Trial 9

Afterward, Su Qing threw every one of his pitches. As expected, Tada failed to catch Su Qing's Sinker. But he caught all the other pitches afterward—breaking balls with different movement and speed differentials, as well as the Knuckle Curve and Curve Slider that Su Qing considered the hardest to catch. He was just a complete mess while catching them.

Even so, he was incredibly talented! Su Qing couldn't help dragging Yamagami out for another round of ridicule.

"One last pitch. A Two-Seam Fastball."

Su Qing was rather attached to the Two-Seam Fastball. Back in high school, his two-seam fastball had been quite famous. But in college, he had switched to shortstop to improve his Draft Pick. By the time he returned to pitching after going pro, the two-seamer had fallen out of favor. The fly-ball revolution had cast aside the pitch that Ground Ball pitchers had once loved most.

At first, Su Qing refused to accept it. But after getting hit too many times, he gradually gave up on the pitch as well. In the end, it became a surprise pitch he only threw when catchers couldn't get a batter out. Once it was figured out, though, he stopped using it completely.

It had been so long since he had thrown it. He wondered whether he could still find that old feeling again.

Tadano Itsuki had been deeply disappointed upon hearing that it was the last pitch, but he immediately focused again. He felt that Su Qing, standing on the mound, had completely changed. He had only ever seen that sort of presence from Narumiya Mei. Back when he had sat in the stands watching Inashiro play, it was Narumiya Mei's incomparable aura that had ultimately made him choose Inashiro. He wanted to catch pitches from a pitcher like that!

Yet Su Qing had always felt calm to him, rarely showing any emotional fluctuations. If you were his catcher, he was like a Pitching Machine. You could only sense how formidable he was from the ball itself.

Was Su Jun finally getting serious? Well then, let me see it. A two-seam fastball? He had really never seen one before.

This stride was a perfectly ordinary one, but Tada felt that Su Qing had put every ounce of strength into it. His entire body began to tingle with excitement.

The instant he saw the ball leave Su Qing's hand, Tada had only one thought: So fast. It was practically faster than a Four-Seam Fastball!

Drawing on his experience catching four-seamers, Tada placed his glove where he thought the ball was most likely to go. Like all of Su Qing's pitches, this one followed almost the same path as a four-seamer during the first half of its flight. But just as it neared his glove, it suddenly broke, and Tada hurriedly moved his glove after it.

But this time, the break was faster and more violent, as though driven by some invisible force. It suddenly slid away.

Thud.

Tada still failed to catch up to it. The ball slammed into the ground, then bounced off to one side.

Tada did not look at the baseball that had bounced away. Instead, he looked at Su Qing. As a catcher, Tada naturally had excellent eyesight. He clearly saw the complicated, indescribable emotion in Su Qing's eyes. Tada was utterly confused. Was it because he had failed to catch the ball?

But Su Qing's expression quickly changed, and a brilliant smile bloomed across his face.

"Let's go. Time to head back and rest."

Su Qing helped Tada take off his protective gear. While removing it, Tada looked at Su Qing as though he wanted to say something, but in the end, he remained silent.

The two parted ways in the dormitory hallway. The Inashiro bathhouse was still empty except for Su Qing that day. Su Qing had once asked Tada why he did not go shower immediately after returning to the dorm. Tada's explanation was that he still needed to lift some dumbbells and do more training.

Su Qing was speechless. Kids these days were working way too hard. Were they not afraid their bodies would give out? Athletic competition was all about the body. If your body gave out, you were finished. Training was fine, but it had to be moderate. Before college, Su Qing would not do heavy strength training. Gradual progress was the priority.

But now he had the check-in system, which gave him a huge surprise every other day or so. Most of the rewards were relatively advanced equipment from his previous life, such as helmets, gloves, leg guards, and the Number Balls that currently interested Su Qing the most. Those things were quite suitable for training dynamic vision. Su Qing had originally planned to buy a batch from the store, since custom ordering them was far too troublesome. Now that the check-in system had given them to him, he was naturally delighted.

After he finished training Narumiya Mei, he planned to start working on Inashiro's batting lineup. There were two most important aspects to hitting: first, power; second, pitch recognition.

Batters who possessed both could basically make it to the Major League.

Yet both seemed to be nothing but talent, something one was born with. In Su Qing's view, that was indeed true for those first-generation ballplayers. They relied on exceptional talent to reach the Major League.

But would Su Qing let his own child compete against people who might be even more gifted than him by relying solely on talent, just as he had?

Of course not.

He would never let his child repeat his mistakes. He would train the child bit by bit from a young age—training his dynamic vision, his pitching mechanics, and even his strength.

The advantages accumulated from childhood could allow his child to achieve the same results as him even without the talent Su Qing had once possessed. That was the importance of acquired education.

Thinking about children after changing girlfriends one after another made Su Qing want to cry. In his previous life, he had already been in his thirties, yet he did not even have a child. He was still drifting around like a wanderer. Every time his teammates invited him to coach their children in pitching, he would be insanely jealous, yet afterward he would continue wandering around.

How wonderful would it be to have a child? Inheriting his talent and possessing his experience, the kid would be unbelievably fierce once he reached the Major League!

Unfortunately, there were no what-ifs. In this life, Su Qing had decided that he would settle down early. He could not keep thinking, like he had in his previous life, that moving around for his career meant he should not get married or have children.

If he switched teams, he could just move house. He had money, so what was there to fear?

He had gotten carried away thinking too far ahead. As for strength, he did not have any particularly good methods. That could only be trained through practice. Unfortunately, Inashiro had too little fitness equipment. Perhaps he could donate some in the future. As a pitcher, he needed strength too. He could not keep living off his natural gifts, or one day he would use them all up.

But he did have methods for training dynamic vision. As he had just said, he could simply start training when the time came.

When he returned to the dorm, it was as harmonious as usual. Harada was lifting dumbbells, Carlos was lifting a barbell, while Shirakawa and Narumiya Mei were reading manga. A new issue of JUMP had just come out, and the two manga fans naturally could not miss it.

Su Qing was actually a manga fan too, but he found that he had already read all the manga in JUMP. Though this was a parallel world, it was much the same. The manga were still the same manga, except one called Ace of Diamond was missing.

Su Qing thought about it and realized that the dorm lights-out time probably depended on when those two manga fans finished reading. So he asked Captain Harada about the upcoming game. Why did Tada know something that he himself did not?

"Oh, the Golden Week game. We're going out to play one, since arranging a game with someone in the same district wouldn't be suitable. It would be too easy to expose our tactics. We're going to Miyagi on Saturday to play Ikuei."

"Where is Miyagi?"

"Over near Yamagata."

"And where is Yamagata?"

"..."

"There's a map of Japan on my desk, on the shelf. Take it down and look for yourself."

"Oh~"

Following Harada's instructions, Su Qing finally found the simplified map of Japan on Harada's desk. It had been gathering dust for a long time.

Su Qing took it to his own desk and unfolded it.

"Is it really this far away?!"

He quickly found Miyagi's location. It was ridiculously far away.

"We'll take the Shinkansen. We'll be there in three hours."

!!!

"That fast? That's even faster than going to Saitama, isn't it?"

Su Qing clearly remembered that it had taken them nearly three hours to return from Saitama.

"We took a bus to Saitama, but we're taking the Shinkansen to Miyagi. How could they be the same?" Narumiya Mei could not help speaking up at that point.

Su Qing suddenly remembered that the Shinkansen was similar to high-speed rail. It really was quite fast.

"So when are we going, and when are we coming back?"

"We leave at ten in the morning, play in the afternoon, and return that night."

"We're not staying overnight?"

"Staying overnight is too expensive. Our baseball club doesn't have that much funding! If we make it to Koshien, the school will reimburse everything, whether it's lodging or renting training fields. But for ordinary practice games, the school will at most cover travel expenses. There's no way they'll pay for lodging."

Although Harada was not the club president, as captain, he still had a certain understanding of Inashiro's baseball club finances.

Su Qing really wanted to see the scenery of Japan. In his previous life, he had always been playing baseball and rarely traveled. In this life, he wanted to take it easy and look around. Besides, he had heard that Japan had plenty of delicious snacks, such as tempura and Pork Cutlet Rice!

The more he thought about it, the hungrier Su Qing became. Eating nutritional meals all the time got tiring too. Oh, right—he had said last time that he would take Narumiya Mei out to celebrate, but they still had not celebrated! Tomorrow, he would take his roommates and little Tada out for a big meal!

Thinking of that, Su Qing felt absolutely delighted.

With thoughts of a feast in his mind, Su Qing climbed into bed. The two manga fans had finished the latest issue of JUMP, and Carlos and Harada did not intend to keep working out either. As usual, Harada turned off the lights.

The next day, Su Qing was awakened by the sound of checking in.

**Ding!**

Daily check-in complete:

Obtained Dirt-Free Perfect Protective Stealing Gloves ×100 pairs

Item attributes: Perfectly protects the hands you use to touch the base. Shockproof and non-slip, and also very useful as batting gloves!

Only an idiot would use stealing gloves as batting gloves! Su Qing could not help complaining. Still, he had no interest in stealing bases. He had no speed and could not run fast, so stealing bases was simply asking too much of him.

He might as well give them to Carlos. Carlos should be exceptionally good at stealing bases, since he had fast legs.

After everyone woke up, Su Qing handed the stealing gloves to Carlos.

Carlos and the others curiously looked at the gloves Su Qing had handed over. They looked slippery, yet they were not slippery at all.

"What are these?"

"Stealing gloves."

"What are those?"

"Gloves used to protect your hands when stealing bases."

"I've never seen them before. Are these things really useful?"

"Of course they're useful. When stealing bases, the impact from the opposing side can be very strong. Batting requires gloves, so naturally stealing bases requires gloves too."