My hometown is far away in Moscow.

011 The Power of the Ponytail

The position swap didn't produce the desired effect. Although the man with the persimmon-shaped face wasn't tall, he had short legs and a low center of gravity, and was as strong as a small calf, exuding brute force. Hu Yi didn't have Li Baoqing's robust physique, and it was very difficult for him to compete for position; he could only barely control the situation by relying on his height.

Li Baoqing couldn't gain any advantage against Bayin either, always struggling to keep up with his opponent's movements and appearing extremely clumsy. After several rounds of attack and defense, he was covered in sweat.

The Russian nerd got the ball. Li Baoqing stepped up to close the gap, and Bayin, who was unguarded, took the opportunity to step back to the three-point line.

"Go keep an eye on Bayin!" Hu Yi shouted.

Before he could finish speaking, the bookworm had already passed the ball to Bayin. Bayin adjusted his position slightly, glanced at the basket, and raised his hand to shoot a three-pointer. Li Baoqing, probably getting impatient, rushed over and leaped to try and block the shot.

"Don't jump yet!" Hu Yi shouted, stomping his feet.

It was another feint. Bayin quickly withdrew his hand, ducked down, and burst into the wide-open space behind Li Baoqing, picking up the ball and preparing for a layup.

"Damn it!" Hu Yi tried to intercept, but the persimmon-faced man blocked his way. Bayin changed his footing, easily dodging the chubby Arab boy who was rushing towards him with a strange cry, and leaped up to gently lob the ball into the basket.

The jump was high enough that Bayin's sneakers almost brushed past Hu Yi, and Hu Yi could even smell a faint odor of stinky feet.

"Hala Shao!" "Spicy shredded chicken!" The Vietnamese people watching the excitement from the sidelines clapped and cheered.

Li Baoqing walked up to Hu Yi, put his hands on his hips, and cursed, "That brat is too damn agile, just like an eel."

"A loach? I think he's more like a toad. With his jumping ability, he could probably dunk if he put in a little more effort." Hu Yi wiped his sweat. "No, let's switch back. That persimmon-faced guy is as solid as a water tank. It's too much of a strain for me to carry him."

As the two were discussing strategies to defeat their opponents, two Russian girls who had been playing on the other side of the court were drawn over by the Vietnamese players' cheers and shouted, "Friends, let's play together!"

Hu Yi and Li Baoqing were both stunned. They were both considered very tall in China, but they looked rather petite next to these two girls. The short-haired girl was about the same height as Hu Yi, with a face full of light freckles; the other girl had her hair tied in a ponytail, looked quite quiet, but was extremely tall, and Hu Yi could only see her chin when he looked straight ahead.

"Wow, that Russian woman must be at least 1.95 meters tall!" Li Baoqing whispered. "But she's strangely beautiful."

Hu Yi nodded. Although her ponytail was long, it was well-proportioned and athletic, the physique of a standard athlete. She didn't look like a telephone pole, nor did she appear bulky. What was even more remarkable was her delicate features: large eyes, long eyelashes, a high nose, and a pointed chin. If she were a few sizes smaller, she could easily be an actress.

The two whispered to each other, and Bayin and Persimmon Face stepped forward and replied, "Okay, let's play together." They had already mastered quite a few Russian words. After discussing a few words with the girl with the ponytail, they turned around and called Hu Yi, Li Baoqing, and Indian Soft Noodles to their side. Pointing to the backboards on both sides, they gestured and said, "The whole court, five of us, five of them."

Li Baoqing frowned and hesitated, "They're women. Should we... go together?"

Bayin said seriously, "They play for the academy, and they're very strong."

"Oh!" Hu Yi and Li Baoqing exchanged a glance: "They're from the school team."

The Indian noodle maker suddenly clapped his hands and said in a thick curry accent, "We are the Asian team. They are the European team."

The man with the persimmon-shaped face pointed expressionlessly at the chubby Arab man opposite him: "He's Asian too."

Hu Yi pointed at the black man, Er Lengzi: "He's African."

"Oh? OK!" Soft Noodles shrugged. "They're Team World. We're Team Asia. GO, GO, GO!"

Hu Yi had no idea what level the Maji girls' basketball team was at, and simply assumed that women could never compete with men. But when they actually played against each other, he discovered that, putting aside the difference in skill, they were also at a complete disadvantage physically.

Bayin was subjected to extremely aggressive pressure from the freckled girl, leaving little room to utilize his skillful dribbling techniques. Even when he managed to break through, he would immediately enter the wide defensive area of ​​the ponytail girl, making it difficult for him to achieve anything. He could only try to pass the ball as much as possible.

Li Baoqing, positioned under the basket, was in a particularly difficult position. Already half a head shorter than the girl with the ponytail, he was hesitant to stick too close, resulting in him being somewhat timid and hesitant. This put him at a disadvantage, making it difficult to gain advantageous positions, leading to a weak and ineffective offense and a non-existent defense.

The girl with the ponytail seemed to sense Li Baoqing's concerns and disdained to take advantage of the situation. When attacking the basket, she often didn't rely on her physical strength to overpower her opponents, but instead drew the defense and passed the ball to her teammates. Although the Arab chubby guy and the black guy had abysmal shooting percentages, the girl with the ponytail grabbed most of the rebounds, so their team still had the upper hand.

With the opposing team's two strongest players assigned to defend Li Baoqing and Bayin, Hu Yi had plenty of room to maneuver. His unorthodox skills, honed in high school basketball, were more than enough to handle the chubby Arab and the bookish Russian, and he quickly became his team's main scorer.

However, Hu Yi hadn't received any systematic professional training, and his three years of high school spent smoking and drinking, leaving him in a terrible physical condition. Coupled with the half-hour ordeal he'd just endured from Bayin and the persimmon-faced guy, he was almost exhausted after several full-court offensive and defensive transitions. On his way back on defense, he could only grip his knees and yell at the hesitant Li Baoqing under the basket, "Go for it! Hold her off!"

Li Baoqing was already frustrated because he couldn't get his way in front of the ponytail braid. Hearing Hu Yi shouting from the side, he no longer cared about the proper distance between men and women. He focused his energy in his dantian, steadied his stance, and braced his arms against the ponytail braid's waist.

The girl with the ponytail hadn't had a chance to show her skills, and hadn't even broken a sweat yet, but she was itching to play. Suddenly, she felt the opposing center finally lean on her, and couldn't help but smile slightly, raising her right hand to ask the freckled girl for the ball.

The freckled girl was leisurely dribbling the ball outside the three-point line, facing off against Bayin. The nerd ran out from the inside to receive her pass, but the freckled girl's eyes rolled slightly, as if she was about to pass the ball.

Bayin had been intently watching the freckled girl, and he caught a change in her eyes. Seeing that her pass seemed to have a flaw, he hurriedly reached out to intercept it. Unexpectedly, just as he was about to pass the ball, the freckled girl flipped her wrist and lobbed the ball high towards the ponytail in the three-second zone.

"Squeeze her in! Don't let her turn around!" Hu Yi caught up with Er Lengzi, panting, and then directed Persimmon Face and Soft Noodles to keep an eye on Bookworm and Fatty respectively.

The girl with the ponytail received the ball with her back to Li Baoqing. She quickly made a side step and turn fake move. Seeing that she could not shake him off, she immediately bent her knees and lowered her waist, dribbled the ball, turned her back and stepped back, and leaned back, bumping solidly into Li Baoqing.

"Oh my god!" Li Baoqing staggered back five or six steps and fell to the ground with a thud. The girl with the ponytail easily tossed the ball in, then ran to Li Baoqing's side, stretched out her hands apologetically, and pulled him up like a child.

Li Baoqing had been practicing track and field since elementary school, and by high school he had been awarded the title of National Second-Level Athlete. Although he wasn't as physically imposing as the girl with the ponytail, he was still a tall, 1.83-meter-tall man weighing over 80 kilograms. Unexpectedly, he couldn't withstand the seemingly casual bump from this young woman. His face flushed red and then paled, and he ran to the sidelines, picking up the ball and preparing to attack and avenge his defeat. Just then, the teacher blew a few whistles, and get out of class was over.