Meanwhile, Ming You stood apart, leaning against the fence. He was sipping water in small gulps, his gaze fixed on the celebrating, albeit wary, circle of opponents. His eyes held neither fatigue nor agitation. There was cold, crystalline clarity in them.
He saw how So Ho was tempering their fervor, how Mei Yu and Xiao Li were listening, nodding. He saw how the enthusiasm in their eyes battled with returning fear.
"Not bad, So Ho. Really, not bad at all. You're smarter than I thought. And these three... especially those two. They don't panic. They think. But it won't change anything, because the fear you're sowing now—it paralyzes. And doubt is the best ally of someone who is one hundred percent sure."
Ming You put down the bottle and continued his thoughts, heading back toward the court:
"They didn't just believe in my weakness—they wanted to believe in it. And now, even suspecting a trick, they'll be forced to play against two opponents: against me and against their own doubts... Well, it's time to get back in the game. And show these "brains" whose board they're really playing on."
The whistle announced the start of the second half. Ming You stepped onto the court with the same slightly slowed step he had before the break. But something had changed. Not in his movements—they were still economical—but in his very aura. If earlier he had been feigning exhaustion, now he carried it with a cold, almost regal dignity.
He stopped at his position, slowly swept his gaze over the five opponents, lingering on Mei Yu and Xiao Li, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips.
"Well, friends," he said, his voice quiet but distinct, reaching each of them. "Had a good rest? Because that... was only the beginning."
The phrase hung in the air, heavy with hidden threat. So Ho, meeting that gaze, felt everything inside him turn cold. His own, recently bolstered confidence cracked.
The game resumed. Ming You kept to the old tactics for a while: slow movements, dribbling as if conserving energy. So Ho's team tried to play cautiously, as agreed. Mei Yu and Xiao Li executed a precise combination, but Ming You, anticipating the pass, nearly intercepted it, forcing Xiao Li to take an inaccurate shot.
"You see?" Mei Yu said quietly, running back on defense. "He's reading faster now."
And the trap was sprung.
The ball ended up with Ming You after a blocked shot. He stood at the center line, facing Jen Ryu, who eagerly targeted him.
Ming You began to lazily shift the ball from hand to hand in front of him. Jen Ryu twitched nervously, ready to pounce.
"Come on then, show me your tricks," he muttered.
Ming You responded with a sharp, explosive body feint to the right, his entire body poised to burst in that direction. Jen Ryu, obeying instinct, lunged to block the path.
But Ming You's foot, which had made the lunge, didn't even touch the ground with full force. Instead, as if on an invisible spring, he pushed off from that motion, twisting his torso. The ball had already disappeared during this—whipped behind his back with a sharp snap, from his right hand to his left. Ming You's body swayed left, creating the complete illusion of a drive from the new side. Jen Ryu, having already shifted his weight, desperately tried to adjust, his feet tangling.
"Fuck!" escaped his lips.
And then came what took the spectators' breath away. The ball, not lingering for even an instant in his left hand, flashed between Ming You's legs from right to left, and then, almost without pause, returned the opposite way, but at a different height, as if tracing a lightning-fast figure-eight around his legs. These weren't two separate movements, but a single, flowing, impossible stream. Ming You's wrists, elbows, shoulders worked with such speed and fluidity that they blurred into a smeared spot.
For a second, it seemed to Jen Ryu—and to everyone watching—that they were seeing not one pair of hands, but several. That there wasn't one ball, but several, appearing and vanishing at different points. This wasn't dribbling; it was an illusion given motion.
Jen Ryu stood frozen in complete stupor, his brain unable to process this cascade. And in that moment, the illusion collapsed. The ball materialized in Ming You's right hand, and with one swift step, he passed the completely immobilized opponent.
"XIAO!" Mei Yu shouted, already rushing to cover.
Xiao Li tried to stand in the way, but Ming You, without slowing down, made a barely noticeable shoulder feint, causing Xiao Li to hesitate for a split second, and that was enough. Ming You soared to the basket, and the ball swished softly through the net.
So Ho stood, looking at Jen Ryu, who still couldn't snap out of it. A chilling thought raced through his mind:
"This... this is his true face... So this is your trump card..."
"Alright, guys!" he shouted, forcing himself to speak, but his voice no longer held the iron confidence from the break. Now it was a struggle against rising anxiety. "Don't let him do that again! Get it together! He's just one man!"
But his team wasn't listening anymore. They had seen it. They had felt it. When Ming You got the ball again and went on the attack, he used not the same technique, but a varied one. Sometimes it was a series of swift crossovers merging into a single flicker, sometimes sharp stops and starts with such a change of rhythm that defenders broke their stride. He wasn't just dribbling past them—he was dissolving their perception.
"He just can't be that fast! It's not fair!" one of the tired players who had returned to the court exclaimed in despair as Ming You, like a ghost, slipped past again.
"Shut up and play!" Jen Ryu barked at him, but his own voice held the fury of helplessness.
Mei Yu and Xiao Li tried to counter with cold calculation. They tried to anticipate, tightened the space, but Ming You seemed to be playing in a different dimension. He used their own short-pass tactic against them, forcing mistakes and intercepting balls with frightening ease.
"He's reading everything," Xiao Li said tightly after another turnover. "All our plays..."
"Then we have to play without plays," Mei Yu replied, but a crack appeared in his eyes for the first time—a shadow of despair.
Panic, that deep, sticky kind, began to rise from the depths. The point advantage now seemed not a gift, but a mockery.
"We have to stop him!" So Ho yelled, but his cry was already drowned in the roar of the crowd and the growing noise of his team's own desperation. "Don't forget! We only need one shot! One!"
But with each new ghostly move, with each silent ball swishing through the net, the pressure became unbearable. Ming You didn't accelerate to his limit; he played precisely at the speed necessary to keep them in a state of constant, half-a-step-behind bewilderment.
"This is just unbearable!" the blonde newcomer exhaled, his voice cracking. He looked at his palms as if they had betrayed him.
The agony peaked when Ming You, receiving the ball on the perimeter, didn't even use complex fakes. He simply looked at Mei Yu, who was guarding him, then shifted his gaze to the hoop, and took one lightning-fast step to the side. Mei Yu jerked, reacting to the hint. And in that instant, Ming You, without even looking down, released the ball from his hand. It described a high, careless arc and, without touching the rim, cleanly swished through the net.
Ming You caught the rebounding ball, turned to the five frozen figures, and spoke in a voice as cold and even as a blade:
"Stop torturing yourselves. You guys can't stop me." Ming You paused, letting the words sink in. His gaze slid over Mei Yu and Xiao Li. "Not even with new, 'smart' faces. Your defeat was predetermined. It was decided even before you stepped onto this court."
He turned around and shot the ball into the hoop from behind his back, almost without looking. "Swish." The net, the roar of the crowd exploding in a single, maddened roar of delight. It was the final chord.
When the last, long whistle from Sung Wo sounded, announcing the end of the match, a surreal silence fell over the court, immediately swallowed by the crowd's roar. Ming You slowly raised his hands, not in a triumphant gesture, but more like a sign that the performance was over.
Jen Ryu stood, head bowed, his fists clenched, but there was no strength in them—only devastation.
"Bitch... Everything we achieved... all of it was according to his script..."
"We... we tried," Mei Yu said quietly to Xiao Li, and it sounded like an apology. Their tactical coolness had been crushed by absolute superiority.
"Tried..." echoed the guy with the shaved temple from the bench with a bitter smirk. "It's like we never had a chance. Not a single one. Right from the very start."
So Ho wasn't looking at them. He was looking at his sneaker, at the cracked asphalt beneath it. All his anger, all his leadership had evaporated, leaving behind only emptiness and a chilling understanding.
"This is the end," he said simply, and his voice was full of utter weariness. "The point advantage... it didn't mean anything. Nothing at all. When the game... when the ball always ends up in his hands, we weren't fighting a player, we were fighting an illusion."
Ming You, having finished his silent dialogue with the crowd, turned around. He took a few steps toward the defeated team, his gaze sliding over Jen Ryu, Mei Yu, Xiao Li, stopping on So Ho. His smile was different now—not sarcastic, not cold, it was ominously calm:
"Don't be so upset, it's just, pfft, a game. I wish you... to lose with dignity in the next games too!"