Chapter Sixty: Sneakers

  After Lin Xiaoyu joined the school basketball team, his strength was also recognized by his teammates. Lin Xiaoyu's selfless playing style is liked by all the players on the court, of course, who doesn't like a player who always gives you good passes when you have a good position and lets you experience the joy of scoring? So Lin Xiaoyu slowly gained very good relationships in the basketball team.

  Although Lin Xiaoyu rarely takes the initiative to score, his occasional shots or breakthroughs have an astonishing hit rate, which also makes everyone in the team secretly admire Lin Xiaoyu's ball skills. Even Xiao Haifeng, who always carries a proud and arrogant attitude, is deeply impressed by Lin Xiaoyu. Because Lin Xiaoyu is the only one in the team who can keep up with his own breakthrough speed, Xiao Haifeng has also been capped by Lin Xiaoyu many times, so he can only choose to shoot from mid-range or pass the ball when facing Lin Xiaoyu's defense, which is not his strong suit. Fortunately, in the team's tactics, Lin Xiaoyu is an organizational guard, while Xiao Haifeng is a scoring guard, and their positions do not overlap. Moreover, under Lin Xiaoyu's offensive organization, Xiao Haifeng's scoring ability has also increased significantly.

  The only person in the team who can slightly restrict Lin Xiaoyu is Zhang Jialin, but when facing Lin Xiaoyu, Zhang Jialin also loses confidence, because in terms of speed, technology and bounce, Zhang Jialin is still a bit worse than Lin Xiaoyu. However, what makes Zhang Jialin better than Lin Xiaoyu is his three-point shot outside the line. In multiple three-point competitions with Lin Xiaoyu after training, Zhang Jialin often wins. As a small forward in the basketball team, Lin Xiaoyu's joining also makes Zhang Jialin more comfortable in this position, and Lin Xiaoyu's passing always allows Zhang Jialin to catch the ball comfortably and shoot. Zhang Jialin really has nothing to say about Lin Xiaoyu, his high school junior brother.

  What Zhang Jialin envied most was Lin Xiaoyu's girlfriend who looked incredibly beautiful. Although Lin Xiaoyu always refused to admit that the beautiful girl was his girlfriend, she would sit in the stands every day and quietly watch him play basketball and train, and accompany him home with a smile on her face. For such a girl, Lin Xiaoyu still wouldn't acknowledge her as his girlfriend, which made no one believe it. Zhang Jialin was the first to not believe it.

  The only one in the basketball team who seems to have a grudge against Lin Xiaoyu is probably the beautiful female manager, Lin Cijie. She appears to be born with a feud against Lin Xiaoyu, and whenever they meet, it always ends with Lin Cijie's low hum. This female manager often creates small troubles for Lin Xiaoyu. For example, when Lin Xiaoyu accidentally throws the ball out of bounds on the court, Lin Cijie will absolutely not help Lin Xiaoyu pick up the ball that is right at her feet and pass it back to Lin Xiaoyu. Lin Cijie always pretends not to see and does her own thing. However, if another player throws the ball out of bounds, Lin Cijie will run over to help pick up the ball and smile as she accurately throws it back into someone else's hands...

  Lin Xiaoyu was also helpless towards the barbaric female manager of this team, and Lin Xiaoyu could only avoid her. Lin Xiaoyu had a question that had always puzzled him, which was why this barbaric girl would have such a gentle name as Lin Cijie?

  After the formal training, a layoff began in the basketball team. Only fifteen people were left in the basketball team. Wang Rui and several other first-year students did not pass the assessment to stay on the team. Now there are only two first-year students, Lin Xiaoyu and Xiao Haifeng, who have basically locked down the main positions with their exceptional skills. The other team members also have no objection to the strength of these two new students, thinking it would be strange if they were not the main force.

  Lin Xiaoyu has been attending basketball training every day recently. The huge amount of exercise is not a difficult thing for Lin Xiaoyu, who has unlimited physical strength, but it is a daily hellish grinding for the basketball shoes on Lin Xiaoyu's feet. Soon, the basketball shoes on Lin Xiaoyu's feet were worn out again.

  Lin Xiaoyu's monthly allowance is not a lot, plus the basketball team's weekly subsidy of 20 yuan, Lin Xiaoyu has more than two hundred yuan a month to spend relatively freely. Lin Xiaoyu has never been a big spender. However, at this rate of breaking a pair of shoes every two months, Lin Xiaoyu's piggy bank is facing a financial crisis.

  Lin Xiaoyu never bought another pair of basketball shoes from Nike or Adidas, those expensive sports brands, after purchasing the first pair of "White Chocolate" Jason Williams' "Storm" authentic basketball shoes. Lin Xiaoyu's parents were ordinary workers, although they lived a relatively affluent life, but a pair of Adidas or Nike shoes would cost almost half a month's salary for her parents. Lin Xiaoyu had grown up and knew that it was not easy for her parents to work hard to earn money, so she no longer asked her parents to buy her good things like she used to when she was young. Lin Xiaoyu knew that neither of her parents had ever worn a pair of shoes more expensive than the "Storm" she bought, and she felt that buying those shoes was a bit extravagant and not quite right.

  In recent years, with the continuous development of basketball, basketball shoes have also appeared more and more in stores. The imitation shoe industry with Chinese characteristics has also gradually entered the market. Lin Xiaoyu also found a suitable pair of shoes here.

  Replica shoes, as the name suggests, are products born out of imitation of genuine basketball shoes. In specialty stores where you'd have to spend hundreds or thousands to buy a pair of shoes, these replica shoe stores offer them at prices ranging from tens to hundreds of yuan. Of course, the quality of these replicas is far inferior to that of genuine shoes, but for ordinary students or basketball enthusiasts who cannot afford to shop in authentic specialty stores, such replica shoe stores are quite a good option.

  The sneakers in the fake shoe store are dazzling, and everything is available. Those sports brands that were fiercely competing on TV with blood and tears are now all on the shelves of a shoe store, and these fake shoe stores have a perfect manifestation of a harmonious society.

  The shoes in imitation shoe stores also have several grades.

  The lowest-end basketball shoes are those with strange and unusual brand names, often combining two or three famous sports brands' names together, such as "Adi-Wang" or "Nike-Wang". These types of shoes are usually the least welcome in counterfeit shoe stores. Because these shoes, like their names, are cobbled together from various sources, but due to limited economic power, the manufacturers of these fake famous-brand shoes do not have the collaboration of high-end designers, resulting in these messy brand shoes being produced and looking like a freak, unlikable by people. Often you will see on these fake brand shoes, next to Adidas' three stripes, an extra five-color hook or a black leopard that looks like both a cat and dog... Anyway, if you carefully observe these roughly-made counterfeit shoes, you will find many unexpected jokes.

  Slightly better are the general fake shoes, which are made by exactly replicating the original shoe, but the materials used for these sneakers are of a lower grade, so the quality is also predictable. However, overall they are much better than those messy and piecemeal brand shoes.

  This knockoff shoe has a fundamental difference from those low-end fake shoes. That is, this knockoff shoe will have some updates in style, and these updates are very likable because they reasonably match the color and style of basketball shoes. Genuine shoes usually only have one or two styles, while knockoffs often have seven or eight different styles, and these knockoff styles all conform to the aesthetic views of people who love basketball, unlike those freak shoes produced by some unknown manufacturers.

  This also makes people admire the businessmen who make such shoes, and they can quietly imitate and surpass them. This is also a great achievement of China's counterfeit industry.

  There is also a file in these fake shoe stores, which is the most expensive shoes.

  These shoes are basically the same as second-tier shoes, but with more exquisite materials and craftsmanship. This type of shoe can almost be mistaken for genuine sneakers. However, there is still a gap between this type of shoe and genuine shoes in terms of materials and some special cutting-edge technologies, although this gap is usually not visible from the outside, but once you take a closer look at the inside of the shoe, it will become very clear.

  Although there is a gap with the real shoes, the comfort of wearing them is definitely not as good as the real ones. However, this shoe is only one-fifth or one-quarter of the price of the real shoes, and it's not bad to be able to buy a pair at such a price. Moreover, you can wear so many pairs of your favorite star sneakers, why not? You know that authentic star sneakers are all above 1,000 yuan, right? So, these replica shoes have naturally gained popularity among the masses.

  Lin Xiaoyu bought this kind of imitation shoes with the best workmanship. The shoe sizes of the imitation shoes are also available, and Lin Xiaoyu's 45th and 46th size shoes can also be found in this imitation shoe store.

  Yan Nan knew that Lin Xiaoyu was going to buy shoes, so she asked Lin Xiaoyu to call her next time when buying things. Lin Xiaoyu only then realized that calling Yan Nan to go shopping together was such a cost-effective thing. A pair of shoes priced at almost three hundred yuan was actually haggled down by Yan Nan, this beautiful girl, to just over one hundred yuan, and she even got the store owner to throw in an extra pair of the best quality shoe insoles, leaving Lin Xiaoyu, who hadn't had a chance to speak up until then, somewhat stunned.

  Yan Nan's beautiful face and sweet voice, combined with her clever words, made even the toughest shop owners turn into a bitter melon in front of her price-killing skills. Lin Xiaoyu thought that Yan Nan was born to be a businesswoman. To know that when Lin Xiaoyu fancied those black and red Jordan 11 basketball shoes, she thought it would be lucky if she could buy them for over two hundred yuan, but after Yan Nan's negotiation, the shop owner almost gave away the shoes for free. Lin Xiaoyu admired Yan Nan with all her heart.

  Yan Nan looked at Lin Xiaoyu's surprised expression, feeling sweet and happy in her heart. She immediately pulled Lin Xiaoyu to buy the lip balm from a women's specialty store, buying one without hesitation that made Lin Xiaoyu gasp at the price.