The straight-line distance from Houston to Oklahoma was 665 kilometers. It would take a full day to drive, but only a few hours to fly. After all, both places were in the Western Conference.
But NBA games ended very late, and Link had also gotten into an unpleasant altercation with his lousy agent at his rental. So by the time Link arrived in Oklahoma City, it was already three in the morning.
Oklahoma City was nothing like New York or Los Angeles. There weren't many places open late at night here. As soon as Link stepped off the plane, he felt the quiet all around him, as if the whole city had been enveloped in silence.
When he left the airport, the streets were deserted. The only thing he saw was his own shadow beneath the streetlights.
It was December, and the average temperature in Oklahoma City was only 2.8°C. The weather in Oklahoma was very comfortable compared with Minnesota and Toronto, where temperatures often dropped well below freezing. But in the stillness of the early morning, looking at his lonely figure standing in the street, Link couldn't help zipping up his jacket.
This might have been the worst night he'd had since crossing over.
"The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine." Link hailed a taxi and gave the driver his destination in a low voice.
The taxi driver kept glancing at Link in the rearview mirror. If he remembered correctly, just a few hours earlier he'd seen this Chinese-American player on TV, playing for the Houston Rockets. Link shouldn't have been in Oklahoma.
The driver had a lot he wanted to talk about with Link, but seeing that he seemed to be in a bad mood, he decided not to bother him. He was sure Link had rushed back because of that horrifying incident.
Meanwhile, Link picked up his phone and started browsing the news. Every basketball news page was dominated by Zeke Upshaw's story. It might have been the most famous night for the Blue Team and Upshaw, but the way they'd made the news was heartbreaking.
From the many reports, Link pieced together what had happened.
Today, in the Oklahoma City Blue's home game against the Long Island Nets, with forty seconds left in the fourth quarter, Zeke Upshaw had been defending his assignment as diligently as ever.
Then Upshaw suddenly clutched his chest, fell facedown onto the court, and didn't move.
At first, no one knew what had happened. Some thought Upshaw had been injured, but there was no injury that could make a player collapse unconscious like that.
After the referees and players called out to Upshaw several times without getting a response, he was rushed to the hospital. Then Link received a call from Upshaw's mother, Martha.
After reading the news again, Link clutched his head in anguish. He didn't know whether, in the world he'd come from, there had been a guy named Zeke Upshaw who had suddenly suffered cardiac arrest on a basketball court.
Maybe there had. Maybe there hadn't. But Link was sure of one thing: no matter whether Upshaw ultimately survived, he would have been just a passing name in this world. As someone who'd crossed over, Link couldn't remember ever hearing of a player named Zeke Upshaw in December 2010.
No one knew that a twenty-six-year-old professional player, fighting hard for his NBA dream, had collapsed on a basketball court. No one knew what a wonderful guy Zeke Upshaw was...
Link turned off his phone screen and stopped reading the news about Upshaw. He didn't want his emotions to overwhelm him when he saw Upshaw's family.
"Link, my boy, I don't know what Zeke did wrong. Why does he have to suffer like this?"
The moment Link met Upshaw's mother, the helpless Black woman threw herself into his arms.
Link had dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept all night, and he'd just been kicked out of the NBA and fired his agent.
But as he looked at Upshaw lying in the hospital bed, still on a ventilator, Link suddenly felt that his own problems were nothing at all.
"It's okay, Martha. Zeke will be fine. Medical care is very advanced these days. Don't worry. I'm willing to cover all his medical expenses."
Upshaw had done so much for Link, but now Link had no idea what he could do for him. The only thing he could do was ease some of the financial burden on a family that was already struggling.
"Did Zeke... have a heart condition when he was little?" Thinking of the small box of pills Upshaw had always carried with him, Link asked carefully.
"No, he'd just say his chest felt uncomfortable now and then, but he never told us anything else. The doctors examined him, but they still couldn't find out what caused his cardiac arrest... Zeke is still being treated. He hasn't even been brought out of danger yet."
At Link's question, Martha began to cry again.
Seeing this, Link didn't ask any more. The kind woman had already suffered enough.
Link stayed with Upshaw's family as they kept watch. They all believed that the strong young man would wake up.
But just as Link's fantasy of making a name for himself in the NBA had crumbled, along with his belief that his agent had his best interests at heart, his hope that Upshaw would pull through also fell apart.
Ten hours, twelve hours, fifteen hours, twenty-four hours... Upshaw still lay there quietly, without even blinking.
At four in the morning on December 13, forty-eight hours after Link had rushed to the hospital, the doctor who'd taken part in the resuscitation emerged from the room, drenched in sweat. Looking at Link and the family gathered around him, he said the line that had become a cliché in TV dramas, but was devastating to hear in real life.
"I'm sorry. We did everything we could."
For two days, the doctors had worked without stopping, everyone trying to pull him back from the brink of death. On the other side, the Grim Reaper stood with his scythe, watching as the young man's body was caught in the struggle.
It had won. Advanced medicine had failed to defeat it. Upshaw had suffered cardiac arrest, and there would be no next chapter in his life.
There was no loud sobbing, no fainting, no shrieking. In that moment, there was only silence around Link.
It felt just like the moment he'd returned to Oklahoma City in the early hours of the morning two days before. Darkness, helplessness, loneliness.
Upshaw's mother stood frozen for several minutes, then slowly raised her head and looked at Link. She took an envelope from her handbag and handed it to the Chinese-American man before her. "Zeke wrote this to you. His teammate found it in his locker. I'd hoped he could give it to you himself. But now..."
Link quickly took the envelope. In an age when the internet was so advanced, letter-writing had nearly disappeared. But clearly, Upshaw had wanted some things to be preserved, not just reduced to a few lines of code in some massive database.
After handing Link the letter, Martha went into the hospital room and burst into tears. The strong woman could no longer hold herself together.
My brother Link,
I hope everything's going well for you in Houston. I'm genuinely happy to see you make it into the NBA. Why am I writing this letter? At first, I thought it was a ridiculous idea too. But I just couldn't express how happy I was with a few text messages. I still feel that writing something by hand is the only way to express how happy and proud I am.
I knew from the start that your hard work would pay off. I played in Europe a few years ago, too. To be honest, the pay there was much better than in the G League. But I still came back. Why? For the NBA, of course. Congratulations. You've achieved what all of us have dreamed of.
Of course, this is only the beginning. Things will still be hard from here on out. You might have to fight tooth and nail for your next ten-day contract, or go all out against your teammates in practice just to get playing time. Maybe—hahaha—maybe you'll even worry about making rent. But no matter what happens, you can't give up.
Because you're also the reason I believe I can make it into the NBA, and my source of strength. If you fall, my dream will shatter, too.
That's all for now. The game's about to start, and I'm heading onto the court. I hope that tomorrow morning, I'll see the news that you've signed a second ten-day contract.
Keep pushing forward, buddy.
Zeke.
Before you continue