Elbow Strike

Zhu Zhan glanced at them too and sighed inwardly.

What a shame. Such pure-looking girls would be so pretty without all that makeup! The thought suddenly crossed Zhu Zhan's mind, though of course he would never say it aloud.

"Hey, what are you staring at? Keep looking, and I'll gouge your eyes out!" Xuexue, who was walking ahead, noticed Zhu Zhan staring blankly at her and snapped viciously.

She had been born very pretty. Though her makeup was heavy, it did not make her look mature at all. Now that she was angry, her large black eyes were opened wide, and with the crudely applied eyeshadow, she looked like a panda.

Zhu Zhan suppressed the urge to laugh and immediately lowered his head without saying anything.

"Hmph!"

Xuexue, the leader of the delinquent girls, gave a cold snort and walked back to her seat.

Zhu Zhan truly had no favorable impression of those delinquent girls. They were so young—why did they have to act like that? He had heard that they hung around with some street punks outside school and often got into fights.

Yet for some reason, the moment Xuexue lost her temper at him, a figure suddenly surfaced in Zhu Zhan's mind.

That little demon girl who had mocked him on the court—Zhang Yuqing.

Zhu Zhan did not know why he felt this way. Aside from his mother, he had rarely kept thinking about a girl for so long.

In a daze, the first class of the morning, English, began. Through the next three periods, Zhu Zhan could not focus at all. His mind was filled with the coming game and Zhang Yuqing.

It was not until school was nearly over that Zhu Zhan's deskmate, "Sweetie," Tian Chen, finally woke up.

Her clothes had left numerous red marks on her face, making her chubby cheeks look rather strange. Yet she did not care in the slightest. As if performing a magic trick, she pulled a huge bag of chips from her desk and began stuffing handfuls into her mouth, scattering crumbs everywhere as she chewed.

"Hey, deskmate!"

Tian Chen reached out with her plump hand and tugged Zhu Zhan. She shook the chips in her left hand and asked him with her eyes whether he wanted some. Her little eyes danced with delight, clearly showing her gratitude for her deskmate letting her use the desk to sleep.

"Is that really okay?" Zhu Zhan whispered.

He looked around. Since the final class was Chinese, and the Chinese teacher was a woman nearing fifty who spoke gently and rarely disciplined them, no one seemed to care.

Besides, everyone was exhausted by the last period, and many students had collapsed across the classroom.

A lot of people were sleeping. Only a few good students, such as Liu Yong, were listening attentively.

Li Ke truly deserved his title as the God of Sleep. He had slept through all four periods and was still sleeping especially soundly, his head buried in his arms as he let out faint snores.

What Zhu Zhan admired most about Li Ke was his ability to sleep in class. He really did not know what that guy got up to at night.

On the other side, the delinquent girls Xuexue and Feifei were both listening to music with earphones on. From time to time, they leaned their heads together and chatted in low voices.

"It's fine~" Tian Chen said indistinctly through a huge mouthful of chips, holding the bag out to Zhu Zhan.

Zhu Zhan shook his head like a rattle. "Forget it. You eat them yourself!"

Checking the time, he saw that school would be out soon. Afterward, he first needed to eat at the cafeteria, though not too much, and then head to the basketball court to warm up.

Just then, the dismissal bell rang.

To Zhu Zhan's surprise, Li Ke beside him suddenly lifted his head.

He rubbed his eyes, let out a long breath, and looked at Zhu Zhan. "Xiaozhan, are you ready? It's time for us to get on the court and crush them!"

Zhu Zhan said nothing. He held out his fist and bumped knuckles with Li Ke.

Smack!

Their fists collided tightly, producing a sharp sound!

The first game of the Class League—Grade 7, Class 5 versus Grade 7, Class 6—was about to begin!

Court Five.

It was noon now, and heat shimmered across the entire court beneath the blazing sun.

But that did nothing to dampen everyone's enthusiasm for basketball. Spectators from various classes gradually began gathering around the court.

On the court, students from classes that had arrived early were already playing half-court games. Some boys had changed into jerseys, while others were simply shirtless, and the atmosphere was lively.

The school had six courts in total, and Zhu Zhan and Li Ke's game was being held on Court Five today.

Zhu Zhan and Li Ke had already changed into their jerseys in the restroom. Since they needed them for practice, they kept their jerseys in their backpacks.

This noon game was the opening match of the school's Class League. Zhu Zhan and Li Ke hurried through lunch and rushed straight over.

Wearing his jersey, Li Ke did not look like a first-year middle school player at all. He wore number twenty-four, carried his backpack, dribbled the basketball slowly, and surveyed the court.

Walking behind him, Zhu Zhan suddenly pointed at one of the courts. "Tian Chen is over there!"

Following Zhu Zhan's finger, Li Ke indeed spotted Tian Chen, Zhu Zhan's deskmate. She had spread several sheets of newspaper on the ground and was sitting cross-legged there, eating snacks. Her body, twice as wide as an ordinary person's, made her as conspicuous as a landmark; she could be recognized from far away.

Class monitor Li Xue was shooting under the basket with Liu Yong and several of the remaining boys from Class 5.

Students from Class 5 and Class 6 gathered around the court in small groups.

Across from them, a dozen or so boys from Class 6 were playing a half-court game.

Zhu Zhan looked carefully and found that several of them were over 1.8 meters tall, about the same height as he was.

However, judging by the way they dribbled and played, their skill level was clearly average.

The court was distinctly divided into two sides. Boys and girls in school uniforms either sat on the ground or stood beneath sun umbrellas, holding all kinds of drinks and snacks, looking as though they were there to watch a movie.

"Not a single expert. This is seriously boring. I won't even feel like playing later!" Li Ke watched the Class 6 boys playing half-court for a while and smacked his lips.

Zhu Zhan froze for a moment. Li Ke was the sort of basketball fanatic who got itchy whenever he saw a skilled player, with an urge to play one-on-one against them. But Zhu Zhan naturally did not believe Li Ke when he claimed he would not feel like playing. That guy loved racking up points and making the girls scream.

"Come on, let's head over!" Li Ke said, then strode in that direction.

The moment Li Ke appeared, a stir went through the court. Many people pointed at him and whispered.

Walking behind him, Zhu Zhan saw so many people talking about them that he could not help feeling as though he was basking in some of Li Ke's glory.

At that moment, a one-on-one game was underway on another court.

On the court, a black-haired youth about 1.75 meters tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted with an inverted-triangle build, also wearing jersey number twenty-four, had his back pressed against a lean, tall youth around 1.8 meters tall. Holding the ball in his right hand, he slowly backed his way toward the paint.

A wild arrogance gleamed in the black-haired youth's eyes. Dribbling with his right hand, he suddenly shifted hard, leaned his body to the right, moved his feet, then abruptly leaned left before driving his back fiercely into the defender behind him.

The tall, thin youth guarding him immediately staggered from the blow.

"Hah!" he shouted. He slammed the basketball down, gathered it into his arms, then spun around and drove a vicious elbow into the other youth's chest.