Chapter 62 The First Shot of "Resistance Against Japan"

On the eve of the warm-up match.

"Brother, why are there so many people at this warm-up match?"

Seeing the bustling crowd at the warm-up venue, many puzzled onlookers came over to ask.

"Don't you know? The quality of this warm-up match is very high, and it's quite a spectacle. Everyone wants to see if that Chinese guy can work another miracle."

"A Chinese guy? Isn't Japan the only one decent in Asian sprinting?"

"Well, I wouldn't know about that. But that's how things stand right now—this Chinese guy is fiercely fast."

...

"Coach Ning, could you ever have imagined that an overseas training trip would turn out like this?" Chen Cheng opened his digital camera and swept it across the surrounding crowd. Evidently, several people had become popular figures within the frame.

"I had no idea either," Ning Debao gave a bitter smile. She had originally intended for this training excursion to simply broaden their horizons, let these little brats take a thorough beating, shed their arrogance, and gain some experience. But look how things turned out: not to mention Su Shen, even Zhou Bing had become one of the standout performers.

"Young people nowadays aren't easy to handle, are they?" Chen Cheng adjusted his camera and said, "Especially talented youngsters like these; they always pull off stunts that old folks like us never expect."

"I'm not old yet."

"Alright, alright, you're not. Women are never willing to admit they're aging, no matter how old they get." Chen Cheng was one of the few colleagues in the school who had been relatively amiable to Ning Debao when she first arrived, though he had recently been demoted to the school's logistics department due to a sharp decline in his coaching performance. This time, Ning Debao had specifically requested that he join her and two other coaches for the trip.

"Coach Ning, I sometimes really admire you," Chen Cheng said. "Even now, you still have the time and energy to supplement your knowledge and study academic journals. I read that paper you published. To be honest, I didn't believe it at first. Could our country's decades of experience really be inferior to your individual opinion?"

"But I believe it now."

"Why?" Ning Debao asked.

"Because not a single one of the kids you've brought out is half-dead. They're all first-class athletes, and the oldest is only sixteen." Chen Cheng seemed to recall something and laughed self-deprecatingly, "Anyway, if it were me, I definitely couldn't have pulled this off. I suppose the provincial team coaches are probably at this level at best."

"They're just kids. Coming here to do this—glory aside—is all about achieving results. So having a good coach versus a bad one makes a huge difference. You know how it is. It looks like our country has countless track and field coaches, but true professionals can be counted on the fingers of one hand," Chen Cheng said. "Even me, when I think about it now, didn't I just bite the bullet and push through all these years without even fully grasping the theoretical framework?"

"Back in the day, I coached a few talented kids too. It's a pity they ran into me; how wonderful it would have been if they had crossed paths with you instead." Chen Cheng seemed lost in memories, a trace of slight self-reproach and bitterness clouding the middle-aged man's face.

"No, Coach Chen. You did your absolute best. If you had been in my shoes back then, the result would have been the same." Ning Debao looked at the big boy starting to emit a brilliant radiance in the distance and suddenly said, "Coach Chen, would you believe me if I told you that all my inspiration came from a kid? To put it bluntly, the primary author of that paper and those viewpoints shouldn't even be me."

"Haven't you ever wondered? My English is so mediocre, how could I possibly comprehend those professional, dry, and tedious foreign SCI journals?" Hearing this, Chen Cheng froze. After a long moment, he lowered his camera, looked at Ning Debao, and asked, "It wasn't you? Then who was it? Surely not one of those kids over there."

"You know how private enterprises in our country used to operate—no matter how well they ran or how capable they were, they still had to affiliate themselves with a state-owned or collective enterprise, right?" Ning Debao suddenly brought up something seemingly completely unrelated. Chen Cheng's mind became even more baffled, feeling somewhat unable to keep up with the female coach's leaping train of thought.

"The current situation is actually quite similar. It's just that the timing isn't ripe yet, so I need to 'affiliate' myself with it for now," Ning Debao said. "When the time is right, I will make this matter public so that everyone knows who is truly driving the development of this 'six-second rule' in our country."

...

The warm-up matches began. Due to the large number of participants, unlike the previous small-scale invitational tournament, the event was divided into three formal rounds.

And the brutal part was that they actually had to run three heats in a single day.

This kind of test was truly more than ordinary people could endure, especially for domestic athletes who hadn't even adapted to a two-heat format, let alone suddenly facing three. To be honest, Zhou Bing felt a bit panicked inside. This test wasn't just about pure athletic ability; it also tested your physical endurance, technical execution, and tactical distribution.

It was an intense challenge of both physical capability and tactical intellect.

Right now, Su Shen's "five-dimensional" stats had evolved into:
Strength: 36
Speed: 39
Endurance: 37
Reaction: 37
Flexibility: 35

As one could see, because Su Shen was trying his utmost to "nurture" endurance and flexibility, these two foundational bottlenecks hadn't lagged too far behind like before. Among his domestic peers, his physical fitness was now decidedly above average, and his injury resistance was relatively strong. It was hard to say on the international stage, but among his contemporaries, he shouldn't be considered weak.

The crucial point was that increasing the endurance stat didn't just boost your stamina; it also enhanced your recovery rate—an attribute that was sometimes the most important value for a sprinter.

Especially for Su Shen.

If he controlled his speed now and avoided explosive bursts that were too fierce, he could recover quite well within just a few hours.

Zhou Bing was in the first heat. Su Shen took a look at the other competitors and saw they were the same batch from the previous race. Aside from one guy named Hadi Hassan from Arabia, the rest probably weren't Zhou Bing's opponents. Su Shen advised Zhou Bing to take first place in the first heat if he could; otherwise, second was fine too, but he shouldn't push himself too hard. Maintaining 80% to 90% output would suffice.

Following Su Shen's advice—and remembering how last time he had pushed too hard in the first heat, leaving himself lacking in the second—Zhou Bing took heed of the lesson. He successfully restrained his explosive energy burst. Even when the Arabian Hadi Hassan overtook him at the very end, he didn't panic. Because Hadi Hassan had also exploded with too much force, likely pushing close to his limit just to secure first place in the heat, let alone the final—even making it through the semifinals would be questionable for him.

Zhou Bing ran a 10.87 in his first heat, advancing to the semifinals in second place for his group.

He high-fived Su Shen in celebration. It was clear that he was very satisfied with his performance and energy distribution this time.

Clenching his fist, he felt that he still had plenty of reserves locked away in his body.

After waiting through a few more heats, it was finally Su Shen's turn. He was placed in the fifth heat and assigned to a very favorable fifth lane.

This could already be considered one of the prime "golden lanes," and Su Shen had nothing to complain about.

As he prepared to adjust his starting blocks, a voice with a thick English accent drifted over.

"Su-kun, hello, we meet again so soon."

"I must ask you to show mercy this time."

Su Shen looked up, and who could it be if not Daiki Goto?

This was also the first time Daiki Goto had been cleared by Japan to participate in an international competition.

"If roles were reversed, would you show mercy?" Su Shen didn't answer, instead posing a rhetorical question.

"No." Daiki Goto answered honestly, a typical Japanese response.

Polite pleasantries had to be spoken, yet harsh words also had to be dropped—the classic contradiction of the chrysanthemum and the sword.

"Good, neither will I." After delivering his reply, Su Shen lowered his head and continued adjusting his starting blocks, acting as if he had never spoken a word to Daiki Goto beside him.

Yet if this were the filter of a Japanese adolescent manga, you would surely see—

Flames of combat already burning fiercely atop both of their bodies.

***

[Translator's Note: First chapter update~~~]