Wu Li was directly named by Cai Guodong to join the Chinese Table Tennis Team without taking the exam, and directly entered First Team, eliminating the need for promotion and relegation from the second team to the first team. It can be said that he is full of honors., as the first player in history to be publicly recognized as having Hundred Refinements talent, he has been unanimously recognized by all the coaches of the Huaping coaching staff with his performance on the Table Tennis Super League field in the past year.
But his date of joining the team this year was actually postponed.
Originally he was supposed to come here with Wang Chao and Tang Yuanyuan, but because of some things, he chose to take leave and has not finished his work until now.
When Wang Chao received Wu Li at the station, he keenly noticed that his mood was a little low.
In fact, Wu Li has an extremely reserved personality. He usually has a calm attitude no matter whether he wins or loses in games or encounters anything in life. His appearance at this time seems normal to others. Only people like Wang Chao, who have been with him for a long time and have super sensitive perception, can notice this little difference in him.
"Are you okay?" Wang Chao asked him.
Wu Li shook his head, thought for a moment, and said, "He's gone."
Wang Chao was startled, and then he realized it. He looked at Wu Li carefully and noticed that Wu Li's eye sockets were actually reddish. However, the light was dim in the place where the two of them were at this time, and Wu Li lowered his head slightly, so he didn't notice it immediately.
Wang Chao patted Wu Li on the shoulder and said softly, "My condolences."
Wu Li himself smiled, "It's okay, you know it. This is a relief to me."
Having said that, the flash of sadness on his face was still captured by Wang Chao.
The story of Wu Li is actually not complicated.
As early as a year ago, when Wang Chao "abducted" Wu Li into Spade Q, Wu Li actually briefly talked to him about his family situation. At that time, he wanted to play in the professional league and was eager to make money, precisely because there was a problem at home.
To put it simply, Wu Li's parents divorced when he was a child, and he was sentenced to his father. However, his father was both an alcoholic and a gambler. He basically didn't go home. When he came back occasionally, he would rummage through the boxes and sold everything he could, and finally the house was sold, so Wu Li was basically no different from an orphan when he was a child.
He has a strong and independent personality and does not feel bitter about this. However, apart from the blood relationship, there is really no relationship between him and his father. Instead, he survives with difficulty with the help of some relatives and neighbors.
He had a hard time in the first few years. Later, as his table tennis talent gradually emerged, he was first spotted by the teacher of the sports school, and then by the city team. He entered the national training mechanism of China Table Tennis, and no longer interacted with the drinking girl. Other teammates had to go home to reunite, but he had nowhere to go. He mostly stayed in the team. Occasionally he would buy some gifts and go back to visit the neighbors who had helped him. However, he usually just exchanged a few words and stopped talking. He chose to say goodbye, quickly returned to the team, and returned to his familiar environment.
Wu Li originally thought that he and his father would never be in contact with each other, but last year during the Chinese New Year, he wanted to go back to visit the neighbors, but his father, whom he had not seen for many years, came to his door and brought some bad news. I don't know if it was bad news or not: his father had cancer, liver cancer.
Wu Li's first reaction at that time was not sadness, but "deserve it." After all, isn't it natural for an alcoholic to get liver cancer?
But his father, whom he hadn't seen for many years, gave him a severe blow again: He asked Wu Li to find a way to make money and help him treat his illness. He needed an operation. He still wanted to live and he didn't want to die.
"I don't care. You are my son. Without me, where would you be? You have to be responsible for me, and you have an obligation to support me. If you don't come up with the money, I will go to court to sue you, make a big fuss in your team, and ruin your reputation."
At that time Wu Li behaved quite calmly, but the neighbors were so angry that their eyes were red. They angrily told Wu Li to ignore everything and let the man make trouble and file a complaint. He was unreasonable and did not understand the law. He would not win if he sued.
But Wu Li finally chose to bear the cost of the man's surgery, not because he was afraid of losing his reputation or anything else, but because he felt that at least one thing the man said was right, "Without me, where would you be?"
That man's only kindness to Wu Li was that he contributed a sperm.
Wu Li is willing to do his best to make money to help this man survive for the last time, which can be regarded as repaying the man's creation. After the man dies, the two sides will settle their grudges, and he can no longer devote himself to the career he loves without any worries.
Initially, Wang Chao introduced him to Spade Q. He wanted to play more games in the professional arena and get more bonuses, but later he found that this was far from enough. So when Wang Chao returned to the Spade Q base for the first time in the middle of last year, he privately borrowed a huge sum of money from Wang Chao, a total of one million.
Only Wang Chao knows about this, and no one else in the Spade Q base knows about it. Even if the old Fan family is richer, the only one Wu Li trusts is Wang Chao. After all, it was Wang Chao who brought him into the professional table tennis world, and only Wang Chao can truly see his potential and help him turn his potential into strength.
"I don't know when I can pay you back, let alone how I can repay you. After all, you seem to have everything." On the day of borrowing the money, Wu Li was emotionally unstable, so he said many things that he usually couldn't say, "I can only promise that from now on, I will do whatever you ask me to do, I swear to God."
He is a very pure person, and when he said these words, the emotions welling up in his heart were somewhat similar to those who died loyal to the king in ancient times. If there is no repayment, then repay it with life.
Of course Wang Chao doesn't need his life, and he doesn't even need him to pay back the money. Wang Chao patted him on the shoulder. "I charge interest for borrowing money, and you can't pay it back in the first place..."
He paused and said seriously, "Be my doubles partner. We will fight all the way from the Table Tennis Super League arena to the world arena. At that time, every time you help me get one World Champion, it is equivalent to paying me back 100,000 yuan. When ten World Champion are collected, the debt between us will be settled."
Wu Li is just introverted, not stupid. Of course he could understand Wang Chao's kindness, and he was even a little flattered and asked, "Are you sure you want to choose me?"
Wang Chao nodded. "Of course."
"But..." Wu Li gritted his teeth. "I don't need sympathy."
"Who sympathizes with you?" Wang Chao smiled, and then sighed, "You really don't know your own value..."
The past is still in my mind, but things have changed. Even though that man spent millions of Wu Li's medical expenses, he still couldn't fight against advanced liver cancer and left this world. After Wu Li simply arranged his funeral, the grudge between him and Wu Li was finally settled.
On the way back to the base, Wu Li didn't speak until he got out of the car and said the last words about this matter to Wang Chao: "He... said he was sorry to me before he died."
Wang Chao suddenly realized.
Even if a man is about to die, his words are also kind. Even if that man is domineering, unreasonable, messy, and harmful to others, in the deepest part of his heart, he can still distinguish between good and evil.
It was probably this last apology that made Wu Li truly break his guard, break his heart, and shed tears.
But by the time Chinese Table Tennis base actually entered, Wu Li's mood had completely returned to normal.
He loves this base.
In other words, he likes all table tennis bases and all places where you can play.
Because his originally gloomy life was completely lit up by table tennis.
It was the beginning of the year, the first game of the year New Zealand Open was still a week away, and the Table Tennis Super League spring competition had not yet started, so all the national team players were present, and there were twenty or thirty players from the first team and the second team in total.
Cai Guodong arranged an unprecedented special welcome ceremony for Wu Li: the wheel challenge.
Starting from the players who ranked at the bottom in the last team assessment of the second team, challenge them one by one, until you challenge the players who ranked first in the main team of the first team.
Considering that there were too many games, the best-of-seven games was reduced to the best-of-five games.
But even so, there are still more than twenty games that need to be played in one day.
When Cai Guodong was announced, all the players in the base gasped because the schedule was so devilish, but then everyone became excited.
Some of the players competing for Table Tennis Super League have played against Wu Li, but most of them have only heard of Wu Li's name and watched some of Wu Li's game videos. They know that this person is special, but how good is his strength? Everyone wants to try it.
This is how Wu Li spent his first day at Huaping. He played from 8:40 in the morning to 8:30 in the evening. He played for a full 12 hours. He played a total of 27 games and 98 games, winning 17 games and losing 10 games.
Even though he was an iron man, when the last round was over, he was so tired that he lay down on the floor, lying on his back in an extremely unsightly posture, without even bothering to move a finger.
But it was this battle that allowed him to truly gain a foothold in the national team filled with experts and win the respect of other players.
Whether it was the toughness and endurance he displayed in continuous high-intensity battles, or the content of the game throughout the day, everyone present was amazed.
In fact, just talking about playing games for 12 hours a day, there are still many people in the national team who can do it. After all, table tennis is not a sport with too much exercise. But like Wu Li, who tries his best to play every game, runs all over the field to save the ball, and does not care about his physical strength, then there is really no one else who can do it.
What's more, the quality of Wu Li's games is very high. He doesn't just play casually and lose at will, but has been thinking of ways to win. From the first game to the 27th game, it can be said that he played better and better, each game became more exciting. By the last few games in the afternoon, he even played at the world's top level in some places.
In fact, the arrangement of Cai Guodong itself has profound meaning.
He asked Wu Li to challenge from the last place in the second team. This was a process from easy to difficult. He just wanted to give Wu Li enough time to adapt. He wanted to see if Wu Li's Hundred Refinements talent could really get stronger as he played.
It turns out, it is.
National Second Team has a total of 15 players. Wu Li won 9 games and lost 6 games in these 15 games.
First Team has a total of 12 players, Wu Li won 6 games and lost 6 games.
It is not difficult to see from this data how fast Wu Li has improved on the spot.
The strength gap between First Team and the second team is like a chasm, but the overall winning rate difference between Wu Li's second team and the first team is actually not that big.
When playing on the second team, his strength was in the upper half of the second team.
When playing in the first team, his strength is in the middle of the first team.
If you take into account that he did appear to be clearly exhausted in the last four hours of the game, then his performance in the first team could actually be better.
Don't forget, there are 12 people in the first team, including five main players. Wu Li won six games, which means that he is really only one step away from the main force of Huaping.
Cai Guodong signaled the other team members to disperse first, but he stayed and planned to chat with Wu Li.
He asked Wang Chao to stay too.
Because in a sense, Wu Li was completely discovered and trained to this point by Wang Chao. There is no problem in saying that Wang Chao is Wu Li's agent.
The first is the head coach.
Cai Guodong actually thinks that Wang Chao is very suitable to be the head coach of Wu Li, but Wang Chao is not a coach, but a player.
According to common sense, in this case, He Jingping is most likely to be the coach who lets Wu Li follow Wang Chao. But the problem is, He Jingping is really too busy now.
He himself has two ace disciples Wang Chao and Luo Jiu, and he has a non-mainstream sparring partner named Zhu Ding who stalks him all year round. At the same time, the technical modification of Qi Hao was originally Qin Huachang was responsible. After Qin Huachang left, this burden also fell on the shoulders of He Jingping. Now that Qi Hao's technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and is in the critical period of its second spring, He Jingping has to invest a lot of energy.
In this case, if another Wu Li is added, then Old He will most likely die of overwork.
"I plan to let him follow Brother Long." Wang Chao did not hide it. "I think it is most appropriate for Brother Long to take him."
Cai Guodong nodded.
He was very pleased, because it was obvious that although Wang Chao was not a hero like Sun Tianlong, he still understood the overall situation and did not force Wu Li to stay in the rich family.
Old Cai is really afraid that Wang Chao will forcibly give Wu Li to Zhu Zeshi. After all, Zhu Zeshi currently has no capable disciples under his command and is in a vacant period.
It's not that Old Zhu's apprenticeship level is not high, but Old Zhu is more suitable to train players like Xiao Fei who are obedient and urgently need to discover their specialties, not players like Wu Li who are in urgent need of all-round and balanced development, let alone Lu Feiyang who are thorny players who need ideological education.
For example, Lin Zijun is very suitable to follow Zhu Zeshi, because Lin Zijun has been carrying a treasure without knowing it until now. He clearly has the unparalleled Super Speed, but he has only realized a little bit of the extremes on his own. With simple offensive and defensive methods, if he joins Old Zhu's sect, even if Old Zhu can't come up with a trick that ranks in the top three of the weapon spectrum like "Great Python Turn", it can still easily come up with three, four, five or six moves that can be ranked in the top ten of the weapon spectrum.
It can be inferred from this that Pike, which has a special backhand ability, and Morad, which uses a special octagonal racket, are actually suitable for Old Zhu, but it is a pity that they are both abroad.
As for the good young talent emerging in China, Fan Xiaodong is actually considered a player with special strength, but Old Qin took the lead.
Therefore, Old Zhu's real contribution in the past two years is actually to accompany He Jingping to help Luo Jiu improve his backhand hitting technique. In this regard, Old Zhu is a master. In terms of backhand flicks alone, his contribution is greater than that of He Jingping. As for He Jingping's contribution, it mainly focuses on the modification of the forehand and backhand switching rhythm and the overall tactical system.
However, this part of Old Zhu's contribution is unknown, because Luo Jiu is a disciple of He Jingping, and although He Jingping disdains picking other people's peaches, he has no psychological burden on picking his senior brother's peaches. After all, we have a good relationship.
The coaching issue has been solved, and now comes the competition issue.
"My opinion is that as long as you are qualified to participate, you should sign up unconditionally." Wang Chao was still responsible for the answer, "He needs not only high-intensity exercise, but also high-intensity competitions."
At this point Wang Chao paused. "Head coach, I want to apply to you. Wu Li and I plan to form a team to participate in Men's Doubles."