30 Reasons for Choosing Inashiro

So what exactly did Chen Xin and Su Qing talk about?

"When did you get here?"

Of course, Chen Xin was the one asking. Su Qing had asked Harada to dig into Chen Xin's background from top to bottom. As a longtime fan of Ace of Diamond, he had noticed Chen Xin early on. Chen Xin, on the other hand, probably had never even watched Ace of Diamond. Even if he had heard Su Qing's name, he would have assumed it belonged to someone else with the same name.

"Whenever you got here, that's when I got here. About half a year ago."

Chen Xin was a little surprised. He had thought Su Qing had transmigrated over a decade ago, considering he had died long ago. But transmigration itself had already happened, so what did a little time difference matter?

"Don't go sailing anymore. Of all things, why would you insist on playing with something so dangerous?"

Su Qing found it strange that Chen Xin had brought up something so random. They had finally met, so why talk about sailing? What was wrong with sailboats?

"Why? If you hadn't mentioned it, I would've forgotten. I'd planned to sail my little boat out to sea after retiring, but I transmigrated right after I retired. My life is so hard."

Although he now had a healthy body and another chance at life, he had already achieved fame and success in his previous life! He could have lain in bed counting money, doing whatever he wanted. It might not necessarily have been worse than starting over. Look at the life he was living now—he still had to play ball with kids, train, and get up early! Though he was willing to do it.

After hearing that, Chen Xin instantly looked like he wanted to say something but stopped himself. Sure enough, Su Qing did not know that he had died. In his previous life, Su Qing really had successfully sailed his little boat out to sea.

But an accident had happened before he got very far. Luckily, he had not gone far, or they might not even have found his body.

Chen Xin could not help wondering whether he had transmigrated because he died too. He just did not know it.

Forget it. Why think so much? He had transmigrated anyway.

"Stop thinking about it! With that little body of yours, you still want to sail? You probably can't even reach the sail."

Chen Xin had noticed long ago that Su Qing had become shorter. In their previous lives, Su Qing had been just a little taller than Chen Xin, while now, Su Qing was just a little shorter.

"Ho! How tall can you possibly be? Let me guess—178?"

Su Qing shot Chen Xin a disdainful look. When it came to height, whoever had thinner skin was the one who got embarrassed. Even if you were shorter, you had to act like you were taller! That way, the other person would be the embarrassed one!

Just as Su Qing expected, Chen Xin quickly changed the subject. He had grown used to being crushed by Su Qing's height in their previous life, so talking about height had to make him insecure.

"Why did you go to Inashiro? I remember Seido was the protagonist team in Ace of Diamond..."

Chen Xin knew Su Qing loved watching anime like that. He had always found it strange—what was so good about baseball anime? Hadn't Su Qing gotten sick of baseball already? Besides, professional players watching movies, dramas, or anime about their own profession would more or less view them critically. Chen Xin did not like watching them because he felt embarrassed on the author's behalf.

But Su Qing loved them. He said Chen Xin did not understand the passion, the fire, and all that. Every time, Chen Xin would just roll his eyes at him.

"Heh heh."

Chen Xin had asked a very good question. Yeah, why had he not gone to Seido?

Mainly because he knew too much about the protagonist team. As the protagonist team, practically every notable character had already been fleshed out—Watanabe, Aso, the Principal, and his assistant.

That kind of completely familiar environment held little appeal for Su Qing. Besides, there were so many things to deal with—Chris, Tanba, Miyuki. Su Qing was lazy and easygoing by nature. He did not really want to change the people around him.

So in the end, he chose the relatively unknown Inashiro, mostly because he liked Narumiya Mei too much. It was not that the protagonist Little Angel was unlikable; Su Qing simply did not like Little Angel's character setup that much. He liked satisfying webnovels and anime, so what he hated most was authors tormenting their protagonists!

Su Qing both pitied and liked Little Angel, as well as the Little Sun from the volleyball anime next door. It was not that they were not outstanding enough—it was that their potential had been limited by trash authors.

From a long-term perspective, Furuya Satoru's future achievements would definitely surpass Eijun's. It was not that pitchers without blazing velocity could not make it. There was a remarkable Major League pitcher whose velocity was not especially high, but whose spin rate was terrifyingly high. His fastball had outright overwhelmed the fastballs of countless pitchers with incredible velocity, making him the pitcher with the hardest fastball to hit in the entire Major League.

But such an example was too difficult to replicate. What kind of cheat did the author give Little Angel? Extremely flexible joints, and a fastball that moved—a "seven-colored breaking ball"?

Honestly, Su Qing had laughed when he first saw that character setup. He had nearly dropped the anime. He truly had no idea what a "seven-colored breaking ball" was, but fortunately, he stuck with it afterward.

Wasn't a moving fastball something every pitcher aiming for the pros ought to have? Though flexible joints really were great—they helped increase spin rate. Su Qing rather coveted that trait too, since it meant he could avoid injuries as much as possible!

But aside from that, Sawamura really had no other distinguishing traits. And Sawamura had never received professional training. He probably only began receiving proper pitching instruction in high school. It was already bad enough that his talent was not top-tier, but he had also lost at the starting line from the very beginning. Truly a beautiful, strong, tragic character—far too tragic.

Of course, Su Qing had no right to laugh at Sawamura. He had been about the same, or even later. He had not completely given up the bat and switched to pitching until after he had started playing professionally, much later than Sawamura. But he had talent.

There was another reason Su Qing did not want to go to Seido: he did not want to overshadow Sawamura and Furuya. If he really went to Seido, with Coach Kataoka's boldness, he would probably become Seido's ace that summer. And with his ability and talent, both Sawamura and Furuya would spend their entire high school careers living in his shadow.

Neither Sawamura nor Furuya would have it easy. He and Furuya were the same type of player, except Su Qing was even better. If he really went there, Furuya, who would be exposed to him at close range, would completely become nothing more than a supporting leaf.

And Little Angel went without saying. Furuya could at least draw some attention with his velocity, but Sawamura, who could neither become the ace nor rise above the upper-middle level among high school pitchers, probably would not attract any attention at all.

Su Qing did not want to see that happen, so even though Seido was already miserable enough, he still chose Inashiro without hesitation. Narumiya Mei was different. Narumiya Mei had already achieved fame and success, and the cheat the author gave him was even bigger.

Besides, Su Qing also felt sorry for Narumiya Mei's character. In Su Qing's view, Narumiya Mei's future would very likely be limited by his height. Coupled with how fiercely he pitched in high school, he would probably wear out his ligaments early and break down not long after entering the professional ranks.

He did not want such an adorable Narumiya Mei to have such a tragic ending, so he came to Inashiro, hoping to guide Mei onto a better path.

Simply put, there was just too much to worry about at Seido, and he could not ignore it because his conscience would hurt. At Inashiro, he only needed to look after Narumiya Mei.

If he had not come to Inashiro, his second choice might have been Yakushi. Not because of Raichi—Su Qing was still choosing based on pitchers.