Chapter Eighty-Eight: Contrast and Injury

“Get your legs in there, get your legs in there! Damn it, get your legs in there!”

After April began, several major domestic leagues across the Republic made way for the finals of the various university athletic competitions. This was not the result of any forceful push from the Republic’s governing authorities, but because the sponsors behind those major leagues also wanted to find fresh blood for their own competitions.

Any league that is well organized and successfully run must, by necessity, be replenished with new talent. If the same old veterans keep dominating a competitive league year after year, then that league’s competitiveness is bound to be weak.

Any company capable of sponsoring a major league would naturally be a large, diversified enterprise. Such corporations had highly professional teams to analyze and study the leagues they sponsored, all with the aim of raising the league’s prestige so that their investment would yield better value. Thus, under the impetus of the money behind the sport, the university leagues naturally became the foremost training ground for the major competitions.

In River City, the provincial capital of Jingchu, amid the jeers of nearly ten thousand spectators, Wang Lijun’s shouting from the sideline sounded small and faint.

At this moment, the score gap between the visiting Borderland University team and the home side from River City University was not especially wide. A difference of seven points could perhaps be recovered in only three or four possessions. But unfortunately, there were now less than three minutes left in the game. Under such circumstances, those seven points seemed almost impossible to overcome.

The boos from the fans were not directed solely at Borderland University, who had come from afar and were playing with ferocious intensity. The same jeers were also meant for the home team. After all, in nearly forty minutes of basketball, the two sides had produced a score of only 65 to 58. Judging from the spectacle on the court, it resembled less a basketball game than some alternative form of combat, every offensive and defensive sequence becoming the most intimate collision of flesh against flesh.

The people of Jingchu had always been known for their boldness. From ancient times to the present, this land had never lacked men of lofty spirit and fierce loyalty.

From the old saying that though Chu had but three households left, it would still be Chu that destroyed Qin, to the days when Mongol armies ravaged Eurasia yet could not take Xiangyang, the people who lived upon this fervent soil had loved their homeland too deeply to tolerate the slightest blemish. Even when it came to their own team, if it did not perform well enough, they would not hesitate to shower it with scorn.

In recent years, River City University’s results in the university basketball league had steadily declined. They could still reach the finals stage, but compared with their former achievements, they were undeniably in descent. This time they had drawn the relatively weaker Borderland University, and had hoped to rally morale with a commanding victory. Instead, they found themselves facing a team with its back to the wall.

The players of Borderland University had no idea why their head coach had issued a do-or-die order before the game. In front of everyone, Wang Lijun declared that if they lost, he would resign—and the players responsible for the defeat would fare no better.

In truth, after the school revoked its disciplinary measures against Hawule and Sun Dexun, Wang Lijun already knew he would not remain in the coaching post much longer. Though the school still allowed him to lead the team on this trip, he understood well enough that this was for the sake of stability; changing coaches on the eve of battle was a grave taboo. Wang Lijun knew he had underestimated that young man who shared his surname, because not long after he had finished playing his little tricks, he received a warning call from an old former teammate. The man did not speak too plainly, but the meaning was clear enough: Wang Lijun had offended someone he never should have offended.

After all the uproar, Wang Lijun, whose mind had been clouded by pride, finally came to his senses. His kill-or-be-killed order to the team was also a way of retreating by advancing, so that he might leave his post with composure and preserve the last shred of his dignity.

While Wang Lijun was sinking into final despair, Xu Hui, head coach of the Shahezi University team, who had traveled to Lin’an in Jiangzhe Province, was waiting with satisfaction and high spirits for the end of the game.

Though Jiangzhe was the smallest province in the Republic by area, its economic strength was quite impressive, and Lin’an, an ancient capital, was also home to many famous universities. But this time, the Shahezi University team had run into a dark horse: Jiangzhe University of Technology.

Faced with the suddenly surging Jiangzhe University of Technology squad that had fought its way out from the pack, Shahezi University actually began the game rather conservatively. Both teams’ starting lineups focused mainly on attacking through the paint, and among Jiangzhe University of Technology’s freshmen that year was one especially promising prospect, the central pillar of their rise.

The starting units on both sides were evenly matched. But when the game moved into the second quarter and both teams entered their rotations, the Shahezi University side changed formations. A small lineup at an absolute disadvantage in height suddenly unleashed an extremely fast offensive and defensive transition game, and before halftime it had already laid the foundation for victory.

After talking with Wang Lei, Xu Hui had been thinking constantly. Compared with most university coaches, he was younger. Though he could not compare with Wang Lei, his ability to accept new ideas was better than that of many others. After careful consideration, Xu Hui tried having the team alter the style of its rotation unit, imitating the chaotic, scramble-heavy style that Wang Lei’s provincial youth team had used in its earliest days. To his surprise, the results were exceptionally good.

In truth, Xu Hui had some luck on his side as well. Had he run into an established powerhouse this time, the tactic might not have worked so well. Jiangzhe University of Technology was, after all, a dark horse, and the depth of its roster could not compare with that of ordinary strong teams. In the provincial qualifiers, they had in fact advanced largely on the strength of their freshman centerpiece. Now that they had run into a Shahezi University side that refused to play by conventional patterns, it was only natural that they would struggle to adjust.

Though it was only a comparison between two games that had attracted little attention, the starkly different fortunes of these two teams from the borderlands already revealed the changes Wang Lei had brought about. For now, those changes were no more than tiny ripples on the surface, but before long they would surely become towering waves.

From Lingbei to Jiangzhe, at the very least, the two defeated teams would be left to ponder one question: how could opponents with such unremarkable lineups display such formidable strength? It was a question well worth serious thought. As for how things would develop afterward, no one could say. But one thing was certain: the two losing teams would, without prior arrangement, begin to undergo a measure of change.

After Wang Lei’s team claimed its first victory in Lingbei, they did not return to Urum. They still had to continue on to their next away game. Although there was a week’s interval in between, these university players, who had never before experienced consecutive road trips, could not help reacting to such a journey of never quite being home.

And the next away game awaiting Wang Lei’s provincial youth team would be another brutal battle, for their opponent would be the youth team of Ningliao Province, one of the Republic’s most renowned basketball strongholds.

Any broad discussion of the history of basketball’s development in the Republic could never avoid Ningliao Province. It was a traditional sporting powerhouse, supplying the Republic with a great number of talents in basketball, football, and other sports. For a period of time, more than one-third of the members of the Republic’s national basketball and football teams came from Ningliao. Although in recent years the province’s economic development had stagnated and its sporting enterprise had also declined somewhat, a starving camel is still bigger than a horse. Such a reserve of talent was simply not something Borderland Province could hope to match.