Basketball miracles

Chapter 166 [Little Chef, Play for Half a Year]

At noon, Mitsui Hisashi got a neat buzz cut at a nearby barbershop and accompanied Xiao Tu to lunch.

This time he chose Japanese curry, beef and potatoes with rice. The food was mild and slightly sweet, quite good.

Mitsui Hisashi is a prime example of a prodigal son who has turned over a new leaf. He's realized his mistake early and won't lead a group of thugs to cause trouble for the Shohoku basketball team anymore. This is actually good news for Mitsui, because he was the one who got beaten up the most that day.

Xiao Tu chatted with Mitsui Hisashi, deliberately asking about Mingqing Academy, Yingde Academy, Suzuran High School, and so on.

He was almost certain that there were no characters like Tatsuno Uesugi, F4, Genji Takiya, or Shinichi Kudo in this world. He also didn't see XYZ's coded message for help on the message board at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.

After dinner, Xiao Tu joked, "If you go home looking like this, your dad will definitely praise you."

Mitsui Hisashi shook his head. "No way, even if I don't say anything, he might not even notice that I changed my hairstyle."

"How can this be?"

"That's how Japanese parents are, not just me, many people are like that."

Mitsui Hisashi gave Xiao Tu a brief explanation. Japanese people are taught from a young age that they should never trouble others with things they can do themselves, and parents generally raise their children with a hands-off approach.

Most Japanese people develop a sense of independence and self-reliance from a young age. Starting from kindergarten, parents consciously train their children to go out and come home on their own.

Parent-child relationships in Japan are relatively weak, and many people have no one to care for them in their old age. Mitsui Hisashi was not an only child, and his parents paid even less attention to him, giving him only a little pocket money.

Xiao Tu believed that Mitsui Hisashi was telling the truth; there were almost no parents in the Slam Dunk manga. No matter how important the game was, the parents of the Shohoku players would never go to watch it live.

In his memory, the only parents who came to watch the game were the mother of the Kawada brothers and the father of Eiji Sawakita.

The parent who left the deepest impression on him was Sakuragi Hanamichi's father, who fell ill and collapsed at his doorstep as soon as he appeared in the story, and that was the end of it.

The two went to the basketball court again in the afternoon and played basketball for a while. Xiao Tu had a lot of fun. He wasn't happy about the basketball itself, but rather because interacting with the characters in the comics was a very novel experience.

Xiao Tu plays basketball by stomping on noobs. In his opinion, Mitsui Hisashi is terrible, and the others can't play at all, they can't even make it into the school team.

If he wants to practice basketball in Japan, he must join the Shohoku team; otherwise, he won't even have qualified sparring partners. Once he joins, Akagi, Sakuragi, and Rukawa will all be excellent sparring partners.

In county-level and national competitions, Xiao Tu also encounters many good sparring partners.

What Xiao Tu found most frustrating was the lack of official high school competitions in Japan. Even making it to the national tournament was a single-elimination format. He estimated that it would only take about a dozen matches to win the national championship.

For Xiao Tu, the intensity of Japanese high school basketball was too low, but that was the normal intensity for amateur games. Let alone the NBA, even the NCAA schedule was beyond the capabilities of Japanese high school students.

Xiao Tu and Mitsui Hisashi had dinner together again, choosing a Japanese all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant. Both of them had very good appetites after their activities and ate a big meal.

Xiao Tu was in a good mood after returning to the hotel. He took a shower and then opened a golden treasure chest.

He can open one treasure chest a day for four days, and he likes the sense of anticipation.

The special effects on this treasure chest were a bit outrageous; a small golden dragon appeared, circled in the air, and then entered Xiao Tu's body. There was no background music, otherwise he would have thought he'd been hit by one of the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms.

Xiao Tu knew this reward must be extraordinary, and he was stunned after receiving the information.

The God of Cookery: "You have acquired the mystical culinary skills of Liu Maoxing from 'MasterChef Ninja,' allowing you to create all sorts of unique and original dishes. With a little effort, you can make the best food!"

Xiao Tu took a deep breath, and once again doubted whether he was a god, a god at the level of a multiverse. He received a lot of knowledge about cooking through initiation, all of it basic skills, without any recipes.

Because his talent doesn't require recipes; it's idealistic. He believes that if a certain method tastes good, he can make delicious food.

Who is Liu Maoxing? He is the male protagonist of the manga "Cooking Master Boy" and the youngest Special Grade Chef in history. In the final showdown against the Dark Cooking World, he successfully won the title of "China's Number One Chef".

He created many unique and distinctive dishes, such as Crystal Phoenix, Spicy Dumplings, Black Chicken Rice, and Peerless Noodles, etc. Xiao Tu thought of "fluorescent agent" and "golden legend" the most. Whenever Liu Maoxing finished making a dish and lifted the lid to show it to everyone, all kinds of light would emerge, and the must-have song for eating, "The Great Wall," would play.

The cooking skills of Master Chef are truly mystical; no matter how absurd his recipes are, the resulting dishes never taste bad. His recipes are all improvised, wildly imaginative, and he has never lost a long competition.

Until 2025, Liu Maoxing wrapped Italian macaroni stuffed with spicy bean paste into dumplings, then mixed them with butter and milk to make a dish called "Creamy Baked Dumplings".

Is this even edible? Sure enough, he was sentenced to death and executed on the spot.

With this kind of setup, even if Little Master escapes a plot-driven death, he won't escape the pursuit of both China and Italy. Especially as long as he's still in China, he'll be bombarded by the lasers of the defense towers no matter which province he goes to.

Unfortunately, it's inconvenient to cook in a hotel, so Xiao Tu needs to find a different place to test his culinary skills.

Xiao Tu couldn't wait to develop his career in Kanagawa Prefecture. He planned to rent a place there for half a year before going to school in Shohoku. If he could cook with the skills of a culinary god, his own cooking would definitely be even better.

Going to school was secondary to him; he wouldn't learn much in Japan anyway. His main goal was to win the championship alongside the manga characters.

The members of the Shohoku basketball team are all quite interesting; even those who don't play basketball have their own unique personalities. He really wants to know if, in a live-action adaptation of the manga, the Sakuragi Army will still be able to ride a scooter together as a group of five.

The next day at noon, Xiao Tu and Robert Shaw had lunch together and talked about their high school days in Japan.

"You want to go to high school in Kanagawa Prefecture? Isn't that a waste of time?" Robert laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. Japan is in such a terrible state now, there's no future in it at all. When you're done having fun, just go back to America to study."

In the early 90s, Japan's bubble economy burst, domestic asset prices collapsed, the Nikkei index was halved from its peak of 38957 points, and land prices plummeted by 70%.

Robert was living a comfortable life and making a lot of money, but Xiao Tu wasn't working in Japan.

Xiao Tu said directly, "I don't like Japan, I just want to stay here for half a year. I want to spend a semester at Shohoku High School, where Mitsui Hisashi is, and play basketball for the school. It's easy to get into a public school, and I'll have something to do."

Robert asked, "Isn't basketball in Japan quite poor?"

"It's indeed very low, so I don't feel pressure playing here and can practice my skills better. My goal isn't to go to college, but to participate in the NBA draft and become a professional player. When I play in the US, there are two upperclassmen fighting for the ball, their teamwork is too poor, which affects my performance."

"Oh? Is that so?"

"Yeah, I missed a semester because I didn't want to help them get data. No university would offer them scholarships or invite them to play basketball." Xiao Tu did remember that two Black men had a less than pleasant falling out with the original owner of this body.

One center and one small forward, both are the kind of idiots who sacrifice their intelligence for physical prowess, only knowing how to dribble and shoot blindly. If Xiao Tu doesn't pass the ball, they start squealing. If Xiao Tu leaves, those two will probably fight over possession, and they definitely won't play well.

Xiao Tu's family has connections, so the school can't do anything about him. Once he returns to Los Angeles, he can transfer directly to a high school team with a good atmosphere and work hard to improve his stats for the NBA draft.

Robert laughed and said, "With your height, it'll be too difficult for you to make it into the NBA."

"You'll find that the path I've chosen isn't difficult at all by next June," Xiao Tu said confidently.

He planned to play for the Miami Heat in 2003, only wanting to hone his skills for six months in the 90s. By the time he returned to the 90s, he had no idea how many skills he would have acquired or how much stronger his physical attributes would be.

Robert thought it wouldn't hurt for Xiao Tu to spend half a year in Japan, so he asked, "Can you manage to go to Kanagawa by yourself? I have to stay in Tokyo."

"Being in Tokyo will only hinder your girl-chasing. With money, I can go anywhere." Xiao Tu paused for a moment and then laughed, "I have Mitsui Hisashi to look after me; he has many friends in Shohoku. I'll rent a place there for six months. In the summer, I'll go back to the US to attend high school again and graduate in a year."

“Okay.” Robert agreed, since Xiao Tu had many options even if he couldn’t become a professional player.

He had seen Xiao Tu play basketball; he was quite good at it, but he didn't know if he could play in the NBA.

Xiao Tu could do whatever he wanted, with financial support from his family. He found life in this world to be incredibly comfortable, without any pressure—it was practically a vacation paradise.

He doesn't need to worry about renting a house; Robert will find someone to take care of it.

(End of this chapter)