Chapter 140: Hiroshima Track and Field Open

Juno waited quite a while in the cafeteria before Rousseau finally arrived.

"Your training session ended really late. Where's Old Tian?" Juno had been waiting for Rousseau to eat together, and she was already starving.

"He's getting drilled by the coach right now. He gained quite a bit of weight over the Lunar New Year, and his performance dropped significantly. Since he's determined to participate in the World Athletics Continental Tour, the coach is coming down hard on him... well, brutally hard." Rousseau recalled the way Tian Shiwei had wailed and cried to his mother, correcting his choice of words.

"Huh? Old Tian is going to participate in the World Athletics Continental Tour too?" Juno asked.

"Yeah, I dropped a hint to him, and he took it to heart," Rousseau said. "He's dead set on going, couldn't stop him even if I tried."

"Are his times good enough?" Juno asked.

Although the six-continent tour of World Athletics served merely as the preliminary selection for the Gold Grand Prix, it still had strict qualification standards. Not just anyone could enter simply by wishing to.

"His 100-meter time at the National Games was 10.32 seconds, which just barely makes the cut," Rousseau said. "Old Tian has actually improved quite a bit over the past six months."

Dropping from under 11 seconds to 10.32 seconds—such a rate of improvement in the 100-meter dash over half a year was truly astonishing. Under these circumstances, he had even less reason to retire. Tian Shiwei had clearly sorted out his thoughts over the New Year holiday.

"You guys should definitely let your coach drill him mercilessly!" Juno brought up another matter. "You know what? During a family gathering over the New Year, I ran into him and his dad, and then his dad told my dad all about you! He definitely leaked it!"

Ah... Rousseau looked at Juno.

"Then everyone at the table discussed for a long time whether the children of two athletes would be healthier and better-looking. It was so awkward." Juno let out a stormy sigh. "Rousseau, you are way too famous in Guangdong right now."

"...I'm sorry." Although Rousseau had no idea why he was apologizing, offering an apology is generally the safest route.

"It's fine, you'll get used to it gradually." Juno patted the back of Rousseau's hand. "I'm sorry, my dad knows about your existence now. He might investigate you. I just wanted to say sorry in advance."

Looking at Juno's gesture of stroking his hand, an absurd phrase popped into Rousseau's mind: 'The roles of the attacker and the defender have reversed.' He reflexively turned his hand over and grasped Juno's. This was probably the first time the two of them had truly held hands, and both shared a bizarre sensation—namely... this wasn't really a big deal, was it?

Where was the electric shock feeling?

Perhaps because I was the one being held? Juno flipped her hand back, wanting to grab Rousseau's hand again, but Rousseau applied a slight bit of pressure to prevent her from succeeding. This was a matter of male dignity.

...

When Zheng Ni witnessed this scene, she initially thought Rousseau and Juno were having an arm-wrestling match. Upon learning the truth, she laughed so hard she was nearly breathless, beating her mattress in the dorm for several minutes until Juno threatened her with, "If you laugh one more time, I'm crawling into your bed!" which finally made Zheng Ni hold it in.

"You two are hopeless, seriously. If all else fails, just resort to the ultimate move," Zheng Ni said.

"What ultimate move?" Juno was equally frustrated.

"Go straight to the final step and turn the raw rice into cooked rice. Didn't you already solve your family's problem over the New Year? Just go ahead and take care of Rousseau right now," Zheng Ni said.

During the New Year, Juno's family had pressured her into marriage as usual, so Juno deployed her trump card directly, claiming she liked women and even dragging Zheng Ni over as her partner. As a result, everyone from Juno's father to her grandparents was dumbfounded. By that point, their standards had dropped so low that they would have accepted anyone, male or female.

This tactic had been suggested to Juno by Zheng Ni, and to Juno's surprise, it actually worked. However, Tian Shiwei's father later exposed the lie.

Then Juno claimed to be 'bi-sexual'—that both men and women were fine with her. The Juno family, thoroughly washed by this new concept, were currently in a state of paralyzing shock and temporarily had no time to manage Juno. All sorts of arranged blind dates fell through because arranging a blind date required figuring out beforehand whether to set her up with a male or female candidate.

"It's not entirely out of the question..." Juno hesitated slightly. "What if I don't know how?"

"I have instructional videos right here~" Zheng Ni said. "You need to hurry up. For this upcoming trip to Hiroshima, that siren Ruan Mei is going too. Besides, why aren't you going to the Gold Grand Prix? There's the high jump in the events too."

"My performance isn't up to par yet, I'm still in the recovery period. Even if I go, I won't place," Juno said.

"Is it about the competition? It's about the date~" Zheng Ni said. "Two lonely people in a foreign land, comforting each other, and then things progress naturally."

"It interferes too much with training. Let me recover my condition for another month," Juno said. "Where are the videos? Play them already."

She was waiting to learn.

...

February 20.

Just before departing for Hiroshima, Japan.

Tian Shiwei ran an astonishing time of 10.28 seconds.

This rate of progress genuinely startled Lu Jinrong.

Had he experienced the National Games and finally had another breakthrough of enlightenment?

As for Rousseau, he knew the real reason behind it: after nearly a month of intensive training, Tian Shiwei's 'Strength' attribute was now at 41, while his 'Agility' had risen to 43.

The attributes he had lost due to body fat fluctuations were fully trained back within a single week. Over the remaining twenty-plus days, Tian Shiwei had raised his strength by 2 points and his agility by 2 points through sheer, grinding hard work.

Of course, Rousseau had also given Tian Shiwei quite a bit of guidance. When it came to squeezing every last drop of potential out of one's body, Rousseau had plenty of insights.

Being able to view teammates' attributes genuinely allowed one to provide substantial assistance. The 'Mutual Reflection' ability was truly useful.

...

February 21.

Rousseau, Lu Jinrong, and Tian Shiwei, accompanied by a team leader and translator appointed by the Shenzhen Sports Commission, boarded a flight bound for Japan.

This time, Tian Shiwei finally got his wish and sat in first class.

Even though it was at his own expense.

That's right, the travel expenses for Rousseau and Lu Jinrong's overseas competition were covered by the Shenzhen Sports Commission, but Tian Shiwei didn't qualify for that. He was participating voluntarily, but Young Master Tian didn't care about the money; what he cared about was first class.

Following the National Games, Rousseau's reputation—at least within Guangdong Province—had reached a level where "if he isn't assigned first class for an overseas trip, people would suspect where the money went."

Especially during the final 4x100m relay, footage of Liu Xiang's helpless and frustrated expression right as Rousseau crossed the finish line had frequently appeared on Guangdong Television broadcasts over the recent period.

Not to mention the exhaustive, lengthy coverages of Rousseau by Shenzhen Daily reporter Guan Zhaoyue.

Buoyed by this trend, more and more people came to know Rousseau. Those knowledgeable about sports knew him as the grand slam champion of domestic sprinting at the National Games, while those who knew nothing about sports assumed he had even beaten Liu Xiang, which surely made him 'Number One in the World,' right?

...

Number One in the world, let's start right from here...

Rousseau gazed at the land drawing closer outside the airplane window, thinking quietly to himself.

...

Ruan Mei would never buy a first-class ticket.

She was definitely flying economy.

Therefore, Rousseau and Ruan Mei didn't reunite until they stepped off the plane.

"I came to Hiroshima Prefecture once when I was a kid to visit my grandfather," Ruan Mei said.

Ruan Mei's grandfather was the original patent holder of the core shoe-manufacturing technology used by Rikuo—a sole-making patent that didn't lose out to international brands like Asics and Mizuno. However, her grandfather was extremely stubborn and unwilling to leave Hiroshima, which led to the creation of the independent brand 'Rikuo.'

"My grandfather's favorite youngest son, my little uncle, is the sprinting god of Japan," Ruan Mei told Rousseau. "You might just run into him during this competition."