Lin Bei was abandoned as a baby in the mountains and raised by his master, Zhou Tiezhu. He missed the college entrance exam cutoff by three points. His master flew into a rage and chased him around the courtyard, beating him. “If you so much as touch a cue, I’ll break your hands.”
But Lin Bei had been sneaking off to play pool for eight years, and his master had always known. “When you hold a cue, you look like someone.”
Who? His master wouldn’t say. He only scrolled through Douyin, following over thirty billiards tutorial accounts and watching snooker highlights until his hands trembled in the middle of the night. A photo frame sat by his bedside. Half the photo had been torn away, leaving only half a face.
His master chose the cheapest vocational college on the east side of the provincial capital, saying, “The tuition’s cheap, and it’s quiet.” Only after Lin Bei arrived did he discover that the streets beyond the back gate were lined with pool halls.
His master forbade him from playing. But he just couldn’t let billiards go.
In a nutshell: A college entrance exam failure comes down from the mountains and turns the entire billiards world upside down.
I came across this billiards novel by chance. I casually flipped through it, but ended up reading it straight away. Please update quickly, this is really the first time I have seen this kind of master going down the mountain and playing billiards. The author really understands billiards, and the details are not confusing at all, and it will not make people feel fake or empty. Good review!