"Damn it, I miscalculated..." Luo Zhihong sat in one of the venue's surveillance rooms, staring at the ultra-high-definition feeds aimed at the tables on the giant screen before him. He almost felt like cursing.
Wang Chao had actually wronged him.
He had wanted to see Wang Chao play Wu Li more than anyone.
He had merely felt that Wang Chao was a newcomer from an unconventional background, with shaky fundamentals and no competition experience. If he was thrown into battle too hastily, his performance might be unstable.
So Luo Zhihong had painstakingly arranged this grand gauntlet, intending for Wang Chao and Jiang Shan to work their way upward step by step. That way, the more they played, the better their form would become, the more nimble their movements would grow, and by the time they reached Wu Li, they would be at their peak.
What he wanted to see was peak Wang Chao versus peak Wu Li!
Yet... it seemed he had screwed it up?
"Didn't this kid train his stamina day and night? Why is he still so useless? He's only made it to Liu Heng, and he's already half dead?"
Luo Zhihong felt frustrated at his failure to meet expectations, with nowhere to vent all his good intentions. Yet beside him, several coaches were looking at him with worshipful eyes.
These assistant coaches could not see the head coach's true intentions. They merely felt that the head coach had indeed planned everything perfectly, crippling the arrogant Wang Chao with nothing more than a simple lineup arrangement.
For a troublesome player who kept handing people shutouts, only the head coach could put him in his place.
So they all thought in unison, The head coach is giving Wang Chao a warning!
And what a perfectly timed warning it is!
The head coach's wisdom is truly beyond ordinary people!
"11–7. Wang Chao won the sixth game." The scoring coach loudly announced the final result. "Final score, 4–2. Wang Chao defeated Liu Heng."
Wang Chao let out a long breath and immediately collapsed onto the floor, feeling as though he could drop dead asleep at any moment.
On the other side of the table, Liu Heng also let out a long breath, his face full of unwillingness.
He had thought he could win. Yet even though Wang Chao was clearly exhausted, with both his footwork and swings slowing down, Liu Heng had still failed to take him down.
He felt as though he had encountered a crafty old fox. There had been endless feints, fake moves, and bluffs. Many of those tactics had nothing to do with technical skill, yet Wang Chao had slowly worn him down, dragged him out, and ultimately ground him to death point by point.
But when Liu Heng glanced at the distant scoreboard again, he became happy.
He had completed all fifteen matches, winning thirteen and losing two—one to Wu Li and one to Wang Chao. For now, he was ranked third.
Barring anything unexpected, he would probably finish third as well.
Although he had fallen from second place in the previous round robin to third, what Liu Heng truly cared about were the three spots for next spring's promotion-relegation matches at the provincial team. To him, second and third place made no difference.
After today's round robin, he was certain that he was third. No one would be taking his place.
So he ran over to Wang Chao, pulled him up from the floor into a sitting position, then went behind him and began massaging his muscles.
His hands were incredibly strong, and he accurately found the pressure points. He kneaded, patted, and tapped with remarkable professionalism.
Wang Chao groaned comfortably, though he was also curious. "What are you doing?"
"Don't talk. Relax your whole body. You can't lie down right after intense exercise. Something could go wrong."
Liu Heng looked every bit the domineering CEO. "Wang Chao, you played well. I admire you, so I really want to see you beat that madman senseless."
Wang Chao was stunned.
"Ah, too bad it's impossible this time." Liu Heng sighed. "Why are you so weak? If you had half my stamina, you could really go toe-to-toe with Wu Li."
Twenty minutes later, Wang Chao faced Wu Li.
The reason they had waited twenty minutes was that Luo Zhihong's arrangement this time had not been very scientific. To preserve the newcomers' gauntlet order, many tables had been left idle and waiting. Wu Li, as the Great Demon King, had few matches in the morning, with nearly all of them concentrated in the afternoon. Like a dragon guarding the final gate, he had slain one dragon-slaying warrior after another.
The second-to-last person to fall was Jiang Shan. Jiang Shan played that match very slowly, carefully considering nearly every ball. Although he still lost 4–0 in the end, the entire match lasted a full forty minutes.
After watching that match from the surveillance room, Luo Zhihong and the others generally gave Jiang Shan high praise.
"Train him properly in the future. This kid has promise." The speaker was the stern middle-aged man beside Luo Zhihong. "When he grows a little older, our provincial team will give him special attention next year."
The middle-aged man was Jiang Long, a coach from the Hubei Provincial Team. He was here because he held two extremely important recommendation slots.
Before this, Wu Li had already been tacitly assigned one of those recommendation slots. Jiang Long's words now meant that Jiang Shan was being considered for the other one as well.
Luo Zhihong was delighted. To him, every promising talent sent to the provincial team was a tremendous achievement.
He said, "What about Wang Chao?"
"For now, I don't think he'll do." Jiang Long shook his head. "After watching all his matches this afternoon, he occasionally showed flashes of brilliance, so his talent is clearly decent. But his body is too weak, and his fundamentals probably aren't much better. Though he has kept winning, many of those wins came from calculation and deception, not technique."
Luo Zhihong disagreed. "But even the national team coaches have said that on a true international stage, mentality and strategy are often more important than technique."
Jiang Long did not argue. He merely chuckled and pointed at the screen. "Let's watch. It's about to start."
This was the final match of the day.
Whether by coincidence or design, this match had been left until last. By now, all the players and coaches had gathered around, as if witnessing the arrival of an important moment.
Today, there would finally be an answer as to who would claim the title of the Jiangcheng City Table Tennis Team's top player.
Wang Chao won the coin toss and chose to serve. Before serving, he suddenly felt something and looked toward one side of the venue, just in time to see Luo Zhihong slowly walking over with that stern man.
This match was important. Jiang Long did not want to watch it from a surveillance-room screen; he wanted to see it clearly in person.
Someone at the side of the court shouted, "Go, Wang Chao!"
It was Li Shaoqin, whom Wang Chao had tortured to the brink of death these past few days.
Wang Chao was somewhat surprised. He looked over, and Li Shaoqin gave him a sly grin before proudly pointing at the scoreboard nearby.
The scoreboard densely recorded every player's results. Wang Chao saw that Li Shaoqin's row read three wins and twelve losses, ranked thirteenth.
Wang Chao was a little surprised.
If he remembered correctly, Li Shaoqin had also ranked thirteenth in the previous internal round robin. But back then, the three unlucky players below him had been Gao Ming, Li Fang, and Zhou Bo.
Now Gao Ming had left the team, and Li Fang had been demoted to the reserve squad. That meant Zhou Bo was the only player left on the team weaker than Li Shaoqin.
Li Shaoqin was still ranked thirteenth, which meant he had beaten two opponents he had been unable to defeat before.
And that improvement had come precisely from Wang Chao's relentless torment over the past few days.
That shout of encouragement was more like a kind of thanks to Wang Chao.
Wang Chao smiled, swiftly focused on the present, and served a cautious short backspin ball.
Of course, he would not be intimidated by Wu Li's imposing presence. But against an opponent he had never faced before, a short backspin serve was undoubtedly the safest all-purpose choice.
He needed to use this most basic ball to test Wu Li's playing style.
The moment the ball landed on the table, Wu Li reacted.
His speed was astonishing. In an instant, he circled from across the table to its side, raised his arm, met the ball with his paddle, and suddenly exerted force.
Wang Chao instantly saw through Wu Li's intentions. This was clearly an extremely difficult over-the-table flick!
Wang Chao retreated as much as he could, trying to intercept the ball along the right path. But the force behind Wu Li's flick was unbelievably great, and the ball speed was equally terrifying. A streak of white flashed past, and it was already right in front of him.
Wang Chao hurriedly raised his paddle, but he could not keep up. The ball skimmed past the edge of his paddle just as it arrived and flew away.
1–0. Wu Li scored with an aggressive attack.
So fierce! Wang Chao was slightly shocked. Was he going all out from the very first ball?
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