Qing Junce Unleashes His Power (Revised)

The offense and defense switched.

Akagi Takenori stood on the baseline, holding the ball in both hands.

The situation on the court suddenly became somewhat delicate.

Shohoku had possession.

His eyes swept across the entire court like lightning before finally settling on Qing Junce.

At that moment, Qing Junce was being tightly double-teamed by two Tsukitake players, and the situation looked far from favorable.

Akagi Takenori hesitated. Should he listen to Qing Junce?

Passing the ball over without a care was simply too risky.

His instincts urged him to trust Qing Junce, but reason frantically warned him that this was practically suicide.

But soon, he gritted his teeth and made up his mind.

Recalling Qing Junce's previous performances, he decided to take the gamble.

In the blink of an eye, Akagi Takenori whipped his arm forward, sending the basketball flying toward Qing Junce like a cannonball.

Seeing the incoming ball, Nangou Koichiro curled his lips into a cold sneer. "Idiot. I told you, I won't let you touch the ball!"

As he spoke, he and Mine Kenta lunged toward Qing Junce, intending to pin him tightly between them and leave him unable to move.

But the moment they closed in, both of them froze. They felt nothing where Qing Junce should have been; they had not touched anything at all.

What was going on?

The two hurriedly focused their eyes. There was no sign of Qing Junce between them. A living person had simply vanished without a trace.

While they were still staring in bewilderment, a large hand firmly caught the basketball passed by Akagi Takenori.

The receiver was none other than Qing Junce, who had somehow escaped the double team.

The sight left everyone completely stunned.

Qing Junce had just been trapped tightly between two defenders. How had he suddenly appeared in the passing lane?

Many spectators had not even realized when Qing Junce had escaped the double team.

The Tsukitake players were utterly confused and at a loss.

It was not only them. The Shohoku players were also looking at one another, completely baffled.

Nangou Koichiro and Mine Kenta noticed the strange looks around them and hurriedly looked up in the direction of everyone's gaze.

Before they could see clearly, a gust of wind whooshed past their faces. Immediately afterward, the sound of a basketball bouncing grew fainter and fainter behind them.

Boom...

Boom...

Boom...

What?

Nangou Koichiro and Mine Kenta were shocked. They turned around blankly.

The figure dribbling wildly forward was none other than Qing Junce, whom they had just been guarding so tightly.

"This... How did he do that?" Nangou Koichiro's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, his face filled with disbelief.

Mine Kenta was just as bewildered, his mind completely blank.

Seeing this, Godai Tomokazu immediately shouted at the top of his lungs, "Get back on defense!"

Only then did the Tsukitake players snap out of their daze. They immediately took off after Qing Junce.

Izumi Takashi was closest to his own basket. Gritting his teeth, he abandoned his defense on Rukawa Kaede and sprinted back, taking up position beneath the basket in advance. He intended to stop Qing Junce before he entered the paint.

What he had not expected was that Qing Junce's dribbling speed far exceeded his imagination.

Qing Junce seemed to cross space itself, reaching him almost instantly.

Izumi Takashi shuddered in surprise. Before he could react, he saw Qing Junce suddenly stop dead.

The sight gave Izumi Takashi the bizarre illusion that a frame of the scene had been skipped.

At the same time, after coming to a sudden stop, Qing Junce immediately leaped high into the air without a word, raising the ball with both hands and aiming at the Tsukitake basket.

Izumi Takashi came back to his senses. With no time to think, he jumped after him and stretched out his arm in an attempt to block the shot.

But he seemed to have forgotten that the height difference between him and Qing Junce was enormous. His palm only reached halfway up Qing Junce's arm.

In the end, Izumi Takashi could only watch helplessly as Qing Junce released the shot.

The basketball flew over his head and dropped into the basket behind him.

Swish...

The basketball went through the net.

Shōhoku 4–8 Tsukitake.

For a moment, the entire arena was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

After quite a while, the stands erupted in waves of excited exclamations and discussion.

"Too fast! Is that Shohoku's No. 9?"

"My god! I only saw a red blur flash by, and then the ball was in!"

"He can run that fast while dribbling? Have you noticed? The Tsukitake players can't seem to catch him at all!"

"His name is Qing Junce, right? I heard he's even better than Rukawa Kaede. Looks like that wasn't an exaggeration!"

"That sudden stop was incredible! It was as if there were really a wall in front of him. I've never seen anything like it!"

As the saying went, insiders saw the technique, while outsiders watched the spectacle.

Most spectators simply found Qing Junce's sudden stop pleasing to watch.

But in the eyes of people who understood basketball, it was a completely different matter.

Such as Maki Shinichi, Fujima Kenji, and Hanagata Toru.

All three were basketball experts with unique insights into various techniques.

Qing Junce's sudden stop had left all three of them dumbfounded.

That astonishing contrast between extreme speed and instant stillness was not something an ordinary person could accomplish.

The calm expressions they had worn while watching the game instantly turned serious.

The offense and defense switched again.

It was Tsukitake's turn to inbound.

Tsukitake continued using the same tactic as before.

The basketball moved rapidly through their hands, crossing half court in the blink of an eye.

Nangou Koichiro immediately charged into Shohoku's paint, eagerly waiting for a pass from his teammate.

At that moment, the ball happened to reach Mine Kenta's hands.

Just then, Qing Junce suddenly flashed into view and instantly blocked his path.

Mine Kenta quickly assumed a triple-threat stance and faced Qing Junce.

The two stared at each other from a distance.

Mine Kenta tried to break through Qing Junce's defense.

But after several attempts, not only had he failed to shake Qing Junce, his own room to maneuver had grown smaller and smaller.

A bead of cold sweat trickled down Mine Kenta's forehead. "How can this guy's defense be so strong?"

He changed directions, switched hands, and used one feint after another, but no matter what he tried, he could not shake Qing Junce.

Seeing that his teammate still could not break through, Natsume Hiroshi quietly circled behind Qing Junce. He intended to block Qing Junce from behind and help Mine Kenta get past him.

Mine Kenta noticed Natsume Hiroshi's movement and his eyes lit up. He quickly drew Qing Junce toward Natsume Hiroshi.

Their coordination was extremely subtle.

Just as everyone thought Qing Junce was about to crash straight into Natsume Hiroshi, something happened in an instant.

At the very moment before impact, Qing Junce suddenly spun right in a 360-degree C-turn. In one fluid motion, he slipped around Natsume Hiroshi and reappeared in front of Mine Kenta on the other side.

The entire sequence was completed in one breath, unbelievably smooth, as if Qing Junce had simply ignored Natsume Hiroshi and never regarded him as a threat.

With a sharp slap, Qing Junce reached out and stole the basketball before Mine Kenta could recover.

What?

Mine Kenta had not even recovered from seeing Qing Junce reappear when the ball was suddenly stripped from his hands.

The teammate who had originally set the screen for him had now become an obstacle blocking his view.

Who would believe such a thing if he told them?

It had happened too suddenly for Mine Kenta to react at all.

Whoosh...

A fierce gust swept past Mine Kenta's face. Only when the sound of the basketball bouncing grew distant behind him did he finally recover.

"He's too fast. I couldn't react at all." His head turned stiffly backward, his eyes filled with shock and horror.

Qing Junce transformed into a red streak of light and charged straight toward the Tsukitake basket.

Seeing this, Godai Tomokazu turned and ran after him. At present, he was the only one who could catch Qing Junce in the shortest time.

Unfortunately, that thought was beautiful, while reality dealt him a crushing blow.

He did catch up with Qing Junce, but the instant he did, Qing Junce suddenly drove to the right, then abruptly stopped before switching hands and faking a drive to the left.

Qing Junce moved too fast for Godai Tomokazu to see clearly. When he suddenly changed direction, Godai instinctively assumed he was changing the direction of his drive and forcibly shifted his defense as well.

But in the next moment, although Qing Junce had switched the ball to his left hand, he was still driving to the right.

The entire sequence was as fast as lightning and impossibly smooth.

Godai Tomokazu had never imagined that Qing Junce could perform such a feint under these circumstances. It defied common sense.

In the end, Godai Tomokazu could only watch helplessly as Qing Junce drove past his left side.

"Stop right there!" Nangou Koichiro shouted as he chased after them from behind.

Qing Junce did not bother to respond. He drove straight into the Tsukitake paint.

Sensing Nangou Koichiro closing in, Qing Junce did not slow down. He reached the side of the key and decisively jumped.

"Don't even think about shooting!" Seeing this, Nangou Koichiro had no time to worry about anything else and jumped after him.

He spread both arms like an octopus, doing his best to block Qing Junce's shooting lane.

But once he was in the air, he was stunned.

Nangou Koichiro discovered that the distance between himself and Qing Junce was actually growing.

His eyes widened in confusion. "What's going on? Why is he jumping in the opposite direction?"

Watching Qing Junce leap away from the basket, Nangou Koichiro was dazed for a moment before a smug smile appeared on his face.

He thought his defense had worked.

Qing Junce must have been forced to jump in the opposite direction because he had no other choice.

The other players and spectators thought the same thing.

By then, Qing Junce had already created some distance from Nangou Koichiro in midair.

Although the opponent had blocked half of his shooting lane, the other half remained open.

Qing Junce suddenly twisted in midair and straightened his body, turning to face the basket.

The next second, right in front of the still-smug Nangou Koichiro, he held the ball in one hand and tossed it straight toward the Tsukitake basket.

The motion was as casual as tossing a crumpled paper ball into a trash can.

Clang...

Swish...

Under the astonished gazes of everyone in the arena, the basketball struck the backboard before bouncing into the basket.

The basketball went through the net.

Shōhoku 6–8 Tsukitake.