After returning from the Hongyuan Youth Team, Sun Hao considered every possibility.
In the end, he chose the dumbest method—but also the only one that might work right now.
Writing letters.
He looked up the contact information for NCAA schools online, then picked one—Sierra Canyon School—and persistently wrote to them.
The letters contained only one request: that they send a scout to China to watch him play.
It looked like a foolish approach, but it was not impossible. In fact, the chances were not small.
For one thing, as a Los Angeles high school, Sierra Canyon School was relatively accepting of overseas players.
UCLA, the famous Los Angeles university that had recruited Ma Jian back then, was a prime example.
For another, anyone who had seen The Shawshank Redemption should know that Andy, the protagonist, had written to the governor without interruption all year long. After six years, he had secured considerable funding to build a library for his prison.
There was another point: Sun Hao's system was different from those systems that simply let people cheat their way to the top. His needed time to produce results.
So over the next year or two, besides continuing to write letters, he had to keep training in the system.
Since he could enter the system anytime and anywhere, maintaining his training was entirely doable.
Opportunities were reserved for those who came prepared.
Once his letters truly succeeded and a scout came to China to watch him play, if he could put on a strong enough performance to impress them, getting into an American high school would naturally follow.
He had already drifted through an entire lifetime in his previous life. Coupled with the provocation from Li Yuanwei and Yang Wei, he had no shortage of motivation.
He had a plan, a goal, and even motivation. All that remained was persistence.
It was like running: at first, it felt exhausting, but once you kept doing it, it gradually became easy.
It was a process of overcoming both physical and mental barriers.
At first, Sun Hao also felt tired. It did not seem worthwhile or necessary. He might as well have muddled through life like he had in his previous life.
After all, as a transmigrator, making money was relatively easy.
But whenever he thought of Yang Wei's smiling face and Li Yuanwei's attitude, he gritted his teeth and persisted.
Sometimes, wasn't living all about fighting for one breath of dignity?
Everything was difficult at the beginning. Once he gritted his teeth and made it through that initial stretch, Sun Hao gradually adapted.
Eventually, if he went a day without training in the system, he felt uncomfortable all over.
Eggplant withered after the frost, spring blossoms bloomed, then frost struck the eggplant again, and all things revived...
In the blink of an eye, two years passed.
Yi Jianlian was still in middle school, while Sun Hao had already finished middle school and become a local high school student.
His studies had not fallen behind, and his height had suddenly shot up to 1.6 meters over those two years.
Children at that age were in a growth period. Though he had grown somewhat quickly, it was still within the bounds of science.
Some well-known players, such as Jeremy Lin and McCollum, had also experienced periods where they grew ten centimeters or even more in a single year.
Of course, after two years of training, it was not just his height that had grown. His physical attributes had improved across the board, from strength and vertical leap to ball-handling and shooting.
With the system's one-to-two time ratio, two years in reality equaled four years of professional training in the system.
To put it vividly, aside from his height, his abilities in every other aspect were already very close to those of a CBA player.
And CBA-level players were basically like Jordan in amateur games.
After entering high school, he smoothly joined the school team and led them all the way to the finals of the Guangdong Provincial High School League.
He averaged more than twenty points per game.
That scoring average was not particularly eye-catching.
It was not because he was not strong enough. It was because he was too strong. He usually exerted himself for just one half and led his team to crush the opposition.
Yet even so, none of the CBA youth teams, including the Hongyuan Team, had ever invited him.
The reason was obvious: they firmly believed in bone-age testing, and they also believed that as those taller players kept growing, Sun Hao's advantages would shrink further and further.
But Sun Hao did not care about any of that.
What he truly cared about was tonight's final.
After he had kept writing letters for two years, Sierra Canyon School had finally been moved by his perseverance and sent a scout to watch his game in person.
Or rather, how well he played tonight might very well determine whether he could ultimately go to an American high school to play basketball.
He had to seize this chance!
Guangdong had one of the strongest basketball cultures in the country, and the final that night drew tremendous attention. The three-thousand-seat arena was packed to the brim.
Sun Hao swept his gaze around the venue and immediately spotted the American scout near the back of the stands.
Even from that distance, Sun Hao found him among the crowd.
In that era, there were not many Americans coming to China.
What was more, Smith was also looking at Sun Hao when Sun Hao looked at him.
But unlike Sun Hao's burning, eager gaze, Smith's eyes held more helplessness.
The NBA was dominated by centers now, and America was very interested in big overseas players.
That was a major reason Ma Jian had been noticed by them in the first place.
But guards... that was the complete opposite.
America already had a crowded pool of guards, and their athleticism was more explosive than the last. They truly had little interest in overseas guards.
Not to mention Yellow Race guards.
Yellow Race guards were notorious for being weak in physical contact and poor in fundamentals.
More precisely, they simply did not believe any Yellow Race guard could play in the NBA.
The only reason they had sent him to China was that this kid named Sun Hao had been far too persistent.
Their school mailbox received a letter from across the ocean every day. Forget the security guard—even the principal's mistress already knew who Sun Hao was.
The Shawshank Redemption had only premiered in America last year and caused a sensation. Yet here came a real-life version the very next year.
And he had kept writing for two years.
So the school had ultimately sent Smith.
From the occasional videotapes he had seen before, Sun Hao's talent seemed average. Smith had come mainly to treat it as a vacation.
After the pregame ceremony, both teams' starters took the court one after another.
Cheers erupted from the crowd.
Student basketball had a great atmosphere, no matter what country it was in.
Amid the cheers of the spectators, the game began quickly.
Sun Hao played Point Guard, and he immediately began showing what he could do.
In school basketball, whenever someone possessed far superior individual ability, the game became all about that one person.
Sun Hao was no exception. Right from the start, he shook free of his defender and knocked down a three-pointer.
The atmosphere in the arena ignited immediately.
In the stands, Smith opened his sleepy eyes—whether from jet lag or boredom, even he did not know—and turned his attention to the court.
Sun Hao's shooting looked pretty good.
But that was not the only surprise.
Just after hitting that three-pointer, Sun Hao came back down the court, forced a steal through hard body contact, then finished a fast-break layup.
Then, on the very next possession, his 1.6-meter frame actually snatched an offensive rebound and scored on the putback!
Sun Hao scored seven straight points to open the game!
Smith's expression turned a little more serious.
It was not because of how many points Sun Hao had scored.
At this level of competition, even scoring thirty or forty points proved nothing.
It was because Sun Hao had displayed a level of physicality completely different from his peers.
That was rare among Yellow Race players, especially at this age.
He could shoot, and his physical play was not bad either. Sun Hao had dared to keep writing to Sierra Canyon School because his confidence had a real foundation!
Just as Smith had that thought, Sun Hao rose into the air while helping on defense and actually swatted his opponent's shot away!
This kid could really jump!
Seeing that, Smith suddenly felt that giving Sun Hao a chance might not be such a bad idea.
In previous games, Sun Hao would coast once he had blown the game open. But tonight, with a scout present, he went all out.
He displayed every bit of his ability.
Scoring, steals, rebounds, assists, even blocks and defense—he did it all.
He completely dominated the game.
He was the focal point of the entire arena that night.
As conspicuous as an exclamation mark magnified a hundred times.
In the end, he exploded for 50 points, 8 rebounds, 6 steals, 5 assists, and 3 blocks, leading his team to a 72-47 rout and the provincial league championship.
He also successfully won the league's Most Valuable Player award.
As he raised the MVP trophy, Sun Hao saw Smith applauding for him in the stands. He knew the matter was practically settled.
At that moment, he could not describe the excitement in his heart.
Two years of effort had finally borne fruit!
After celebrating with his teammates, Sun Hao returned to the locker room.
He waited for Sierra Canyon School's scout to come speak with him.
But before the scout arrived, Yi Jianlian came first.
Yi Jianlian greeted him with a huge hug and nearly knocked him straight to the floor.
Yi Jianlian looked even more excited than Sun Hao.
After Sun Hao entered high school, they saw each other less often. This time, they had not met for two months.
"You got taller again."
"You got taller too, and stronger."
The two repeated the same exchange they had shared whenever they met over the past two years.
Yi Jianlian had grown taller and taller, nearing 1.9 meters already.
Although Sun Hao was still nearly a head shorter than Yi Jianlian, he had grown to 1.6 meters, and just as Yi Jianlian had said, he had become more muscular.
"You can definitely play professionally. How about I talk to the coach? This isn't the Youth Team from before—I've already moved up to the second team."
Yi Jianlian could not help saying it.
Although two years had passed since the tryout, he had not given up on the chance to play professionally with Sun Hao.
Sun Hao smiled and waved his hand.
Leaving aside the fact that the CBA still used height as its selection threshold, having been rejected once, he could not possibly go back and beg for another chance.
If the CBA had not approached him, it meant their view of him had not changed since the tryout. There was no need for him to make a fool of himself.
Besides, the CBA was no longer his goal.
Seeing Sun Hao refuse, Yi Jianlian could only shake his head helplessly.
Not long after Yi Jianlian left, Smith arrived at the locker room.
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