Flames on the Northern Frontier: My NBA Otherworldly Flower

When snow from a small northeastern town falls on an NBA court...

1999, Xueyuan City, Beilongjiang Province.

My name is Zhao Lifeng, a northeastern kid who practiced basketball on a concrete court in thirty-below-zero weather.

My dream was to make it to the NBA, but everyone laughed:

“At 178 centimeters, you can’t even make the provincial team, and you think you can play in the NBA?”

Then, on a stormy winter night, an eerie red spider lily bloomed before my eyes.

“Who says a poor family can’t raise a promising son?”

“I’ll use these hands, hardened by the cold, to sink the three-pointer that changes my fate.”