Holding the Advantage

Looking around him, there was No. 4 Wang Shun at 1.81 meters, No. 5 Chen Xin at 1.90 meters, No. 6 Wang Shuo at 1.86 meters, No. 7 Sun Xiaofeng at 1.77 meters, plus No. 8 Zhang Jian at 1.93 meters!

It was no exaggeration to say that Class 6 had the tallest average height among all the seventh-grade boys!

However, Zhang Jian was not much of a basketball player. He played mostly to show off.

"Move aside!"

Zhang Jian patted his basketball, signaling for the people beneath the hoop to clear out.

"Whew..." Zhang Jian let out a deep breath.

His long, powerful hand—hardened through years of exercise—gripped the basketball. He gave a light hop and took a step back.

With a shout, Zhang Jian rose onto his toes and charged fiercely toward the hoop. Like a cheetah, he covered the distance from near the free-throw line to the basket in just four steps. Gripping the ball in his right hand, he leaped high, rising half an arm's length above the rim!

"Clang!"

He viciously slammed the basketball through the hoop. Landing lightly, Zhang Jian stretched out both arms in an airplane pose and wildly waved them like an overbearing king.

"So high!"

"So cool!"

The boys and girls around them erupted in cries of surprise! Zhang Jian turned around and gave a cool smile. "Damn, my hand hurts when I dunk!"

Zhang Jian secretly rubbed his fingers. He had used too much force and lacked experience during that dunk, so he had hit his pinky finger and cried out in pain.

The others thought Zhang Jian's shout had been meant to build momentum after his dunk. Just as they were about to flip off Class 5 in contempt, they suddenly saw a fairly tall boy on the other side shouting arrogantly, "Class 5, number one! Class 5, number one!"

The sudden shout immediately drew his gaze over.

He happened to see Li Ke standing there with an even more arrogant expression than his own. Zhang Jian patted the basketball in his hands, a flicker of anger flashing through his eyes as he looked at Li Ke.

"It's that arrogant bastard again!" a boy from Class 6 said beside him.

Of course Zhang Jian knew Li Ke. Seeing Li Ke looking at him with his middle finger raised—

"Fuck!" Zhang Jian cursed inwardly and immediately raised his own middle finger in return.

"Class 5 is looking down on us too much!" Wang Shun, Sun Xiaofeng, and the other Class 6 boys all raised their middle fingers at Li Ke when they saw how arrogant he was.

"This kid can jump pretty high!" Li Ke had naturally seen Zhang Jian's showboating stunt, which was why he had started shouting.

"But that's all he can do—jump a little high. His skills are beginner-level trash. Hmph!" A disdainful smile appeared at the corner of Li Ke's mouth as he lowered his raised middle finger.

"Zhan?"

"Hm?" Zhu Zhan answered, turning to look at Li Ke.

"What is it?" Hearing Li Ke call him, Zhu Zhan immediately came back to his senses.

Li Ke smiled. "Zhan, stand under the hoop. I want to show that pretentious guy over there what a real dunk is!"

"Okay." Zhu Zhan nodded. He was not surprised at all that Li Ke would say that.

"I'm ready!" Zhu Zhan turned around and signaled to Li Ke.

Li Ke nodded at Zhu Zhan. "Okay, thanks, Zhan!"

Then he turned, stared in Zhang Jian's direction, raised his left hand, pointed at his own eyes, and then pointed at Zhang Jian.

Zhang Jian gave a cold laugh, planted the basketball beneath his foot, crossed his arms, and watched Li Ke.

Li Ke picked up the basketball and dribbled it twice. He made a small hop first, then held the ball with both hands, drew it to his chest, and tossed it to a spot roughly one step in front of Zhu Zhan.

The basketball soared high, landed there, and bounced back up.

Li Ke suddenly moved. He charged straight forward without any fancy moves, taking off directly one step in front of Zhu Zhan.

"Wow..."

Liu Yong and the others standing nearby could not help drawing in a breath. Their eyes widened as they turned their heads to follow Li Ke's trajectory through the air, afraid they would miss even an instant.

Li Ke leaped high, seeming to fly through midair. Both his feet cleared Zhu Zhan as he caught the still-airborne basketball. Then he arched his waist and abdomen, raising the ball behind his head with both hands! Though he had not jumped as high as Zhang Jian, Li Ke's dunk was overwhelmingly fierce!

"This is a dunk!" Li Ke roared, using all his strength to smash the basketball toward the hoop!

"Bang!"

"Creak, creak..." Two sounds rang out: one was the thunderous impact of the ball crashing into the hoop, while the other was the trembling of the rim itself.

"Whoaa!"

Only after several seconds did enormous cheers erupt from the crowd. Everyone's eyes were wide open, unable to believe such an unbelievable display. Li Ke drifted gracefully down from the air, wearing a relaxed expression.

So this guy had improved this much. Zhu Zhan thought.

That soaring figure had looked like a god descending from the heavens, blotting out the sky.

Zhang Jian stood there, still with his arms crossed over his chest, but the trembling in his eyes betrayed him.

"This guy is really strong..." Zhang Jian murmured, the words slipping out almost unconsciously.

"Damn it!" A flicker of fury flashed through Zhang Jian's eyes.

As Zhang Jian fumed, a tall, muscular PE teacher in a referee uniform stood twenty meters from the basketball court, staring blankly at Li Ke.

The PE teacher was around 1.80 meters tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, with a powerful build. He had thick brows and large eyes, and he stared fixedly at Li Ke, his eyes full of shock.

"This kid..." Zhang Jun was utterly stunned. His mouth hung so wide open that an egg could have fit inside.

As a PE teacher who had graduated from a sports academy, he had undergone more than ten years of athletic training and loved playing basketball himself. Even at thirty-two, he remained full of stamina and built like a bull; many eighteen-year-olds were not in as good shape as he was.

Yet even this old man, who had played basketball for nearly twenty years, admitted that he could not achieve Li Ke's hang time or that freakish core strength.

How did these kids even grow up like this? They're like monsters! Zhang Jun thought indignantly.

He turned to look at the astonishingly tall Zhang Jian, then at Li Ke, and shook his head helplessly.

High school basketball players at Li Ke's level were extremely rare. They were either athletes who had trained in basketball at sports academies since childhood, or gifted players from provincial or city teams.

Li Ke appeared even stronger than he had last year. But Jinghai No. 2 High School had lost its defensive anchor in the paint this year, so Zhang Jun wondered how Black-Faced Fang would arrange the lineup.

Zhang Jian had height, jumping ability, and truly outstanding physical talent. Yet he came from track and field and lacked solid basketball skills. What a pity.

The National High School League divided the country into sixteen regions, with several hundred schools participating. Jinghai High School had once won the top-division championship for two consecutive years!

With a sigh, Zhang Jun assessed the strength of both sides. Basketball was unpredictable; no matter how strong one individual was, no one could become a god on the court! Although Class 5 had two school team players in Li Ke and Zhu Zhan, after Ji Yuyang and Yang Yi left, there was no one else in Class 5 who could play. Victory was far from guaranteed, and Class 6 held an obvious advantage in height.