The silence on the court after the stunning three-pointer was deafening. Even Lu Shen was quiet for a moment, impressed by the cold cruelty of the number '12' on the scoreboard. But the silence was deceptive. Inside Hong Ren, his own work was underway. The chemical hunger, dulled by the initial success, now, after the precise long-range shot, awoke with renewed force. He needed more. Not just to win, but to dominate, to grind them to dust, so the reward would be commensurate. One formula stuck in his mind:
"Can't let up... Can't give them hope!"
He received the ball after the made basket. His gaze became glassy, overly focused. The previous cold observation began to be replaced by an obsession with controlling every centimeter of the court. He decided not just to attack, but to create a situation of absolute humiliation—to slice through their entire defense like a hot knife through butter.
He began to dribble. And it was a spectacle. The ball seemed tied to his hand by an invisible thread. He changed rhythm every fraction of a second: a sharp acceleration, a sudden stop, a slight shoulder feint—fake here; a swift crossover, a behind-the-back dribble, through the legs—fake there. He wasn't running; he was gliding, stepping with light, springy strides, literally dancing around the bewildered defenders.
Jen Ryu, still stunned by the number '12', tried to pressure, but his movements were crude and delayed. Hong Ren passed by him as if he didn't exist, with a slick move through the legs. Mei Yu, trying to anticipate the next move, shifted to block the path to the center, but Hong Ren abruptly stepped back, beyond the arc, creating space for himself. Xiao Li and the second player floundered, not knowing whether to rush at him or protect the paint.
"Look! It's a circus!" someone from the crowd yelled, and their voice held genuine astonishment.
Lu Shen, forgetting everything, watched this dribbling fireworks display with his mouth open. Even Haru Lin couldn't hide an approving gleam in his eyes—this was technical, almost aesthetic work.
But within this fireworks display lay a trap. Hong Ren became so engrossed in deceiving the defenders, so focused on memorizing and outplaying their every micro-movement, that he began to lose connection with the main goal. He created a dribbling masterpiece, but forgot about the hoop. His world narrowed to the ball and the opponents' feet.
He executed his signature step-back, creating a good meter and a half of separation from Mei Yu. The perfect position for a three-pointer. He gathered himself, then jumped. But at the moment of the shot, something faltered. Not in his muscles, but in that overheated concentration. His hands, which had just performed miracles of control, acted out of sync. The shooting hand pushed the ball with excessive force, the guide hand didn't correct the trajectory.
The ball flew. Not on a beautiful arc, but on a flat, nervous trajectory. It hit the back of the iron rim with a dull thud, bounced high into the air, and fell away from the basket.
Clang!
The sound landed like a slap in the face.
"Ah-h-h!" escaped Lu Shen's lips, more a groan than an exclamation.
A microsecond of stunned silence fell on the court, then it was filled by Jen Ryu's roar.
"KISS THOSE DREAMS GOODBYE!" he bellowed, and his voice seethed not just with hatred, but with triumph over another's, so desired, mistake. He was closest to the rebound. With wild, predatory energy, he lunged for the ball, shoving the distracted Xiao Li aside with an elbow, and snatched the rebound.
Cold, sticky panic momentarily gripped the Yoshida team (except for Ming You) on the bench. One mistake by Hong Ren—and the initiative was gone. Jung Ho jumped up, his face contorted in a grimace: "Get it together!"
But it was too late. Jen Ryu, without dribbling, forcefully hurled the ball across the court to Mei Yu, who had already made a sprint to the other half, anticipating the possible rebound. Mei Yu caught the ball on the run, took one controlled dribble, seeing that Hong Ren hadn't recovered from his missed shot yet, and delivered a precise, almost no-look pass under the hoop to Xiao Li, who, taking advantage of the general confusion, had cut to the perfect spot.
Xiao Li caught the ball. Before him was an empty hoop and a rushing, but already hopelessly late, Hong Ren. No fakes, no beauty. A simple, utilitarian layup.
Swoosh.
Whistle!
Another half-point. On the scoreboard: 12 : 1.5
Jen Ryu, standing on his half, breathed heavily, but his eyes burned. He hadn't just scored; he had clawed back a psychological handicap.
"See that?!" he yelled across the court, addressing not so much Hong Ren as Ming You on the bench. "See that, you bastard?! Your puppet malfunctioned! We'll gnaw away at this shit piece by piece until there's nothing left!"
Mei Yu, returning on defense, silently rubbed his palm. His calculation had paid off:
"There it is, our chance! The best moment to counter—when he, getting carried away, stumbles. We've found the rhythm: don't break under pressure, let it flow through us. And the moment he runs out of steam, strike. Quickly. Simply. Like cold water. We conserve energy; he loses it. Logic is on our side."
A heavy atmosphere reigned on the Yoshida bench. Lu Shen wasn't laughing anymore. He was biting his nails, his leg jittering furiously.
"Damn... damn, damn... He just missed... How could he?"
"He got carried away," Haru Lin stated coldly, but tension also sounded in his voice. "Got lost in his tricks. Thought dribbling alone was enough."
Jung Ho looked at Hong Ren. He stood under the opponent's hoop, looking at the net the rival's ball had just swished through. His back was straight, but Jung Ho, who knew him better than the others, detected in that posture not remorse, but ultimate, icy composure:
"He's already processed that mistake. Weighed it in his palm and set it aside. It's a used lesson on a shelf for him now. Won't happen again. He's already moving on, and they haven't realized it yet."
Hong Ren turned and walked to his half for defense. His face was a mask. No anger, no disappointment. Only recalculated data:
"Spent energy on a pretty move... and got nothing. And them? Two simple passes, a shot—and already half a point. Efficiency over flashiness. Stupid. So, enough showing off. Need not beauty, but inevitability. So that every one of my moves ends either with a basket or with my own rebound. No other options."
Referee Sung Wo, expressing not the slightest interest in the psychological battles, raised the ball.
"Score 12 to 1.5."
All gazes, greedy and empty, were fixed on the orange ball that bounced one after another on the worn asphalt. Each bounce echoed in the ringing silence. The crowd noise had quieted, mesmerized not by the spectacle, but by the slow, inexorable process of disintegration.
Hong Ren moved. His efficiency was terrifying. It was not human, but machine-like—ghostly in its flawless economy of motion. He didn't waste energy on extra fakes like in the last possession. He was simply where he needed to be, his dribble like the breath of a metronome: thump-thump-thump, steady, monotonous, relentless.
Against him played five men. Jen Ryu threw himself into pressing, but his movements were constrained not physically—he was strong and fast. He was constrained by what came from within: rage mixed with a sticky, rising fear in his throat. Fear not of losing the match, but of losing everything. The others—Mei Yu, Xiao Li, the two others—moved like puppets with weakened strings. They knew the enslaving nature of each of their points, each pass. They were playing, but in every glance, every delayed reaction, it read: 'We've already lost.'
Ming You sat in his spot, leaning back. His posture was relaxed, but there wasn't a trace of fatigue in it. In his dark, obsidian eyes there was no excitement. There was a cold, analytical interest. He wasn't watching the ball, but the faces. The face of Jen Ryu, twisted by powerless malice. The mask of Mei Yu, frozen in eternal calculation. The empty, weary eyes of Xiao Li.
They were playing roles. The roles of the losers. And the end of the performance was predetermined not when Hong Ren scored a certain number of points, but when Ming You had decided to start it.
Hong Ren received the pass from the referee and began to dribble. This time his attack wasn't spectacular, but deadly in its simplicity. He went straight at Jen Ryu. Three times in a row he made the same move: a sharp lunge forward, forcing the defender to retreat. Three times Jen Ryu, fearing a repeat of the humiliating nutmeg, instinctively closed his legs and jumped back.
It was hypnotic repetition. On the fourth time, when Jen Ryu was already expecting that lunge, Hong Ren didn't make it. Instead, almost without slowing down, he executed a smooth crossover and slipped past the momentarily frozen opponent, escaping to the perimeter, into the space.
He found himself on the arc, facing the hoop. Mei Yu, like a shadow, was already there for help defense, but a fraction of a second too late. Hong Ren gathered himself. In his movements there wasn't the former arrogant self-confidence, but a cold, indifferent certainty of the result. He made a light shot fake, making Mei Yu jump, then quickly lowered himself, as if preparing to drive to the hoop—a pump fake.
And at that moment, when his attention was divided between the jumping Mei Yu and the trajectory of the potential drive, the unforeseen happened.
From behind, from where he had seemingly already passed, a shadow lunged. It wasn't Jen Ryu. It was one of those two faceless players everyone forgot. The guy, driven by a sudden surge of desperation or a command yelled by Mei Yu that Hong Ren didn't hear over the noise of blood in his ears.
That player's sneaker cleanly, almost gently, knocked the ball from below, precisely at the moment Hong Ren was bringing it down to dribble after the fake.
The ball, slipping loose, rolled across the asphalt.
"Fuck!" Hong Ren exclaimed.