Diligence

"You have no idea—that lunatic acted like I had some deep, irreconcilable grudge against him!"

Jiang Shan had finally calmed down and began pouring out his grievances to Wang Chao. "If I made even the slightest mistake on a serve, he'd smash it the moment he got the chance. I'm telling you, when he rushed in, he looked like he wanted to kill someone. Those eyes, that posture, and the sound of the wind from his paddle... Tsk, tsk. Bro, I guarantee that if it were you, you'd be just like me—too scared to even return his shots."

Wang Chao asked, "Why?"

"Because I'm afraid he'll challenge me to a real-life PK!" Jiang Shan put on a lingeringly terrified expression. "At first, every time he attacked, I backed away. Later, the coach cursed me out from the side, saying, 'He's not going to eat you. What are you afraid of?' I said, 'I'm afraid he'll swing his paddle and hit me with it.'"

Wang Chao snorted with laughter, nearly spraying out his food.

"Bro, I hate you." Jiang Shan looked at him mournfully. "The news yesterday clearly said you were going to be the sparring partner, but somehow it suddenly became me. I'm serving your sentence here."

Wang Chao could only pat him on the shoulder. "Study hard, train hard. I have high hopes for you."

Jiang Shan rolled his eyes, losing all desire to talk, and began shoveling meat into his mouth.

Wang Chao lowered his head and kept eating. Halfway through, he suddenly felt as if someone was watching him from behind. He quickly turned around and caught sight of Cook in the distance, just as Cook looked away.

The lunch break soon ended, and training resumed that afternoon.

Wang Chao did not continue with multiball training. Instead, he found an open space to practice shuttle runs and let Li Shaoqin do as he pleased.

Then came the second day, the third day, the fourth day...

Wake up, train, eat, train, rest...

That was an athlete's life: dull yet fulfilling. Every day, they repeated movements that appeared identical, while countless details and realizations quietly sank into their hearts.

Everyone who had once stood at the pinnacle of the world had grown through this kind of tedious training, day after day.

In this life, Wang Chao wanted to soar to the heavens and pluck the moon. Naturally, he would not be content with merely being an expert at this tiny municipal training base.

Every evening after dinner, he did not return to the dormitory. Instead, he went back to the court for extra training, only dragging his exhausted body home at ten at night.

Li Shaoqin did not want to train extra—not because he feared hardship, but because he wanted to watch dramas, play games, browse forums, chat, and flirt with girls. Nighttime was his wonderful free time, and he had plenty to do.

But Wang Chao was not so friendly about it. He went straight to Luo Zhihong to complain. Luo Zhihong was initially stunned and even advised Wang Chao not to push himself too hard. But after Wang Chao insisted, Luo Zhihong very unprincipledly chose to support him.

That was just the kind of person the head coach was. He always favored players with better technique and made no effort to hide his double standards.

He summoned Li Shaoqin and poured a huge bowl of motivational soup into him. The general message was: "People better than you are working harder than you. Aren't you ashamed?"

Li Shaoqin sighed miserably, practically wanting to die, but there was nothing he could do. Unless he left the base, he could only obediently practice with Wang Chao.

After a week had passed, Wang Chao felt that his stamina had improved greatly. His original training volume could no longer thoroughly drain his energy, so he began plotting something even more insane.

"How about we get up at five in the morning and train for two hours first? I can ask Old Luo for the stadium's spare key." Wang Chao discussed it with Li Shaoqin.

Li Shaoqin dropped to his knees on the spot...

It was not an exaggerated figure of speech. He really knelt down, kneeling beside the table and lying across it as he cried, "Big brother, I was wrong! My mouth was filthy, I was asking for it, and I shouldn't have offended you. Please, be the bigger man and let me go. Go torment someone else!"

Wang Chao did not understand. "Isn't your stamina pretty good? Besides, you serve and I attack. I'm clearly the one who gets more tired."

Li Shaoqin did not understand either. "Is your phone just for decoration? There are so many good shows, so many games, so many pretty girls—go look at them, big brother! Life isn't just table tennis!"

Wang Chao understood.

He did not try to persuade him further, only feeling somewhat regretful.

Only then did he realize that Li Shaoqin was not the same kind of person as him.

To achieve extraordinary accomplishments in any field, one inevitably had to sacrifice countless things. From the moment he first picked up a paddle at Mingyue Stadium, he had already decided to let go of the countless joys that filled an ordinary teenager's life.

Just like in that classic film he had watched in his previous life: once the monkey put on the golden headband, he could no longer touch any worldly desires. He could only devote himself wholeheartedly, forge ahead bravely, and travel west until he endured all eighty-one trials and attained enlightenment.

The things Li Shaoqin could not let go of were precisely those worldly desires.

What Wang Chao sought, meanwhile, was to stand atop the world of table tennis.

Gain and loss—only that was fair.

He sighed.

Li Shaoqin thought he had given up and cautiously persuaded him, "Can't we just keep things as they are?"

But Wang Chao shook his head. "I don't care. You're my sparring partner, so you have to cooperate with me. Otherwise, I'll go complain to Old Luo."

Li Shaoqin was so angry that his eyes turned red.

This was too much. It really was too much.

"We're both adults. Wouldn't it be better to settle our conflict like men? Why do you have to complain?"

He was not wrong. Wang Chao really was bullying him.

Given his identity as a former world-class coach, Wang Chao would not seriously bicker with Li Shaoqin. But when the opportunity happened to present itself, he felt absolutely no psychological burden over giving him a small lesson.

Wang Chao had already made up his mind. So long as he remained at this base, Li Shaoqin would be his only sparring partner.

Of course, he would never say anything bad about Li Shaoqin on the surface. On the contrary, he would praise him lavishly before Comrade Luo, talking about how capable and cooperative his sparring partner was and how satisfied he was with him.

In short, from the next day onward, there were two figures in the stadium at four in the morning—one listless, the other brimming with energy.

Time passed day by day like flowing water, and only the shining sweat on the table recorded the boys' diligence.

Under Wu Li's overwhelming pressure, Jiang Shan gradually steadied himself. Not only had he not been crushed, but his strength seemed to be quietly improving. It was said that at first, he could only win seven or eight points in an entire day, but now he could win more than twenty. All the coaches found this gratifying.

Wang Chao's progress was equally obvious. Through training that was practically self-torture, his physical bottleneck gradually began to loosen, and his stamina started increasing slowly.

It was worth mentioning that Wang Chao finally had a custom paddle that belonged solely to him.

The company responsible for making the custom paddle was a famous domestic table tennis equipment manufacturer called Hongshuangli. They had enjoyed a long and excellent partnership with the national table tennis team for many years and also customized personal paddles for the main players of official teams across several provinces and cities.

The base covered the customization fee, so Wang Chao did not need to pay anything himself. Well, that was important.

However, a municipal team player's status was still rather low, so Hongshuangli had no intention of letting Wang Chao participate personally in the design, much less allowing him to follow the production team through the step-by-step adjustment of every paddle specification.

They merely sent someone to ask Wang Chao about his specific requirements for the paddle, then conducted a detailed examination of all aspects of his physical condition before leaving with a large pile of data.

Thanks to "Little Ice Spirit" for the monthly ticket.

Thanks to "Menphisto" for the donation.