One Minute Ten Times (Bonus Chapter)

Chapter 38: Ten Times in One Minute (Bonus Chapter)

Losing stirred Sun Hao's emotions, but not by much.

After all, this was just the Opening Game of the EuroLeague.

Losing now was still better than losing in the Playoffs.

Or, to put it another way, this game had exposed plenty of problems for the team, including himself.

If they had won, those issues would have been buried instead.

Losing wasn't always a bad thing.

And beyond luck, Ginobili's shot at the final moment showed a Big Heart.

His shooting wasn't great yet, but he already had the makings of a superstar.

You only really knew that after facing him on the court.

Especially in this era of scarce information, it made sense why Ginobili's Draft position was so low.

Maybe the NBA General Managers of this time all thought basketball here was worse than the NCAA.

When the game ended, Sun Hao had hit five Three-pointers and scored a team-high 17 points, but it ended up as an Empty Score.

Prigioni started acting like the Locker Room leader, gathering the teammates and saying some encouraging words.

By the time he finished, the celebration on the other side was winding down, and the two teams began their final handshake.

Sun Hao came face-to-face with Ginobili again.

Putting up such a strong performance in his first big game with a new team, Ginobili's mood was the polar opposite of how he'd felt at the start.

The look in his eyes when he saw Sun Hao no longer had that mixed bitterness from the beginning.

After all, the past was past; he now had a fresh start.

In competitive sports, performance was the most convincing argument.

Sun Hao didn't pay much attention to Ginobili's emotional shift; his eyes were fixed on Ginobili's head.

Maybe because he was in such a good mood, Ginobili's hair seemed to be standing on end.

Without thinking, Sun Hao reached out and gave it a rub.

He expected it to be prickly, but instead it felt soft against his palm, ticklish and comfortable!

But he immediately caught Ginobili's murderous glare.

He pulled his hand back, realizing how rude that was.

Strangely enough, when he'd touched Fernandez before, it was to encourage him, but this time...

Was habit really something you developed?

"Streamers. You've got Streamers in your hair."

Sun Hao pointed at the Streamers on the floor and gave an awkward smile.

After a game, if the home team won, there was always some Streamer spray for celebration.

It was a pretty reasonable excuse.

Ginobili clearly didn't buy it. Even if there were Streamers, you'd just pluck one off—what was with the full-on stroke?

But aside from his expression, he didn't say anything else.

In fact, he quickly turned away and acted like nothing had happened.

It wasn't that he was scared; it was that the person in front of him was Sun Hao, the only one who had seen him at the Police Station.

The game over, both teams' players filed back to their Locker Rooms.

Laso gathered everyone in the Locker Room and summarized the issues from the game.

Just as Sun Hao had thought earlier, losing at this stage wasn't necessarily bad for the team.

After Laso left, Sun Hao started thinking about his own problems.

Ginobili's basketball IQ was unquestionably high.

But even his defense was only average by NBA standards.

And with that level of defense, Sun Hao had still been stifled and uncomfortable tonight.

If it weren't for those two long-range shots, his score might have barely cracked double digits.

He needed to work on his first step.

That way, he could give himself more options in the coming games.

Just as he was pondering how to intensify his training, Prigioni, who had already said goodbye and left, came back, saying someone was looking for him.

Sun Hao was full of confusion.

He didn't know anyone in Italy.

But when he poked his head out the door in doubt and caught a glimpse of the person waiting nearby, he jerked back inside instantly.

"Pablo, tell him I'm not here."

Sun Hao pulled Prigioni over.

"Huh?"

Prigioni looked at Sun Hao with confusion.

Why say he wasn't here when he clearly was?

"Just tell him I already left. Hurry up."

Sun Hao urged.

When he first arrived in Sicily, he'd been praying he wouldn't run into that Lartigue. He hadn't—but who would've thought the guy would track him all the way to the locker room!

Prigioni still didn't understand why Sun Hao was saying this, but he did as he was told.

Sun Hao kept peeking from the doorway. When he saw Lartigue being talked away by Prigioni, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

"You owe him money?"

Prigioni came back, saw Sun Hao's expression, and couldn't help his curiosity.

"I... when I came here to travel before, I did borrow some money from him, but I paid it back long ago. He insists I didn't, so..."

Sun Hao improvised a random excuse on the spot.

"Then you've got trouble. Blame it on being famous. If it comes down to it, just pay him again, and I'll be there to witness for you."

Prigioni didn't even suspect a thing.

Sun Hao nodded perfunctorily.

Once he'd packed up, he slipped out quickly.

He was careful when leaving, and after confirming Lartigue was gone, he paid for a taxi back to the hotel himself.

The next morning, Sun Hao woke up to a knock on the door.

The flight was in the morning; the team's Assistant General Manager would notify them to gather in the lobby, but it was too early for that.

Puzzled, he walked to the door and looked through the peephole.

Lartigue.

He'd found the hotel too!

But it wasn't surprising he could find it here.

After all, this was Italy. It was easy for the police to check which hotel a foreign team was staying at.

Plus, the other party had his name and ID info.

Still, since this was a private setting, Sun Hao didn't care as much.

He was just curious why Lartigue had come to see him.

"Officer Lartigue."

"Sun."

Sun Hao opened the door, smiled, and shook hands with Lartigue.

During the Offseason, when handling his case, the latter had been very thorough.

"Your case—it's been solved."

As soon as he stepped inside, Lartigue stated his purpose and patted his briefcase.

"You've worked hard."

Sun Hao said politely.

After inviting him in, he even brewed a cup of coffee for him.

Though inwardly, he was complaining.

The case never closed while he wasn't in Italy, but the moment he arrived, it was resolved.

Lartigue opened his briefcase. Inside was a bag labeled "stolen goods."

He broke the seal and dumped out the contents—Sun Hao's and Fernandez's phones and passports.

Lartigue handed him the documents to sign while explaining the case.

"That Angela—oh, she should be called Vignali—she's a local from Sicily, a repeat offender. She'd stake out tourist spots, find a suitable target, then try her luck at nearby bars. You got lucky."

Lartigue wasn't just a chatterbox; he had a decent sense of humor.

"She committed a few more crimes after that, eventually slipped up and got caught, and confessed to all her previous cases."

A pitcher that goes too often to the well gets broken eventually.

No matter how clever the thief, in the end, they can't escape being caught.

"The money can't be recovered—it's been spent. They kept using the phones, and they didn't throw away the passports."

Sun Hao nodded. In cases like this, expecting everything to be recovered was unrealistic. Getting the phones back was already pretty good.

And this result was as expected.

"Who is Jocelyn?"

Just as Sun Hao was thinking this, Lartigue suddenly remembered something.

"Jocelyn?"

Sun Hao looked at Lartigue in stunned disbelief, wondering how the latter knew about Jocelyn's existence.

Lartigue nodded.

"When I interrogated Vignali, she said you left a deep impression on her."

The confusion in Sun Hao's eyes deepened.

Could it be... because he was handsome?

"She said you were the easiest target she'd ever gone after. She waited until you fell asleep, and it took her just one minute to succeed."

"..."

So it wasn't about him being handsome—it was about him being fast?

Sun Hao couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh.

"But in that one minute, she said you muttered a name ten times."

"That name was Jocelyn."

P.S. Shui Qie actually added an extra chapter~ Please throw in some recommendation votes~ And leave a chapter review~

Thanks to Bu Yu Wei Xiao, Du Yi Wang Jia Ren, and Lin Peng Peng Peng Peng for the tips~ Appreciate the support from all the big shots~