Chapter Ninety-Six: As Expected, It Was Awful

Seeing the stunned boys from Deyi Medical University behind her, Li Shishi said with proud disdain, “Well? Impressed yet?”

With his right hand gripping the rim, Geng Haoshi hung there for a moment before finally letting go and dropping back to the floor.

When he saw Zhu Di walking toward him, Geng Haoshi smiled and said, “The view up there really is something else.”

“That’s only because my pass was so good,” Zhu Di said with a raised brow.

In truth, this alley-oop slam dunk executed in perfect tandem by Zhu Di and Geng Haoshi was not some spur-of-the-moment flash of brilliance. It had actually been in the making for three months, ever since Geng Haoshi completed the system’s mid-stage mission of reaching a vertical leap of eighty centimeters. From that point on, Geng Haoshi had had Zhu Di train with him for alley-oop dunks.

Once Geng Haoshi’s running vertical leap exceeded eighty centimeters, he could leap off a run and grab the rim even without the ball. But if he ran with the ball himself and jumped, at most he could slam it against the rim; there was no way to complete a dunk.

So, in order to dunk without using his “Power Surge” skill, Geng Haoshi came up with the idea of working with Zhu Di to finish the play with an alley-oop.

Note: within twenty minutes after using “Power Surge,” the body’s energy would be rapidly depleted, causing side effects such as an inability to move. Unless absolutely necessary, Geng Haoshi planned to avoid using “Power Surge” as much as possible.

The players of Deyi Medical University’s basketball team stood there one by one, mouths agape, still unable to recover from the shock of Geng Haoshi’s alley-oop dunk. Even their coach, a former national team player and a middle-aged man in his fifties, had his eyes wide open and his mouth hanging slack, as if his jaw were about to hit the floor.

By the time Geng Haoshi passed the referee, the man, who had also been stunned by the dunk, finally came to his senses. In his heart, he thought: Weren’t they supposed to be the perennial bottom-dwellers? Yet that little guy’s move just now was absolutely at the level of a professional player!

Yu Manman still lounged lazily on the bench with one leg crossed over the other, thinking to herself, That little guy sure knows how to make an entrance.

Yang Mimi did not shout herself hoarse the way Li Shishi had. She only clapped and cheered excitedly from the side.

Lin Ling still carried herself like a big sister, raising a fist and shouting, “Little Second, beat the crap out of them!”

“All right!” Hearing Lin Ling’s uninhibited cry, Geng Haoshi shouted back with equal enthusiasm.

That exchange between the two of them instantly pulled the five stunned starters of Deyi Medical University back to reality.

“Don’t worry, that was just luck!” their number one player shouted at the others.

“Right, it has to be!” The rest of the starters seemed to suddenly understand as well, clenching their fists. “We won’t let him get away with it again!”

Deyi Medical University inbounded the ball, and the game went on.

Their number six dribbled up to organize the offense, but before long Zhou Xiaoshan stole it away.

“Ha, too slow!” Zhou Xiaoshan sneered, charging into the opponent’s half with the ball.

In truth, it was not that the opposing number six was truly “too slow”; rather, every member of Tancheng University of Technology’s basketball team had undergone more than half a year of hellish training, nearly every day pushed to the brink of collapse. That included a great deal of sprint training, so their speed had improved tremendously.

Zhou Xiaoshan drove into the paint and went up for a quick three-step layup.

The ball went in.

Seeing Zhou Xiaoshan score so easily, Geng Haoshi shrugged and said, “Looks like the pretty coach was right. They really are awful.”

He did not bother to lower his voice, so the three opposing players around him all heard it.

“Damn it, we’re being looked down on by the team ranked dead last!” their number three said through clenched teeth.

“Fine, then let’s get serious too. We can’t lose to the team at the very bottom!” their number one shouted, as if he wanted everyone from Tancheng University of Technology to hear him on purpose.

“The weaker the ability, the louder the mouth!” Geng Haoshi shook his head in contempt.

The players from Deyi Medical University were all cracking their knuckles, signaling that they were about to mount a real counterattack.

The game continued, but nothing unfolded the way they had expected. Under the fast offense and defense of Tancheng University of Technology’s players, the score quickly began to widen.

With a little more than one minute left in the first quarter, Tancheng University of Technology was already leading Deyi Medical University by a huge margin, 36 to 15.

The tallest player on Deyi Medical University’s team was only 185 centimeters tall, and since both their offense and defense were slower than Tancheng University of Technology’s, they lost control on every front almost at once. They could do nothing to stop the torrent of scoring that Tancheng University of Technology unleashed at will.

At that moment, Geng Haoshi broke quickly into the paint and, once near the rim, sprang upward again.

“Brother Zhu Di!”

At Geng Haoshi’s call, Zhu Di once more displayed perfect understanding and tossed the ball toward Geng Haoshi in midair.

Bang!

With a crisp crack, Geng Haoshi slammed the ball cleanly through the hoop once again.

This was already the third alley-oop dunk Geng Haoshi had completed with Zhu Di’s help. Even though they had seen it three times, the players from Deyi Medical University were still left standing there in stunned silence.

At that moment, what filled their hearts most was no longer shock, but fear.

They watched the shortest player on Tancheng University of Technology’s team complete three alley-oop dunks, and a chill crept through them all: if even the shortest player could do something like that, then could it be that the others were all holding back their true strength?

The thought that Tancheng University of Technology’s other players might not even have shown their real ability yet made the Deyi Medical University players wilt like seedlings battered by a torrential downpour.

As the second quarter went on and the score kept widening, Yu Manman gradually began replacing the starters with substitutes, one after another.

Since the tournament was a succession of elimination games, it was best to maintain the momentum of victory with a strong bench.

Substitute players generally did not get many chances to play, nor much time on the court. So whenever possible, Yu Manman planned to let them take part in the games, allowing them to accumulate more experience and improve their abilities.

More importantly, once they reached the national college basketball league’s final stage, the teams they would face would almost all have strong benches of their own.