Double Kill!

Seeing the situation starting to collapse, Coach Kawasaki of Tsukubu decisively called a timeout, giving his players a chance to rest, regroup, and calm down.

"Damn it!!"

The moment he returned to the bench, Nango Koichiro slammed his fist into the floor to vent the anger in his heart.

As for Takushiro Tomokazu? He lowered his head and remained silent.

Other than the three-pointer he had made at the start and one free throw out of two, he had accomplished almost nothing over the past ten minutes.

The remaining seven points had all been scored by Nango alone. As for the other three teammates, they had yet to score at all. It was truly a miserable showing.

Meanwhile, under Wu Yufei's coordination and playmaking, Miuradai's entire team had come alive. Every player had scored, and the team was playing as a cohesive unit, forming a stark contrast with Tsukubu.

"Takushiro, take a rest first."

Coach Kawasaki spoke up.

He had realized that among all the players, Takushiro—the captain and ace—was the one whose mentality had crumbled the most.

"Coach!?"

Takushiro Tomokazu was utterly shocked. He had not expected the coach to bench him.

Just because he had only scored four points in the past ten minutes and had performed poorly?!

"This isn't a punishment, Takushiro."

Coach Kawasaki explained.

"As Tsukubu's captain, you need to have a clear understanding and judgment of the team's current situation. The purpose of letting you rest on the sideline is so that you can observe what's happening on the court more clearly and analyze the tactics and methods needed to break through this predicament. That is your responsibility as captain. Do you understand?"

"...Yes."

After hearing the coach's reassurance, Takushiro Tomokazu finally calmed down and accepted the arrangement to be temporarily substituted out.

After all, he really had been shut down terribly. Even if he stayed on the court, the help he could offer the team would be pitifully limited.

Takushiro wanted to help the team win.

When the timeout ended, Miuradai's players saw that their opponent's ace had been directly sent to the bench. For a moment, they wondered whether Tsukubu had surrendered after only ten minutes.

"Don't get ahead of yourselves. Their number 15 is still on the court, and judging by their eyes, they have absolutely no intention of giving up."

With just a few words, Wu Yufei pulled everyone back from their fantasy and got them focused again to deal with Tsukubu's lineup change.

The player replacing Takushiro was naturally weaker than him. This also meant Wu Yufei no longer needed to switch defensive assignments with Murasame Kengo, allowing him to focus entirely on the smaller player in front of him, Natsume Hiroshi.

Although he was small, Natsume Hiroshi was fairly solid. He possessed the agility and speed common to undersized players, making him a weaker version of Miyagi Ryota.

Unfortunately, he had run into Wu Yufei, who was not only tall but also highly agile. That was simply unreasonable.

Even after making substitutions, Tsukubu could not break Miuradai's firm control of the game's rhythm. They could only keep passing, moving, and stretching the defense, hoping Miuradai might expose even the slightest opening.

Without Takushiro's three-point shooting, Nango in the paint became Tsukubu's only reliable scoring option.

After all, compared with Naito, Nango had better technique. Though he was physically inferior to Naito, he could barely make up for that gap through skill. On the boards, however, Ohno Kazuki provided support, giving Miuradai a slight advantage. Nango alone clearly could not handle them, so the rebounding battle became a seventy-thirty affair.

Yet two fists could not beat four hands. Although Nango was in excellent form this game and made several momentum-boosting shots, he still could not stop Miuradai from gradually widening the gap.

By the end of the first half, the score had reached 58:27. In just one half, the difference had already exceeded thirty points, fully demonstrating the enormous gap in raw strength between the two teams.

The outcome was already obvious.

In the second half, Takushiro Tomokazu, having rested for ten minutes, returned to the court. His return slightly lifted Tsukubu's sagging morale, and his two consecutive ultra-long three-pointers over Wu Yufei at the start gave the entire team the illusion that they might still have a chance.

To correct that illusion among Tsukubu's players, Wu Yufei stepped up once again. With consecutive drives and kick-out passes that created brilliant assists, he led the team on a 15:6 run and completely extinguished Tsukubu's final hope of a comeback.

Five minutes into the second half, with the deficit stretched to forty points, Tsukubu's head coach, Kawasaki Kazumi, finally seemed to accept defeat in resignation.

After all, this was only a friendly match. Winning or losing did not matter much; the key was training the team.

After convincing herself with that reasoning, Kawasaki Kazumi took the starters off the court, effectively making an official declaration of surrender.

When Coach Harada saw Tsukubu's move, he immediately responded.

All the starters, including Wu Yufei, were substituted out and replaced by second- and third-string players.

The remaining dozen or so minutes completely turned into garbage time. Both teams' bench players competed fiercely and intensely. The remaining time might have been garbage time to the starters, but for them, it was a rare opportunity to prove themselves.

In the end, when the referee blew the final whistle, the score was set at 108:62.

Miuradai claimed a huge victory on its home court in front of nearly a hundred students who had come to watch over the weekend. With this win, they told everyone that Miuradai would never be satisfied with merely matching last year's results.

After all, both opponents in these two friendly matches had been among last year's quarterfinalists.

Having watched the entire game, the spectators were filled with anticipation for just how big a splash their basketball team could make in this year's prefectural tournament and even the national tournament.

After seeing off Tsukubu's players, Coach Harada held a brief postgame summary and commendation meeting on the spot.

With this victory, Miuradai had ended both of its pre-prefectural tournament friendly matches with dominant wins.

Coach Harada had expected victory, but he had not expected it to come so easily. A deeply satisfied smile appeared on the face of the middle-aged man, who usually wore a grim expression.

"I'm very satisfied with your performance! So I specially applied to the school board for some funding. You don't need to go home for lunch today—I'm treating everyone to a feast!"

As a private school aspiring to become more aristocratic, Miuradai's board was quite willing to spend money on the school's cultural, recreational, and athletic clubs. That was something public high schools like Shohoku simply did not have.

Leading the basketball players, who had just finished a game and were starving, Coach Harada brought them to a sushi restaurant near the school that looked fairly nice.

If it's sushi, it should be fine.

Wu Yufei had always held himself to the standards of a professional basketball player. Naturally, that applied not only to his daily life and training, but also to his diet.

So even when he went out for desserts with Naito Junko, Wu Yufei only ate fruit. He never touched things like ice cream, fried foods, or milk tea. After all, he could accurately check his body fat percentage through the system, and that was something he took very seriously.

When Wu Yufei heard Coach Harada was taking everyone out for a feast, he had considered finding an excuse not to go. But he had not expected the meal to be something relatively healthy like sushi.

In truth, this was also a mistake born from Wu Yufei's past experience.

In his previous life, whenever he finished playing ball and someone mentioned a feast, Wu Yufei would usually go with his buddies for barbecue, hotpot, grilled meat, and the like—eating meat by the mouthful and drinking by the bowlful, carefree and happy.

But that had been in China, and at the time, he had already given up hope regarding his height. Basketball had merely been a way for him to stay healthy.

Wu Yufei had forgotten that this was Japan.

As the country with the longest average life expectancy in the world, Japanese people themselves were quite disciplined about their diets.

Although sushi was not especially high in calories or fat, Wu Yufei still controlled his portions. He planned to continue practicing basketball that afternoon, so he could not eat too much.

After enjoying a lavish sushi meal, Coach Harada announced in front of everyone that the basketball team's activities were over for the day.

The group then went home separately to enjoy what remained of their weekend.

Naturally, Wu Yufei had no interest in enjoying the weekend. To him, weekends were the best time to practice basketball. He returned to the gym the way he had come, took a short nap in the locker room, then devoted the entire afternoon to training.

"Ah... I knew you'd be here!"

Toward evening, Wu Yufei, who was practicing alone in the gym, suddenly heard the voice of a mature upperclassman coming from the entrance.

"Takei-senpai?"

Seeing Takei Yumi suddenly appear, Wu Yufei was mildly surprised for two seconds before turning back to continue practicing.

"Yufei-kun, you really have no sense of romance. During such a wonderful weekend, normal high school students would usually be spending time with friends or lovers, yet you've been keeping a basketball company all this time."

Takei Yumi walked over to where Wu Yufei was practicing with a light laugh and picked up a basketball from the floor.

"Didn't this morning's game drain all your energy?"

"A team like Tsukubu isn't enough to exhaust me. Besides, I only played five minutes in the second half, so a game of that level can only count as a warm-up."

After hitting a pull-up jumper, Wu Yufei turned around and answered.

"If Tsukubu's players heard what you just said, they'd definitely be heartbroken. They played so hard, yet in your eyes, Yufei-kun, it was only warm-up level."

Takei Yumi said in a teasing tone.

"There's nothing I can do about that. I'm just telling the truth."

By now, Wu Yufei had almost forgotten about that morning's game. After all, there had been no mission involved, and it had not been an especially important match.

Had he scored twenty-five points, or twenty-eight? And his assists had been sixteen... or seventeen?

Anyway, it had only been a friendly match. There was no need to remember the stats.

Swish!

Just as Wu Yufei was trying to recall the morning's game, a basketball suddenly flew toward him.

"Hm?"

Wu Yufei steadily caught the incoming ball, then used his left foot as a pivot and rose into a turnaround jumper.

The release was quick, the movement crisp, and the arc beautiful. This shot was definitely going in!

Swish!

Just as expected.

"Heh..."

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Wu Yufei's mouth.

After all this hard training, Wu Yufei's mid-range shooting had become increasingly accurate.

Although his attribute values had not increased, attributes were ultimately only a reference. Wu Yufei was not entirely a machine made up of data. As a human being, he still had his own feel for the game.

Looking at Wu Yufei before her, Takei Yumi could not help curling her lips slightly as well.

"Yufei-kun, I want to do an exclusive interview with you in the name of the journalism club!"