Luo Ming was silent for two seconds. His expressionless face instantly broke into a bright smile: “How could I not? I love anything you give me, senior!”
“Not bad. You didn’t waste your time in the entertainment industry. That face-changing skill of yours is on par with the Sichuan opera master from last year’s school anniversary.
Alright, alright! I’ll stop teasing you. These two books aren’t for you anyway. I’m just picking them up for someone else. Let’s go! Let’s find the big data research group.”
Luo Ming nodded and obediently followed his senior into Fudan University.
Wang Nan, like most people, was quite curious about the entertainment industry, so the conversation basically revolved around that.
Luo Ming didn’t hide anything either. He told Wang Nan everything he knew and everything he could share.
As they talked, the two of them arrived at a sports field.
The moment Luo Ming stepped onto the field, he felt gazes falling on him from all directions.
That was actually pretty normal. What man doesn’t like a beautiful woman? Even Luo Ming, walking down the street, couldn’t help letting his eyes linger on a pretty girl for a moment or two.
Just then—”Bang, bang, bang~”—the sound of a basketball bouncing echoed out. Wang Nan looked down and saw a basketball rolling to a stop in front of them.
“Junior, help us throw the ball back!” a male voice called from the court.
Wang Nan frowned and was just about to bend down to pick it up when Luo Ming crouched down first. With a flick of his hand, he scooped up the basketball.
Luo Ming dribbled with practiced ease and walked over to the court.
Asking passing students to help retrieve a ball was practically a tradition on basketball courts.
Some guys even sized people up before deciding—if a pretty girl walked by, the ball would somehow “slip” from their hands.
Of course, Luo Ming wasn’t sure what these guys were thinking or whether there was any ill intent, but he was certain that their eyes had been fixed on him the whole time, and that the “junior” they’d called out to was him.
So there was no way he’d let Wang Nan go pick up the ball. That was what a man should do.
“Didn’t expect that, junior. You know how to play ball? Which department are you from?” A senior walked up with a smile.
Luo Ming smiled but said nothing. When it came to basketball, let the basketball do the talking. He dribbled to the three-point line.
“You can shoot too, junior?”
Luo Ming didn’t answer. He bent his knees slightly and released a beautiful jump shot.
“Swish~” The ball went in cleanly, nothing but net. It didn’t say a word, yet it seemed to say everything.
The guys playing basketball were all a bit surprised. This girl hadn’t used a one-handed high lob, hadn’t pushed it up with both hands, and hadn’t used the outward-shoving motion most girls use when shooting. She’d used a proper jump shot—and made it!
To be fair, an uncontested three-pointer isn’t that hard for someone with high shooting accuracy.
Any random player on the school team could hit uncontested threes at a seventy-five percent rate.
But even those guys wouldn’t dare guarantee a make every time, let alone a girl.
“Classmate, if you’re going to play ball, it’s better to focus. Don’t look around, or the ball really will slip from your hands easily.” With that, Luo Ming turned and walked away.
The guys on the court looked at each other. Two of them were red as apples.
The ball had been thrown out on purpose after the two of them discussed it. They just thought this junior had a great figure and wanted to see her face.
They hadn’t expected to be seen through. How embarrassing.
“Wow! Wenwen, that shot was so cool!” Wang Nan said excitedly.
“Just luck.”
“Really? But your form looked really practiced!”
“Haven’t eaten pork, but haven’t I at least seen a pig run?”
Wang Nan didn’t know much about basketball either, so she believed Luo Ming after hearing that.
In fact, Luo Ming really did understand basketball. His interest in basketball came from Slam Dunk. He still remembered watching the anime as a kid—the hope Sakuragi Hanamichi launched in the final second.
In that instant, countless gazes all focused on him alone.
High school happened to be when Luo Ming’s chuunibyou phase hit. He thought all day about how to attract other people’s attention, so he practiced shooting desperately in his spare time.
Every now and then he’d fantasize about being like Sakuragi Hanamichi, sinking a buzzer-beater carrying everyone’s hopes in the final second of a game.
That feeling of the world focusing on me, of being the chosen one, the only one—just thinking about it made Luo Ming’s blood boil.
In the end, Luo Ming did make the school team thanks to his absurdly high three-point percentage. But that was all he had—accuracy and nothing else. He never played a single game.
The school team had five substitutes. He was one of only two who never got on the court.
The other one never played because he was too fat. His skills weren’t bad, but his stamina drained too fast—he couldn’t even last a quarter.
Thinking about it, Luo Ming couldn’t help but sigh.
“What’s wrong, Wenwen? Why are you sighing all of a sudden?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about some annoying work stuff.”
“Then maybe you should come back and take the grad school exam! Or the civil service exam. These textbooks could be for you too.”
“Uh, senior, really, there’s no need. I was joking.”
“Sigh!” This time it was Wang Nan’s turn to sigh.
She genuinely felt it was a waste for Lin Shuwen to be in the entertainment industry. Wang Nan herself was a top student. If not for chess distracting her a bit, Tsinghua or Peking University would’ve been no problem for her. She believed her learning ability and study methods were second to none.
But Lin Shuwen, this junior, had thoroughly taught her a lesson.
The club Lin Shuwen joined was the Go club. When she first joined, she only knew the rules of Go, while Wang Nan was already a small expert at amateur 4-dan. In Wang Nan’s hometown, amateur 5-dan was already comparable to professional 1-dan.
Wang Nan’s dad was amateur 5-dan, a teacher at a Go academy’s beginner class. He’d always hoped Wang Nan would walk the path of Go, but Wang Nan was more interested in robots, AI, and that sort of thing, so she ultimately took the normal academic route.
After Lin Shuwen learned Go on and off for a year, Wang Nan could no longer beat her even with a two-stone handicap.
When Wang Nan was a senior, Lin Shuwen was a junior. By then, Wang Nan had to go all out just to have a chance at beating Lin Shuwen.
And Lin Shuwen’s major coursework was excellent too—she won scholarships four times in a row.
Originally, Wang Nan thought Lin Shuwen would keep walking the path of biological sciences and become an outstanding biologist like her parents.
But what Wang Nan never expected was that in her second year of grad school, she suddenly saw Lin Shuwen on TV. She called to ask and only then learned that Lin Shuwen had actually entered the entertainment industry.
At the time, Wang Nan really wanted to ask why, but in the end she never did.
Today, Wang Nan couldn’t hold it in anymore and asked: “Wenwen, why did you go into the entertainment industry?”
Luo Ming’s expression stiffened when he heard that. How was he supposed to know why Lin Shuwen went into the entertainment industry?
Luo Ming originally wanted to make up some random reason, but suddenly he remembered that when he’d talked about dreams with Lin Shuwen before, she’d said she chose to study biology because of her parents’ influence—she’d always wanted to become a scientist.
Following that line of thought, Lin Shuwen probably hadn’t had any other dreams before. She’d just been following her parents’ wishes.
At that thought, Luo Ming mimicked Lin Shuwen’s tone and said: “Before, I never really thought about what I truly wanted to do. I just followed my parents. Later on, maybe I found what I truly like.”
