At twenty-three, Lu Lu lost a company badminton match and smashed her racket on the spot.
In the early hours of that morning, a translucent blue panel lit up in the upper-right corner of her vision: the Badminton God System, activated. Fifty skill trial cards, ten types of items, and a growth panel that quantified every shot into data. But it never offered shortcuts: every card weakened after its trial period, and she had to practice each skill back herself again and again. It recorded every point she scored, but it never helped her win a single match.
From gripping the racket like a kitchen knife to rebuilding her grip from scratch, from the corner of Longhui Hall to the worn flooring of Yunding Hall. She mopped floors for a month, picked up shuttlecocks for a month, lost twenty-nine matches in a row, and fought her way all the way to the finals of the National Amateur Championships.
A group of people was always by her side: Xiaoya, Eyes, Zhang Ziyang, Old Qi, Cat Boss, and An Miaomiao. Not a single point on the court was ever the work of one person. If she wanted to win, she had to learn to entrust her back to others.
Five years, from twenty-three to twenty-eight. From the beginner's village to the Lin Dan Cup.
What she wanted to prove was not whether girls could play, but whether an ordinary person starting from zero could rely on one inch after another of clumsy hard work to stand on the court where everyone wanted to be.
