"There's no way," Ailun said, making Fabin even more frustrated.
"Absolutely no way," Max added.
"It's true," Fabin said. "I don't want to admit it because of my pride, but it really happened. I thought that guy was a noob at shooting, but then he just started making them in without any fail."
"It can't be," Ailun argued. "We were there in their ga with the Xing Stars. Granted, we were only able to watch a few minutes of the last quarter, but he was still the least scorer in the ga based on stats."
"Yuze took almost 50% of it," he continued. "There's no plausible way for him to suddenly sink more shots than you when he played like that two weeks ago."
Max nodded in agreent, recalling their accidental et-up in the city's public basketball court.
"Maybe you just weren't playing well."
"I had 35 points in a minute," Fabin said. "The distance is longer than that of the average arcade machine, so it was definitely harder."
"How much was he able to shoot?" Ailun asked.
Fabin hesitated for a mont, forgetting Kai's score since he was already trying to delete the mory.
"Around 36 points?" Fabin said, unsure, causing Ailun to chuckle.
"You're speaking out of your ass now. That did not happen! You just want us to pity you, right? Well, it's working," Ailun said.
Fabin was getting more frustrated by the minute.
"I told you—it's real!"
"It's alright," Ailun said. "We were wrong. We should have looked for you harder. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Now, stop making up stories."
That was Fabin's tipping point.
"You know what? Fine! It didn't actually happen. I was just joking. I'm delusional! I was prancing alone like a loser for the entire hour that you were gone," he said.
Ailun smiled in satisfaction. "You should have said so in the beginning...or you should have created a more believable story."
Fabin sighed before shaking his head.
anwhile, Max was trying to figure out if Fabin was really telling the truth or not. However, before he could co to a conclusion, he noticed that sothing was off with his strange friend—almost like he was missing sothing.
Then, it hit him.
"Where's my jersey?"
***
"3565, 3570, 3580!" Kun exclaid as he placed down all of the money that he had counted.
The basketball team was now in their court after a long day of hard work. The sun was already setting, but they decided to stay back to count all of their earnings.
"3580 Yuan?" Zeren exclaid. "How did we get that much money?"
Jet brought out his calculator and inputted the numbers.
"That ans that people tried to play 716 tis in our booth," he said.
Lina smiled as she gathered the money and placed them back in a tin.
"I think nobody has earned this amount of money before. Even the Shizi Snakes only earn 3000 Yuan at most," she said.
"Then, that ans that we have this one in the bag!" Zeren exclaid. "What are we going to do with the money? Are we going to eat out? Oooh! Are we going to buy new basketballs?" he excitedly asked.
Lina firmly shook her head as she closed the tin and placed a lock on it.
"I'll be keeping this for now. We still don't know if we have the most earnings, so we can't use the money at the mont," she said, making Zeren's shoulder slump.
"However, in the event that we do win, I'm going to keep the money so we can use it for our winter training—just in ti for the Interhigh Preliminaries."
Yuze nodded in agreent. "Lina and I are thinking of going to a different city this ti."
The players' eyes widened in surprise, and they started chatting excitedly among themselves.
"Don't think about it right now, though," Lina quickly added.
"We still have a lot to do. Let's focus on the Winter High," she said.
Kun smiled as he looked at the players' excited faces. Experience tales at empire
"The Winter Cup also has prize money, so let's think of that as another source of motivation."
"Heck yeah!" Zeren exclaid. "If we get that much money, then we should go to Shanghai or Beijing—where all the other elite teams practice!"
Kai froze as soon as those two cities were ntioned.
They were close to his past ho—too close.
Lina clicked her tongue and slapped the back of Zeren's head.
"I told you not to think about our upcoming trip already," she said. "Nothing is set in stone. A lot can happen in the span of three months."
"For now, I really want us to focus on our next ga tomorrow."
As their next ga was ntioned, the team all turned silent.
"The Feng Foxes," Kai muttered.
"The Feng Foxes is a team we haven't beaten before," Lina continued.
"However, it's not impossible to win against them. We also never expected to beat the Xing Stars, so who knows?"
The others felt sothing flare inside their hearts, all of them determined to show their best for tomorrow.
"Rest for the night, and I'll see you all tomorrow afternoon," Lina said as a parting ssage.
The others nodded, already wondering how they were going to beat such a formidable team.
With that, they finally left the court.
Zeren stayed for a while and pestered Lina to co with him and his dad so they could drive her to their house, but Lina harshly denied him.
"I don't want to," Lina deadpanned.
"My dad's nice. He's even friends with your dad," Zeren said.
"I know," Lina sighed. "Sohow, that makes even more uncomfortable."
"Are you really not going to co?" Zeren asked.
Lina shook her head. "I have sothing to do," she said.
In the end, Zeren had no choice but to go to his father's car alone, miserable and lonely.
anwhile, Kai loitered around the court, glancing at Lina like he wanted to say sothing to her.
However, after hearing Lina's rejection of Zeren's request, he decided to leave the court.
But before that could happen, Lina noticed his presence.
"You're still here?" she asked.
Kai pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah...I was waiting for you."
Lina's eyebrows raised in surprise, and she found her cheeks getting warm.
"Umm, do you need sothing?" she asked.
Kai hesitated to respond before he shook his head.
"Nah, everything's good. You're going to do sothing, right?"
Lina scratched the back of her neck.
"You heard that?" she softly asked. "I only said it because I didn't want to go with Zeren. I don't want to feel indebted to him."
"Oh," Kai said, suddenly feeling hopeful.
"So, just ask what's on your mind," she said, putting Kai at ease.
Kai cleared his throat before he finally spoke.
"Care to join to shop for new basketball shoes?"
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