Qian Wei wanted to say something more, but Qian Chuan quickly grabbed her arm. “Qian Wei, Lu Xun already said he needs to study—how can you shamelessly interrupt him just because I’ve got a basketball game? You can’t hold back someone’s ambition like that!” Having said this, he pivoted smoothly. “Besides, having Zixin and you guys cheer for me is more than enough, because every single one of you means the world to me!”

Watching Qian Chuan’s smug expression, Qian Wei felt genuinely pained on his behalf. Lu Xun, Lu Xun—you’re ruining your own chances here! After holding such a winning hand following today’s competition, you’ve managed to smash it to pieces in mere minutes!

Qian Chuan’s basketball game was at four o’clock, as the sun began to set—not too hot, not too cold. Qian Wei had bought several bags of sunflower seeds and snacks early on, then followed Liu Shiyun, Mo Zixin, and Mo Tao to the basketball court.

Qian Chuan, in his loose jersey, was already on the court dribbling to warm up. He was clearly determined to show off in front of Mo Zixin today, not even holding back on burning energy before the game officially started—he strung together several flashy dunks. His movements were clean and effortless, and combined with his tall, striking build, he quickly became the center of attention on the court. Qian Wei realized then that his claim about having no cheer squad had been completely false—plenty of girls watching the game were calling out his name.

“Qian Chuan! Qian Chuan! Go! Go!”

Hearing his name called, the young man occasionally tilted his head to glance toward Qian Wei’s group, wiping away sweat with a brilliant grin.

The October breeze carried the fragrance of osmanthus blossoms. Qian Wei sat on the grass outside the court, watching Qian Chuan run across the field, feeling a bit dazed, a bit enchanted. How nice, she thought—this was youth.

The whole game was quite something to watch, since as a practice match, the university’s basketball team had been split into two squads to scrimmage against each other. Though Lu Xun had raised Qian Wei’s standards for handsome men, she had to admit there were plenty of other guys on the court worth watching too.

Since they were all teammates who knew each other well, the game had a natural rhythm—competitive scrambles for the ball alternating with helping hands extended after a fall. The two teams were closely matched, trading points back and forth, and Qian Chuan was performing exceptionally well, grabbing several rebounds in a row and landing two beautiful dunks. The atmosphere on the court was intense, and outside it, the girls cheered enthusiastically for their favorite players.

Everything seemed perfect—until those students from another school showed up.

Besides the other major universities near A University’s college town, there were also a few vocational high schools nearby. Since A University had the best athletic facilities among them, students from other schools occasionally came to use its courts. But no one had expected that today’s visitors would be students from the vocational high school next door.

“That guy in front with the tattoo on his arm—he went to my high school. His name’s Zhao Peng. He got held back multiple grades in high school for fighting, then went to vocational school and fell in with an even worse crowd. I heard he even stabbed someone with a knife once and got arrested…”

As if to confirm the girl’s words, several of Zhao Peng’s underlings started shoving Qian Chuan’s teammates on the court.

“Everyone clear out, our boy Peng’s playing here today.”

They were all hot-blooded young men, and with the home-school girls watching, none of them could just take it. The shoved player pushed back. “This is our school’s court—why should we give it up to you? Everything should go first-come, first-served. You’re the ones who should clear out, you’re interrupting our team’s practice.”

The once-lively, harmonious game ground to a halt. Trying to reason with thugs like Zhao Peng was clearly futile—Zhao Peng and his lackeys were arrogant, and Qian Chuan and his teammates weren’t backing down either. No one was quite sure who threw the first punch, but the sudden conflict gradually escalated.

If it actually came to blows with this gang, it would be bad news—these guys didn’t care about grades or graduating, but everyone on the basketball team wanted to stay in school properly. Qian Chuan held his teammates back. “No fighting. Since you won’t leave and want to play ball, fine, we’ll play you properly, and beat you so thoroughly you won’t dare come steal our court again.”

“Yeah! Beat them till they’re begging for mercy!” The whole team echoed Qian Chuan’s proposal in unison.

Having been held back a few grades, Zhao Peng was actually older than everyone else there—around twenty-four or twenty-five—with a sturdier build and more raw strength than the under-twenty college students. He smiled contemptuously, didn’t bother responding, and simply reached out and snatched the ball from Qian Chuan’s teammate’s hands, then waved his lackeys over to forcibly claim the court and start playing.

Zhao Peng’s underling watched confidently as his boss dribbled straight through the basketball team’s defense and scored, gloating all the while. “You’re the ones who are going to lose. You talked a big game—better be careful you don’t end up humiliated in front of this whole crowd.”

“Let’s take the ball back!”

The basketball team’s players were more unified than ever in that moment. They abandoned the scrimmage entirely, merging their two previously separate squads into one team to face off against Zhao Peng’s group.

The team’s guys had, after all, trained professionally for years and had excellent chemistry with each other—stealing the ball, passing, three-step layups, all executed fluidly. Before long, Qian Chuan scored, and his teammates high-fived each other in encouragement, while the girls off-court cheered them on.

“Go basketball team! Go basketball team!”

“Go Qian Chuan! You’re the best!”

For a moment, the team’s morale soared—but surprisingly, Zhao Peng’s group turned out to be no slouches either; that underling’s confidence hadn’t been baseless. Worse still, Zhao Peng’s crew was similarly tall and well-built, with decent skills too, but likely from playing too much unregulated street ball, they played with absolutely no regard for rules. One of them, a hulking guy, leaned on his size advantage and started ramming into people to steal the ball without any restraint, and worse, quite viciously—Qian Wei could see clearly that Zhao Peng’s team repeatedly used sly elbow jabs against the basketball team’s players when they thought no one was looking. The impacts were clearly painful, since the players who got hit had to grit their teeth hard just to stay standing.

The game grew more intense, the two sides evenly matched, but Qian Chuan’s team, having already played a full scrimmage beforehand, was burning through more stamina and starting to show fatigue. Still, everyone gritted their teeth and held on, keeping the score close.

“Ah!” Amid a cry of pain, one of the team’s small forwards was slammed to the ground by one of Zhao Peng’s players.

“Chen Hua, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Chen Hua clutched his ankle.

Qian Chuan took one look and saw his ankle was already faintly swelling. He called a timeout, then turned to Chen Hua. “Let me help you off to rest.”

But Chen Hua was stubborn. “I’m fine, I can still play.”

Chen Hua was an excellent small forward who’d always worked seamlessly with Qian Chuan as shooting guard. If he had to leave the game now, there was no one on the team who could replace him—they’d lose a major asset.

Qian Chuan knew this perfectly well. With a dark expression, he helped Chen Hua off the court, then reorganized the team’s roles.

The game resumed, but without Chen Hua, the newly promoted small forward, Zhang Rui—originally a point guard—was clearly unfamiliar with his new role. Before long, an instinctive layup attempt was intercepted by Zhao Peng’s side. After that, the situation on the court took a sharp turn for the worse; not only did Qian Chuan’s team fail to score again, they had to watch helplessly as Zhao Peng’s team sank two consecutive three-pointers.

“Let’s see who really has to give up the court.” Zhao Peng smiled darkly.

Under the opposing team’s relentless offense, the basketball team fell further behind, while Zhao Peng’s group grew even more insufferably arrogant, pushing their advantage further. After Chen Hua, they fouled and injured several more players, the worst hit being Zhang Rui. With Zhang Rui out, the team lost both its small forward and, effectively, its point guard at once. No matter how hard Qian Chuan fought, he couldn’t play three roles at once. Worse still, Zhao Peng’s team had clearly zeroed in on Qian Chuan, employing a suffocating man-marking strategy—three of them swarmed him like flies, isolating him completely so he had no chance to even touch the ball.

Though some distance from the court, Qian Wei could clearly sense Qian Chuan growing agitated, and the more agitated he got, the more mistakes crept into his movements. Watching the team edge closer to defeat, Qian Wei grew anxious but felt utterly helpless. Qian Chuan might seem carefree and easygoing about everything else—he could shrug off a breakup and bounce back cheerfully in no time—but when it came to basketball, something he loved and excelled at, his pride ran especially deep. Sports were his one confident domain, and Qian Wei didn’t want him to walk away from this game feeling defeated and crushed.

Qian Wei couldn’t help nudging Mo Tao beside her. “Hey, can you play basketball? Could you go help Qian Chuan out? Several of their key players got injured by the other side, and now they’re short-handed.”

Unfortunately, Mo Tao couldn’t help. “If it were soccer I could maybe fill in, but I don’t know how to play basketball.”

Qian Wei found herself at a complete loss. Heavens above, please help Qian Chuan! she silently prayed.

And as if some deity truly had heard her prayer, with about ten minutes left in the game, Qian Wei heard girls in the crowd screaming and cheering.

“Lu Xun! Wow, if only Lu Xun were here!”

“Lu Xun’s going to play!”

Following the swelling wave of voices, Qian Wei finally spotted Lu Xun in the crowd behind her. Unusually, he was wearing a baseball cap and a loose jacket.