Chapter Ninety-Two: The Attribute Points That Got Away

Rousseau stepped onto the sixty-meter starting line.

He bounced in place, feeling the lightness and spring of his “Suo Like a Shuttle 2.0.”

Not bad at all.

He gave Ruan Mei a thumbs-up from the finish line.

“Just run relaxed,” Lu Jinrong told Rousseau at the last moment.

With Rousseau’s best time of 6.68 seconds, he could advance to the final no matter how he ran.

Rousseau nodded at Lu Jinrong, glanced at the “Glass Crown” hanging in his status bar, along with “Acceleration” and “Burst,” and felt that once he gained a little more mastery over his start, he would be able to cover the entire race.

The sixty-meter sprint allowed even less room for error, so Rousseau had to give everything from the heats onward. If he ran a time beyond 7.00 seconds, he might stumble at the finish and see victory snatched away in the most humiliating fashion.

“On your marks.”

Bang!

Rousseau did not false start.

After putting on the Glass Crown, his start had remained steady at around 0.15 seconds. Improving Strength and Agility would help his launch, but only after those attributes rose significantly would the effect become truly obvious.

Rousseau, like Zhang Zhen, took the lead in the opening phase.

For a tall sprinter like Rousseau, that was no easy thing.

Though Zhang Zhen was unwilling to speak to Rousseau, he had been watching the race closely. After all, barring any accident, he would be facing Rousseau in the next round.

A lead at the start.

But a slower acceleration phase.

Within the first thirty meters, Rousseau’s advantage was not especially clear.

He was almost running shoulder to shoulder with the smaller athletes.

But after thirty meters, both his stride length and cadence surged noticeably.

Almost instantly, he secured the lead.

The other five opponents could only watch his back as they fought for second place.

Then, at the finish, Rousseau made a clear movement to shed his momentum, but he still did not come to a complete stop until he had crossed past the sponge mats.

“Rousseau, 6.70 seconds.”

His result appeared on the electronic board.

The same as Zhang Zhen’s.

“Nice run!” Lu Jinrong slapped Rousseau’s shoulder, a little excited.

Even though this indoor invitational was only a World Athletics Level 3 meet, winning first place still earned a few ranking points. If he could take first in four meetings, there would even be a prize bonus. In any case, it was an honor worth pursuing.

Rousseau ran over to Ruan Mei to look at the photos she had taken.

When people perform intensely competitive actions, their expressions rarely look very good. Even the pretty divers turn into pained, sour-faced figures in midair.

So in Ruan Mei’s lens, Rousseau’s face at the finish line carried a look of clenched, almost resentful ferocity.

“Next time I need to control my expression,” Rousseau mused.

“As long as you feel like first place, that’s enough,” Ruan Mei said.

“No problem. I’ll still be first in the final,” Rousseau said. “I’ll even smile then.”

At that moment, Zhang Zhen passed by. Hearing Rousseau say that, he let out a derisive snort, but the instant Rousseau looked at him, he turned his head away and stared elsewhere.

It seemed Zhang Zhen had been pretending Rousseau did not exist all along.

The final was scheduled for the afternoon.

Rousseau had nothing else to do, so he and Ruan Mei studied how to make the competition photos look better. Tian Shiwei came over and joined the conversation, and Ruan Mei grew somewhat stiff.

If heaven gave Tian Shiwei another chance, he would never have tried to court Ruan Mei so recklessly and without warning. At this point, she looked almost like a bird startled at every sound. He could not understand why she was so shy.

At noon, Lu Jinrong took the three of them to the sports university cafeteria for lunch. The final was at 4:20 p.m. Before that there would be the women’s pole vault final, the women’s sixty-meter hurdles semifinal, the men’s eight-hundred-meter final, the men’s shot put final, and more.

Rousseau was growing so drowsy waiting that he was nearly asleep.

Seeing him sway back and forth in the seat at the edge of the track, Ruan Mei draped a tracksuit over him.

And then Rousseau really did fall asleep.

Ruan Mei pointed her camera at the sleeping Rousseau and snapped away in a burst of clicks.

He slept until four o’clock, when he was woken up still a little dazed.

“Wake up. The sixty-meter final is about to start,” Lu Jinrong said, patting Rousseau on the face to rouse him.

“Mm... mm-hm,” Rousseau nodded repeatedly. After that nap, he checked his status bar: endurance had recovered to 80 out of 100. Excellent condition indeed.

A staff member reminded Rousseau to get onto the track and prepare for the race.

Once Rousseau took his place, he found Zhang Zhen on his left, and Tian Shiwei on Zhang Zhen’s left.

Zhang Zhen tilted his head, pretending not to see Rousseau, muttering under his breath, “Dream on if you think you can take first!”

Rousseau could not be bothered to pay him any mind. He bounced in place several times to wake up his body.

“On your marks.”

The starter’s voice rang out.

Bang!

Then came a second gunshot.

Bang!

Someone had false started.

The judge indicated that Rousseau had been the one to jump the gun.

“You’re only good for that one trick,” Tian Shiwei muttered, cursing under his breath. He knew Rousseau liked to false start, but he could never be completely sure Rousseau would do it, so he still felt a little fooled every time.

“Dirty,” Zhang Zhen spat.

Rousseau did not care.

This false start of his was no tactic.

He simply wanted to wake up his body’s state.

The nap had been a little too deep.

He felt as though he still had not fully woken.

That false-start launch, like breaking through ice, cracked open a cold piece of reality inside his brain.

Now he was fully awake.

...

“Ready.”

The starter called again.

Bang!

All six athletes left the line at once.

Zhang Zhen was still slightly quicker, with Rousseau right behind him. On the one-hundred-meter event, the two of them were in the top tier domestically, and that difference showed here as well. They were clearly running neck and neck, and just as clearly leaving everyone else far behind.

Over the first thirty meters, Zhang Zhen held the advantage.

In the latter thirty, once they entered the drive phase, Rousseau gradually caught up.

Feeling the pressure and threat at his side, Zhang Zhen erupted with unprecedented power under the strain of intense competition, no less fierce than in the final of the Dongqing Games’ one-hundred-meter race. As a result, that slender lead was held all the way to the finish.

This time, neither of them had any strength left to bleed off at the line. Both crashed into the sponge mats, while the four athletes behind them, having been left too far back, gave up any real chase and all slowed down after crossing the finish.

By the time Lu Jinrong pulled Rousseau out of the sponge mats,

the electronic timer had already displayed the result.

“Zhang Zhen, 6.58 seconds

Rousseau, 6.60 seconds

...”

Wow.

The coaches and athletes present all let out murmurs of amazement, and then someone began applauding. They were professionals, and they knew exactly what those times meant. It meant that Zhang Zhen and Rousseau had both broken the indoor sixty-meter record, and had smashed it by a full 0.08 seconds.

Soon after, the electronic announcer confirmed the result as well. After verification by staff from World Athletics, both Zhang Zhen’s and Rousseau’s times were valid. Congratulations to both of them for breaking the national indoor sixty-meter record.

But Rousseau was a little disappointed.

He had not won.

He had only taken second.

One attribute point had slipped away.

But Rousseau had gained a skill.