by Dragon King
Xie Yujia looked at Hao Ren as he walked off; she wondered if his girlfriend was really Su Han.
She didn’t come to herself until Ma Lina came over and nudged her.
94 Nemesis
The guys kept chatting on the way to the cafeteria.
“That was awesome! Did you see Huang Xujie’s face, Ren? It was so awful that it looked like he was taking a poop!” Zhao Jiayi shouted in excitement as he walked.
“Damn it, man. We are going to eat soon… Maybe don’t talk about poop right now?” Cao Ronghua shouted.
“But it was really awesome!” Zhao Jiayi kept making crazy hand gestures as he talked, “I still remember how arrogant that guy was when we saw him at Hongji Square last time. But today, he didn’t even dare to make a sound when those students were asking for a refund!”
Hao Ren simply smiled. Although he felt good too, he was not as excited as Zhao Jiayi.
Since they played tricks on Zhao Jiayi to make him fall, it could have been a severe accident. If Zhao Jiayi fell on his own, Hao Ren wouldn’t take this opportunity to interfere with the excessive fees charged by the Rock Climbing Club.
He certainly knew that Xie Wanjun’s presence was also the reason why Huang Xujie turned quiet. Huang Xujie had to swallow it because even Xie Wanjun wasn’t happy about all the hidden fees in the Rock Climbing Club.
“Ren, you are pretty awesome at rock climbing. Have you practiced before?” Zhou Liren interrupted.
“Practice my *ss! I have only seen it on TV!” Hao Ren answered.
However, he remembered that when he was little and stayed at his grandma’s, he had rebelliously climbed on to the fences and the trees thousands of times.
“Those single-arm swings were amazing!” Zhou Liren shouted.
Hao Ren broke out in cold sweat. His random moves on the rock climbing wall even got a professional name from Zhou Liren.
While chatting, they arrived at the cafeteria. After lunch, they headed to class.
The news about the rock climbing competition where Hao Ren defeated Huang Xujie has been passed around in the school, and the students had been crazily spreading the video of Hao Ren’s last moves where he did consecutive pull-ups with single arms while his feet were free in the air before jumping into the air to grasp the holds far above him.
“That guy behind us…in the second last row. The one in the black shirt.”
“That’s him? King of the Air?”
Even during the class, many students turned back to check Hao Ren out.
“Great reputation travels far,” Zhou Liren sighed as he tried his best to think of a proper saying. It wasn’t easy for him since his grades were the worst amongst them.
Hao Ren had no time to deal with those remarks. He was focused on preparing his tutoring material, and he wondered how Zhao Yanzi did on her midterms.
Ring!
The bell rang.
After two hours of sitting, students rushed out of the classroom. A few girls were still checking Hao Ren out as they walked out, and some of whom were beautiful young girls in their freshman year.
“You are famous now, Ren. Some of the pretty girls might want to become your girlfriend!” Zhou Liren said jealously.
As they spoke, a pretty girl who was well dressed walked up to Hao Ren and handed him a note. “This is my number in case you want to talk sometime. I think you are pretty cool. I’m a first year in the Business Major by the way,” she said.
After that, she headed for the door, leaving them a beautifully shaped figure to look at shortly. She whispered to another girl curiously, “How did I do? How did I do?”
“Woah!” Zhou Liren and the guys kicked up a fuss as they had never seen something like this.
Hao Ren coughed as he opened up the note. Then, he rolled it up and threw it into the trash can in front of them.
Zhou Liren didn’t expect that. He shouted immediately, “What are you doing throwing it away? She is such a pretty girl! Plus, she is so proactive!”
Hao Ren waved and said in annoyance, “Alright, alright, let’s go already!”
Zhou Liren took another look at the trash can reluctantly; he was struggling against the thought of picking the note back up. However, there were sticky leftover fruits in there which stopped him from going through the garbage for the pretty girl’s number.
If it was before, Hao Ren would probably find it interesting and get worked up and excited. He would have opened up his phone and messaged her right away. However, as popular as he was now, Hao Ren found it annoying since so many students were interested in getting to know him.
He wasn’t Huang Xujie who sought attention after all.
“Do you really have a girlfriend now?” Zhou Liren caught up with him and asked.
“You are getting more and more annoying. I’ll just give all the notes to you to deal with in the future, alright?” Hao Ren looked at him, speechless.
“That’s good! That’s good!” Zhou Liren kept on nodding, “I’ll be your agent, and whoever wants to date you will have to date me first!”
“Shameless!” Hao Ren, Zhao Jiayi, and Cao Ronghua hit him in the face at the same time.
“But I do think you and Xie Yujia would be a good match. Plus, you are from the same class and know each other pretty well already. We can tell that she cares a lot about you,” Zhao Jiayi said to Hao Ren.
“How can you guess our Class President’s thoughts?” Hao Ren said. In fact, Xie Yujia was also worried when Zhao Jiayi was climbing.
“Woah…so our Ren does like Class President!” Cao Ronghua cried out.
Hao Ren shook his head; he didn’t want to argue with them. These guys did no good, yet they were pretty good at ruining things. If they hadn’t gone confessing Hao Ren’s love for Xie Yujia without permission a while ago, the relationship between them wouldn’t have been so weird lately.
These days, their relationship had just been getting a little better. Hao Ren didn’t want Zhao Jiayi and the guys to mess it up again.
Hao Ren had more respect than the fondness for Xie Yujia. She was a charming girl, and her excellent grades and outstanding abilities made her stand out. With all these great traits, she also demonstrated the cute side of her personality such as sing. All these made her destined to become a goddess in all the guys’ eyes.
Zhao Jiayi changed the topic when he realized Hao Ren didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It’s still early. Let’s go play basketball!” he yelled.
Although he failed at rock climbing, his obsession with sports was awoken. Hao Ren didn’t tell Zhao Jiayi that he might have succeeded in rock climbing if the members of the Rock Climbing Club hadn’t messed with the equipment; he knew it would only make Zhao Jiayi more depressed.
“Come along, Ren!” Zhao Jiayi dragged his arm.
“I can’t play basketball!” Hao Ren shook his head.
“You only need to know how to pass, dribble, and shoot the ball!” Zhao Jiayi knocked hard on Hao Ren’s shoulder with his fist, dissatisfied.
“Alright, let’s go,” Hao Ren agreed to go with them at last. He felt bad for not hanging out with them enough lately because of cultivation and tutoring.
Zhao Jiayi’s execution ability was really worth mentioning. On the one hand, he immediately called up Yu Rong and some other guys and told them to bring a basketball from the dorm. On the other hand, he quickly booked a basketball court with Hao Ren and the other two. The guys gathered at the court at the same time.
The school made a rule for the Basketball Team after the incident last time. Thus, one could rarely see them practicing on the courts outside. In addition, since they were to play against Jinghua University next week, they had to train even more intensively due to the loss of a few of their starting players.
The Rock Climbing Club’s registration desk had disappeared from outside of the stadium. Their new member welcoming activities used to go on for an entire day, but all the desks and chairs were nowhere to be found.
Hao Ren
could imagine how mad Huang Xujie must be after he returned to the club. He must have thrown a tantrum at his members in the club.
It wasn’t his first time going against Huang Xujie anyways, so Hao Ren wasn’t worried about how Huang Xujie would seek revenge on him. Instead, he focused on playing basketball with the guys.
They played four against four on the half court, Zhao Jiayi’s dorm against Yu Rong’s dorm.
Basketball wasn’t really Hao Ren’s strong suit. Basically, he would pass the ball whenever he got it, and he would shoot it at the basket when he couldn’t pass it since he didn’t know how to dribble properly. He would score if he was lucky. If not, the rebound would be secured by Zhou Liren with his height advantage or Zhao Jiayi with his excellent leaping ability.
“Don’t just pass it, Ren! Dribble and move around!” Zhao Jiayi yelled after securing six rebounds; he was out of breath.
“I don’t want to be caught traveling! Damn!” Hao Ren answered as he bounced the ball like an elementary schooler.
Zhao Jiayi rolled his eyes speechlessly, but he had to admit that Hao Ren had a pretty good sense of positioning when he didn’t have the ball; Zhao Jiayi always had a chance to throw the ball at Hao Ren for him to shoot.
However, the accuracy of Hao Ren’s shots wasn’t that good. They were mostly airballs, and he got the backboard or the basket a few times. Zhou Liren had to tackle the ball and rebound using his height advantage.
Although Cao Ronghua wasn’t bad at aiming, his skinny body didn’t give him too much energy to run around the court like Hao Ren. He had to stay still and wait for Hao Ren to pass the ball to him.
Soon, Yu Rong’s team learned about Hao Ren’s weak aiming skills. They focused more on defending Zhao Jiayi and the other guys and left Hao Ren alone. It took a lot of energy for Zhao Jiayi and Zhou Liren to grab rebounds, and soon they were out of breath.
“Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t!” Zhao Jiayi shouted. He was upset when he noticed that they had fallen behind, knowing that his team’s average skill was higher than that of Yu Rong’s.
Hao Ren held the ball and saw that the other team entirely blocked his three teammates. He took another shot seeing that he had no chance to pass the ball, and sure enough, it was another airball.
“I told you I can’t play basketball, and I’ll only drag you guys down,” Hao Ren murmured when he saw Zhao Jiayi’s mad expression.
At that moment, some dark clouds came above him, blocking the bright sunshine. Hao Ren looked up at the sky instantly.
However, instead of the clouds, he saw Xie Wanjun standing behind him; tall as a hill.
Zhao Jiayi and the other guys realized the change in the situation, and they hastily threw away the basketball and gathered around Hao Ren.
They still remembered last time when Hao Ren beat several players on the Basketball Team. It was like yesterday when those players shouted madly in pain. Right now, the Captain of the Basketball Team was standing on the court with a stern expression. He wasn’t supposed to be here! What could this possibly mean?
95 Hard Labor!?
Xie Wanjun raised his hand, and Zhao Jiayi and the guys quickly ran over to Hao Ren as they thought Xie Wanjun was going to hit Hao Ren.
However, Xie Wanjun simply pointed at Hao Ren and said in a calm yet determined tone, “You, join the Basketball Team!”
This remark stupefied everyone including Hao Ren.
“What the hell? Why should he join just because you asked him to?” Yu Rong shouted with the guys before Hao Ren could even respond.
Xie Wanjun ignored their yelling and turned towards Zhao Jiayi. He pointed at him and said calmly, “You as well. Join the team!”
“Ah?” Zhao Jiayi was just as surprised as Hao Ren.
Xie Wanjun took out a little notebook from the pocket of his baggy sweatpants and read to Hao Ren, “Reaction, level S; Speed, level S; Arm Strength, level SS; Positioning, level B; Passing, level C; Dribbling, level D; Shooting Accuracy, level E.”
“What is that?” Hao Ren asked.
However, Xie Wanjun turned to Zhao Jiayi without answering Hao Ren’s question. “Leaping, level A; Positioning, level A; Passing, level B; Dribbling, level A; Endurance, level A; Judgement, level B; Height, level D,” he read.
Zhao Jiayi got straight As and Bs except for a D for his height, which he felt disheartened about too. Despite his enthusiasm and talent for basketball, he was only 1.7 meters tall. That was also the reason why he didn’t make it into his middle school basketball team.
His height certainly didn’t get in the way of him being popular and being liked by girls at the school. Of course, the latter part of that sentence was from Zhao Jiayi’s own words. Even though that was the case, Zhou Liren and the guys kind of believed it when they saw him being invited a lot by pretty girls. The girls had always asked him to go to karaoke or go on a trip with them.
When Zhao Jiayi was formally invited to join the Basketball Team of East Ocean University by the Captain, he was thrilled! It had always been his dream to join the Basketball Team!
When Xie Wanjun saw the Rock Climbing Club’s registration event outside of the stadium, he decided to make time to take a look and see if there were any physically outstanding freshmen; he was hoping to recruit some new players to invigorate his team.
When he saw “Shorty” Zhao Jiayi smoothly climbed up over ten meters without any previous experience, he realized how talented this sophomore was; at least he knew how energetic and perseverant Zhao Jiayi was.
However, before he could say anything to Zhao Jiayi, the quarreling scene between Hao Ren and Huang Xujie took place.
He heard that Hao Ren and his friends were playing basketball outside while he was training in the stadium, so he came over to take a look.
When Xie Wanjun saw Zhao Jiayi’s smooth shooting motion and excellent basketball consciousness, he knew that he found himself an “unprocessed jade”. Therefore, he dashed over to invite them despite other people’s objections.
“What A, B, C, D? Is it a multiple-choice question?” Xu Yandong from Yu Rong’s dorm shouted at Xie Wanjun, not knowing how good this Captain was at basketball.
“A, B, C, D, E are levels in my rating system, and S is better than A,” he pointed at Zhao Jiayi and said, “Your physical quality is excellent, and your basketball foundation is fairly impressive. You are quite promising as a sophomore.”
Then, he pointed to Hao Ren and said, “Your foundation is extremely poor, but your physical quality is not excellent…”
“Um…” that remark hit Hao Ren pretty hard.
“Not excellent… but abnormally excellent!” Xie Wanjun continued.
Hao Ren who looked down immediately lifted up his head.
“I’m missing a few players in the game next week, so you need to serve as a last resort,” Xie Wanjun carried on calmly as if the opinion of others didn’t matter to him at all.
Hao Ren thought about it for a few seconds.
After he made sure that Xie Wanjun wasn’t there to pick a fight with them, he said, “There’s no problem if you want Zhao Jiayi on your team, but I don’t know how to play at all…”
“You have no choice. One of the things the Vice Principal promised me when I fired my team members was that I could pick anyone for the game next week,” Xie Wanjun said to Hao Ren in his calm voice.
Hao Ren shook his head and replied, “Even so…”
Xie Wanjun lifted his hands and interrupted Hao Ren. “A man should take responsibility for his actions. I didn’t hold you responsible for injuring my team members. In addition, it was me who urged the school to fire those troublemakers,” he said.
“He requested them to be fired?” not only Hao Ren, Xu Rong, Zhao Jiayi, and the other guys were all surprised.
“You can check with the Vice Principal, Lu Qing, if you don’t believe my words,” Xie Wanjun said before closing his mouth.
Hao Ren suddenly remembered that when he went to see Lu Qing in the Administrative Building, X
ie Wanjun was there too. Now, he realized that Xie Wanjun looked mad back then because his team members caused a lot of trouble; this Captain wasn’t mad at him.
Xie Wanjun didn’t rush for Hao Ren’s decision as he noticed that Hao Ren was rooted in his thoughts. He turned to Zhao Jiayi and asked seriously, “Are you willing to join the Basketball Team?”
“Okay!” Zhao Jiayi agreed immediately.
Xie Wanjun asked again since he didn’t hear the answer he was looking for, “Are you willing or not willing!”
“I’m willing to join the team!” Zhao Jiayi gave a definite answer.
The guys looked at Zhao Jiayi in surprise as they didn’t expect him to join the “enemy team” so quickly. He was just in an intense fight with the members of the Basketball Team not long ago, yet he was already a part of their team!
However, Zhao Jiayi thought differently. Basketball was not only his hobby but also his dream. He saw the invitation from the Captain of the Basketball Team as the recognition for his abilities. The opportunity only knocks once, so he had to make the most of it!
Having gotten an affirmative answer from Zhao Jiayi, Xie Wanjun turned to Hao Ren again and asked, “How about you? Do you want to be a part of the game next week?”
Hao Ren heard him clear this time; instead of asking him to join the team, Xie Wanjun was asking if he wanted to play in the game next week.
“With your strength and fast reaction time, you can be a good fit to replace Bai Zhixiong’s position. You can be the temporary Power Forward of the team. You will be rebounding, defending, and blocking. We won’t count on you for shooting and scoring. Simply put, you will be the hard labor in the restricted area,” Xie Wanjun laid it all out to Hao Ren without mercy.
Hao Ren understood and felt relieved after hearing this.
“Sounds like this Xie Wanjun had been paying attention to me for a while now,” he thought.
“You, on the other hand,” Xie Wanjun turned back to Zhao Jiayi and said, “Are quick in reacting and smooth in dribbling. You can also protect the ball well while dribbling since your center of gravity is lower. Plus, with a great sense of space and timing, you can pass the ball on by making use of gaps and errors in the other team’s defense. You are a great fit as a Point Guard. Your accurate shooting skills can benefit you in this position even more!”