Chapter 44: Look, That Is the Nation's Number One Genius

Four days later.

Suddenly, news came down that Su Shen and Zhou Bing would simultaneously participate in the 100-meter event at the upcoming Guangdong Provincial Youth Championships.

Because Zhou Tao's injury prevented him from continuing to compete in two events, he withdrew from one. Naturally, with Zhou Tao stepping down, Zhou Bing filled the spot. Seeing Zhou Bing's expression of disbelief followed by immense joy, Su Shen shook his head, thinking to himself:

As expected of a brother.

Otherwise, if he were truly injured, what's the point of competing at all? He shouldn't even participate in the 200-meter race.

Two days later, the sports school chartered a bus to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, to take part in the Guangdong Provincial Youth Championships.

The headmaster had only one requirement, which was...

To bring back as many medals as possible.

Let us not forget that this was still an era obsessed with medals, so the headmaster's demand was entirely understandable.

On the bus, Su Shen, Zhou Bing, and Chen Juan sat together. Seeing Su Shen reading a book once again practically drove Zhou Bing out of his mind with worry.

He immediately blurted out that if Su Shen kept this up, he would surely end up a bachelor, asking which girl could possibly like a bookworm.

Take my advice and put down the study materials in your hand.

At this point, Zhou Bing decided to recruit some reinforcement, asking Chen Juan if she didn't also think that Su Shen's behavior made him unlikable.

As a result, Chen Juan simply shook her head shyly and said, "I think it's wonderful. Brother Tian is great just the way he is."

Zhou Bing: ???

Su Shen glanced sideways at Chen Juan and spoke up as well: "You can save yourself the trouble of worrying about me; I've already been taken for a long time."

"What?!" Zhou Bing cried out in shock, his voice so loud that it almost made everyone on the bus turn to look at them.

Zhou Bing shrank his neck back slightly, apologized to everyone in general, and then immediately turned his head to question Su Shen: "You're saying you've already been taken? For real! Don't you dare string me along, or you're a puppy."

Su Shen gave Zhou Bing, the perpetual singlehood practitioner, a look of supreme condescension while feeding him metaphorical dog food: "What would I gain by lying to you? Childhood sweethearts, we've known each other for a long time." After studying Su Shen for at least half a minute and finding no trace of falsehood, Zhou Bing suddenly let out a mournful sigh: "Even someone like you has a childhood sweetheart? No wonder I never see you looking at a single girl at the sports school; I actually thought you were a monk who only ate vegetarian food and never touched meat."

"Good grief, you hide things way too well! Tian—wait, that's not right, how come I've never seen her before?" Zhou Bing immediately pressed on, thinking he had found a flaw in Su Shen's story. Su Shen smiled, pulled out one of the currently trendy photo-booth sticker pictures from inside his book, and said to Zhou Bing: "What did you think I was doing every time I disappeared on the weekend breaks?"

Zhou Bing looked at the photograph, immediately spat out some colorful language, and adopted an even more aggrieved tone: "You actually went chasing girls! And you didn't even invite me? Are we still brothers or not?"

"Sorry, I went on a date; I never chase girls." With that, Su Shen wore a faint smile and continued reading his book.

Zhou Bing: ......

However, these words were also intentionally spoken for Chen Juan to hear as well. Because Su Shen had noticed that Chen Juan might harbor some romantic feelings toward him, he took the opportunity to state this explicitly in order to nip those feelings in the bud.

It wasn't that Chen Juan wasn't wonderful, but in this lifetime... Su Shen could never afford to be distracted.

In his heart, there was only that little girl who caught the earliest morning bus just to see him for a brief moment before returning home all by herself.

Aside from her.

In Su Shen's eyes, everyone else was strictly categorized into the roles of teammate, colleague, classmate, or friend.

At any rate, among the opposite sex, the attribute of "young maiden" simply did not exist for him.

Hearing this, Chen Juan naturally became much quieter for the rest of the journey, but Su Shen had no intention of playing the role of a "warm man" in such situations.

After all, when it came to these matters, the warmer you tried to be, the more difficult things became.

Regarding relationships between men and women, one must never mess around casually. If you were going to be involved...

You had to commit to just one person.

That was the way to go.

...

The distance from Huashan to Guangzhou wasn't particularly far; it took only about two hours to arrive. For energetic sports school students, there was no sense of fatigue whatsoever. They felt as though they could still go out and have a wild time after getting off the bus.

The coaches all had to attend a brief meeting at the provincial sports bureau, so today was designated as free time upon arrival, but everyone had to return for roll call before dinner.

Anyone missing would be immediately expelled back to school and barred from participating in the upcoming competitions.

Since they were teammates under the same coach, everyone gathered in small groups of three to five to go explore. Naturally, Zhou Bing tagged along with Su Shen and the others.

Initially, Su Shen had no interest in going out. Go shopping? That sounded far less appealing than staying in the room and reading.

Reading more articles was the right path.

After all, one day you would exhaust your existing foundation, and when that time came, if he wanted to become a true expert and professor in this field rather than some incompetent fraud dubbed an "expert professor," he needed to keep learning. Seeing that Su Shen wasn't going, Chen Juan certainly wouldn't go either. This nearly brought Zhou Bing—who likely suffered from a form of hyperactivity—to tears. Fortunately, his brain wasn't slow either; making a quick mental pivot, he said: "Tian, look here, it's not easy for us to make a trip to the provincial capital. Are you really not going to buy some fine provincial capital goods for your childhood sweetheart? If you don't, you're treating her way too poorly."

This...

Su Shen thought about it and realized Zhou Bing made a valid point.

They would be leaving immediately after the competition, and there wouldn't be much time to buy gifts then. Since they had managed to make a rare trip to the provincial capital, it would be unreasonable not to buy something for Lin Yanfang. The value or price of the item didn't matter; it was the thought behind it that counted the most.

Of course, he also knew what kind of little trinkets Lin Yanfang liked, so if he wanted to buy something, he could get it done quickly without stepping into any pitfalls.

He couldn't afford expensive things right now, but browsing the boutique shops in the provincial capital was totally doable and well within his budget. After a brief consideration, Su Shen nodded and agreed, causing Zhou Bing to cheer aloud and drag Su Shen outside immediately.

It seemed that he, too, rarely had the chance to visit the provincial capital.

...

They arrived at the city center of the provincial capital.

Su Shen had visited this place many times in his previous life, but in this era, it was his first time.

Seeing Guangzhou in the year 2005, he found it drastically different from the memories in his mind. Only by making such a comparison could one truly realize how breathtakingly fast the motherland's takeoff had been during this period.

The three of them bought some snacks and wandered around. During this time, Zhou Bing actually wanted to go to an internet café to surf the web, but Su Shen stopped him flatly.

This caused Zhou Bing to sigh repeatedly, lamenting that Su Shen didn't understand a "man's romance" at all.

Did Su Shen not understand?

He was utterly sick of it from playing it to death.

The things available to play in this era were limited, and computer hardware specifications were low, so he truly couldn't work up any enthusiasm.

If it were his previous life and someone opened up a "Summoner's Rift," Su Shen would have been more than happy to join in for some relaxation.

Yes, he had even participated in celebrity exhibition matches; as for his skills, well, carrying his own wife wasn't a problem at all.

It was just that his "summoner name" tended to make single people want to sharpen their knives.

Best not to search for it, lest you sit at home and have dog food rained down upon you from the heavens.

Just as Su Shen was picking out quite a few small items for Lin Yanfang, Zhou Bing suddenly let out an exclamation of surprise, patted Su Shen on the back, and said: "Tian, Tian, look quickly, isn't that person... isn't that person Zhao Haohuan, the top genius under U18 in the country?"

"How did he end up here?" Zhou Bing gasped in a cold breath, "Is he going to compete in this tournament too? If so, what's the point of us even trying to play?"

Hearing this, Su Shen looked over. Who else could it be if not Zhao Haohuan from Wuyi City?

This guy was currently among the fastest runners in the entire world—mind you, the entire world—in the U18 category for the year 2004.

If one wanted to be strict about it, only J-Mee Samuels was faster than him.

At this time, statistical records showed no one else genuinely faster than him.

Usain Bolt? That guy hadn't even ventured into the 100-meter event yet; he was still battling it out in the 200 meters.

At fourteen and a half years old, he had swept the National Middle School Games with a super result of 10.35 seconds.

Last year, at age 16, he had already clocked 10.32 seconds, setting the national youth record.

It had once been regarded as a miraculous feat.

However, this was his peak; although he declined rapidly, sliding down faster than a shooting star.

Yet right now, among all domestic sprinters under the age of 18, there was no one who did not know of Zhao Haohuan, the nation's number one sprinting genius.

He was the undisputed number one figure in the youth group right now.

Even globally, he ranked among the absolute strongest in the U18 tier.

Provided his age was genuine.

Yet Su Shen could tell at a glance that this so-called "top genius" wasn't particularly happy.

Internet connectivity wasn't very developed in the country yet, but the coaching circle was small enough that everyone knew what was going on with each other.

This was why Ning Debao hesitated and sighed whenever Zhao Haohuan was brought up.

And this was why the "domestic track and field association" refused to acknowledge that record; his name wasn't even listed on the youth division records.

He might be a genius, but the immense pressure weighed heavily upon him.

Though later generations would use the phrase "early to bloom, but late to fail" to describe Zhao Haohuan, and even treat him as the track and field world's equivalent of "Fang Zhongyong,"

Su Shen still hoped to have a chance to interact with him slightly if the opportunity arose.

After all, by the time Zhao Haohuan emerged in his previous life, he had already retired.

"That's what the demeanor of a top genius looks like; such a cool melancholy, why can't I ever pull that off?" Zhou Bing clearly regarded Zhao Haohuan as his idol. Watching Zhao Haohuan's disappearing back, Su Shen said: "Because we don't have that much pressure, so naturally we can't manage to look melancholy."

"Little Tian, if we were to go up against him, there's no point in us playing; the gap in strength is just too huge." You have to realize what the national 100-meter record currently is. Excluding Chen Jiaquan, everyone else over the past four or fifty years had only seen Zhou Wei achieve 10.17 seconds. Unfortunately, Zhou Wei had been suspended for several years due to failing a doping test, casting an inevitable question mark over his achievements.

Otherwise, he should have been the leading figure in domestic sprinting during this period.

If Zhou Wei didn't count, the fastest time in the past 40 years was only in the 10.20s.

So now you should understand what it meant for Zhao Haohuan to run 10.32 seconds last year.

If he truly was 16 years old, that time firmly established him as the next-generation leading figure beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"It doesn't matter even if we can't outrun him. We're still young, and we're just here to accumulate experience and test ourselves against these domestic youth elites." Su Shen unconsciously rubbed his hands together slightly as he watched the direction where Zhao Haohuan had vanished, saying:

"I'd best hope I get to race against him at least once."

"Him? Who?" After a long moment, Zhou Bing finally reacted, his mouth agape as he said in disbelief: "Tian, you can't possibly be thinking of running a race against Zhao Haohuan."

Su Shen didn't speak. He simply felt that Zhao Haohuan's arrival made things all the more interesting.

In his previous life during this period, Su Shen hadn't even stepped onto the "historical stage" yet.

This time, however, everything seemed to have converged at once.

And none of it would be missed.