Chapter 28 – The School Basketball Team

Guo Songtao is a 1.85m tall big guy and a third-year senior of class 2. He plays center. Since he trains outdoors often, his skin is quite tanned, but overall he’s rather valiant. Because he likes to take care of his juniors, the team members usually call him “Brother Tao”, I also call him that way.

The reason why Brother Tao always brings me to play ball is in the hope that the players on the basketball team can treat me as an opponent and practice their physical confrontation skills.

Although I have poor dribbling skills and I rarely make three-point shots, I still have some skills with layups and breakthroughs.

Using a feint to fake out the opponent and then passing the ball to a teammate who scores also gives me a great sense of accomplishment.

I also strictly abide by the rules. If I accidentally fouled someone, I’ll raise my hand to indicate a temporary time-out.

As expected of someone of the lawful good alignment.

The school basketball team has a total of 18 people. Most of them were re-selected last year. They’re pretty much all tall, strong people and everyone else jokingly dubbed them as the “Eighteen Arhats“.

However, there were also some students who didn’t get selected. They resented the school leaders and the basketball team. Once, they found five hoodlums who pretended they could play basketball and insisted on having a friendly match with the basketball team. As a result, once the game started, all they relied on was fouls. They just came to fuck around.

I went with brother Tao and messed them up.

The fight was extremely short, it wasn’t even long enough for the screams to be heard by the teaching staff.

However, even if the headteacher pursues the matter, I’ll take all the blame since I’m already notorious anyways.

At the time, the five hoodlums fell to the ground, wouldn’t get up and were making groaning sounds. If they were seen by a teacher on patrol, it would have been a pain to handle.

The rear guard Liu HuaiShui came up with a rotten idea. He found a very dirty and worn out comforter from the sports equipment room. He made us toss all the hoodlums on it and then rolled it up into a giant spring roll.

The Eighteen Arhats shouldered it and walked to the school gate, and talked to the guard uncle saying, “The sports teacher told us to go and throw out some garbage.” The uncle said, “He calls so much trash just some? He’s just taking advantage of you guys! I’ll open the door so go quickly!”

After turning a corner outside the school gate, the hoodlums were openly tossed into the overwhelmingly stinky garbage station.

This incident was later passed as a laughing topic by the basketball team. Later, when someone wasn’t performing well or had low morale during a game, others would encourage them by loudly saying, “Did you forget about the story of the Large Spring Roll?”

Some audience members who didn’t know about the truth thought that everyone on the basketball team were foodies.

Speaking of which, it was very enjoyable to fight together with brother Tao, there was a reassured feeling of trusting your back to one another.

Then we fought again.

The reason was that the hoodlums came back to seek revenge and ambushed the basketball team members as they were returning home. They left the shooting and point guard unable to come to practice for a week.

The other team members said that we had to take revenge. But brother Tao prevented them from going. He just told everyone that it was best to go home in pairs.

After a few days, brother Tao and I were practicing shooting on the court. No one said anything about revenge. The sky was getting darker, to the point where you couldn’t see the ball anymore.

Brother Tao suddenly spat out the toothpick in his mouth and cursed, “Fuck!”

He didn’t even take his ball and left straight out of the school gate, it wasn’t the direction he usually takes when going home.

I didn’t say anything, I only silently followed behind brother Tao while exercising my wrist muscles.

We blocked the five punks at the entrance of a black disco. At the time, they were with their colorfully dressed girlfriends and were bragging about how brave they were when fighting and talking about the oaf of the basketball team and stuff like that.

They were stupefied when brother Tao stood in front of them.

This fight lasted quite a long time, it took around 10 minutes.

It wasn’t because their testosterone raised since their girlfriends were watching the fight, and made them more capable of enduring.

It was only because brother Tao wanted to hit them to let off steam.

Without all the worries of fighting at school, brother Tao lifted them up by the chest and pressed them onto the wall in the alley one by one.

My hands were itching and I wanted to help. As a result, brother Tao waved his hands at me and said: “You don’t need to move! Just watch from the sides!”

“— If anyone dares to run, just kick them back!”

I inserted my hands into my pockets and block the entrance to the alleyway. I didn’t let anyone leave, not even their girlfriends.

It’s not that I wanted to do anything to them. I was just worried that they will go out screaming and call the police or security.

Originally, the punks thought that they had the advantage in numbers. In the beginning, they resisted once or twice against brother Tao. However, they found out that they were completely not a match for him, they couldn’t run even if they wanted to. In the end, brother Tao knocked everyone down by himself.

At the time, I thought it was strange that none of these girlfriends showed any sadness when seeing their boyfriends getting pummeled. Instead, they covered their eyes pretending to be afraid while peeking through the cracks between their fingers to see how brother Tao was fighting. There was a lot of excitement and euphoria in their eyes.

Later, there was a girl with black nail polish that came to the school specifically to find me and asked whether brother Tao had a girlfriend.

I told her: You’re too young so brother Tao isn’t interested.

As a result, the girl asked again: I’m asking for my younger sister, do you have a girlfriend?

I was very angry with them.

I felt that they were the same type of person as my mom who tossed aside her husband and son.

If anyone who’s good at fighting is suitable to be a boyfriend, you might as well go find the undefeated ‘Little Tyrant’.

At that time, I didn’t know that Little Tyrant was a dishonest girl.

The other basketball players didn’t know that brother Tao took me out to fight, but afterward no one else ambushed them when they were going back home.

They weren’t stupid, they could faintly guess what had happened based on brother Tao’s attitude towards me.

So to some extent, I’m a bit like the 19th player on the basketball team.

“How about just playing on the school team?”

Brother Tao once asked me with a smile and said that I didn’t need to worry about qualifying for selections. He would do his best to recommend me to the coach.

I shook my head: “No, I think it’s good as it is. It’s also very interesting to be a practice partner for you guys.”

“Che, what’s the point of being a practice partner!” brother Tao disgruntled. “It looks like you want to be a fighter?”

Brother Tao was not angry because I refused to join.

“Un, the school team’s practice partner and hired thug. You don’t have to call me if you’re playing ball, but if you’re fighting, don’t forget about me.”

I felt very relaxed when interacting with brother Tao and the other seventeen Arhats. I feel no nervousness unlike when I’m with Ren XiaoQin.

Even the memory of Little Tyrant didn’t bring me the same psychological pressure that I currently have.

I would let Little Tyrant punch me ten times rather than seeing Ren XiaoQin shedding even a single tear.

I still wish that Little Tyrant was a boy.

If she was a boy, she’ll currently be able to play ball with me on the court..

Even if we don’t become good friends, we’ll be able to be rivals in many areas.

However, that’s already impossible.

Unfortunately, playing basketball with the school team did not improve my reputation at school.

Because I wasn’t a permanent member, I couldn’t participate in any competition on behalf of the school. Not many people are interested in the regular team practice sessions. Even if they come to watch, they’ll just think that I was just invited to make up the numbers.

“He’s nothing but has a tall build.”

“His eyes are so fierce. Whoever is being stared at must be more liable to making mistakes, right?”

The boys usually had these kind of evaluations.

As for the girls who came to watch, the majority of them were looking at the captain Guo SongTao and the handsome three-pointer Shen ShaoYi.

I was often used as a reference to be compared to while admiring the two above, such as:

“The captain’s block was just so handsome! Look, that Ye Lin is not as crazy anymore!”

“Although the captain is not bad, he’s just too tall! I think that Shen ShaoYi is just right…”

“Ah! Shen ShaoYi was knocked down by Ye Lin! He’s really despicable! He must be jealous of him!”

Do you love-struck fools have an off switch! Can’t you see that Shen ShaoYi tried to break through and fell after crashing into me? Because of his poor physical confrontation ability, brother Tao constantly asked me to be the practice partner and help him by carrying out this special training!

Everyone’s consensus for why the basketball team was willing to let me play with them was: Because the basketball team is physically strong, since Ye Lin only bullies the weak and fears the strong, he never disputes with the basketball team.

There are also rumors that brother Tao and I have made a secret pact, as long as I don’t mess with the members of the basketball team, he won’t fight for the seat of the 28th Middle boss.

I don’t want to explain anything anymore.

My heart is tired, I feel that I won’t love again.

Today there were 14 basketball players who are playing on the court today, there was 15 including me. We were able to perfectly split the people into 3 teams and play alternately.

In order to be fair, brother Tao, Shen ShaoYi and I would usually not be divided into the same team.

My basketball skills will definitely never be ranked in the top three. I only have good overall physical fitness, quick reflexes, and was able to run for long times, which gave opponents quite a headache.

It may be because of the unexpected results of the persistent training over the years in order to defeat Little Tyrant.

Today’s hand went relatively smoothly. Although we didn’t win against brother Tao’s team, we were able to win 10:0 against Shen ShaoYi. (Wind made frequent three-pointer mistakes. Shen ShaoYi and his female fans were very angry)

After winning against Shen ShaoYi, we lost again to brother Tao. My team members and I were waiting for the next rotation.

The damn fatty Cao JingShen swayed over slowly, holding a bottle of Nutri-express, it was all over his mouth. (TN: It’s a fruity milk drink)

“Leader Ye, you’re playing ball! Good work!”

He bowed towards me with his hands held out in front.

I wanted to straight up press him down to the ground and choke him to death. However, considering that there were too many people in the surrounding, it was better to do it another time.

“It’s not hard for this master. But you disobedient disciple. I didn’t even know that you liked basketball.”

I talked to him while drinking mineral water.

“Jie Jie Jie… There’s only one kind of ball that this disciple likes, that is…”

Seeing me fiercely stare at him, he didn’t dare finish his sentence.

“Leader Ye, this disciple has something I need to report.”

“What is it?”

“That is, this disciple has just handed over the martial arts book to father’s hands.”

His words were full of hidden meanings, but fortunately, I was able to understand it.

“Oh, you handed over that manga to director Cao. Does that mean you went back home at noon? Well, I guess your home is close by anyway.”

Accompanied by my praise, Cao JingShen continued to speak with a smile:

“Leader Ye. This disciple that was able to recognize one’s own mistakes and reform can be considered great? Not only did I bring the book back home, I also brought the book that was missing a page.”

“Well done, but don’t give it to me yet.”

I drank another mouthful of mineral water.

“That… leader Ye. After I returned to the classroom, the class leader kept staring at me!”

What’s weird about staring at you? You already have a wretched face, and you were also hiding an H manga. Your dubious smell must have been doubled.

“So, I hid the secret book in a safe place and then I came here to report.”

“Safe place?”

“Um… this disciple thought about it for a while, the safest place was Leader Ye’s desk…”

Your sister! (ED: I think your mom insults are more common in the west? Although, I haven’t heard anyone say that since elementary school.)

Safe your sister!

You stupid ***, why the hell are you still drinking Nutri-express! Have you grown a brain yet after drinking Nutri-express? There’s nothing in the desk to hide the book, it will be seen with a quick glance! And I sit in the last row, it’s more dangerous since people often walk by!

“Leader Ye don’t panic. When I was placing the rare book, the class leader wasn’t present…”

I felt a little more relieved.

“But, the master’s wife was there…”

“Who’s the wife?”

“Well, it’s just that… Forgive me for speaking out of place, it was Ren XiaoQin…”

Go to your mother’s mother! Go to your mother’s predecessor! You dare put the H manga into my desk when Ren XiaoQin was sitting right next to you?

It wasn’t even an ordinary H manga! It was a super heavy flavored “Teacher’s Colorful Classroom”. The book is 120 pages long. It was full of indecent scenes of female students, which will definitely cause Xiao Qin to think of bad things!

The mineral water I drank all came out as cold sweat. I stood up, greeted my teammates and immediately flew back to the classroom on the second floor.

I hoped that Xiao Qin didn’t take out the book to take a look. Even if she did look at it, I hope that she didn’t see much.

If Xiao Qin really only read shoujo mangas before, from the moment she opened the book, it would be six pages away from the destruction of her worldview.

Damn, I forgot there’s still the cover page…