Chapter 155: Shiratorizawa vs. Fukuda Comprehensive (Including 300 Lei extra) ^^…

On the day of the semifinals, Xinghai wore new clothes he hadn't worn before, and even borrowed a new hat from Hakuba, even though it was a bit too big for him. Without adjusting the straps, he looked a bit like a child stealing an adult's clothes. To use Hirugami's words, Xinghai was—

"I'm being too cautious." Guanglai used to attach great importance to the fact that standing up hair makes one look taller, but now he actually uses a hat to disguise himself. To some extent, Jiancheng-kun is also very good at this aspect, and he can actually make Guanglai take the initiative to transform his image, Hirugami thought.

However, Xinghai himself refuted his words: "You don't understand, Jiancheng is super weird."

Hirugami smiled. They arrived at the stadium quite early, and many spectators from the previous game had not left yet. However, some of them wanted to stay and continue watching Shiratorizawa's game. Although there were empty seats in the front row, Xinghai obviously didn't want to be discovered, so he dragged Hirugami to stand in a corner of the stands where he would definitely not be noticed.

"Anyway, there's a big screen where I can see the details clearly." Xinghai crossed his arms, looking very decisive.

"But after all, you don't really hate Kenjo-kun, do you?" Hirugami said. "Why wouldn't you want to be seen?"

Xinghai: "I don't hate it, but it has nothing to do with that."

He leaned over the railing, his face flattened by his arms. His eyes were round, and when he looked at people, they reminded people of birds. "Jiancheng is too perceptive."

After the match between Shiratorizawa and Oudai, he took out something from somewhere and wanted to give it to him, with the strange reason being "he looked very sad". Of course he would feel sad after losing, but he is not someone who can't afford to lose. Jiancheng is really childish in the way he behaves.

After hearing Xinghai's reasoning, Hirugami rubbed his chin and asked, "So it's because you're shy?"

Xinghai: ...

Xinghai: "Huh? How is that possible?" His expression wrinkled like a dry orange peel, "What do you mean?"

Hirugami said nothing more and changed the subject, "But it's still surprising that Kozaka lost."

To be honest, he had thought that Kosaka would definitely win, after all, they had Kiryu there, and their blocking ability was not weak. On the contrary, Fukuda was not so outstanding, but the result was unexpected.

"Kiryu, as the ace, had a lot of psychological pressure," Xinghai said. "Fukuda played very sticky, and Kozaka was dragged into the net in the end."

"It does look like a spider," Hirugami understood what Xinghai meant. "But even a spider wouldn't be able to survive against a large bird like Shiratorizawa."

“…”

Xinghai paused unexpectedly. The location they had chosen was very dim, and the ceiling light could only vaguely illuminate the position of his hands. "We can't win the game and then lose to someone playing like this."

As if to affirm himself, Xinghai nodded, pulled himself away a little, and his eyes were unexpectedly firm, "If we don't win the championship, Jiancheng will be finished."

Hirugami:......

I don’t know how you get along with each other, and what exactly does Guanglai have to do to destroy Shiratorizawa’s very tall setter? Hirugami doesn’t quite understand.

After saying this rather handsome sentence, the hat on Xinghai's head slipped, covering his bright eyes.

Xinghai was silent for a few seconds, then took off Bai Ma's hat, revealing his unruly white hair. "Yasheng, this hat is of such poor quality."

"...I don't think that's the reason." Hirugami said silently.

"?"

Unlike the two people from Oudai who came to watch the game, as a good classmate of Kenjo Shinichi (at least Miya Yu himself thinks so), Inarizaki's competition venue happened to be next to Shiratorizawa this time, so they were also in the same venue during warm-up.

Even though they didn't fight, Gong You's fighting spirit was inexplicably high. While changing clothes, he was still muttering something like he was definitely going to take revenge this time.

Miyaji's reaction to this hot-blooded idiot is—

"Let's defeat Jingtashan first." Although they are not the opponent in this round, they are in a different half of the zone from Shiratorizawa this time. If they want to fight him, they must first step over Jingtashan's corpse.

"Isn't this very energetic?" Akagi laughed twice. "Ayou has reached this age too."

“…”

What age is he? Alan complained silently in his heart. If it is the age of a fool, then Gong You may have never been out of the womb. However, there is another possibility that Miya Osamu took away the part of Gong You's intelligence when he was growing up, so he looks particularly stupid.

But he only thinks about it in his heart. If he speaks it out loud, he will definitely get into big trouble (referring to Gong Yoo)

Miyaji suddenly sneezed.

Gong You gave him a strange look and said, "Don't catch a cold and infect me." Suddenly, he remembered something and thought, "This is what Sakuhaya meant by the air being full of germs."

“…”

Miyaji: "Then don't infect me with your own stupid germs," ​​he said with a mocking smile, "This is an incurable disease."

He had just changed his shoes after he finished speaking, jumped a bit, and walked towards Kita Shinsuke without looking back, leaving Miya You with the back of his head.

Gong You:?

He quickly put on his clothes and shoes, then quickly chased after the twin brothers and grabbed their necks, gritting his teeth and saying, "What do you mean?"

However, Gong Zhi was a little stronger than Gong You, and he quickly pried Gong You's hands apart. "It's the one you thought of."

Gong You was silent.

Gong You squatted down and shouted, "Are you a super-strong gorilla?!"

Damn Zhu Zhi, you know, a setter's hands are very valuable! Gong You decided to complain later. He hadn't decided who to complain to yet, and it depended on who he didn't offend in the end.

Senmi, who passed by and saw everything: ...

Semi turned his head to look at Kenjo Shinichi, who was following behind him and seemed surprisingly well-behaved at this time. He thought that sometimes contrast really brings out good moods. Kenjo didn't seem to be very noisy, at least much better than the twins who were fighting before the game.

farmer:?

The farmer tilted his head: "What's wrong?"

Senmi straightened his head and then placed the volleyball in Kenjo Shinichi's hand: "Go warm up by yourself."

farmer:……

Although he sometimes couldn't understand what the people around him were thinking, he would still do what they told him to do. So he walked to the side with the ball, and was then pulled over by Tiantong who found it funny to keep him company.

"Kenjo is indeed a good boy sometimes." Seto sighed.

However, if other people heard this, they would probably say that this was Setami's own filter, and that Kensho and others were no different.

——Neither of them is much better.

*

"As expected, I still have to face Shiratorizawa's support in the end..." Ikeda sighed. To be honest, he didn't sleep very well last night. The result of playing three games with Kojisaka was that his muscles were a little sore, but it was within the acceptable range. After all, this was the third day of Spring High School, and no one would be feeling well.

I heard shouts of "Shiratorizawa! Shiratorizawa!" and after they appeared in the venue, they changed their cheering words very flexibly.

"Today's opponent is - Futian Comprehensive!"

“Please give me more advice!!!”

Ikeda:……

I don't want to run into any of them even when I'm just being polite and supporting them. Please give me some advice. In the end, they were the only ones giving me advice. Ikeda sighed again.

"Captain, please cheer up a bit." Xuecun hit him on the back. "You're not going to die."

"It's almost like death," Bingye said, "We're facing Shiratorizawa."

"...We beat Kozaka yesterday." Yukimura said weakly, "Not bad, huh?"

"But during the training camp, our success rate against Shiratorizawa was only half in four games." Uchiyama Rui, who had been silently observing Shiratorizawa's cheerleading, rolled his eyes. His skin was a little pale - a sequelae of a previous illness, and there was a strange, sickly feeling when he looked at people. "Now it seems we're still going to lose."

Xuecun covered his abdomen and said, "Stop talking. My stomach hurts a little."

"Super lame."

"Just do better than the top-ranked team in Kanagawa this year," main attacker Ishikawa stretched out his arms. "I think the coach is very happy."

The attention of Fukuda and the others all shifted to Coach Amano, who was smiling happily, and Assistant Coach Xiang Kai, who was talking to him.

Seeing that they were all staring at him, Coach Amano was confused for a few seconds and then laughed even harder, as if his smile could dispel the darkness. Coach Xiangkai's expression was much more serious, although he was frowning.

"Warm up well and keep going." Coach Xiangkai glanced at them and then started discussing the arrangements for returning to school.

Futian General: ...

"It's hopeless," libero Sakuma said decisively. "The coach doesn't think we can win at all."

"...They didn't feel it yesterday, did they?" Ishikawa moved his wrist.

"Actually, they've been like this since Kanagawa got Inarizaki first," Rui said expressionlessly. "What is this, pure hatred?"

“…” I don’t understand the grudge between these adults.

The last few people looked at each other and decided to give up the option of communicating with the coach. Anyway, they had been in charge of command since the beginning of the game, and adults were sometimes useless.

"Let's warm up first, the game will start soon." Ikeda said. He turned his head to look at the banner of his home, then changed the hand holding the volleyball, lifted it up and slammed it out in one breath.

The background color of Futian General School's banner is black, and the text on it is "明日は明日の風が吹く", which literally means leave tomorrow's affairs to tomorrow's wind. It sounds quite literary, but what their coach means is that tomorrow's affairs should be left to tomorrow. It can also be changed to a shorter "Focus on the present". To be honest, this is completely different from the style when Gyoyue was there. I don't know how the former director resisted and didn't tell the school that he wanted to change it.

But ultimately, they were focused on the present. As long as they could figure out how to win, no matter the outcome, they had tried their best. Ikeda slowly exhaled and shouted, "Pass the ball to me."

"Captain sometimes gets too passionate." Unprepared, his eyelids drooped.

"There's nothing wrong with this." Xuecun smiled, "Don't you always think the captain is like a brother?"

"……ha?"

In response, he received a distorted look on the face of the team's setter.

*

“Please give me some advice—!”

This time the sound was not from the cheering team. They bowed to each other under the lights on the ceiling, and then the captains of both teams tossed a coin to decide the order of serving.

Inarizaki from the team next door had just started warming up and had time to glance at them out of the corner of his eye. One of the famous twins was still yelling that he had just forgotten to talk to the setter Shiratorizawa.

Setter Shiratorizawa stood opposite him.

Although they were both setters, Kenjo Shinichi was obviously more than a head taller than him, and the other party's temperature was much higher than his when they shook hands. His tired hand was held for a moment and then released.

"Please give me your guidance." After the chorus, the setter Shiratorizawa said politely and quickly in a low voice.

Lei was stunned for a moment, then replied in the same tone: "It's the same here."

Afterwards, when we dispersed and returned to our seats at the side, I could still feel that strange feeling while being tired.

"...He looked at me like I was a person." When Ikeda announced to cheer each other up, Rui suddenly said this, startling his teammates. Then, a little nervously, they asked Rui what was going on. Was he provoked? But when their eyes turned to Bingye standing next to Rui, they only saw Bingye's confused expression.

"I didn't hear it."

"No," Lei continued, "He looked at me like I was something strange, something not human."

The eyes of my teammates were full of words such as "Isn't that even weirder?"

Tired finally gave up explaining.

...It feels completely different from the training camp. I was tired and thought to myself.

*

"Fukuda General's momentum is completely different from the previous time we met them," Shirabu said, "but we also watched yesterday's game, so it shouldn't be a big problem."

Shirabu wasn't someone who could predict the outcome of a match beforehand, but that's changed a bit now. The coach's plan has also been adjusted based on the opponent. Shirabu isn't planning to play in the first game, and will be replaced by main attacker Soekawa. "The coach wants to play Wuyi first."

"Okay." Jiancheng nodded, and he finally came back to his senses from that slightly confused state.

Tendou came closer, "Are you nervous, Shinichi-kun?"

"No." A concise sentence followed by a gaze fixed on him: "Come on, senior."

Tian Chuan:......

If he didn't understand Kenjo's omissions, no matter how strong he was, he'd have a hard time getting a regular start in schools where relationships between seniors and juniors weren't good, Soegawa couldn't help but think. And while they might say nice things now, they'll use them hard on the court later. Soegawa took a deep breath. He hadn't played in the first game very often since Kenjo Shinichi joined the volleyball team, but thanks to the coach's brutal training, they were able to keep up with Kenjo.

Without that kind of stamina and endurance, catching the ball from Kenjo can be quite painful. Soegawa exhaled, but thankfully, they were now fully formed Shiratorizawa, so they could just jump as much as they wanted.

"come on--!"

Fingers together, loud voices, players quickly enter the field.

It was a short pre-match session, but I feel pretty calm now.

Futian comprehensive outside hitter Xuecun serves.

stands.

"I hadn't noticed before," Qingyuan (Hyotei's outside hitter) said. Although Hyotei didn't make it to Spring High School this time, he still came to watch the game. After all, the national youth team was only a few days away, but he had a good relationship with Xinghai and Jiancheng. So after learning in advance on his phone that Xinghai would also stay to watch the semi-finals, Qingyuan came over without saying a word, carrying his bag. "Fukuda Soso's outside hitter isn't very tall."

Qing Yuan pinched his chin and squinted his eyes to estimate: "He looks about 1.7 meters tall, about 175cm?"

Xinghai frowned immediately upon hearing this: "Being short doesn't mean anything, does it?"

Qing Yuan waved his hand. "Sorry, sorry, that's not what I meant. I'm just a little surprised." He scratched his cheek. "Generally speaking, unless there are exceptions like Guang Lai, everyone prefers tall players."

At least none of Hyotei High School's recent secondary attackers are shorter than 180cm. By the way, the same goes for Shutoku, and there's another two meters taller in Yangquan... Really, Qingyuan sighed, "I want to grow taller too."

Xinghai snorted, "Being short is just a disadvantage, not a reason for not being able to fight well."

"That's right," Qing Yuan said with a guilty conscience. He was the same person who had looked down on Xing Hai and ended up with a "shocked expression." "So I was just sighing, sighing."

"While Yukimura's serve isn't the kind that makes people exclaim 'amazing' the moment they see it,'" Hirugami said, "it's the kind that paves the way for Fukuda's overall score."

As soon as he finished speaking, the commentator on the scene exclaimed.

"The first pass wasn't in place!" the commentator's voice sounded regretful. "Ohira could have scored with that shot."

"Such precise ball control." Hyotei and Fukuda's relationship wasn't exactly close; their practice matches in recent years had been arranged when Gyoyue was around. "He was actually able to disrupt Shiratorizawa's first pass."

"Still heading towards the free men."

Although Kenjo was in the number one position today, the serve was not in the hands of Shiratorizawa. Ushijima next to him was in the number six position, and the libero Yamagata was in the number five position. Although he could have adjusted the attack in the back row with the first pass, the ball had already flown to the front of the net. After being blocked by Soekawa with difficulty, Ohira's spike failed to score, and instead was seized by Fukuda Soso.

The setter took a step forward and passed the ball to the main attacker Ishikawa with a hook shot. Then Ishikawa made a precise straight ball. As a result, the team was unable to make up for the position in time and temporarily fell behind 1:0.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Tendo patted Daping's shoulder, "This is just the beginning."

“…”

Xuecun served for the second time.

"I've been wanting to say this before," said Nakagawa (Yangquan's secondary attacker), who stopped by to take a look before the match between Xiaogu and Yangquan, the second of the morning. "Fukuda Soso seems to really like targeting people who make mistakes."

——Xuecun’s second ball was aimed at Ohira Shion, who had just made a mistake in spiking.

"Psychological warfare is also common in competitions," the tall boy standing next to him said after taking a look. "Shiratorizawa's setter also uses it."

"..." Nakagawa sighed, "I really don't know whether you think highly of Jianchengjun or simply deify him."

Dobson smiled and said nothing more. "We should go."

I don't know when Inarizaki will finish the first match, but they have to go warm up first, so just coming over to take a look will be enough.

"Hi hi." Nakagawa followed reluctantly.

On the court, the game was going on in full swing. Xuecun's serve was received by Ohira and flew towards Futian Comprehensive.

"Chance shot--!" Ikeda shouted as he backed away.

Xuecun followed up to prevent the front row from being left open after the ball was hit back. Although he was not tall, he was also a part of the blocking.

Ikeda received the ball and passed it to the setter Lei, who then passed it to No. 4 Bingye.

"How fast is the back hit at this distance?!"

Someone in the audience exclaimed.

But it was obvious that a pair of hands appeared in the path of Bingye's spike first - predicted block, Xinghai, who was witnessing this ball in the stands, silently thought to himself.

After blocking the ball, Tiantong's eyes widened and a smile appeared on the corners of his mouth, as if to declare that this road was blocked.

Futian's serve was interrupted.

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The author has something to say: I will write faster (lie down) if I finish writing, I will also update it tomorrow.