radicalducati Chapter 171
Chapter 171
The corridor lights went out. He stood in the darkness, hearing someone playing guitar in a distant room, intermittently, playing "My Deskmate." Lao Lang's voice echoed in his mind, but the guitarist's technique wasn't very good; he played a few chords incorrectly.
He turned around and walked back to his dormitory.
The voice-activated light is on again.
He pushed open the door; Gao Yuan was already asleep, snoring. Chen Hao was still reading; the light from the lamp shone on his face, and the reflection from his glasses obscured his eyes.
Lin Feng lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
I scored four points, had one assist, and one steal in today's scrimmage.
Coach Li said he "played smartly".
Cheng Yuxin said to him, "That wasn't a compliment, it was the truth."
He turned over and pulled the blanket up to his chest.
Close your eyes.
We have training again tomorrow.
July 8th, 5:00 AM.
My pager vibrated.
Lin Feng opened his eyes and sat up.
Chen Hao's bed was empty—the blankets were neatly folded, the pillows were on top of them, and the "New Concept English" book wasn't on the bedside table. A sliver of light, a grayish-blue hue, peeked through the gap in the curtains, not yet fully bright.
He put on his clothes, grabbed the ball, and walked out of the dormitory.
The motion-activated lights in the hallway turned on. I went downstairs and out the main door.
Chen Hao was already there in the open space next to the basketball court. He sat on the steps, a book on his lap, reading. The morning light shone from behind him, illuminating the pages of the book, and his shadow was cast on the ground, long and thin.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up and then looked down at his book again.
Lin Feng didn't disturb him. He walked to the middle of the open space and started dribbling.
Boom, boom, boom.
Left hand. Five hundred times.
His left hand felt a little better today than yesterday. The ball bounced more steadily, although it still veered off course a bit, but the deviation was smaller. He used the method Gao Yuan taught him—imagining his left hand as his right, using the same force and angle to dribble.
On his 300th dribble, he picked up the ball and flexed his left hand. His fingertips were hot and the base of his fingers were sore, but the area between his thumb and forefinger didn't hurt as much—meaning he was using the correct technique and wasn't dribbling the ball with his palm.
carry on.
After completing five hundred repetitions, he began dribbling with his left hand while moving. He dribbled back and forth across the court—if the open space wasn't big enough, he would run back and forth. He would dribble from one end to the other, turn around, and dribble back again. He repeated this ten times.
Chen Hao sat on the steps, occasionally glancing up. He read slowly, taking a long time to finish a single page. Sometimes he would stop, close the book, close his eyes, and silently recite something before opening it again. Lin Feng noticed his lips moving; he was probably memorizing vocabulary.
At six o'clock, the plateau arrived.
This time he didn't carry bread; instead, he held a bottle of milk, drinking it as he walked. White milk stains clung to his upper lip, resembling a white beard.
"You two are really something." He put the milk bottle on the steps, walked over, and took the ball from Lin Feng. "Here, those of you who didn't finish practicing yesterday, let's continue."
The two practiced left-hand against left-hand for another twenty minutes.
Gao Yuan is in better form today than yesterday, and he's more focused on defense, no longer holding back. His left-handed dribbling isn't particularly strong, but he uses his body—his shoulder—to block Lin Feng's position and prevent Lin Feng from getting close to the ball.
Lin Feng was having a hard time defending against him, and his attempts to steal the ball were thwarted several times.
"Too slow. Your hand speed is too slow. The essence of training your left hand is to train your right brain's control over your left hand. Your right brain hasn't been developed yet, so your left hand reacts slowly. You need to train until you don't have to think, and your left hand knows what to do on its own."