NBA: Northeast China's spectacular dunks sweep the entire league.

The atmosphere in the locker room changed when the training camp entered its second week.

It's not that things have gotten worse, it's that they've become more dull. The training is still the same training, Thibodeau still has the same face, and the whistle still sounds the same. The players don't complain, they still train and run as usual, but Lin Hao can tell—something's wrong with their eyes.

Every morning when Richardson enters the training facility, he pauses for two seconds at the entrance, taking a deep breath, like someone about to go swimming. Murphy's knee brace application is becoming increasingly slow; what used to take thirty seconds now takes two minutes. Arenas used to practice shooting after training, but now he finishes and leaves immediately, not lingering for even a minute longer.

Even Payton is acting strangely. He used to trash talk during training, arguing with Thibodeau and going toe-to-toe with Arenas. But these past few days he's been quiet, chewing on a toothpick, and standing to the side after finishing his routine without saying a word.

Lin Hao saw all this but remained silent.

On Wednesday evening, after training ended, he called Zhao Dabao.

"Da Bao, do me a favor."

"What's up?"

"Buy ten decks of cards and a case of canned yellow peaches. Deliver them to the training hall tomorrow afternoon."

Zhao Dabao was taken aback: "Playing cards? Canned food? Haozi, are you opening a convenience store?"

"Just buy it when I tell you to. Don't ask so many questions."

The next afternoon, training ended forty minutes earlier than usual. As Thibodeau announced the end of training, the players were preparing to pack up and leave when Lin Hao stood at the locker room door and blocked it.

"Don't go."

Everyone stopped and looked at him.

Lin Hao pointed towards the conference room: "No training, no meetings, no video recordings tonight. Everyone go to the conference room."

Richardson looked at him suspiciously: "What are you going to the conference room for?"

You'll know when you get there.

On the long table in the conference room, Zhao Dabao had already arranged everything. Ten decks of playing cards were stacked in a pile, each deck secured with a rubber band. Next to them were more than a dozen cans of yellow peaches, the tin cans still glistening with water droplets, as if they had just been taken out of the refrigerator.

Richardson walked in, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as he stared at the table full of playing cards and canned goods: "What's this?"

"Playing cards, do you recognize them?" Lin Hao picked up a deck, removed the rubber bands, and shuffled the cards in his hand.

"I recognize playing cards. I'm asking—what are you doing with those playing cards?"

"Let's play cards." Lin Hao pulled out a chair and sat down. "Do you know how to play Dou Dizhu?"

Everyone in the locker room gathered around. Payton, toothpick in his mouth, leaned over to the table, watching Lin Hao shuffle the cards, and frowned: "What's this 'Dou Dizhu' game?"

"The essence of Chinese culture." Lin Hao placed the shuffled cards on the table. "Three people per group, two against one. I'll explain the rules once, listen carefully."

He explained the rules of Dou Dizhu (a popular Chinese card game) in three minutes—Landlord, Peasants, Bombs, Straights, Three of a Kind with One Extra Card, Three of a Kind with Two Extra Cards. The rules weren't complicated, but the NBA players were still a little overwhelmed when they first heard them.

After listening, Payton took the toothpick out of his mouth and tapped it twice on the table: "So, one person against two?"

"right."

"That's not fair. How can you win against two opponents?"

"Great cards," Lin Hao laughed. "With good cards, one person can beat two. With bad cards, two people can't even beat one. Isn't that just like playing ball?"

Payton paused for a moment, then burst into laughter: "Damn, that's interesting."

Lin Hao called Zhao Dabao over and asked him to be the temporary referee and explain the rules. Then they started grouping people—drawing lots to group those who drew the same suit together.

The first pairing made everyone burst out laughing: Payton, Richardson, and Arenas were drawn into the same group. Payton and Richardson were a veteran and a rising star, while Arenas was a hothead. The three had completely different personalities, and when they got together to play cards, they argued for five minutes just about coming up with a team name.

"Let's call it the 'Defensive Triangle'!" Payton suggested.

"That's awful, 'City of Loops'!" Richardson said.

Arenas scoffed from the side, "Neither of you came up with a good name. 'The General and His Two Little Brothers' is better."

Payton slapped Arenas on the back of the head: "Damn! You're asking for it."

Lin Hao didn't participate in the first group; he stood to the side, pouring water and handing out canned food to all the groups, acting as the atmosphere-maker. At the start of the first round, Payton was the landlord, and Richardson and Arenas were the peasants.

Payton had good luck with his cards, getting two bombs right from the start. He glanced at his cards, a smirk playing on his lips, and immediately called for the landlord position.

"Double up." Payton slammed his cards on the table.

Richardson and Arenas exchanged a glance, their eyes both saying, "This old guy is too arrogant." In the first round, Payton threw out a straight, from three to seven, five cards.

"It won't hold up," Richardson shook his head.

"It won't hold up," Arenas shook his head.

Payton threw out another pair, but still no one could beat it. He only had four cards left. Payton smiled triumphantly and slammed his last four cards onto the table—"A bomb!"

Two bombs, spring, Payton won.

Richardson's face turned green: "What kind of lousy cards are these? You cheated, didn't you?"

"I was lucky, what can I do?" Payton wrote down his winnings—two fewer sets of shuttle runs in tomorrow's training—in his notebook. This was a rule set by Lin Hao: the winner could reduce the training load the next day, and the loser could increase it. It wasn't a real bet; it was a bet on "training quotas."

After the first game, the atmosphere really heated up.

Richardson, unconvinced, challenged Arenas to another round. Payton pressed his advantage, winning two more rounds and laughing so hard he dropped his toothpick. Arenas finally couldn't hold back any longer. In the fourth round, he drew a great hand with three bombs, immediately calling for the landlord role. He then took on two opponents, overwhelming Payton and Richardson with no chance to fight back.

"See that? That's power!" Arenas stood up, put his hands on his hips, and laughed loudly.

Payton picked up the toothpick from the ground, threw it into the trash can, and said expressionlessly, "That's your only chance."

The other groups were also playing fiercely. Murphy and Dunleavy worked together seamlessly, winning four consecutive rounds and earning them the nickname "the Malone Stockton of poker." Van Exel had the worst luck, losing six rounds in a row, even losing his gold chain—not actually, of course, but as an ornament hanging around Dunleavy's neck. Dunleavy wore that gold chain while playing cards, swaying back and forth, and everyone teased him for being "too flashy."

Zhao Dabao stood to the side carrying two plates of sliced ​​canned yellow peaches, serving them to each table. Whoever lost, he would hand them a can: "Here, have something sweet to calm your temper."

Van Exel, having lost three games in a row, took the can of food, forked a piece of yellow peach into his mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and then his eyes suddenly lit up: "What is this? It's so delicious!"

"Canned yellow peaches," Zhao Dabao said. "A miracle cure from Northeast China. Take a bite when you have a cold or fever, take a bite when you're in a bad mood, take a bite after losing a game, and it'll cure any ailment."

"A miracle drug?" Van Exel forked another piece. "Isn't this just canned fruit?"

"What do you know?" Zhao Dabao said seriously. "We Northeasterners have been eating canned yellow peaches since we were kids. We eat them before exams, and we eat them after exams. We eat them when we're sick, and we eat them when we're better. This stuff is more effective than medicine."

Van Exel was skeptical, but his hands didn't stop; he finished the can in a few bites. Afterward, he reached for Murphy's can with his fork. Murphy quickly protected it, saying, "Don't you have your own can?"

"I'm finished eating."

"Then take another can."

"Take another can and you'll need to do more shuttle runs. Lin Hao said it's a limit of one can per person; if you eat more, you'll need to train more."

Murphy held the cans even tighter.

Lin Hao stood in the corner, watching the room in chaos, and the corners of his mouth slowly turned up.

Payton is teaching Dunleavy how to count cards. Richardson is arguing with Arenas about who played the wrong card in the last round. Van Exel snatches the gold chain from Dunleavy's neck and hangs it around Murphy's neck, saying, "It looks good on you." Murphy looks helpless but doesn't take it off. Zhao Dabao is surrounded by a group of players asking, "What other miracle drugs are there in Northeast China?" He's seriously explaining the difference between canned yellow peaches and canned hawthorn.

The meeting room lights were blindingly bright, and the table was littered with cans and playing cards. Some people were sitting, some were standing, and some were slumped over. Laughter, curses, and table-pounding mingled together, seeping out from under the door and bouncing back and forth in the empty corridor.

Sibodu stood in the corridor.

He didn't go into the meeting room; he stood outside the door, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. A sliver of light shone through the crack in the door, falling at his feet.

He heard Richardson shout "Royal Flush" from inside, heard Arenas laugh so hard his voice cracked, heard Payton curse "You little rascal, do you even know how to play?", and heard Zhao Dabao explain in his thick Northeastern Mandarin, "A three-of-a-kind with a single card cannot be accompanied by a King."

Thibodeau didn't push the door open. He turned around, walked back down the corridor, took a couple of steps, and stopped. He looked down at a training plan in his hand—tomorrow's plan, which he had intended to distribute to everyone tonight.

He folded the plan twice and stuffed it into his pocket.

Then he went back to his office, closed the door, sat down in a chair, took off his glasses, and placed them on the table.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a while.

Laughter drifted faintly down the corridor, muffled and indistinct, as if separated by a layer of something. But he could hear it.

He listened for a long time.

The card game in the conference room didn't end until almost 11 p.m.

Richardson emerged as the biggest winner of the night, taking home eight sets of the reduced distance for the shuttle runs and beaming with joy. Payton won five sets, Arenas won three, and Murphy and Dunleavy each won four.

Van Exel lost eleven sets, the most of any player. But he didn't care, hanging the large gold chain back around his neck, chewing gum, and looking nonchalant: "I won't be running fast in training tomorrow anyway, so adding a few more sets won't make a difference."

Payton patted him on the shoulder: "You have a really good attitude, kid."

"It's not about having a good attitude." Van Exel took the chewing gum out of his mouth, stretched it into a thread, rolled it back in, and stuffed it back into his mouth. "It's about having thick skin."

Everyone laughed and chatted as they left the meeting room. Payton walked in front, a newly replaced toothpick dangling from his mouth, humming some R&B tune from who-knows-when. Richardson, with his arm around Arenas's shoulder, argued about whether the bomb in the final round counted as a spring. Murphy and Dunleavy walked side-by-side, discussing how to use the reduced training load they'd won to adjust their training rhythm tomorrow.

Lin Hao walked at the very back, helping Zhao Dabao tidy up the canned food and playing cards on the table.

While sweeping the floor, Zhao Dabao said, "Haozi, that was a great move. I saw Richardson grinning like that just now, like he'd won the lottery."

"You can't just rely on practice to play ball." Lin Hao gathered a deck of cards into a pile and tied them with a rubber band. "If you have energy in your mind, you'll have energy in your legs. If you don't have energy in your mind, no matter how much you practice, you'll just be a wooden stake."

Zhao Dabao looked up at him and said, "Where did you learn that kind of logic from?"

"Nobody taught me. I learned it by falling down."

Zhao Dabao didn't ask any more questions. He tied up the garbage bag, picked it up, and walked out of the meeting room.

Lin Hao finished tying up the last deck of cards and placed it on the table. He straightened up and glanced at the conference room. Several cans still had water stains on the table, chairs were scattered haphazardly, and a few playing cards lay on the floor.

He turned off the light.

The laughter seemed to linger in the air the moment the door closed.

When Lin Hao walked out of the training hall, the parking lot was already empty. He opened the car door and was about to get in when his phone vibrated.

It's a message from Thibodeau.

"Intra-team scrimmage tomorrow morning at 7:00. You lead the offense, I'll lead the defense."

Lin Hao looked at the message and a smile slowly crept onto his face.

He replied with a single word: "Okay."

Then I got into the car and started the engine. The headlights came on, illuminating the empty parking lot ahead.

He shifted gears, released the brakes, and the car drove out of the parking lot, disappearing into the Auckland night.

On the back seat was an extra box of canned yellow peaches that Zhao Dabao had bought. The tin cans clinked gently as the car bumped along.

Lin Hao glanced at the box of canned goods in the rearview mirror, stepped on the gas, and the car surged forward, merging into the long line of car lights on the bay bridge.