Jian Changnian watched her retreating figure and muttered to herself, "Ice-faced, if you weren't so good at basketball, I wouldn't even talk to you."
That being said, after today's encounter, the two have become a little more familiar with each other, and Jian Changnian has become increasingly curious about her.
How long have you been playing ball?
"From childhood."
"How young is 'from childhood'?"
"Elementary school." Xie Shi'an, unusually patient, answered her incessant chatter.
Jian Changnian counted on her fingers. Cheng Zhen is a senior in high school this year, and they are classmates. If Xie Shi'an has been playing basketball since elementary school, it must have been at least ten years. No wonder he is so good.
"How did you predict the opponent's move for that last play today?"
"You gain experience by anticipating and practicing more."
Xie Shi'an remained indifferent, but when it came to questions about badminton, although she was sparing with words, she answered almost every question.
Jian Changnian nodded, remembering everything.
The two walked and chatted casually, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the dormitory building.
"Aren't you going home today?" Jian Changnian had wanted to ask that earlier. When she saw her in the park, she thought she had gone home, but who knew she had taken a car back to the training base.
Xie Shi'an shook his head: "No."
The two dorm rooms were on the same floor, separated by several rooms. Jian Changnian saw that her dorm room was dark, with no lights on.
"Aren't your friends here either?"
Xie Shi'an didn't answer. He took out his key, opened the door, and went inside. A soft bang echoed in the corridor as the door closed.
Jian Changnian shook her head. This person is so unpredictable, sometimes sunny and sometimes gloomy.
She opened the dormitory door, and the dormitory was also empty. Jian Changnian turned on the light by the wall and took the basin to wash up.
Chapter 16 Assessment
Monday arrived quickly. Jian Changnian got up at 5:30 a.m., an hour before the agreed meeting time. After washing her face, she went to the playground for morning exercises to prepare for today's physical fitness test.
The word "nervous" was written all over everyone's face that day. The assessment was tightly scheduled and highly intense. The physical fitness test was in the morning, and the practical test was in the afternoon. The five people who ranked last had to leave the training base after the assessment.
In this high-pressure training environment, several people had already given up in the morning due to exhaustion.
After lunch, Jian Changnian changed her clothes in her dormitory, took out her newly bought pair of sneakers, put them on, cut off the tags, tied the shoelaces, stood up, took a deep breath, and walked towards the training room with her racket.
Unlike usual, the training room was almost deserted today. Apart from the sound of badminton shuttlecocks hitting rackets and the squeak of shoes scraping the floor, you could hear a pin drop.
Jian Changnian drew a lot and was matched with a contestant ranked tenth in her group. The other contestant looked at her with obvious contempt.
"Come on, let's finish this quickly."
This person usually has excellent training results and has even made it to the national competition. If nothing unexpected happens, he should be able to enter Group C in the next round of assessments.
Facing a formidable opponent, Jian Changnian did not hesitate this time. She gripped her racket tightly, stood in front of the net, and adopted a defensive stance. Just as Xie Shian said, she would fight whether she could win or not.
Yan Xinyuan, watching her powerful shot from the sidelines, smiled slightly.
But this was destined to be a tough match. Jian Changnian lost the first major match by seven points, but won the second major match by a narrow margin, bringing the score to 1-1 and leading to the decisive game.
Xie Shi'an finished his match early and went to the rest area. He had a towel around his neck to wipe his sweat and was drinking water while watching the match.
The direction she was looking in seemed to be towards Jian Changnian.
Qiao Yuchu swayed in front of her: "Hey, what are you looking at?"
Xie Shi'an looked away: "It's nothing."
Qiao Yuchu sat down next to her: "I heard you two played ball together last week?"
"Who told you that?"
"Orange juice, who else could it be?"
Xie Shi'an cursed Cheng Zhen a thousand times in his heart, but his face remained expressionless.
"I wasn't doing this to help her."
"Okay, okay—" Qiao Yuchu nudged her shoulder: "Then why aren't you leaving after you're done fighting?"
Xie Shi'an turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow.
"If I remember correctly, you still have one game left to play."
Qiao Yuchu's expression changed: "Ah, right, it's break time. Don't leave yet, wait for me to go ahhh together."
As they were talking, they had already run far away.
Xie Shi'an slightly curved his lips, revealing a faint smile.
Jian Changnian was a bit confused at the beginning of the game, but he started to exert himself in the middle and eventually won the game by a narrow margin of 21 to 18.
When the assistant coach blew the whistle to signal the end of the match, she was still caught up in the game and took a few seconds to come to her senses before jumping three feet high with her racket in hand.
"I won!!!"
Yan Xinyuan also gave her a thumbs up: "Well done!"
Xie Shi'an slung his badminton bag over his shoulder and said to Qiao Yuchu, who had just finished her match, "Let's go back and rest."
That was the first time Jian Changnian didn't stay to clean the training room. Her ranking on the whiteboard had also risen to the top of Group D. Although she was still some distance from Xie Shi'an, who was far ahead of her, the sense of accomplishment brought by this gradual progress still made her face beam with a big smile.
"This is the happiest day since I came to the training camp."
Jian Changnian wrote this in her diary.
"After playing a match with Xie Shi'an, I felt like I had an epiphany. Her skills, playing style, ability to adapt to the situation, and ability to predict the position of the ball have all benefited me a lot."
"Although there is still a big gap between us, I don't know why, but I feel like I have a little confidence, a little confidence to catch up with her. I want to play with her and become her opponent."
***
With the end of the first month's assessment, farewells followed. When Jian Changnian woke up, there were two empty beds in the dormitory.
After living and training together for a month, everyone was a little reluctant to leave. The departing roommates hugged each of them and offered their blessings.
"Keep it up, you guys!"
"You too, keep up the good work when you get back."
"Next year, if I have the chance, I will definitely come again."
"Haha, I might join the national team next year."
...
The group laughed and joked, but tears were clearly glistening in each other's eyes.
Jian Changnian was a bit shy. One of her two roommates who left slept in the bunk above her, and the other slept in the bed closest to the door. Although they didn't talk to her much, they never bullied her.
She thought about it for a moment, then went up and hugged the other person.
"I hope to see you all again next year."
Her roommate, who slept in the bunk above her, wiped her eyes and laughed, "Of course! If we have the chance next year, we can still be roommates. Goodbye, don't see me off. Take care, everyone."
Watching them leave with their suitcases, Jian Changnian felt the cruelty of competitive sports for the first time.
***
In the days that followed, Jian Changnian repeated the same routine of training room, canteen, and dormitory. Some people trained hard, while others couldn't stand the monotonous life with its high intensity and lack of entertainment. Before the training camp ended, some people left.
The girls' dormitory quickly emptied out, and Jian Changnian welcomed a new roommate.
One early winter afternoon, after training, she returned to her dormitory and heard rustling sounds on the upper bunk. Someone was packing their things. She looked up and saw Sun Qian smiling at her.
"Most of the people in my dorm have left. Coach Yan said that the two dorms should be combined, so I moved in. I saw that the top bunk is empty. You don't mind, do you?"
Jian Changnian shook her head: "I don't mind."
Finally, seeing that she was struggling to tear down the poster left by her previous roommate on the wall, I asked her another question.
"Do you need any help?"
It took Sun Qian a lot of effort to peel the poster off the wall.
"It's okay, no need. I'll just throw it on the ground and clean it up later."
Jian Changnian picked up the Jay Chou poster and looked at it: "Can I keep it?"
Sun Qian, engrossed in making the bed, asked, "You like him?"
Jian Changnian shook her head: "No, there's someone I really like."
"Oh, is that the person you like?" Sun Qian asked casually.
Jian Changnian almost choked on his own saliva: "Cough cough...no...just an ordinary friend."
"Fine, fine, it's not mine anyway, keep it if you like."
"good."
Jian Changnian smoothed out the folded corners of the poster, thought it over and over, and decided that she should stick it on the headboard of her bed, but she didn't like having someone watching her while she slept. She was also worried that her other roommates would have objections if she stuck it on the door. In the end, she stuck the poster in her locker.
Jian Changnian clapped her hands, indicating that the job was done. She looked at the newly renovated storage cabinet and was very satisfied.
***
Last Friday, she and Zhou Mu made an appointment that when she went home this week, Zhou Mu would visit her grandmother, so that when she called Zhou Mu, she could also exchange a few words with her grandmother.
Therefore, as soon as the afternoon training ended, Jian Changnian rushed to the phone booth, only to find that there was no sound when she picked up the receiver. She turned her head to the side and saw a sign on the wall that read: Under maintenance, temporarily out of service.
What should we do?
Jian Changnian thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up, and she turned and ran towards the coach's office.
She gently knocked on the slightly ajar door.
A strong, clear voice came from inside: "Come in."
Jian Changnian pushed open the door and entered. In the huge office, which was at dinner time, only Yan Xinyuan was there. He was sitting at his desk, mending clothes with a needle and thread, with a cigarette in his mouth. He would occasionally take a puff with one hand. When he saw someone come in, he knocked the ash into the ashtray.
"What's wrong? Is something the matter?"