"The future?"
A self-mocking sneer curled at Kobe's lips, but the look in his eyes grew ever more crazed.
"I don't want the future! I only want the present!"
Bang!
He suddenly accelerated, gathered the ball, and leaped. In the cramped cabin, his body twisted at an exaggerated angle as he viciously slammed the basketball toward the hoop.
Clang!
The hoop let out a deafening crash, and the entire cabin seemed to tremble.
Sweat trickled down his jaw and struck the floor, evaporating in an instant.
He panted heavily, his chest heaving violently, yet the flames in his eyes only burned brighter.
Last season, they had lost to the San Antonio Spurs, with Duncan and Robinson, in the Western Conference Finals. That time, he had felt the power of the Twin Towers.
Even earlier, in the Finals two years ago, he and Shaq had joined forces only to be swept aside by the Knicks led by Li Fei. That was when he truly understood what "dominance" meant.
Li Fei was like a Mount Everest towering in everyone's heart—unscalable and suffocating.
But Kobe Bryant had never been someone who merely looked up at mountains.
What he wanted was to climb that mountain, then crush it beneath his feet!
"Shaq!" Kobe rasped at the empty cabin. "Did you see that? That's our goal! We have to become stronger! Stronger!"
The plane tore through the night sky, heading for Los Angeles.
Kobe did not rest. In that cramped space, he practiced his shooting and footwork over and over again.
He wanted to turn all the humiliation of being suppressed and the helplessness of being dominated into fuel for training.
When the plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport, dawn had yet to break.
Kobe did not go home. Instead, he had the driver