Chapter Thirty-Three: Cultivation with a Beauty

"Hey, Number Two, you were amazing!" Zhu Di was the first to approach Geng Haoshi.

"It was... nothing," Geng Haoshi replied, though he had intended to make a grand gesture but found himself too exhausted for even that.

The other four official team members now looked at Geng Haoshi with newfound respect.

As for the six substitute players, their admiration for Geng Haoshi had grown even deeper. Though they had been the first to drop out, they hadn't lost consciousness, so they had all heard what Coach Manman had said. If Geng Haoshi hadn't finished the marathon, they would all have been kicked off the team.

Even Chen Yu, who had previously been hostile toward Geng Haoshi, now gazed at him with respect, and there was even something peculiar in his eyes.

"Number Two, you were just incredible!" He Zhikun, the substitute shooting guard, exclaimed.

"Hey! Who said you could call him Number Two? Call him Second Brother!" Geng Haoshi shouted.

"Second Brother!" He Zhikun immediately complied, not wanting to lose face.

"Second Brother, how did you do it?" Zhang Zhaolong, the substitute small forward, asked from the side.

"Yeah, Second Brother! First it was the dunk, now a marathon—how did you pull it off?" The other substitutes were all curious.

"Ahem, of course it was..." Geng Haoshi was about to boast when the loudspeaker crackled to life with the voice of their beautiful coach, Manman: "You passed for today, but don't expect this to happen again!"

"Go to bed, all of you. You must be up for special training at six!" With that, Manman left the athletics field's control room.

"Finally, we can sleep!" The players were all utterly exhausted.

Geng Haoshi glanced at his cheap digital wristband. "Damn, it's already two fifty!"

"Zhikun, lend me your shirt." Geng Haoshi, suddenly revived, quickly slipped on his underwear and shorts, then borrowed a top from He Zhikun.

"Second Brother, aren't you going back to the gymnasium?" He Zhikun asked.

"I have something to do." With that, Geng Haoshi dashed off toward the artificial lake.

"Does Number Two have some secret he can't tell anyone?" Zhu Di speculated. "Is he off to practice some secret technique?"

Recalling Geng Haoshi's dunk and marathon feats, the team grew intensely curious about where he was headed now.

"Let's follow him and see," suggested Captain Meng Lang. The players quietly trailed after Geng Haoshi.

And so, the team followed Geng Haoshi all the way to the campus artificial lake.

"Wow, she's stunning!" Hiding behind a large tree, the players saw Geng Haoshi chatting and laughing with a beautiful woman dressed in pink sports shorts and a matching sports bra.

"Three in the morning, and Number Two is meeting a beauty in secret? There must be more to this," Zhu Di continued to speculate. "Could they be cultivation partners?"

In the minds of these nerdy guys, "cultivation partners" referred to a certain practice in some novels, where a man and a woman enhance their powers together through rather shameful acts.

"Training with a beauty... I'm so jealous of Second Brother," Zhang Zhaolong said dreamily, his eyes glued to the beautiful woman.

At that moment, aside from Chen Yu, all the other team members wore lovesick expressions.

"Look, they're running!"

"Are they about to start their... cultivation?!"

"Come on, let's follow!"

The eleven members of the basketball team crept along in a disorderly line.

The artificial lake at Tiancheng Institute of Technology was large, with a road running along its edge, shaded by a circle of trees.

To avoid being detected, the eleven players each hid behind a different tree, following Geng Haoshi and the beautiful woman as they circled the lake.

"So this is what you call cultivation? Just running laps around the lake?" Zhang Zhaolong asked in confusion.

Even though they didn't see what they'd expected, curiosity kept them tailing Geng Haoshi and the beauty.

Geng Haoshi and Yang Mimi circled the lake three times. "Second Brother, I'm heading back," Yang Mimi said and left.

Geng Haoshi gazed after Yang Mimi's graceful figure, never tiring of the sight. Not until she disappeared into the night did he finally turn and say, "Time to head back to the gym."

Spinning around, Geng Haoshi was startled to find all eleven teammates standing stiffly behind him. "What the—are you guys zombies?"

"Number Two, out with it. What's going on?" Zhu Di was the first to speak.

"What's going on with what?"

"The gorgeous girl, obviously," Zhu Di replied with mock seriousness. "Meeting at this hour... were you cultivating together?"

Cultivating together? Geng Haoshi immediately pulled a lovesick face, thinking, If only I could cultivate with Mimi, I'd die happy.

"Come on!" Zhu Di smacked Geng Haoshi on the head. "With that pervy look, I bet it's just a one-sided crush, huh?"

"I knew it—a beauty like that would never fall for a chubby guy like you," Zhu Di sighed. "Here I was, hoping to witness some legendary cultivation, but all you did was run laps. What a waste of our precious sleep time! So disappointing!" He punched him again.

"Seriously, Zhu Di, you're the one with the dirty mind who came stalking me, and now you blame me?" Geng Haoshi thought to himself. Do you think I wouldn't want to make progress?

"Even if we didn't see any cultivation, it's still impressive to go for a night run with such a beauty," Zhang Zhaolong remarked.

"Number Two, spill it—how did you meet her?" Zhu Di kept pressing.

"It's a long story... Anyway, she's mine, so don't even think about it!" Geng Haoshi shot them all a look that said he would fight anyone who tried.

"Hey, that's some fire in you. Good, I've got high hopes for you," Zhu Di said, locking Geng Haoshi in a friendly headlock.

All the way back, the team joked and bantered. When they reached the gymnasium, no one bothered showering; they just collapsed onto their beds.

...

"Smack! Smack!"

"Get up, all of you!"

Early the next morning, Coach Manman roused the entire team.

The morning's special training was essentially the night's workout, just at half the volume.

Practice lasted until eight. Those with classes went to class; the rest ate breakfast and continued training.

And so, under the watchful eye of the "Demon Goddess" Coach Manman, the university basketball team began a rigorous and disciplined campus life centered around basketball training.

Ten days passed...

"Second Brother, you've lost a lot of weight!"

"Yeah, you're almost normal-sized now."

After this period of intense training, Geng Haoshi had transformed from a big guy into a sturdy, slightly chubby fellow.

The six substitutes marveled at him, especially Chen Yu, who had a bit of a crush and now looked at Geng Haoshi with admiration.

Of course, Geng Haoshi's rapid weight loss was also due in no small part to the effects of several rounds of "power condensation."

Now, only five days remained until the deadline for the intermediate task: "Develop an eight-pack within one month." Geng Haoshi patted his slightly defined abs and thought, Looks like I'll finish on time.

By then, the joint autumn sports meet of ten universities would begin...