with a new focus on her studies. After that, she barely touched a basketball again.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have any regrets, but Huang Tingxi was very clear that as a girl from an ordinary family, it was already a privilege for her to have been able to learn and play basketball. The money to train a basketball star was something her family couldn’t afford. Besides, even if she had made it to the provincial level, it would have been difficult for her to go any further.

“According to street shooting rules, three-on-three. Each person gets one minute, and the team with the most shots made wins. Fair game. Besides you and me, the others can find people with similar skill levels. No problem, right?” Huang Tingxi spun the basketball on her fingertips, then effortlessly tossed it from one arm to the other. “For our team, it’s Gu Zhu, Bai Tan, and me. You pick your people.”

With a basketball in her hands, Huang Tingxi’s aura became powerful, and she instantly took back the home court. Bai Tan and Gu Zhu stood behind her in agreement, while Luo Minmin, Gu Xiaoxi, and Gu Xiaojuan looked at her with stars in their eyes. The slender girl was shining at that moment.

After both sides had chosen their teams, they stepped onto the court. The referees were the sports committee members from the third and tenth classes. Before the official start, there was a five-minute warm-up for practice shots.

Huang Tingxi began to teach them shooting techniques: how to hold the ball, their stance, where to aim, and how to use their strength. Shooting involved a certain degree of probability, and even the best players could miss a shot. The most important thing was to have confidence.

During the practice shots, Gu Zhu missed several times. Sometimes she didn’t use enough force and the ball didn’t reach the hoop, and other times she used too much force and it flew out. Bai Tan and the two new players on the other side had the same problem.

After the warm-up, the match officially began, with each team’s players taking turns as the timer started.

Knowing that the school’s top student was going to compete against the captain of the girls’ basketball team from the next class, the entire court was packed with onlookers. The classes became two rival camps, cheering and shouting for their own teams.

During the first round, Huang Tingxi couldn’t get the ball from Lin Ye, so Lin Ye’s team started.

The referee blew the whistle, and as he shouted “Start,” he pressed the stopwatch. The numbers began to tick, and the girl standing at the free-throw line made her first shot. One basketball after another was shot, and the first person scored 4 points, which was a good start for a beginner.

When it was their team’s turn, Bai Tan went first. The high-pitched voices of Luo Minmin and her friends echoed across the court. This beautiful transfer student, making her first real appearance in front of the other classes, brought a lot of cheers.

Bai Tan had never played basketball before, but she had learned a variety of things: swimming, fencing, martial arts… Compared to the others, she was exceptionally at ease with controlling her body. Huang Tingxi’s instructions played back in her mind like a slow-motion video. She adjusted her grip on the ball, making her elbow, wrist, and fingers form a straight line and a sightline with the center of the hoop.

From being clumsy at the beginning, she gradually became more familiar with the form, and her hit rate grew higher and higher. In the end, she scored 5 points. As she walked off the court, she gave Gu Zhu a thumbs-up sign, happily returning to her side to watch the next round.

Lin Ye didn’t go next. The next person was another classmate from the tenth class. She was much more skilled than the first, probably because she also played in her spare time. She scored the same amount of points as Bai Tan.

When it was Huang Tingxi’s turn, the basketball moved steadily in her hands. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t touched a basketball in so long, but she had a genuine joy radiating from her. Before she started, she put on a little basketball show for everyone, dribbling, passing, and spinning the ball. Finally, she did a sudden three-step layup. Her steps were incredibly light, her jumping ability was excellent, and the arc of her body as she left the ground was graceful and beautiful. As she landed, the ball dropped through the hoop.

“Wow!!!”

Loud cheers and applause filled the court. Someone even whistled. Huang Tingxi waved a little, her smile bright. “Oh, please excuse my clumsy performance!”

Lin Ye threw the ball to her. “Stop showing off. Hurry up.”

Huang Tingxi caught it and started shooting without any hesitation. Her hit rate was very good, and she got the current highest score of 7 points.

After two rounds, Gu Zhu’s team had a two-point lead. Now, it was up to Lin Ye and her. Sitting on the side of the court, she drank the water Bai Tan handed her, with their encouraging words buzzing in her ears. She stared at the ball, watching the arc of each throw, which was imprinted in her mind over and over again.

Lin Ye was indeed the basketball team’s ace player and a master who could lead the school’s girls’ basketball team to the provincial finals and win awards. Her feet were firmly planted on the line, her arm muscles bulged when she used her strength, and her shots were both fast and steady. She had reclaimed the home court of the school’s current basketball players. As the last ball fell, she clapped her hands, and when she heard the referee announce a score of 9, she looked at Gu Zhu, no smile on her face. “It’s your turn.”

“Don’t feel pressured,” Bai Tan said, grabbing her hand with a reassuring smile on her face. “You’re the strongest brain.”

Gu Zhu showed a small smile, nodded, and as she turned, she lightly squeezed Bai Tan’s hand back, as if drawing courage and strength from her.

The ball felt foreign in her hands. Finding the right point to apply force was not something that could be done in an instant. In her practice shots, only one had gone into the hoop. She replayed the feel of that ball, the point of applied force, and the strength in her mind over and over again. The posture of each person who had shot, the angle of their arms, the width of their feet, and the arc of each ball as it was thrown out—the principles of physics and parabolas were constantly verified and calculated in her mind.

A minute could be divided into sixty seconds, and those sixty seconds could be magnified into even smaller units. In that limited time, her brain was continuously memorizing, adjusting, and recalculating.

She missed the first two shots, the third hit the backboard and bounced away, the fourth scraped the edge and fell in, and the fifth was a perfect shot into the center.

The seconds kept ticking down. From forty to thirty seconds. Gu Zhu’s eyes followed the ball, as if a parabola had been visualized right in front of her. The other end of the arc went right through the center of the basketball hoop. Following the same force as the last ball that had gone in, she threw it, and it fell steadily into the hoop.

“Two!”

Someone began to count the number of shots she had made. If she made five, it would be a tie.

“Three!”

Ten seconds left: “Four!”

Five seconds left: “Five!”

The whistle blew, and the court fell silent, followed by a wave of screams. Five. She had made five in a row. The same five shots that had made her so anxious at the beginning now made her just as excited.

The people from the third class cheered together. Luo Minmin and a few of the girls from 512 even jumped up and down, screaming non-stop.

Gu Zhu was holding the last ball she hadn’t thrown. As the intense concentration suddenly dissipated, she felt a moment of dizziness. The sunlight was so bright that it was dazzling and made her want to cry for a second. She blinked and, as she looked down, she was suddenly embraced tightly.

A familiar scent enveloped her. She was surrounded by the intense atmosphere and also tightly hugged by the person she liked. At this moment, she buried herself in Bai Tan’s embrace, and her eyes finally welled up with tears.

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