SSD 32. Rebellion Phase

He Jiang and Xu Fanming made a plan to practice together every evening at six, in the campus gym.

At first, Xu Fanming was doing great. His skills had always been solid, with his main issue being mental composure. Without the pressure of an actual match, he was able to perform even better during practice, often pulling off unexpected game-winning shots.

So by the third day, He Jiang said, “Let’s do a one-on-one.”

As they played, Xu Fanming’s weaknesses gradually became apparent. He started making a series of basic mistakes.

Xu Fanming’s mindset was fragile. Against strong opponents, his weaknesses quickly surfaced. Team sports depend on everyone playing to their strengths while covering for each other’s flaws. But for Xu Fanming as an individual, learning how to hold himself together mentally was going to be a key hurdle.

“There’s a psychological layer to basketball.”

Dripping with sweat, Xu Fanming picked up the ball again. He was already exhausted, but only made five out of ten shots. Frustration was beginning to set in. He Jiang stopped playing and spoke to him. Xu Fanming looked up.

“When you practice,” He Jiang said, staring at him, “every shot, every move, you need to imagine it as part of a real game.”

Xu Fanming looked confused. He Jiang sat down on a low bench nearby, took a sip of water, wiped his face, and his expression turned distant.

“My first time playing in a high school league, I was just a benchwarmer.”

That line caught Xu Fanming’s full attention. He Jiang almost never talked about his high school years. No matter how many times Xu Fanming tried asking in the past, he would brush it off with vague answers. This was the first time He Jiang had brought it up on his own.

Naturally, Xu Fanming focused up and listened carefully.

“We went up against a really strong team that day, and our center happened to be out sick. The coach threw me in last minute. That game turned out to be the worst one I’ve ever played.” He Jiang gave a small smile. “Even now, thinking back on it feels grim. The other team was too good. I was already 188 centimeters tall back then, but standing across from them, I couldn’t make use of any of my strengths. Every time I looked up, it felt like the entire sky was filled in, not even a sliver of space left. That’s what it means to truly play to your strengths and hide your weaknesses. I didn’t grab a single rebound that game. The final score was 58 to 92, and I only managed to earn eight points for the team.”

Xu Fanming froze. So even before He Jiang became a Great Master on the court, he had suffered such a humiliating defeat. If it had been him, he probably would have shut down the moment the game ended.

“Most of the players on that team ended up going pro,” He Jiang said, glancing around the empty gym. “For a long time after that, I couldn’t shake the shadow it left behind. Every time I tried to shoot, it felt like a familiar figure would appear in front of me, blocking everything out.”

“But later, I learned a way to get through it.”

He Jiang paused for a moment, then smiled at Xu Fanming and continued, “During practice, with every shot, every drive, I imagined myself back on that bleak court. Getting crushed, completely helpless. Little by little, I learned how to break through my opponent’s strength, and break through my own limits.”

Xu Fanming stood still. His lips moved slightly. “You mean…”

“You have to adapt, or rather, you have to break out of the spiral of fear and negativity that pressure brings,” He Jiang said. “Recreate the scenes that left the strongest impression on you. Put all the pain, the shame, and the regret you’ve felt into every move. The moment you release the ball, it should feel like a sword sliding back into its sheath.”

“The regrets and pain you’ve gone through are what shape you now. And for basketball, that’s the part that matters most.”

It is exactly because of what you’ve been through that you have the potential to grow stronger.

Hearing this, Xu Fanming fell silent.

He Jiang’s words brought old memories flooding back.

Over the past few days since the game against Shuanglan, Xu Fanming had found himself drifting into the past again and again. The bitterness of those scenes clung to his mind and refused to fade. His recent string of poor performances had made him feel as though he might never escape from that shadow.

But today, with just a few grounded, cutting words, He Jiang had brought those distant, murky memories rushing to the surface.

Before the second year of middle school, Xu Fanming had always been the kind of student who went with the flow. His grades were solid, his behavior spotless. He listened to teachers and parents, stayed away from games, and never spent his allowance recklessly.

That all changed the day he fell in love with basketball.

Around that time, a sudden wave of basketball fever swept through his school. Especially among the boys, it became almost a given that everyone could play. At first, Xu Fanming didn’t care much for it, but the more he played, the more it clicked. It started feeling natural, then addictive. Egged on by his friends, he began challenging the top players at school. Every day after finishing his homework, he would set aside about an hour to hit the neighborhood court and mess around with his friends.

There were no thoughts of competition or professionalism back then. It was just fun. At first, it was because the movements looked cool and satisfied a young boy’s desire to show off. But as time went on, basketball quietly became part of his daily life. Tired of the rigid routine of academic life, Xu Fanming felt like the only place he could be a true iron-blooded man was on the tense and thrilling court. That was when he felt genuinely free.

That was how Xu Fanming entered his rebellious phase.

He started spending more and more time on basketball. Eventually, he was skipping classes and even exams just to challenge players at the school next door. His mom was furious and put her foot down, forbidding him from playing and worrying it would ruin his grades. She even cut his allowance in half.

Xu Fanming’s mother was a loud, fearless woman with a bold personality. Her philosophy for raising a child boiled down to one belief: spare the rod, spoil the child. Her parenting style was simple and brutal. She gave him no room to save face, even in public, choosing the harshest words and most aggressive punishments in an attempt to scare him straight and force him back on the right path. But Xu Fanming was just as stubborn. He didn’t respond to force, only to kindness. The more she came down on him, the more defiant he became. With two equally strong-headed people clashing like that, chaos was inevitable.

And so, the basketball war between mother and son officially began.

Xu Fanming’s mom cut off his allowance and threw away his precious basketball. In response, he used the stash he had secretly saved over the years to keep buying new ones. For every ball she tossed, he bought another. When she forbade him from going out, he would jump barefoot in slippers from the second-floor window and bolt down the street clutching his ball like a madman. In the end, his grades started slipping, and his mom’s patience finally reached its limit.

Xu Fanming had an older sister three years his senior, who always thought the battles between him and their mother were absurdly childish. One semester, his grades nosedived dramatically. He plummeted from the top ten in his class to the bottom ranks. No one knew whether Xu Fanming had tanked the exams on purpose just to piss off his mom. Either way, when he came home smugly cradling his basketball, ready to sneak out again to challenge someone to a game, his sister let out a long sigh at the tragic report card and casually ratted him out.

Their mom lost it.

That night, it rained. She dug out the long-forgotten discipline rod and beat Xu Fanming until he was covered in bruises, crying his eyes out. Kneeling on the floor, he could only watch as she hacked his beloved basketball to shreds with a knife, cutting deep and jagged scars across its surface. Then, as if that weren’t enough, she spat a mouthful of furious phlegm onto what was left. Outside, thunder crashed and lightning split the sky. Xu Fanming felt the strength drain from his body, his tears dried up, and his head swam like he was about to pass out.

But the ordeal wasn’t over.

The next morning, just as he was waking up, he heard loud voices coming from the living room. His heart dropped. When he walked over, he saw a group of unfamiliar relatives gathered around his mother, and several shoeboxes sprawled across the coffee table. His mom was planning to give away his sneakers.

Those were the branded basketball shoes he had saved up for by cutting corners on food and spending. They weren’t extremely expensive, but he had always cherished them. After every game, he would wipe them down carefully with wet wipes. Now, they were being yanked around in other people’s hands like worthless trash.

The happiness of a teenage boy is often incredibly simple—a basketball, a court, and a flashy pair of sneakers. When he was saving up for shoes and a new ball, even eating plain steamed buns felt like joy to Xu Fanming. He loved the feeling of running wild on the court, breaking free from every constraint. Out there, he could forget that he was supposed to be the model student, and just let loose like a wild horse tearing through open fields. But in a single night, all that joy was ripped away from him.

He lunged forward to stop it, unwilling to accept what was happening. The relatives were stunned by his sudden hysteria. His mom flushed with embarrassment. Seeing how fiercely he protected his shoes, they eventually dropped the idea of taking them. Xu Fanming finally breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he had saved his precious sneakers. But once the relatives were gone, what he got instead was another vicious beating, and the sight of those shoes being dumped into the trash.

After that, when he moved up to his third year of middle school, he stopped playing basketball altogether.

Later still, Xu Fanming was accepted into a boarding school. That was when he started secretly saving up again for basketballs and sneakers. This time, there was no one to storm onto the court, grab him by the ear, and drag him home. No matter how angry his mom might still be, there was nothing she could do from a distance.

It was around that time that Xu Fanming first heard a classmate mention something called the “sports exam.”

It was his first time learning about the pathway for athletic students. Before that, he had no idea that professional sports could even be a legitimate path. He was in his first year of high school, and some of his classmates were already planning to pursue sports development. The moment he found out, he made up his mind immediately. Everything he had struggled through, all the setbacks and pain, it all suddenly seemed to make sense.

He loved basketball, and he was good at it. His mother wanted him to study hard and attend a good school. So pursuing athletics seemed like the perfect solution, something that could satisfy them both.

At the time, Xu Fanming was completely consumed by joy. He didn’t stop to think about anything else. He truly believed he had finally found the intersection between his true desire and his family’s expectations. That the clouds had finally parted, and the path ahead was clear.

But what he never expected was that things would not unfold the way he had imagined.