Chapter 11: The Long Shot

Autumn had arrived without fanfare, and the mornings had turned genuinely cold. Long sleeves were no longer optional for early training.

When Luo Na reached the stadium, Duan Yucheng was already there, using the soccer goalpost crossbar for pull-ups. The stadium had settled back into its usual quiet after two days of competition — quieter than usual, actually, as if the noise had taken something with it when it left. The trees had started losing their color, leaves going dull at the edges where the temperature had got to them first.

Luo Na walked over and watched him for a moment. "Your upper body strength is decent."

Duan Yucheng had been far enough inside his own head that her voice pulled him back with a small jolt. He looked over. "You're here already."

"Aren't these a bit easy for you at this point?"

"They're fine."

He was about to drop down when Luo Na said, "Hold on." She stepped behind him, wrapped her right arm around his legs, and said simply, "Go again."

Duan Yucheng pulled. His arms didn't move.

"What — seriously? Are you made of concrete?"

"Hm?"

"Never mind, give me a second." He rolled his neck, switched from overhand grip to underhand, counted silently to three, and threw everything he had into it.

Luo Na felt the shift immediately. Her left arm went around him on instinct. Duan Yucheng made a sound that suggested considerable internal suffering — jaw locked, veins standing out on his forearms — and dragged them both upward by maybe five or six centimeters.

He held it for half a second. Then his strength gave out completely.

"Hey—!" Luo Na caught his full weight. Not wanting to risk his injured foot, she bent her knees and eased him down carefully. He sat on the ground. They looked at each other.

Then both of them started laughing.

It was still early. The sky was that clean, uncomplicated blue that only showed up in autumn mornings, and a light wind moved through the stadium carrying just enough chill to make you feel properly awake.

Luo Na crouched next to him and studied his shoulder with a thoughtful expression. "You know, shot put might actually not be out of the question for you."

Duan Yucheng's eyes came alive. "Yeah? Want to see my throwing form? I can show you right now."

"Not with that foot, you can't. You think shot put is all arms? Try doing a glide step in that condition."

"Oh." He deflated slightly. "Pull-ups again, then?"

"Let's just sit for a bit."

She wasn't letting him do pull-ups either, not with the foot the way it was. They settled on the dry grass and talked — about the training schedule coming up, about nothing in particular. Luo Na walked him through the plan she'd been putting together, then pushed herself back to her feet.

"I'm heading out."

"Already? It's not even seven."

"Something I need to sort out. Are you going back to the dorm?"

"No class this morning. I'll probably go to the library for a while."

Luo Na nodded, gave a loose wave, and left.

She was going to intercept Wang Qilin. The provincial games were a month out, and Wang Qilin — who held a position at the provincial sports bureau — had been running at full tilt for weeks. He'd just come back from a trip and was only at the school for the one night before he'd be gone again. Luo Na had no intention of letting that window close without walking through it.

She went straight to the faculty dormitory.

Wang Qilin clearly hadn't expected her. He'd just gotten up and was standing in the doorway in nothing but a pair of shorts when he opened it.

"Oh, come on—" He reached for the door, but Luo Na already had her hand on the frame. "It's fine, you look great, let me in."

"You are genuinely exhausting," he said, stepping back with a resigned exhale. He put the kettle on and dropped a teabag into a cup. "Is this about Duan Yucheng again?"

"Look at you, reading my mind. I'm almost embarrassed."

"Stop being formal. Talk like a normal person."

Luo Na was already moving through the room, nudging his suitcase out of the way with her foot. This place was only Wang Qilin's crash pad when he was too busy to go home — it showed. Everything except the bed and desk had a faint layer of dust over it. She wiped the seat of a chair with her sleeve and waved him over with a bright smile.

He looked at her over his teacup. "The performance of a lifetime."

"Aren't you worried about sitting in your underwear on a dusty chair?"

Wang Qilin cleared his throat with dignity. "You genuinely want him on the track and field team."

"Director," Luo Na said, "I have never seen a student train the way this one does."

Wang Qilin turned the thought over. "Self-discipline matters, but it doesn't decide everything. There are plenty of disciplined athletes who never go anywhere."

Luo Na pulled a small notebook from her pocket and set it on the table. "His training record since enrollment. Test results too. Have a look."

Wang Qilin picked up his glasses and opened it. He'd expected basic notes — what he found was something closer to a research document. Every session logged, every sprint timed, a series of analytical curves drawn by hand. He turned the pages slowly. "You really went all in on this." Luo Na started talking him through it — Duan Yucheng's strengths, the gaps in his technique, the specific problems they'd run into and how they'd worked around them. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, brows slightly drawn together, morning light coming in at an angle across her face.

She talked for over ten minutes before she finally stopped and said, "Director, I know he's not finished yet. I know there's a lot still missing. But he deserves a real chance at this."

Wang Qilin set the notebook down and looked at her. "Why this particular student? You had your eye on him all the way back when he was at No. 3 Middle School, didn't you."

Luo Na's throat had gone dry. She reached over and took a sip from his teacup without asking. "Yes."

"What is it about him?"

The first thing that came to mind was the gesture he'd made after winning the hundred — arm up, aimed at the empty stands, at nothing and everything. Something in it had struck her somewhere specific and stayed there.

"He cares about more than one event," she said. "He's interested in everything."

"And?"

"I think—" She pressed her lips together for a moment. "I think he actually loves track and field. Really loves it."

Wang Qilin nodded slowly.

"I believe you," Luo Na said. "This kid is sharp and confident and he thinks about his training — really thinks, doesn't just grind through it. But the thing that gets me is that he's completely straightforward about why he's there. Half the athletes with genuine ability right now are chasing Level 1 and Level 2 certifications for the college admissions bump. That's fine, I understand it. But that's not him. He has never once complained about how repetitive training is, never angled for anything else. He just loves it. Director, I've only seen that kind of athlete abroad before. It's genuinely rare. I can't help it — I want to fight for him—"

Wang Qilin held up a hand. "Alright, alright. I hear you. Breathe. This isn't a crisis." He straightened the collar of his nonexistent shirt. "It's the school team. Let's do it."

Luo Na had her chair forward by half an inch before he'd finished the sentence. "And the high jump spot for the provincial games—"

Wang Qilin's expression closed immediately.

"Don't."

"Director." Luo Na had not previously imagined herself capable of being this way with Wang Qilin, but here she was. "One chance. Just let him try."

Wang Qilin took a breath and walked her through the math patiently.

The school could send two athletes to the provincial high jump. Jiang Tian's numbers were the best — there was no reasonable argument for leaving him out. That left one spot, and Liu Shan's performance was more consistent than Duan Yucheng's right now. Fair process meant something. It couldn't just be Duan Yucheng getting every opportunity simply because Luo Na wanted it for him.

Luo Na knew he was right. She'd been testing the boundary, not genuinely expecting to push through it. She tucked the thought away and started thinking about other angles.

---

Duan Yucheng was sitting in Business Administration when the news arrived.

He never touched his phone during class. He didn't know what made him glance at the screen today — some instinct, or just luck — but halfway through the lecture he looked down, and there was Luo Na's message.

He read it and brought his palm down on the table.

The old professor nearly levitated from his chair. "What on earth! If you have something to say, say it out loud!"

Duan Yucheng apologized, but the professor wasn't done. He pointed to a slide on the screen. "Analyze the deficiencies in this company's human resource management information system. Go."

Duan Yucheng's head was still completely full of Luo Na's message and had no room for anything else. He would have been completely lost if the tall, composed student beside him — Jia Shili — hadn't quietly fed him the key points in a low murmur. He scraped through somehow and sat back down.

Shi Yin in the row ahead turned around with her chin tipped slightly toward him. "What was that about?"

Duan Yucheng rested his face on the desk, cheeks faintly flushed. "I made the track and field team."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

Jia Shili leaned in from the other side. "We should celebrate tonight. Dinner — your treat."

Duan Yucheng was still not quite back on earth. "Sure," he said without hesitation. "Order whatever you want."

---

That evening, he took everyone for crayfish. Eight of them in total — his four dormmates and four from Shi Yin's dorm — at the restaurant on the barbecue street behind the school. The street was quiet in summer but came fully alive in autumn, the air smelling of charcoal and spice for the whole length of it. They squeezed around a round table that was slightly too small for eight people.

Hu Junxiao, cigarette between his fingers, pointed at the seating arrangement. "Boys on one side, girls on the other. Otherwise where's the fun."

Shi Yin, already settled between Jia Shili and Duan Yucheng with a menu in her hands, looked uncertain. "Are you actually treating? There are a lot of us."

Hu Junxiao called over from his end of the table, "Ooh, is someone watching the household budget?" Duan Yucheng and Shi Yin both let it pass. Jia Shili sent Hu Junxiao a look that could have cut glass.

"It's fine, just order," Duan Yucheng said.

Jia Shili said, "Now you're speaking my language—"

Despite the performance, Jia Shili actually ordered carefully — a few solid main dishes to anchor the meal and only three bowls of crayfish.

Duan Yucheng raised an eyebrow. "Three bowls between eight people isn't going to do it." He got up, went to the counter, and told the owner ten bowls.

The table went quiet.

An 800-gram bowl ran about 108 yuan. Ten bowls was over a thousand before anything else on the table. For a college student, this wasn't ordinary spending money.

Han Dai shifted uncomfortably. "We should split it."

"No need. I said I'm treating, so I'm treating. Eat until you're full — don't hold back."

Everyone exchanged a look. Hu Junxiao started clapping and the others followed.

Shi Yin turned to Duan Yucheng. "Can eight people even finish ten bowls?"

"Easily. I can get through two on my own."

She looked at him. "That much?"

Jia Shili confirmed this without being asked. "He genuinely can. He looks slight because of the face, but don't let that fool you — the guy eats more than I do. If you haven't been to the cafeteria with him, you're not prepared for it."

Duan Yucheng just laughed.

One of Shi Yin's roommates said, "I read somewhere that athletes who trained young tend to gain weight after they retire. Your appetite stretches out when you're young, but even when you stop training your body still wants the same amount of food, so—" She made an expanding gesture with her hands.

Jia Shili caught the thread immediately. "So don't be taken in by the current situation," he told the girls solemnly. "Give it a few years."

Shi Yin made a skeptical sound. She looked at Duan Yucheng. "That won't happen."

He raised one eyebrow.

"Who knows."

Jia Shili laughed first, loud and genuine, and the rest of the table came with him — the eight of them around that slightly-too-small table, the autumn street busy and warm-lit around them, the air thick with pepper and garlic and the particular good feeling of a night that's exactly what it needs to be.