Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Five minutes into the match, Nie Fan’s performance was rather regular. It was no high-stakes match after all, and he should just let Xu Hong have it since he enjoyed the limelight so much.
However, Xu Hong gave his two teammates a look when he saw that Nie Fan was keeping himself uninvolved. They nodded, and quietly surrounded Nie Fan.
Thud!
Nie Fan had just received a pass from Wu Hongfei and was ready to make a play when one of the players in Xu Hong’s team rapidly closed in and slammed his elbow on his back. That player was not quite tall but very strong, with every inch of his body laden with firm muscles—making it quite a vicious elbowing.
Unprepared, Nie Fan stumbled a step back at the sudden sensation of pain near his hip.
“Sorry, accident.” The player blanked out for a moment. The strength he but in his elbow should have floored any person, which left him surprised that Nie Fan did no more than stumble a little.
In reality, Nie Fan learned kickboxing at a young age from his uncle and possess much actual fighting experience, gaining a ridiculous tough physique and was as formidable in taking a hit and giving one. Therefore, a mere elbowing would not hurt him too much.
Meanwhile, the onlooking crowd could see that it was a foul with ill-intent and became a little restless.
“Shameless! Liu Kan clearly did that on purpose!” Xu Xiaoshuang frowned, upset in Nie Fan’s stead.
Lin Xinyan’s brow knitted together, her heart leaping a beat when she saw Liu Kan’s elbow hit Nie Fan. She was only relieved when she ensured that Nie Fan was not hurt, but knowing that it was Xu Hong’s trick, she could only try to stop the match if push comes to shove.
Nie Fan was a little annoyed. He had no intention to compete with Xu Hong, but he did not take into account that Xu Hong would keep trying, even having his teammate foul him aggressively to hurt him. There was no telling what would have happened if he never had his training, and internal injury would certainly have been unavoidable.
In the meantime, he scored both his free throws. Having learned the ways of the fist, he was adept at controlling his wrist strength, which makes things all too easy in basketball.
Nonetheless, Xu Hong’s teammates began to clash even more with Nie Fan in the rest of the game, fouling him from time to time.
The fire he had kept under wraps in his chest finally erupted.
Hit him three times and even Buddha would get mad!
When he saw that things were going wrong in the court, Wu Hongfei would try to cover Nie Fan with his strong figure but it did not help things.
“Nie Fan, catch!” Almost parried by Xu Hong when he was aiming a shot, he quickly passed the ball to Nie Fan when things appeared awry.
Xu Hong’s two teammates quickly surrounded Nie Fan, with the one called Liu Kan aiming his elbow at Nie Fan’s chest.
As Nie Fan made a fadeaway jump-shot, he took the brunt of the elbow. Meanwhile, the ball arched through the air and darted into the basket with great precision. Nie Fan’s movement was nimble and graceful, delighting the eyes of every spectator and prompting a wave of cheers from the girls.
On the other hand, Liu Kan thought he heard a bang and felt as if his elbow had struck a steel plate, leaving his entire arm numbed and crippled. In comparison, Nie Fan was still lively and energetic, looking not all injured—he was no longer holding back, but unleashing the strength his body withheld when Liu Kan touched him.
Liu Kan’s deliberate foul meant another free throw for Nie Fan, which he scored again with ease.
“That fadeaway was beautiful! But are you alright?” Wu Hongfei asked after him with concern, but realized in shock that Nie Fan was not injured at all despite suffering two elbow hits from Liu Kan. Then, as he turned to look some distance away, he found that Liu Kan was gritting his teeth and holding his elbow joint, clearly hurt considerably.
‘What is with Nie Fan’s body? It’s so powerful it’s almost violent!’ Wu Hongfei thought in shock.
“I’m fine. That brat is all looks and no bite.” Nie Fan smiled contemptuously. He could toy with Liu Kan to death when it comes to bodily contact!
Wu Hongfei sweated all over his brow then. How tough could Nie Fan actually be? Liu Kan was one of the tough guys in their class and almost as strong as Xu Hong, and Wu Hongfei himself would probably have fallen over if that elbow hit him instead.
Meanwhile, Nie Fan looked as if nothing happened to him—was he made of metal!?
“I see that you have good basics and a strong body. Have you been holding back?” Wu Hongfei asked quietly.
“I didn’t play much before, but it doesn’t feel that difficult now. Come, let’s have a good match, and we’ll see how much points we could pull back!” Nie Fan glanced at the scores to find that they were twenty-one points behind Xu Hong, which was not that huge a gap.
“Alright. Let’s do our best and hammer that pig Xu Hong!” Wu Hungfei felt his blood heating up as well; he had been holding a grudge against Xu Hong for some time now.
The game continued.
Using his strong form, Wu Hongfei sent the ball beneath the basket by force. Catching Nie Fan some distance away as two opposing players who were at his sides almost reached him, he flung the ball straight at Nie Fan.
Fetching the ball and suddenly accelerating to shake off Xu Hong’s blocking, he fired another jump shot, and the ball dipped in a curve into the net soundly.
Nie Fan and Wu Hungfei shared an audible high-five then.
“Good teamwork.”
The crowd was shocked. Nie Fan had basically been idling in a corner at first and not contributing much, but was now hitting the target again and again. Even Xu Hong who was in the school’s main team could not stop him, and there was rarely anyone else in the school who could hold their own against Xu Hong.
Those who thought that the game was decided in the first place found it competitive now—it turned out that Nie Fan was hiding his cards.
“I’ll guard him!” Xu Hong glared at Nie Fan coldly as he called for his team to shift formation, with Liu Kan marking Wu Hongfei instead.
Then, Liu Kan who had been dribbling and about to cut through the three-point suddenly felt an emptiness at his hands. A figure had flashed past him at a speed that left him feeling chills, because he never expected Nie Fan to actually slip away from Xu Hong and dispossess him in no time at all, made his way downtown for another precise three-pointer.
Nie Fan was slowly seizing the flow of the game—his scoring and accuracy stunningly high. Not even professional games could see such high precision, whereas his elegant and unconstrained movements drew more cheers from the crowd.
At the same time, Xu Hong was screaming inwardly.
Impossible! How was he losing to that bastard?!
Having always prided himself with his skill in the game, Nie Fan was now completely dismantling his confidence.
He called out to Liu Kan so that they double-teamed Nie Fan, turning the match to a two-on-one. But even if Nie Fan had a hard time making plays, he simply slipped several exquisite passes to Wu Hongfei for several easy slam dunks, along with an exciting alley-oop that left the crowd feeling the heat!
One must say that Wu Hong’s body was actually fantastic, albeit lacking in specialized training that kept his performance unstable. Now, with Nie Fan being his catalyst and his outstanding effort, he was playing at his best.
As the score gap shortened to four points, another three-pointer from Nie Fan left the onlookers gasping in awe. What a demon—the school’s basketball team would be making a clean sweep of all high school basketball tournaments if he joined them, even though their current best result was second runners-up at the nations with Xu Hong leading them!
And yet, Xu Hong was now completely deflated, unable to keep up with Nie Fan’s rhythm at all!
The entire class had been backing Xu Hong at first, but began to cheer on Nie Fan as his performance converted them. Now, each of his scorings would stir a tide of whoops, catching the next class’s interest and luring them to watch the game as well. The unbelievable news that someone was completely dominating Xu Hong on the basketball court soon spread like wildfire, and many students from other classes began to stream in as well.
Meanwhile, Lin Xinyan was grumbling unhappily about what an attention seeker Nie Fan was in a corner, becoming more upset as the girls beside her screamed away just like animals.
“Xinyan, does your cousin have a girlfriend?” Xu Xiaoshuang asked excitedly as she watched Nie Fan steal the limelight endlessly in the game.
“What are you trying to do?” Lin Xinyan asked carefully.
“As the saying goes: keep the best for your buddies. I’m thinking about becoming his girlfriend, surely you wouldn’t mind, right?” Xu Xiaoshuang looked extremely thrilled.
“No way.” Lin Xinyan refused sharply by reflex.
“Why?” Xu Xiaoshuang was upset.
“He… He’s just staying in Yinhai for a few weeks and would go back to Ningdong soon.” Lin Xinyan knew that she had overreacted even as she tried to explain, but was lucky to have found an excuse after just some thought.
“I actually don’t mind long-distance relationships. He is so cool!” Xu Xiaoshuang exclaimed, her eyes twinkling like stars. “Just look at the ever-high-and-mighty Xu Hong—he doesn’t even dare to speak up in his presence!”
***
Even as the girls chattered away, the match escalated to a white-hot state: a single point separated both teams and there were only a dozen seconds left.
Xu Hong had possession, and Nie Fan was guarding him.
For some reason, Xu Hong had lost all of his typical composure beside Nie Fan’s constant calmness, with the right hand that he was dribbling the ball with trembling. Nie Fan was like an insurmountable mountain, and what Xu Hong feared most was his demonic speed.
‘Is he even human? How could he move so fast!’
Unbeknownst to him, Nie Fan’s speed and reflexes were basically nurtured under his uncle’s endless inhuman torture. That uncle had saved Nie Fan’s father when he was almost murdered by a hired killer, and from then on, his father had entrusted him to his uncle to train in kickboxing and Neijia as a means of self-preservation, in hopes that he wouldn’t fall to underhanded measures of the vile. As such, Nie Yun’s skills as a mercenary who saw action and a special agent of the intelligence bureau was passed on to Nie Fan himself.
After learning the skills that mattered in life-and-death situations, something as simple as basketball was nothing to fuss over.
Now, Xu Hong swayed, readying himself to dribble past Nie Fan and cut into the three-point line. However, Nie Fan’s came as fast as lighting, reaching out for a gentle poke that sent the ball flying out of Xu Hong’s hands.
To the rear, Wu Hong quickly took the ball and passed it outside, and began dashing towards the three-point-line himself.
“Stop him!” Xu Hong’s eyes could have popped out of their sockets. He never expected that he would lose the ball at such a vital moment and felt as if he had lost all face.
He glared poisonously at Nie Fan. It was all because of him!
Meanwhile, Liu Kan had promptly moved to block Wu Hongfei.
Wu Hongfei swung his right hand, sending the ball to Nie Fan.
Nie Fan took the ball beneath the net and was ready for a shot, but all three players at Xu Hong’s team had surrounded him.
“Stop him! Hurry up!”
“We won’t make it!”
“Damn it!” Xu Hong cursed as he threw his body forcefully at Nie Fan. A deadly killing intent flashed in his mind within that very second—he no longer cared about the scores.
He must make Nie Fan pay.
Shooting was impossible with the trio crashing towards Nie Fan, and he might be even hurt if he’s not careful.
Nonetheless, Nie Fan blew his top as well as he watched Xu Hong’s team bounding towards himself. It was just a simple match, but Xu Hong clearly had every intention to maim him.
He bellowed then, and leapt with the ball in hand.
Xu Hong and the others could feel Nie Fan suddenly leaping off the floor, and he was jumping so high that they thought that a mountain was crashing down at them.
Bang!
All three of them hit Nie Fan’s body but it was no different from crashing into a wall, the force of the recoil throwing them all backwards.
With a dull clang, Nie Fan had slammed the ball into the net, his body having flown upwards before landing with a heavy stomp, shaking the floor violently.
The noisy gym turned silent at once. As Xu Hong and his teammates dropped to the ground and groaned in pain while holding where it hurts, their cries were especially clear inside the gym.