Yang Yiming had a dream.

It had been a long time since he had such a figurative dream.

Since coming to the United States, except for the one time when he was hypnotized by Nina, his daily life has been nothing more than training, competitions, and running between cities, and to be honest, dreaming has become an unattainable luxury.

But that night, without warning, he had a dream.

A nightmare.

1/

I remember that there was once a movie that said that when a person starts dreaming, he can't notice anything abnormal, and when he rejects the strangeness in the dream, the dream will naturally wake up.

Yang Yiming's dream also started like this.

In his dream, he first saw a stadium, a place he was familiar with. The arena was on a hilltop campus, and it seemed like a university, but it didn't seem to be, and in short, these were not the details he cared about at the time. He only remembered that when he got to this arena, he had to walk through the entire green campus and finally connect several floors of stairs before he suddenly became enlightened. The athletics playground in the depths of the campus is built against the mountain, and there is an old two-story building next to the open space, with white walls and red roofs, and columns that look like the style of several eras ago.

The height of the arena itself is not very high, the basketball court occupies almost all of the indoor space, and there are no windows on all sides of the court, so the light can only shine in through the low windows on the corridor on the second floor. It is said to be the second floor, but in fact, it is not as high as a basketball hoop, and the entire corridor is only two people wide, which can stand in a row of cheering spectators. But on this day, there were no cheering spectators, only a group of people with blurred faces under black pressure, crowding the railing of the corridor on the second floor to the point that it was impossible to penetrate, and the whole stadium seemed even darker. The red banner hanging under the cloister became the only embellishment, the dark red one that looked like blood flowing from a vein, congealed in the air, like the condensed air in the arena.

"Four Provincial Joint Trials".

It's a few words written on dark red blood.

The race is on.

For some reason, Yang Yiming felt out of place with everyone from the first minute of the game. Of the ten people on the field, nine of them were wearing one-color uniforms, with black letters on a white background, hanging on them empty, and there was an indescribable slaughter. He was the only one wearing a red old-fashioned hurdle waistcoat, and his shorts were also red and white, so short that they reached the base of his thighs, so short that he couldn't bear to drag them every few steps, and it was so short... Yang Yiming realized that maybe it wasn't that his equipment was too short, but that he was getting longer and taller. He grew into the only giant on the field, and the arena seemed to be a gingerbread hut, and he had to bend his head down to make sure he didn't break the roof of the arena in one fell swoop. And the nine opponents on the field are like rubber fruit villains in the cake house at the moment, emitting a transparent faint white light, circling around him, opening their O-shaped mouths, but not making a single sound.

What the hell are they talking about?

Yang Yiming couldn't straighten his waist and bent lower, almost kneeling on the ground, he wanted to figure out the meaning that those rubber fruit villains were trying to convey, but he couldn't understand anything. Buzz, buzz. It was a special tone that he couldn't catch. Yang Yiming always thought that basketball was the only language on the court, but apparently he was wrong.

2/

There is no communication.

No one passed the ball to him.

He was half-crouched in the arena, but it was as if he were completely absent. Yang Yiming is like an outsider watching a play, a group of villains scurrying left and right at his feet, treating him as an obstacle that can be ignored. No one looked up at him, he tried to reach out and grab the basketball himself, but the basketball had become a size smaller, compared to his huge body, which was like sesame seeds on his fingertips, drilling like marbles on the earthy yellow and cracked arena floor, he reached out to pinch it, but the basketball only swished, and flew to the other end.

Who is that person?

How did he end up here?

Yellow-skinned guy, get out of here.

Suddenly, shouts came from the cloister on the second floor. Yang Yiming turned his head with difficulty, and it was still the same row of black faceless faces, but it was obvious that someone had noticed him and was shouting at him.

Don't think you're going to be great with a few hats.

Monkey!

It's not the NBA, it's just your dream!

Dream? Yang Yiming, who was stunned, stayed in place and suddenly lost his direction. Where the hell am I? Is it really just a dream? Isn't it the NBA, I'm still on the court of the Four Provinces tryouts?

Yang Yiming, who was at a loss, attracted more boos, and mocking words came from all directions on the second floor. He tried to figure out the speaker's location, but the voice kept coming from the dark corner, louder and more frequent, until finally it became a constant buzzing sound. It's like the tones of those little white people he can't decipher! And they seemed to have finally noticed Yang Yiming in the center of the voice, stopped the game, and began to attack him!

Basketballs were thrown out, although the basketballs were only the size of sesame seeds, and they didn't feel pain when they smashed on the giant Yang Yiming, but the villains were not discouraged at all, and as soon as they threw one, they conjured another from somewhere in their bodies and fired it out like a cannon. Yang Yiming used his hand to block it, but the more brave the villains, the shells kept flowing, as if they would not stop until they defeated the giants!

All he's left is to parry!

The ball bounced, and in a hurry, a basketball was unknowingly thrown in the direction of the basket, and it was too late for Yang Yiming to realize that the accident had changed. The basketball passed through a hail of bullets and went straight into the hollow net.

Airplanes!

Pointers!

The score on the scoreboard jumped from 64-65 to 67-65 with only 4 seconds left!

Time out!

3/

The pause bell rings.

Yang Yiming returned to his normal figure, he checked his hands and feet back and forth, and found that there was nothing unusual, and the shorts on his legs seemed to have suddenly returned to their normal size. Looking around, his teammates and opponents had already gathered in their respective players' benches on the sidelines, leaving him alone in the middle of the field. He hurriedly ran a few steps and ran to a group of people in red uniforms, and the team uniforms of the group of people opposite were still the ones with black letters on a white background.

His teammates had already gathered in a circle, and he couldn't squeeze in, so he had to sit on the edge of the circle and listen.

"In the end, with four seconds left on this offense, we will play a simple pick-and-roll combination." It was as if it were a voice he was familiar with.

"Yang comes to send the ball in the front court, No. 10 center, you go to stand at the top of the free throw line arc to receive the ball. You have a height advantage, and when the time comes, lean on the opponent's center and put your arms up. The rest of the people approach first and spread out when the ball is about to be sent out, driving the defenders away. After Yang Yiming finished sending the sideline ball, he first pretended to run to the bottom corner, and then killed a horse pistol and turned back to the side of the No. 10 center. Center, you make a close-door block for Yiming, keep his defender behind him, even if it's delayed, and then hand over the ball to Yiming, and you shoot at the three-point line. Direct three-pointers, not two-pointers, we don't play overtime, got it? This is the position, here, Yang Yiming, where are you?! Do you see where I drew it? The familiar sound of speech was accompanied by the thumping of the tactical board.

The red teammate gave Yang Yiming a way, and he walked to the center of the circle.

The person who is arranging tactics is really someone he is familiar with, his friend who has been with him almost every day since he came to the United States, Yu Xiaochun.

"Yiming, you see, this is the shooting position." Yu Xiaochun saw Yang Yiming appear, a smile appeared on his face, and he handed the iPad used as a tactical board in his hand to him.

"It's your shooting point, you're here to shoot, and you're going to hit the most probability."

But.

Yang Yiming glanced at the tactical board and found that a red cross was drawn at 45 degrees to the left.

This... It's not my shooting point.

Yang Yiming raised his head and looked at Yu Xiaochun again. On closer inspection, this Yu Xiaochun seems to be indescribably different from his friends. A neatly trimmed mustache, under thick glasses, and a cunning look that is not disguised.

"Believe me, don't you believe me, Yiming?"

The tactical board was pushed into Yang Yiming's face. In addition to the red cross and the circle dots representing the players, a bunch of unfamiliar letters, numbers, and strange formulas also popped up, gradually filling the entire screen.

"As long as you choose to trust me unconditionally, you will shine like an entire star. Shine eternally...",

As he spoke, the basketball on the tactical board suddenly grew bigger and brighter, turning into a white ball that devoured everything else. The white ball eventually took over the entire screen, bursting with a light that stinged the eyes.

White engulfs everything.

White engulfed Yang Yiming.

He woke up from his dream.