Everyone looked at Ye Lingchen in disbelief. For a moment, no one knew what to say.
Without even mentioning the dispossession, Ye Lingchen threw the ball back to the opponent. The action was blinding to one’s eyes and was absolutely unprecedented.
No one could say a single word.
That included the Stick Nation’s audience, the foreign audience, and the Stick Nation’s players!
The number 10 player face turned ashen, then paled. He felt humiliated but did not know how to refuse.
Thump, thump, thump!
All of a sudden, the basketball in his hand was bounced on the ground. The echo reverberated and resonated in everyone’s heart, snapping everyone back to their senses.
“Domineering, too motherf*cking domineering! I almost cried!”
“Pride! This is the pride of our China! It’s so exciting, so thrilling!”
“Ah, how can you be so handsome? Ye Lingchen, I want to have baby monkeys with you…”
The entire Chinese audience was sent into a frenzy. At that moment, a heartfelt pride came over them and all they felt was an enthusiasm lingering in their heart, causing them all to have goosebumps!
Basketball had always been a sore point for everyone, and at the mere mention of it, everyone’s faces turned dull. It reached a point where no one sought to win, as long as they were able to go onto the ground and play on an even level with everyone else.
However, Ye Lingchen not only snatched the basketball easily; he even threw it back to the opponent. The kind of disdain and arrogance made everyone fanatical, and no one even dared to think about it in the past.
“That kid…”
Pan Heng raised his hand and wiped the corners of his eyes. He was shedding tears, and he had only ever seen such a scene in his dreams. However, it was actually happening right in front of him!
It had been too long! He waited too long for that day!
“Hahaha, he’s still as arrogant as ever! His self-confidence surpasses everything.” Zhang He could not help but laugh. He looked at Ye Lingchen with hopeful eyes.
He still remembered how Ye Lingchen was the same back at Capital City Stadium. With that crushing attitude, he left everyone speechless.
“Nonsense, this is truly nonsense! There’s only twenty minutes left and we should pay attention to scoring!” Bureau Chief Fang was complaining, but he looked at Ye Lingchen’s eyes with full admiration.
“You’re brave, Brother Ye!” Qian Sen stood on the court and said to Ye Lingchen.
The other players did not move. They merely stood there like bystanders and did not go up to grab the ball.
They had full confidence in Ye Lingchen. At that moment, there were even some players who sympathized with Stick Nation’s players and could sense their dread at Ye Lingchen’s dominance.
“Pick it up and continue!”
Ye Lingchen’s calm voice made player number 10 come to his senses. He looked at Ye Lingchen in exasperation, and with an ashen face, he bent down to pick up the basketball.
“I make sure you regret it!”
After speaking coldly, he continued to dribble with both hands while having his eyes fixed on Ye Lingchen.
The audience turned quiet again and were even afraid to breathe too heavily.
The Chinese hoped to see Ye Lingchen’s heroic character, while the Stick Nation’s people hoped to wipe away all the embarrassment!
Squeak—
The shoes rubbed against the ground and stung everyone’s eardrums. The number 10 player’s face looked extremely serious. He lowered his body as much as he possibly could. He bounced the ball between his palm and the ground. That way, his chances of being intercepted was significantly reduced.
His speed was incredibly fast, and he was no longer careless at that point. Instead, he put on his best state-of-mind and used the method he was most good at to move past Ye Lingchen!
When he arrived in front of Ye Lingchen, his body shook slightly and he faked a move. At the same time, he stared at Ye Lingchen’s every move!
However, he was disappointed because Ye Lingchen had not moved at all since the very beginning.
Pfft!
He snorted but felt extremely uneasy deep down. Just as he was preparing to execute his next move, his hands were empty again!
“How is this possible?” His face paled. He brushed past Ye Lingchen and froze on the spot. Cold sweat was dripping from his forehead!
After barely two encounters, his heart began to tremble. The pressure Ye Lingchen piled onto him was simply too great, like an unconquerable mountain! He had a feeling that he was incapable of moving past Ye Lingchen!
The ball was not slapped away, but rather, it had been taken. Both actions were two different concepts and had vastly different levels of difficulty.
Whoa!
On that occasion, it was not just the Chinese who were in awe—the Stick Nation’s people were too.
“He’s too skilled! He’s really too skilled! Is he still human?!”
“He could even intercept a low dribbling technique. What kind of hand speed is this? What kind of reaction was it? Didn’t he make contact with the opponent?”
“Oh f*ck! Oh f*ck! A ruthless man exists in our great Chinese basketball! Praise and glory!”
“He’s more ruthless than a ruthless man. He’s a werewolf!”
“Werewolf? Haha, I think he’s wolf-fire[1]!”
In addition to the Chinese language, foreign languages were uttering madly too.
“OH MY GOD, HE IS Superman!”
“SO COOL!”
“Chinese is so BT[2]!”
The audience had reached a boiling point and there was a lot of noise!
It was no longer a question of nationality, but pure respect for the strong. A basketball prodigy like him could receive the admiration of anyone.
“One more time!”
Ye Lingchen glanced at the dispirited number 10 player and continued to speak.
The number 10 player held the ball in his hand and was completely speechless. All he felt was that Ye Lingchen’s figure grew mightier and mightier in his eyes, to the point where it struck fear in him.
“Scared already? Then… What about you?” Ye Lingchen saw the opponent remaining quiet for some time and turned to look at the other Stick Nation players.
They looked at each other with horror in their eyes. A few of them stepped back instinctively.
Two simple moves crushed all of Stick Nation’s players. No one expected the condescending Stick Nation players would become so timid in such a short time. That timidness came straight from inside their heart.
“Don’t mind him! Shoot!”
At that moment, the number 10 player’s face was dull, but he shouted out loud and raised his hand to toss the basketball over!
Thump!
Another baseball player jumped up, caught the ball, then lowered his head and ran frantically toward the hoop!
“Basketball is not a game for one person! It’s a scoring game! We’ve won this game! We’ve won! With this kind of score, how could you possibly catch up with us?!” Player number 10 seemed to have gone mad as he roared with reddened eyes.
His words made everyone’s heartbeat quicken.
“Shameless!”
“Tsk! He can only show-off for a short while now. If he had entered the game earlier, we would’ve long won it!”
“It doesn’t matter, China’s basketball is going to make headway!”
The Chinese scolded and sneered.
“Sigh, such a pity!” Bureau Chief Fang sighed but looked at Ye Lingchen with a smile. “But… this guy really has character, hahaha…”
He had overwhelmed his opponents’ psyche, and as for winning or losing the game, everyone knew that it was no longer important.
The audience watched as the player dribbled past other players in a flash and reached the Chinese team’s basketball hoop…
[1] 狠人,狼人,狼火 – this expression is rather difficult to translate into English, but an attempt will be made to aid readers in understanding this. The commonly used saying is that 狼人比狠人更狠一点 (狼人 = werewolf; 比 = compared to; 狠人 = ruthless man; 更狠 = more ruthless; 一点 = slightly), thus giving rise to ‘A werewolf is slightly more ruthless compared to a ruthless man’. However, the phrase 一点, while translated as ‘slightly’, can also be taken literally as ‘one dot’—a comparison of 狠 (ruthless) and 狼 (wolf) reveals that there is one extra ‘dot’ in the character for wolf. Moving on to 狼火 (= literally, ‘wolf-fire’), it has another 2 extra ‘dots’ compared to 狼人 (火 vs 人) and three more compared to 狠人, thus signifying that a ‘wolf-fire’ u003e ‘werewolf’ u003e ‘ruthless man’. Hopefully this makes more sense!
[2] The phrase ‘BT’ is taken from the initials of 变态 (biàn tài), which can be used to mean pervert or abnormal. In this case, we can take it to mean that, “The Chinese are such freaks!”