The Legendary Technique

So...

Smack!

5:8.

Smack!

6:8.

Smack!

7:8.

Smack!

8:8.

Tian Zhengguang's eyes had turned red from playing. Sweat soaked through his thick hair, winding down in thin streams before he roughly wiped it away with his sleeve.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"This isn't reasonable!"

"He obviously couldn't return that kind of ball just now. Why can he return it now?"

"He obviously couldn't outlast me in rallies just now. Why was he the one who held on until the end this time?"

"How can his penhold backhand blocks withstand the topspin loops I hit with all my strength? This isn't reasonable!"

"That ball... he can directly open up on that too?"

When the score was tied, Wang Chao regained the serve.

He snuck in another long serve. This was the second time he had gone long unexpectedly in this game.

The serve itself was not especially ingenious, but Tian Zhengguang's mind was in disarray at this point. He failed to react and Wang Chao scored directly.

9:8. Wang Chao had officially taken the lead.

Yan Feng's face practically lit up as he called the score. He had not cared much about these high school students at first, but now, a businessman's keen instincts suddenly made him realize that Wang Chao was actually extremely valuable.

If he could get this kid to play at his stadium long-term, and occasionally have him fill in as a coach or sparring partner, the results would be remarkable!

A high school student who had defeated a professional player was surely more marketable and legendary than a mere professional player.

Besides... Yan Feng looked Wang Chao over a few more times. Hmm, the kid was pretty handsome too. Put him in a better outfit, and he might even attract some young girls to come play.

As he pondered this, another burst of cheers erupted from the court. Wang Chao had won another point and made it 10:8.

Yan Feng began considering how he could persuade Wang Chao afterward. For example... give him a platinum card and load three years' worth of membership fees onto it?

At the critical moment, Tian Zhengguang took a deep breath. Then he suddenly placed his paddle on the table and made a gesture for a timeout.

Wang Chao froze for a moment, then could not help wanting to laugh.

"What, is that not allowed?" Tian Zhengguang's voice already betrayed obvious frustration. "You said we were following international conventions, so I should have one timeout!"

Wang Chao shrugged, indicating that he could do as he pleased.

He watched Tian Zhengguang walk over to Coach Tian, after which the older man began gesturing as he gave him instructions. He was presumably coming up with ways to deal with Wang Chao.

He saw Old Li and Old Zhao gradually join in the coaching as well. The three coaches seemed to have some disagreements, but they quickly reached a consensus in the end. Tian Zhengguang kept nodding, delight written across his face.

Then the match resumed.

Tian Zhengguang served.

He served a long backspin ball toward the middle-left, landing almost at the very end of the center line dividing the table.

Clearly, this was the strategy devised by the three coaches.

In fact, it was the correct strategy.

The placement was delicate. As a penhold player, if Wang Chao wanted to generate force over the table, his wrist position would be awkward. But if he wanted to step around and attack directly, the ball was too low and only barely went long. Its extremely short depth gave him insufficient room to loop it up.

So, for now, the only solution seemed to be a direct long chop.

But chopping long at this moment made it difficult to generate high-quality spin, allowing Tian Zhengguang to smash it hard.

Although Tian Zhengguang's desperate smash did not have a particularly high success rate, comparatively speaking, this was already the best answer against Wang Chao.

Everything had been calculated perfectly.

Yet everything was also within Wang Chao's expectations.

He had once been almost the best coach in the world. One look was all it took for him to see through the thinking of Old Li, Old Zhao, and Old Tian—the three bumbling strategists.

He knew this would be the serve.

And it was perfect for trying a technique he had not yet had the chance to test.

Every forehand penhold player was accustomed to instinctively shifting left, because stepping around for a forehand smash was unquestionably the most powerful weapon in a forehand penholder's arsenal.

Yet at this moment, he shifted slightly to the right instead, adjusted his position, and then flipped his wrist over.

Before everyone's astonished eyes, he used the side of his paddle that had never been used before, bringing it into intimate friction with the tiny silver ball in an exceptionally beautiful and unusual motion.

It was a backhand counter.

More precisely, it was a penhold backhand counter.

The ball flew even faster than it had come, tracing a wonderful arc through the air as it cleared the net and plunged into the other side of the table!

Tian Zhengguang did not react at all, simply watching the ball fly off the table.

"11:8, match over!" Yan Feng's shout cracked slightly, drowned out by the even louder cries of amazement all around the court.

"Whoa!"

At that moment, the entire Mingyue Stadium let out the same unified cry!

The old man who had been bragging nonstop beside Han Feng and the others suddenly let out a choking "Gah!" and nearly fainted. It took him several seconds to recover before he shakily clutched his chest and said, "That's Penhold Backhand Loop!"

"That's the legendary Penhold Backhand Loop!"

Penhold Backhand Loop was a new technique.

For the vast majority of penhold players in this world, a penhold paddle was effectively single-sided. Though both sides of the paddle had rubber, the reverse side was merely decorative. Only shakehand players attacked with both sides.

When facing balls to the backhand position, shakehand players could counter directly with their backhand, while penhold players could only block and push. And blocking was almost purely defensive.

Everyone knew that in the world of table tennis, pure defense had no future.

That was precisely why the two-winged looping style of shakehand players had gradually become dominant, nearly suppressing and eliminating penhold entirely.

Until a certain technique appeared out of nowhere.

Until someone mastered a peerless art.

In his previous life, that man had been named Wang Hao, a former national player. Together with two others, he had created the most glorious and invincible era in Chinese men's table tennis, historically known as the era of "Two Wangs and One Ma."

But precisely because the three of them had been too strong and too evenly matched, they had ultimately divided almost all the championships among themselves, leaving none of them with a Grand Slam.

And in this world, there was a similar person: Bai Feng, an active national player, ranked seventh in the world and a core member of the Chinese national men's table tennis team.

Half a year ago, Bai Feng had still been a rookie in the First Team. At a World Tour Open, he unveiled Penhold Backhand Loop for the first time, shocking the world and sending countless penhold players into wild joy, some even weeping.

"Penhold is saved!"

"Penhold finally won't be eliminated!"

Many people cried out these words.

Afterward, Bai Feng shot to fame like a rocket. Penhold Backhand Loop perfectly solved the weakness of penhold players on the backhand side, highlighting the more delicate touch and greater power of the penhold forehand. He won two consecutive tour events, surged straight into the world top ten, and then gained the opportunity to compete in the three major tournaments. Last year, he successfully won a World Table Tennis Championships singles gold medal.

From then on, he firmly joined the ranks of the five main pillars of the national men's table tennis team.

Over the following six months, children at major table tennis sports schools all began practicing Penhold Backhand Loop, even sparking a wave of penhold training. But people later realized that the technique was extraordinarily difficult. Though the training methods were obvious at a glance, truly developing it to the point of competing with shakehand players on the backhand was almost impossible.

All one could say was that Bai Feng possessed extraordinary, once-in-a-generation talent.

In fact, history on Earth had been much the same. Wang Hao had sparked a craze for Penhold Backhand Loop, but in the years afterward, no penhold player had ever reached his level. Eventually, national-level coaches personally admitted that Penhold Backhand Loop could not completely solve penhold's predicament. It could only serve as one supplement among many penhold techniques and could not fully become the mainstream.