Basketball Preliminary Round

A week later, in the evening, the setting sun bathed the basketball court in a warm golden light. The preliminary match between Linjiang No.1 Middle School and the High School Affiliated to Normal University had just ended, and the cheers from the stands had not yet completely subsided.

"We won! We won!" Tan Si excitedly grabbed Qing Jiuyue's arm and shook it. "Did you see that last three-pointer? He Chen is pretty good!"

Qing Jiuyue reluctantly withdrew her arm, adjusted her glasses, but her tone was approving: "The overall teamwork is much better than in the last city league."

Fang Chi sat down next to them, but his gaze fell on a familiar figure by the sidelines. Xing Jiayan wasn't wearing a team uniform, just a simple white T-shirt, and was talking to the coach. His leg looked completely healed; he could stand and walk like a normal person, and even casually bounced the basketball beside him while the coach was speaking, his movements fluid and natural.

Seemingly sensing his gaze, Xing Jiayan turned his head, precisely catching Fang Chi in the stands, and nodded at him.

The crowd began to disperse, and Tan Si and Qing Jiuyue made plans to buy drinks. Fang Chi hesitated for a moment, then walked down from the stands against the flow of people.

"Is your leg all better?" He walked up to Xing Jiayan, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Xing Jiayan didn't answer, but simply tossed the basketball in his hand to him: "Want to give it a try?"

Fang Chi caught it instinctively; the rough texture felt somewhat unfamiliar to him. He almost never touched a basketball; his battlefields were books and exam papers.

"No," he said truthfully, intending to throw the ball back.

Xing Jiayan had already walked to the empty half of the field, turned back to look at him, and said with a familiar, undeniable provocation in his eyes: "I'll teach you."

Ten minutes later, Fang Chi deeply understood the saying "a trade is like a mountain to climb."

He dribbled like he was bouncing a ball, his shots were all airballs, and his basic layup was stiff and comical. In his hands, a basketball was far less obedient than a pen.

"Use your wrist, not your forearm," Xing Jiayan's voice came from behind. He stood behind Fang Chi, loosely wrapped his arms around him, placed his hand over Fang Chi's hand, and guided him to feel the correct rhythm for bouncing the ball.

"Look at the basket, don't look down."

"Jump, use the power of your knees and ankles, yes..."

His voice was very close, his breath brushing against Fang Chi's earlobe, carrying the slight warmth of his body after exercise. Fang Chi's body stiffened, his attention completely unable to focus on the ball, only feeling an electric shock as Xing Jiayan touched his skin.

"Focus, you top student." Xing Jiayan seemed to chuckle softly, taking a step back. "Try it yourself."

Fang Chi took a deep breath, trying to recall the feeling from just now. He dribbled, jumped, and flicked the ball away with his wrist.

The basketball drew a more respectable arc in the air than before, slammed into the front edge of the rim with a "thud," and bounced back.

Xing Jiayan easily caught the rebounding ball and twirled it between his fingertips: "You've improved."

"I'm nowhere near as good as you." Fang Chi wiped the sweat from his forehead and spoke the truth. He watched Xing Jiayan dribbling the ball with ease, a skill and control that seemed ingrained in his bones.

"I've been training for ten years," Xing Jiayan said, suddenly accelerating and easily getting past a non-existent defender. He leaped up, flicked his wrist, and the basketball swished cleanly through the net. He landed, turned around, and looked at Fang Chi. "You've only been playing for ten minutes."

The setting sun cast a fuzzy golden glow around him. At that moment, Fang Chi suddenly felt that Xing Jiayan, who shone brightly and confidently on the basketball court, was strangely the same academic genius he knew who calmly deduced problems at his desk and offered sharp commentary online.

"Let's go." Xing Jiayan picked up his school uniform jacket from the ground and draped it over his shoulder. "You're sweating, let's go back and take a shower."

It was evening, in the quiet back row of the classroom.

“abandon, abandon, abandon…” Fang Chi closed the vocabulary book and looked to the side. “Giving up on the first word is not a good omen.”

Xing Jiayan was frowning at a thick English vocabulary outline when she heard this, and without even looking up, she said, "Then change the beginning."

“Sure,” Fang Chi took out the fountain pen engraved with a “Y” from his pencil case, wrote a word on the draft paper, and said, “Try this? Chaos.”

Xing Jiayan glanced at the word, then looked up at Fang Chi, his eyes deep in the light. He picked up his pen and wrote another word beside it: "Yan".

The two looked at the two words side by side on the paper. The only sounds in the classroom were the hum of the overhead lights and the faint whistles from the playground in the distance.

"Let's memorize 'abandon' instead." Fang Chi was the first to look away, his ears getting a little hot, and he reached for the vocabulary book.

Xing Jiayan gently pressed down on his wrist with the end of the pen.

"What's the rush?" He opened his vocabulary book, his tone regaining its usual calm. "From A to Z, in order. I'll read the Chinese, you spell it out."

"Why should you test me?"

“My vocabulary is bigger than yours,” Xing Jiayan said matter-of-factly. “Or, how about we see who misspells it first?”

Here we go again. Fang Chi's competitive spirit was easily ignited: "Come on."

"give up."

“ABANDON.”

"Ability, talent."

“ABILITY.”

"absent."

“ABSENCE.”

...

They read aloud and spelled, their speed increasing, as if they were engaged in a different kind of competition. Occasionally, Fang Chi would stumble, and Xing Jiayan would tap a prompt on the desktop with his pen; sometimes, Xing Jiayan would read an unfamiliar word, and Fang Chi would spell it out accurately.

“Not bad,” Xing Jiayan raised an eyebrow. “You actually know this word?”

"You think everyone's like you, with such a severe imbalance in your studies?" Fang Chi couldn't help but tease him.

Xing Jiayan didn't take it to heart, instead curling the corners of his mouth: "So I need more guidance from Teacher Fang."

Fang Chi was taken aback by the address "Teacher Fang" and urged impatiently, "Next."

The sky outside the window was completely dark, making the classroom lights seem even brighter. They sat side by side at their desks, one leaning lazily against the back of his chair, the other with his back ramrod straight, their shadows cast close together on the wall behind them by the light.

From the sports field to the classroom, from running and jumping to writing quietly, they seemed to be shuttling between two completely different worlds, yet strangely harmonious.

After memorizing a unit, Fang Chi put down his pen and rubbed his slightly sore eyes.

"Tired?" Xing Jiayan closed her vocabulary book.

"It's alright." Fang Chi looked at him. "Your leg is just healed, so don't overdo it."

Xing Jiayan looked at him and suddenly asked, "Did you remember what I taught you today?"

Fang Chi paused for a moment before realizing he was asking about playing ball. "Probably."

"I'll teach you how to shoot next time." Xing Jiayan stood up and stretched his shoulders. "Let's go back."

Fang Chi watched his retreating figure as he walked towards the classroom door, then looked down at the two vocabulary books and the fountain pen engraved with the "Y" on the table.

He suddenly felt that this kind of life, which was so different yet intertwined, seemed... not so bad.

He picked up his pen and book and quickly followed.

(The English class had just ended, and the classroom became noisy.)

"List of students who got all the dictation correct: Xing Jiayan, Li Jing, Wang Zhe..." After the English teacher finished reading the names, hushed discussions broke out in the classroom.

Fang Chi stared at the spelling error circled in red on his dictation notebook—abundance—he had written an extra 'a'.

"Hey, even top student Fang has his day?" He Chen in the front row turned around, grinning. "Which word did you stumble on?"

Before Fang Chi could speak, a soft laugh came from the side.

Xing Jiayan twirled his pen in one hand, the dictation notebook lying open on the table, the bright red "100 points" particularly glaring. He turned his head, raising an eyebrow slightly: "abundance, there's only one n after the u."

Fang Chi pursed his lips, picked up his pen, and tried to erase the mistake.

The nib of the pen was gently pressed down by the end of Xing Jiayan's pen.

"What," Xing Jiayan leaned closer, his voice low and almost breathy, "you're not convinced?"

His breath brushed against Fang Chi's ear, and Fang Chi instinctively wanted to back away, but was stopped by the desk.

"It's just one word." Fang Chi turned his face away.

“Yes, just one word.” Xing Jiayan withdrew, but the end of her pen touched Fang Chi’s dictation notebook, landing right next to the mistake. “But it was this one word that gave me a point more than you.”

A faint smile curved his lips, and his usually nonchalant eyes now held an undisguised arrogance.

Fang Chi finally looked up and stared at him directly: "Xing Jiayan, aren't you being too arrogant?"

“Arrogant?” Xing Jiayan repeated the word, then suddenly laughed. He reached out and lightly traced the perfect “100” on his dictation notebook with his fingertips, then turned to Fang Chi, his gaze intense:

"I have the means to do so."

His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly pierced through the noise of the break between classes, carrying a sense of self-righteous arrogance.

Fang Chi tightened his grip on the pen.

However, the next second, Xing Jiayan suddenly moved closer again. This time, he was even closer, so close that Fang Chi could see the shadow cast by his eyelashes and smell the faint scent of laundry detergent on him.

“And you,” Xing Jiayan’s voice was even lower, like a feather brushing against the tip of my heart, carrying a certain indescribable meaning, “have the ability to make me admit defeat.”

Fang Chi's breathing faltered.

The surrounding noise seemed to vanish instantly. He looked into Xing Jiayan's eyes, which were so close to his own, and saw not just arrogance and provocation, but something deeper and more complex—something he had only vaguely sensed when they discussed difficult problems late at night, or when he received affirmation from "Yan" on the forum.

He Chen gasped, turned around abruptly, and pretended not to have heard anything.

After Xing Jiayan finished speaking, he straightened up as if nothing had happened, picked up the vocabulary book on the table and flipped through it casually, as if the earth-shattering words he had just said had not come from him.

Only the slight redness at the base of his ears betrayed that he was not as calm as he appeared.

Fang Chi stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly picked up a pen and forcefully wrote a word next to the mistake in his dictation notebook:

Challenge.

Then he pushed back his chair, stood up, and looked down at Xing Jiayan:

“Next time there’s a dictation test,” Fang Chi said, “I’ll win it back.”

Xing Jiayan looked up at him, the smile in her eyes deepening:

"Let's wait and see."

Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting long shadows of the two boys facing each other onto the desk covered with formulas and vocabulary.