A hard object was pressed against Gan Guoyang’s back, like a pipe.
"Don’t move, raise your hands!" A cold, hard voice sounded.
Gan Guoyang’s sweat pores stood up, damn it, is there a thief in the house?
Gan Guoyang could only slowly raise his hands. He wanted to turn around, but the voice said again, "Don’t move! If you move, I’ll shoot."
At this moment, Gan Guoyang suddenly realized, why does this voice sound so familiar? And he was speaking in Chinese, not English.
Gan Guoyang swiftly turned around, grabbed the object pressed against his back in an instant, snatched it away, and upon a closer look, it turned out to be his father, Gan Youwei!
And what Gan Guoyang was holding wasn’t a gun, but a broom handle...
"Dad, what are you doing? You’re scaring me?" Gan Guoyang complained.
Gan Youwei looked dazed, with three parts confusion, three parts fear, and four parts contemplation in his eyes.
Gan Guoyang realized, could it be that dad was having an episode?
Putting down the broom handle, Gan Guoyang slowly approached, saying, "Dad, it’s me, I’m your son."
Gan Youwei sat down, staring at Gan Guoyang for a while, scratched his ear, and said, "Son... my son... is my son really this tall?"
Gan Guoyang took some food from the fridge, sat down and said, "Your son is a basketball player, dad, how could he play basketball if he wasn’t this tall? Remember playing basketball?"
"Playing basketball? Basketball... I remember the Trail Blazers beat the Pacers yesterday, making it 41 consecutive wins, and Gan Guoyang scored 38 points and 16 rebounds... Oh, my son is Ah Gan?"
Gan Youwei’s eyes finally cleared up, realizing that the person munching on bread in front of him was his son, also the world’s top basketball superstar, Gan Guoyang.
Seeing his dad’s look, like the system successfully reconnected, Gan Guoyang finally breathed a sigh of relief, saying: "Dad, really, if you encounter any emergency, you should look for Quentin or Xiao Feng, holding a broom to pretend it’s a gun, who are you trying to scare?"
"Quentin... Xiao Feng... Oh, how can I remember, I couldn’t think of it all at once. I originally planned to... Oh right, I was going to the kitchen to make you something to eat. You slept all day without eating a bite, you’d definitely be starving when you wake up. But then, when I came out of the room, I forgot what I was going to do, but I was going to the kitchen anyway. When I got to the kitchen, I saw someone tall looking for something in front of the fridge and thought it was a thief, so I grabbed a broom..."
Gan Guoyang sighed and said, "It’s a good thing there are no guns in the house, otherwise if you had taken a gun, wouldn’t that have been the end of me?"
Because Gan Youwei had a bad memory, Gan Guoyang never dared to keep guns at home, anyway, with a professional bodyguard team around, he didn’t need that stuff.
Gan Youwei awkwardly laughed, got up to the stove, and started to prepare something to eat for Gan Guoyang.
"Dad, you..."
"What?"
"Uh... just make me a few pounds of noodles first."
"Okay, just wait."
Gan Guoyang originally didn’t want Gan Youwei to cook; with his memory problem, he’d sometimes forget the steps while cooking.
But thinking that there wasn’t much Gan Youwei could do for him, Gan Guoyang couldn’t bear to refuse his good intention, so he let him make some noodles.
Of course, Gan Youwei making noodles wasn’t simply cooking instant noodles; he first fried a fish and made a pot of fish soup as the noodle broth.
After more than ten minutes, Gan Guoyang was eating delicious fish soup noodles, gulping down seven or eight bowls in one go.
Gan Youwei seemed very happy, eating while asking: "41 straight wins, that’s amazing. Who are you playing against next? Can you still keep winning?"
Gan Guoyang replied, "Next game... I can’t remember right now, I don’t look at the schedule much anymore. Anyway, just bet on us to win."
But Gan Youwei shook his head and said, "No way, next game I want to play big, I want to bet on you losing."
Over the past two seasons, Gan Youwei had maintained a habit of betting on sports, wagering a bit on every Trail Blazers match to help with memory.
After finishing the noodles, Gan Youwei took out a notebook from his pocket, put on reading glasses, looked, and said: "Oh... the next game is against San Antonio... Spurs? Spurs? Spurs?"
"It’s the Spurs! There are only about twenty teams, you can’t remember their English names."
"Hey, how can I remember so clearly? But I know this team, Robinson, and they recently got someone... someone named Billups... they’re doing okay."
"Okay, and you think they can beat us? You’re underestimating the Trail Blazers, aren’t you? Just wait to lose your money."
Gan Guoyang downed another three bowls of noodles before feeling somewhat full; he had enough carbs and could use some protein supplements.
After a good night’s sleep, he joined training the next day, with a game against the Spurs that evening.
But to his surprise, by the time he got up the next morning, he started to feel stomach discomfort.
He then spent quite a while in the bathroom, and during shooting practice at noon, went back to the restroom twice.
Because of severe diarrhea, Gan Guoyang didn’t eat at all at noon, only supplementing with some electrolytes and food close to game time in the evening.
The result was, before the game started, Gan Guoyang felt his legs were weak and feeble, truly feeling ’a hero can’t withstand three bouts of diarrhea.’
If it were the playoffs or the finals, Gan Guoyang would definitely grit his teeth and muster his strength, even if he had to soil his pants, he would insist on playing well.
But this was a regular-season game, and after 41 straight wins, everyone was incredibly exhausted, even the fans and spectators following behind the Trail Blazers were getting tired.
People began to care more about the All-Star game, wondered if this year’s championship would be a surprise, and pondered what kind of joke 41 wins would be if the Trail Blazers didn’t win the championship.
In short, a long journey that was destined to end was finally reaching its conclusion.
As it happened, tonight’s opponent, the San Antonio Spurs, had been in great form lately.
In the draft, the Spurs didn’t get Tim Duncan, so instead, their management chose guard Chauncey Billups.
Unable to get the super center, they’d settle for a decent guard to team up with David Robinson.
Under Popovich’s leadership, Billups performed well, and with a full roster, the Spurs had become a formidable force in the Western Conference once again.
Facing the streak of victories from the Trail Blazers, the Spurs were calm before the game, not treating it like a mega jackpot they must win.
Instead, everyone was calm; David Robinson said in an interview, "It’s just a regular-season game, we’ll give it our all. The Trail Blazers’ accomplishments are admirable, but that’s no reason for us to give up; in short, we’ll play our game."
On the Trail Blazers’ side, aside from Gan Guoyang’s physical discomfort, other players were also somewhat lax and tired.
Mu Lin, Sabonis, and others had drunk a lot, and Kobe, Little O’Neal, and a few others had held a party to relax back in Portland.
As could be expected, at the Rose Garden, the Trail Blazers faced a major defeat, with a poor performance throughout and beaten down by the Spurs.
109:91, an 18-point defeat ended the Trail Blazers’ winning streak at 41 games, marking it as their most crushing loss of the season.
Gan Guoyang only managed to score 19 points and 11 rebounds throughout the match, really needing a good recovery.
But after the game ended, the Portland fans did not leave early, nor were there boos and complaints.
Instead, a round of applause erupted from the whole crowd, thanking the Trail Blazers for their miraculous half-season performance.
Sometimes losing isn’t an ending but a new beginning, just like every time Gan Guoyang lost the championship; it often signified the start of a new winning cycle.
Players felt frustrated but also a sense of relief; the heavy burden of the winning streak was finally lifted, and they could start anew and continue forward.
The 41 straight wins were already part of history, a great history eternally engraved, but history is history; it has passed, now it’s time to look forward.
Gan Guoyang returned home, found his dad, and questioned him: "Dad, did you put laxative in the noodles yesterday? Did you really have to do that to win your bet? Drugging my noodles, I’m practically dead."
Gan Youwei indeed won big from this game, with the price being his son’s terrible ordeal.
"What are you saying, how could I do such a thing? But... but the fish last night, seemed a bit off, it was in there for too long..."
"..."
Gan Guoyang decided he really couldn’t eat meals made by his dad anymore, especially during the season; he must be extremely cautious.