Chapter Seven This time it was me who got emotional

  The last class in the afternoon is self-study as usual.

  Han Dengyun suddenly woke up Yan Lingfeng, who was dozing off, and whispered: "I know why the school is making such a big deal about this basketball game!"

  Yan Lingfeng rubbed his sleepy eyes, somewhat dissatisfied that his beautiful dream had been startled awake by this big fool. He glared at Han Dengyun with a hint of anger and said, "Can't you wait for me to wake up before talking?"

  Han Dengyun said with a bit of grievance: "I can only tell you, otherwise I'll feel suffocated."

  Yan Lingfeng looked around and saw that Sun Feiying and Tian Hui, Zhao Senming and Qin Xuedan were all seated several rows away, exchanging notes with each other and completely ignoring him. Fu Zijun's seat was empty as well.

  Yan Lingfeng could only helplessly withdraw his gaze and let out a long sigh, saying: "Then speak."

  Han Dengyun didn't say anything and just handed over a newspaper.

  Yan Lingfeng took it over, just about to spread it on the desk to see what was going on, and he also found it a bit strange. Water Cloud No. 1 Middle School had always been strict with learning and teaching quality, so there was no reason to make such a big fuss about organizing a basketball game that would consume energy and possibly affect students' enthusiasm for learning.

  Just as he was about to study carefully, the keen eyes caught a glimpse of the pig demon hiding outside the window. Yan Lingfeng gave a light cough, which served as a warning signal to his companions. With a calm expression, he put the newspaper into the desk drawer and casually pulled out a book from the desk, flipped it open, and lowered his head to ponder.

  Received the warning signal sent by Yan Lingfeng, Sun Feiyang and Zhao Senming also cooperated to sit up straight, Sun Feiyang casually flipped open a workbook, as if there was something strange, buried his head in solving problems, Zhao Senming pulled out a language textbook, had no choice but to flip to an ancient text section to copy on the notebook, Han Dengyun looked at Fu Zijun's empty seat with sympathy, shook his head and prayed for him.

  The pig demon walked around the classroom, stopped for a moment at Fu Zijun's empty seat and said to Han Dengyun: "When he comes back, tell him to come find me in my office after breakfast tomorrow."

  Han Dengyun nodded slightly in agreement, and Zhu Yao turned around and walked out.

  Until the pig demon's line of sight left his own line of sight, Yan Lingfeng didn't relax in the slightest. The experience summed up from the struggles of his past life was now all precious wealth. Yan Lingfeng remembered very clearly that the pig demon was most skilled at "turning back to shoot". Just when you thought he had already left the classroom far behind, he would appear in front of you from an unthinkable angle, and then expressionlessly take away the miscellaneous book or mobile phone you were fiddling with, leaving behind a sentence in a soft voice: "Let your parents come tomorrow."

  After a while, Yan Lingfeng, who estimated that the danger would not come, took out the newspaper and put it in front of his eyes. The headline on the first page was shocking: Basketball should start from babies!

  Yan Lingfeng sneered, and Grandpa Deng's sentence "Computers should be grasped from childhood" resulted in countless hackers emerging on the vast land of China. This time, they're grabbing basketballs; will a large number of disabled people emerge as well?

  After reading the article carefully, it says: "We have the world's number one center, why can't we enter the top eight in the world? The defeat in Athens made countless Chinese people clench their fists and sigh, including state leaders. He painfully believes that China's basketball foundation is too weak, and to revitalize Chinese basketball, we must start with young people. According to the instructions of the State Council, the Chinese Basketball Association, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, CCTV, Nike Company, and other organizations jointly launched the first Nike Cup Chinese High School Basketball League, abbreviated as CHBA (separate from CHBL). The purpose of CHBA is to promote basketball throughout the country and select excellent young players for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This competition covers all regions, and the Ministry of Education has officially issued a notice that schools with outstanding achievements in regional, provincial, and national competitions will receive different awards. This move will greatly mobilize the enthusiasm of schools across the country to participate in this competition. The league started in October and lasted for three months, selecting teams from each region. In March next year, provincial-level competitions will begin, and the top two teams from each province will enter the national finals. The national competition does not have a north-south division, except for Taiwan Province. The 66 teams that entered the national finals will be randomly selected to participate in a knockout tournament, with the losers eliminated. After the top 64 teams are determined, they will compete in a knockout match at the Beijing Shougang Stadium. At the same time, CCTV Sports Channel will broadcast the entire national competition and selectively broadcast provincial-level competitions. Our newspaper will also follow up on CHBA's events. The MVP of the first CHBA will have the opportunity to participate in Nike's global basketball summer camp. In addition, this competition will strictly investigate cheating incidents. If there are cases of age falsification or borrowing professional basketball players, the Chinese Basketball Association will jointly punish the offending schools with the Ministry of Education!"

  This newspaper is the vanguard of basketball, and it explains in detail the reasons for the recent turmoil at school, which involves the reputation of the school. Those old men have no reason not to be nervous. In recent years, Water Cloud Fourth Middle School has been eyeing the throne of Water Cloud City's First High School, gradually catching up in terms of college entrance examination scores and daily teaching management. If this basketball game achieves better results than No. 1 Middle School in Yantai area, will the reputation of No. 1 Middle School be greatly surpassed? It's really hard to say.

  Yan Lingfeng from 10 years later was very clear that basketball games can bring a lot of fame to the school, such as Huaqiao University, which became known nationwide with the help of CUBA's east wind. This famous school, built under Premier Zhou's care in Quanzhou, has seen its exposure rate increase dramatically, and many high school graduates may think of "Huaqiao" when filling out their college applications.

  Yan Lingfeng pinched this newspaper that would never have appeared in his past life and fell into deep thought.

  At the same time, Shu Yun No. 1 Middle School basketball court.

  "Ninety-seven out of ninety-one, ninety-eight out of ninety-two, ninety-nine out of ninety-three, one hundred out of ninety-four! And also, my three-point shot is even more accurate now!" Under the sunset glow, a long-haired boy covered in sweat excitedly shouted, who was none other than Fu Zijun, who had just disappeared from the classroom.

  Fu Zijun, although he teased Han Dengyun as a silly big guy all day, his height also reached an astonishing 1.91 meters among his peers. Fu Zijun stroked the basketball thoughtfully and said: "There's still some time before class is over, what should I do? Shoot a few three-pointers, forget it, shooters rely on feeling to shoot, practicing for a while won't make much difference. Ling Feng can dunk at 1.83 meters, I'm eight centimeters taller than him, why not give it a try?"

  He did so, Fu Zijun wiped the sweat from his forehead, walked to the middle circle, took a deep breath, kissed the dirty basketball, stared at the hoop, shouted loudly to cheer himself up, and rushed towards the hoop with the ball.

  With a loud "bang", the basketball bounced off the rim and flew out directly, Fu Zijun also received a strong rebound, and fell straight down from mid-air.

  "Ow!" Fu Zijun rubbed his butt and slowly got up from the ground, slightly moving his sore butt, feeling no major problem, gritted his teeth and slowly walked towards the rolling basketball.

  He ran again, and Fu Zijun seemed to hear the sound of the wind, his long hair was blown back, this time Fu Zijun learned from last time's lesson, he stretched out his hands with all his might, tightly grasping the basket, unfortunately the basketball flew out disobediently.

  "Alas, is dunking really that difficult? My jumping ability isn't bad either......" Fu Zijun slowly let go of the rim and landed on the ground, staring at the swaying basket as he pondered: "My jumping ability should be enough, I can grab the rim with both hands, but why does the ball fly out? Hmm, it's still because my fingers are a bit too long, not powerful enough, holding onto the rim means neglecting the ball, and holding onto the ball means not being able to hold onto the rim. This is really a pretty frustrating thing!"

  "If there was someone to help me throw the basketball in the air, would I be able to dunk it better? Never mind, let's try and see." Fu Zijun thought this way, but when he looked up, he looked around and found that the basketball court was empty. The school spirit of No. 1 Middle School was still very strict, who dared to come and play basketball during self-study class except for a rookie like Fu Zijun?

  "Ah, I'll just wait a bit longer until the end of class. Maybe I can get Ling Feng or Sen Ming to help me!" Just as Fu Zijun was about to give up, he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be someone sitting on the distant track's bleachers.

  "Hey, the sky won't abandon me." Fu Zijun immediately ran over with a smile, and only when he got closer did he realize it was a long-haired girl, quietly sitting in the stands watching the sunset in a daze. The golden light spilled on her body, dyeing her like a goddess far away from worldly troubles. Fu Zijun couldn't help but hesitate, he didn't want to destroy such a harmonious beauty, but thinking of his slam dunk dream, he gritted his teeth and walked over, softly calling out: "Hey, hello, can you help me with something?"

  The girl slowly turned her head and pointed at herself, asking: "Are you calling me?"

  If Fu Zijun were to answer according to his usual playful and irreverent personality, he would definitely joke and say "Is there anyone else beside you?", but today he was unusually serious, nodding repeatedly: "Uh-huh, uh-huh."

  The girl's appearance was still a bit far away, not very clear, but her voice was like the oriole bird, with an indescribable gentle and pleasant tone, crisp and subtle, with a certain pleasant melody. Fu Zijun didn't know yet that saying this voice would linger for three days was an understatement, in the future, for a long time, this voice became the most beautiful music in his mind.

  The girl stood up from the platform and walked slowly towards Fu Zijun. Fu Zijun, who had already been stunned by her beautiful voice, was even more enchanted when he saw her face clearly. She was about 1.7 meters tall, wearing a white long dress, with long hair draped over her shoulders, elegant and refined, yet fresh and lively.

  "What can I do for you?" The girl's voice slowly sounded in Fu Zijun's ear, and Fu Zijun was stunned for a moment. He asked his heart: "Can you go to the basketball court over there? I want to dunk, but I've tried twice by myself without success. I'd like to ask you to throw the ball up for me, maybe then I'll be able to succeed."

  The girl nodded and said: "Oh, I see. Okay, but I'm not good at playing basketball, don't blame me if I throw it badly."

  Fu Zijun immediately shook his head and said, "It won't happen. I'd be eternally grateful if you could help me with this favor. Why would I blame you? Let's go now?"

  On the way to the basketball court, Fu Zijun couldn't help but ask: "Why aren't you self-studying in class?"

  The girl smiled lightly and said: "I'm only borrowing a middle school for a short period of time, the head teacher knows about this situation. So I won't have that many restrictions."

  "Oh." Fu Zijun just nodded, after all, they hadn't known each other for long, and some topics weren't suitable to discuss too deeply.

  Arriving at the basketball court, Fu Zijun handed the basketball over to the girl and said, "I'm counting on you."

  As he walked near the center line, Fu Zijun stretched his muscles and took a deep breath, shouting: "Ready!"

  Seeing the girl nod, Fu Zijun stepped out with a solid pace towards the basket, getting faster and faster. As he approached the basket, his feet heavily stomped on the ground, and he leaped into the air. The girl had already thrown the ball high up in the sky. When Fu Zijun reached the highest point in mid-air, he just managed to catch the falling basketball. Without thinking twice, he exerted force with both hands and slammed the ball heavily into the hoop.

  "Yes! I can dunk now! Ling Feng, I won't let you be the only one to look good!" Fu Zijun exclaimed excitedly after landing, clenching his fists and shouting towards the sky, while the girl simply stood beside him, smiling lightly at the agitated boy.

  Maybe he had shouted hoarsely, Fu Zijun finally stopped and smiled apologetically at the girl beside him: "Sorry, I lost my composure, hehe, first dunk, a little excited."

  The girl said faintly: "It's okay, I can understand. Just like the first time I played 'Moonlight Sonata' perfectly, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep all night."

  Fu Zijun picked up the ball with a silly smile and put it in his bag, asking: "Isn't class almost over? Let's head back together?"

  The two of them left the playground side by side and walked towards the teaching building.

  Fu Zijun had slowly regained his composure from the initial shock, and smiled as he said: "Thanks a lot today, I'm Fu Zijun from Class 8 of '04. Do me a favor and let me treat you to dinner?"

  The girl smiled and shook her head: "No way, I want to go home for dinner. Hmm, my name is Liu Zhiwei, also from the class of 2004, I'm in Class 6."

  Fu Zijun secretly remembered this name, wiped away his sweat and said: "Then how can I repay your great kindness? Do you want me to bite the grass and make a ring?"

  Liu Zhiwei lightly said, "Looking at your oily mouth and slippery tongue, you don't seem like a well-behaved child. Mom told me to stay away from bad boys, so I'll keep my distance from you." After finishing speaking, she symbolically took a small step back in the direction away from Fu Zijun.

  "My grades are among the top five in our class, I'm not a bad kid. By the way, you go to the playground alone every day?"

  Liu Zhiwei nodded and said, "Mmm, I like to go there to watch the sunset. It's soft and gentle, not dazzling at all. I think this is the most beautiful time of the sun. In the morning, it's too cold, and at noon, it's too glaring. Only the sunset gives me a warm feeling. I also use the sunset to remind myself to treat people and things with a tolerant heart."

  Fu Zijun pouted and said discontentedly, "Then you're not lenient with me at all. From now on, I'll accompany you to watch the sunset during the last self-study class every day, okay?"

  "I'm going to class, bye, Zijun!" Liu Ziyu didn't respond and left Fu Zijun with a gentle back view as she walked into the classroom of Class 6, Grade 4.

  Fu Zijun's soul didn't guard the house and returned to the classroom, when he sat down, his mouth was still muttering something to himself. Han Dengyun leaned over and patted him on the shoulder, saying: "Hey, brother, you won the prize! Zhu Xiong asked me to pass on a message to you, tomorrow after breakfast go to the office to receive your punishment!"

  Fu Zijun didn't hear what the silly big guy said at all, his eyes were blankly staring out of the window, he didn't know what he was thinking about, or maybe in his heart he was loudly singing "This time I fell in love".