Chapter 309: Concede Points
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Why is this happening?! Isn't Pengfei Cui a slow starter? Harimoto Hisashi stared at the 10-0 score, and was totally bewildered. Pengfei Cui was about to win the first round, while Harimoto Hisashi hadn't gotten any points yet.
To Harimoto Hisashi, the plot had completely digressed. Pengfei Cui didn't start slow, but on the contrary, had been in an extremely good condition since the game began, and had performed several high-difficulty technical moves with ease.
There were levels in 10-0 score, but the audience was not surprised by the result. In their eyes, it was the embodiment of the normal competence of both sides.
It was Pengfei Cui's serve again. At this moment, Pengfei Cui remained wearing a sleepy poker face, with his eyelids dropped.
"Ahem!" Sitting in the coach seat, Zhizhong Gu suddenly cleared his throat loudly. However, it was done in such a deliberate way that everyone could tell that he merely pretended to cough. Television cameras turned to Zhizhong Gu right at this moment, successfully catching him coughing.
He is ordering to concede points! The audience witnessed Zhizhong Gu's action, and so they all knew what was going to happen, too.
It was the Chinese National Ping-Pong Team's traditional to concede points to the opponent, especially in embarrassing moments like a score of 10:0. They did this so that the opponents could save some face.
Zhizhong Gu was worrying that Pengfei Cui was so over-enjoyed in the game, that he had forgotten to show mercy, so he cleared throat loudly as a reminder. Pengfei Cui hated facade project, as in his mind, people who were inferior to him deserved an egg. But his coach ordered him to "show mercy", so he had to obey the command.
Therefore, he casually served a ball into the net, which changed the score into 10:1. Finally, Harimoto Hisahsi received his first point!
"Uh, Pengfei Cui finally conceded a point after the score reached 10:0."
"Yeah, but isn't it humiliating? Such a casual serve into the net, even a fool could tell he did so on purpose."
"Right. Although conceding points is a facade project, he should at least make several rounds, rather than just a serve. Such an obvious fake."
The audience whispered to one another. The crowd even applauded. The applause might have been celebrating Harimoto Hisashi's first point in this game, or Pengfei Cui's concession. However, when the claps came into Harimoto Hisashi's ears, they sounded like deliberate mockery.
Although he had gained his first point, Harimoto Hisashi's face flushed. Things had developed unexpectedly, which was totally different than what he had imagined before the game started. He came here with confidence, hoping to win the first round, to prove that he indeed obtained top-level professional competence. Unfortunately, life was so cruel, and it slapped him so hard that it threw him into endless pain.
Concession? How come I received a concession?! Am I not even able to win one point? How poor I am, to win a point through his almsgiving!
The concession came as a heavy hammer, which directly smashed Harimoto Hisashi's confidence. At this moment, Harimoto Hisashi was unbalanced. He made a stupid mistake in his next serve.
Harimoto Hisashi's serve into the net ended the first round with 11:1. However, Harimoto Hisashi was not conceding a point to Pengfei Cui, as he had made a real mistake.
...
Zhizhong Gu looked relaxed, he didn't even give Pengfei Cui any instruction during the interval. But Kimura Juichi's face was cloudy. Although he had predicted Harimoto Hisashi's failure, he never expected such a fiasco.
Moreover, Pengfei Cui's high-enthusiasm immediately messed up Kimura Juichi's strategies soon after the game began. Kimura Juichi's plans were all useless. In fact, the gap between the two players was huge, and even the best strategy could not make it up.
In the second round, soon the score changed into 8:0. Now, Pengfei Cui was a little bit loose, and Harimoto Hisashi caught the chance to gain his second point.
Finally the second round ended at 11:2, then the gap remained impossible to cross.
After the third round started, Pengfei Cui took a lead again, with a 5:0 score.
Harimoto Hisashi stood still with eyes glazing. He was about to cry.
Is there indeed a huge gap between Pengfei Cui and I? I'm right here facing him, but I can't fight back. There's not even a chance!
Helplessness raised from his heart, then gradually spread over his body, like a dandelion being blown away by a breeze, its seeds dancing in the air and spreading all over the land.
At this moment, Harimoto Hisashi even distrusted himself. He began to doubt whether he was the right person for playing ping-pong or not.
Because of his parents, Harimoto Hisashi started practicing ping-pong since he was two years old. When he was seven, he showed up prominently, not only among his peers, but among seniors as well.
No one his age could defeat him, even seniors were often beaten by him. At that time, he was called "The Gifted Child" by Japanese media, and was predicted as being the hope of Japanese ping-pong.
With a title of so-called genius, he stood at the international stage when he was only twelve, and was praised as the youngest player in the ITTF open. In the next couple of years, Harimoto Hisashi kept participating in various kinds of contests, defeating adult opponents one by another. Meanwhile, his world rank gradually raised, and finally, he was listed in the Top 50 ping-pong players in the world.
The rank convinced Harimoto Hisashi himself that he was capable to challenge the world's best ping-pong players. However, from today's scores, he awakened to the realization that he was not only one step away from being the world's best, but instead, there was a huge chasm blocking his way.
At the end of the third round, again, Harimoto Hisashi lost many points. Such hopelessness brought Harimoto Hisashi much pain, that he even began to shrink back, for he feared being in the field facing Pengfei Cui.
He prayed that the game could finish as soon as possible. To make it worse, deep in his heart, he had an impulse to run away from here.
However, in international ping-pong contests, individual singles knockouts usually had four-wins out of seven games, which meant that Harimoto Hisashi must complete the fourth round before he left. But in his eyes, the fourth round was only a torment of pain!
Harimoto Hisashi never had such a miserable loss before. When standing against Pengfei Cui, who had already been on the pitch, fighting back was an extravagant hope.
At last, in the fourth round, after losing three rounds, Harimoto Hisashi was completely unbalanced. He even performed technical deformation in the basic serve actions.
Harimoto Hisashi is having a breakdown.
Zhizhong Gu's face lit up with a satisfying smile. That was what he wanted.
For young athletes like Harimoto Hisashi, their biggest defect was not technical problems, but psychological immaturity. A fourteen to fifteen year old teenager was definitely not as mentally mature as adults.
Especially when they suffered setbacks, adults were able to bear a certain degree of frustration, while teenagers might have a shadow remaining from the bad experience. At this moment, the hormones produced by puberty were also disastrous substances.
What we called psychological shadows, were produced in adolescence. TV shows often displayed similar plots, like an individual who turned out to be a psycho killer after going through a miserable childhood.
Being whacked in today's match apparently left an enormous psychological shadow in Harimoto Hisashi's heart. He was only fifteen, so he might probably need a long time to get rid of the shadow, or in the worst case scenario, he might live under the shadow for the rest of his life.
Perhaps from the very beginning, if Harimoto Hisashi set a rather low goal for himself to achieve, things would be better. But he thought highly of himself, and the goal was set too high, which brought the reverse effects.
Puny boy! What gifted child? I was way stronger than him when I was fifteen.
Pengfei Cui curled his lip with disappointment in his eyes. Actually, when Pengfei Cui was fifteen, he was already recruited into the National Team One, and had defeated the team's main force several times. By contrast, the current Harimoto Hisashi barely met the standard of getting into the National Team Two.
...
The fourth round was ongoing. Standing in the field, gazing at the 10:0 score, tears fell from Harimoto Hisashi's eyes involuntarily. The current situation exceeded Harimoto Hisashi's mental summit.
Argh, why he is crying? Did I do anything wrong?
Pengfei Cui finally felt a sense of guilt about bullying a boy. "I'd better concede another point to calm him down!" Pengfei Cui told himself.