Xu Ling's eyes flew open, his head splitting with pain. Everything around him was as unfamiliar as a dream: a spacious single bed, a poster of Kobe dunking on the wall, and a bulky Nokia flip phone sitting on the desk. He rubbed his eyes, trying to recall what had happened.
"Wasn't I just scrolling videos in my dorm? Where is this...?"
Xu Ling's gaze darted aside, and he suddenly noticed that besides the flip phone, there was a card on the desk. He picked it up, and written on it in bold was: Eli Xu, Texas Tech University, Class of 2006.
Texas? 2006?
Holy shit!!!
Xu Ling, always a level-headed person, thought first that this drastic turn of events had to be a prank.
He climbed out of bed, not even noticing that his line of sight was higher and reached farther than in his previous life. He just wanted to rush to the window and yank the curtains open. Dazzling sunlight flooded in at once. He squinted, and to his shock found that outside the window was no familiar tree-lined campus path, but a few palm trees swaying in the wind, and rows of distinctly different detached houses in the distance. This was absolutely not any part of China he knew!
He began to gasp for air, his heart feeling like it would leap out of his chest. A prank? What friend could stage a prank on this scale? He rushed to the only mirror in the room—a full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. The figure in the mirror froze him stiff. It was a completely unfamiliar face; though it carried some Asian features, they were sharper and more defined, the hair a shade lighter, and the build clearly taller and more robust than his own before.
This was no prank, and this was no dream.
He thought of those novel plots he'd read online, those inconceivable "transmigrations." A powerful, icy despair instantly wrapped around him. He had truly come to a completely unfamiliar place, an unfamiliar time, and even an unfamiliar body.
Then Xu Ling returned to the dorm room.
He began to recall the events before the transmigration. As the all-time leading scorer in CUBA history, he had led his team into the national top eight, only to fall before Peking University, and there his CUBA career ended. Though his talent was limited and he had little hope of playing in the NBA, entering the CBA draft and playing professionally for a few years would have been easy. As the acknowledged finest scorer in CUBA history, he'd been called "College Curry"—though in truth his style was closer to Kobe's. It was just that his shooting range kept stretching farther and farther during his college years, and because he was short on height, he'd ended up stuck with Curry's name instead.
What could he do about that? A player with pinpoint shooting gets called Curry, just as one with explosive driving ability gets called LeBron, and one who loves to isolate gets called Kobe—these are the stereotypes the basketball world can't help but savor.
Xu Ling only remembered that after the loss he'd begun preparing for the CBA draft, and then one evening, while idly scrolling videos out of boredom, a beam of light had suddenly fallen on him.
And then, it was now.
He was still Xu Ling, except that the memories of this body's original owner made it clear to him: he had not gone back into the past, but had transmigrated into another person.
The current Xu Ling came from Hong Kong, China. Because he'd matured early, the experts of Hong Kong—a basketball backwater—had prophesied he would be "Hong Kong KG," and prematurely pigeonholed him into the post. As it turned out, he'd stopped growing much from age fifteen, his height finally settling at 198 centimeters. Though he had a 212-centimeter wingspan, that physique was still too much of a stretch for playing the interior.
Even Charles Barkley himself had said, "There will be another Michael Jordan, and another Larry Bird, but you'll never see another me."
Could you argue with that?
The situations of Larry Johnson and Zion "Friend of MILFs" Williamson all proved Sir Charles right.
Xu Ling had taken the wrong path, but he still worked hard, using his talent to ravage Hong Kong high school basketball, and finally, at last year's U.S. invitational, drew the attention of college basketball. After graduating high school, he'd smoothly landed in NCAA Division I.
Having sorted out his previous life from this one, Xu Ling figured that his skills paired with this current body might have great promise in the future.
But who could easily let go of everything from a previous life?
Amid the enormous confusion, Xu Ling picked up the phone and flipped it open. He fiddled with it for a while, then anxiously opened it, wanting to find something, only to discover that the only game on the phone was Snake.
"This damned primitive society!"
Then the dorm door was suddenly pushed open.
"Hey, I'm Roderick Craig, your roommate. What are you playing there, man?"
A booming voice burst in along with a gust of wind, and Xu Ling's head jerked up. A burly figure appeared in the doorway, nearly two meters tall. The newcomer had a huge Nike backpack slung on his back, was palming a basketball in one hand, and wore a beaming, enthusiastic smile; his wheat-colored skin looked especially healthy in the sunlight.
Xu Ling had met overly familiar people before, but given what he'd just been through, it was hard for him to keep his composure.
So he only managed, with some difficulty, "Uh, hi."
Craig didn't notice his oddness. He casually tossed the backpack and basketball aside and began hauling things out of the suitcase by the door, his mouth never idle: "You look a little dazed, man. Not used to it since you just got here? No worries, I'll get you settled. I saw you on your phone—what's up? Something wrong with it?"
"No, everything's fine." Xu Ling had also snapped back to himself, and introduced himself politely. "Xu Ling. From China. You can call me Eli."
The moment Xu Ling answered, it was like opening the floodgates.
Craig enthusiastically brought up recent pop culture—the fight over the key in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, the champion of American Idol Season 5. Up to this point, the dazed Xu could more or less follow: Pirates of the Caribbean? Wasn't that the signature film of that American star who accused his ex-wife of taking a dump in his bed? American Idol? Just a talent-competition show, wasn't it? But then the big guy immediately asked Xu Ling whether he had a "MySpace" account.
"You don't have a MySpace account?" Craig's eyes went wide, as if he'd heard something bizarre. "Man, you gotta sign up for one, quick! It's the hottest place right now! Everyone connects on it, shares music, posts photos. Wanna find a band to play? MySpace! Wanna see hot chicks' photos? MySpace! Bro, this thing—you deserve to have it!"
Xu Ling's mind was a complete muddle; he couldn't keep up with Craig at all. MySpace? It sounded like a mashup of QQ, some microblog, and some social app—but could a single social platform really carry so many functions? It sounded like one of those apps that's a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.
"I'll set up an account sometime," Xu Ling fobbed him off, then steered the conversation to what they—supposedly student-athletes—ought to be talking about most: "What do you make of this year's NBA Finals?"
Though Xu Ling had been quite young when this year's NBA Finals tipped off, as a basketball fan he did have some general knowledge of the modern NBA.
He'd expected the big guy to get even more worked up than before. Instead, Craig's face darkened and he said, "Rigged! So fucking rigged! David Stern robbed Dallas!"
What did this have to do with Stern?
That was what Xu Ling thought at the time.
Then the guy gave himself away with a single sentence: "That bastard just wanted to prop up D-Wade! He doesn't like Kobe! He doesn't like high-school players! But let me tell you, there's no meaning in D-Wade winning the title this way! Even a three-peat wouldn't measure up to Kobe! That dude ought to apologize to the sport of basketball! He's gotta win a real ring!"
Xu Ling nodded. Now he got it. A Kobe fan—then it made sense.
Unfortunately, Xu Ling belonged to the "man, what can I say" generation. Even knowing little about Kobe, whenever he heard "Paul Walker's Farewell Song" he couldn't help shouting "Man!"
So he asked knowingly, "Why? Hasn't D-Wade already won the championship?"
Craig said gravely, "If you let Kobe shoot sixteen free throws a game, he'd lead the Lakers to a title!"
Xu Ling naturally knew that Wade's ability to draw fouls in this Finals had been astonishing, but faced with the actual numbers, he realized he'd still underestimated Wade.
For comparison: SGA, who got ripped apart by the fans of the Thunder's various victims after the 2025 Finals, had attempted only 69 free throws across seven Finals games; Wade, in the 2006 Finals, had shot 75 in six. That ability to draw fouls was simply terrifying—in NBA history, the only man to attempt more free throws in a Finals than him was Elgin Baylor, back in 1962.
Then Xu Ling changed the subject: "All right, you might be right, Roderick, but the result can't be changed now. Do you have anything going on today?"
Craig paused. "Uh, nothing much. You got plans?"
"Let's go out for a walk."
Xu Ling hadn't yet shaken off a transmigrator's PTSD, and hadn't fully accepted everything, but he was already being tormented by the digital-dopamine addiction bred by twenty-years-in-the-future fragmented news, the bombardment of short videos, and every kind of social media—so much so that he couldn't stand the current reality of the dorm having only a 2G network.
The two freshmen who had come to Texas Tech University (TTU hereafter) because of basketball wandered about and, in the end, still wound up at the school gymnasium.
Tomorrow the school basketball team would officially assemble, which gave the freshmen some breathing room.
For now, most of those playing ball in the gym were students of the school.
Roderick Craig spun the basketball on his fingertip and suddenly proposed, "Hey, Eli, how about a one-on-one? Just to warm up."
Xu Ling's eyes flickered. In his previous life, he most likely would have politely declined—at 188 centimeters, against such a powerfully built, nearly two-meter opponent, the disadvantage was too great. Even though he was the all-time leading scorer in CUBA history, with refined skills and deadly-accurate shooting, the gulf in talent made it genuinely hard to make up for the difference in physical gifts.
But the next second, the corner of his mouth curved up slightly.
"Sure."
He agreed without the slightest hesitation.
Craig passed the ball over. Xu Ling reached out with his right hand, his five fingers closing around it, gripping it fast. The ball looked a size smaller in his hand, and the grip and control felt more solid than ever before.
Craig couldn't help raising his brows and exclaiming, "Whoa, Eli, these hands of yours... they sure don't look like a center's hands!"
Xu Ling didn't answer, only slightly lowered his center of gravity, his gaze sliding past Craig's shoulder to the hoop in the distance.
"Eli, what position did you play in China?"
"Center."
Craig couldn't help feeling a pang of regret for him; though the two hadn't played against each other yet, just from the physical attributes one could tell Xu Ling was a rare wing prospect.
At the same time, he was also sure he had this one-on-one in the bag. Their builds were similar, but he was a small forward.
A one-on-one between a similarly built small forward and a center would be a one-sided slaughter.
"You know the rules?"
"What rules?"
"It's just—never mind, do whatever you want." Out of the good intention of not bullying a foreigner, Craig handed Xu Ling the opening possession.
Xu Ling didn't stand on ceremony, and even asked, "How many points is a three-pointer?"
"Two."
"Have we started?"
At that moment, Xu Ling was standing a little over a meter beyond the three-point line.
Craig spread his hands unguardedly and smiled brightly. "Go ahead!"
Without any preparation motion, Xu Ling raised and shot. The instant he released, he could confirm that his muscle memory was still there, that he still kept that shooter's instinct that came the moment the ball left his hand—but his wingspan had changed, his height had changed, and the shot felt a little awkward; the force seemed a touch too strong, but the arc was right.
Craig watched the ball and shouted, "Bro, even if you can't dribble, you don't have to just heave it up like—"
Thump-swish!!!!!
Before Craig could finish, the ball hit the backboard and rebounded in.
The disbelieving Craig cried out, "Lucky shot!"
Xu Ling said sincerely, "I do have a little knack for shooting."
"All right, I won't be taking it easy anymore!" Craig decided to stop giving Xu Ling any room to shoot.
Xu Ling got the ball again. Just as Craig's defense moved in to pressure him, Xu Ling used a textbook jab step to force the defense back, his eyes on the right lane, muddying Craig's read.
In an instant!
Xu Ling dribbled one step left and rose into a stop-and-pop jumper.
Swish!!!
Craig began to sense something was off. He asked, "Weren't you a center?"
A wondrous feeling welled up in Xu Ling's heart.
In his previous life, even with his enormous shooting threat and sound technique, even after creating separation, the opponent would need only one step to make up his two; add the difference in height and wingspan, and—not to exaggerate—even with a full body-length of space there was a risk of getting blocked.
But now, he could clearly feel that Craig's speed was half a beat behind his own, that his explosiveness was above the other's—not to mention they were roughly the same height, and his wingspan was even better.
In answer to Craig's question, Xu Ling replied modestly, "Yeah. I know my talent isn't anything special in America, so I put in extra work on my face-up offense over the summer. What do you think?"
Craig looked like he'd swallowed a fly.
Yet he still had to put on a stubborn front.
"Oh yeah? Then this time I really won't hold back!"
They played two games, each to fifteen points.
The first game still had a bit of suspense. At the start, Xu Ling was still adjusting to this unfamiliar body; several of his flashy dribble attempts nearly ended in turnovers, letting Craig once pull the score to 8-10. But once he abandoned the fancy stuff and went back to his most instinctive jumpers and clean drives, the situation flipped in an instant.
The rest of the game turned into a one-sided thrashing. Xu Ling's pull-up jumper was almost impossible to stop; combined with the explosive burst of his first step, it left Craig helpless. The second game was an even more total rout—the physical play Craig prided himself on looked clumsy and futile before Xu Ling's rhythm and skill.
That night, Xu Ling came back to the dorm after his shower. The water had carried away his sweat, but it couldn't wash away the thoughts churning through his mind. He lay on the bed, staring at the blurry shadows on the ceiling. For the first time since transmigrating, he did not pray that "all of this is just a dream."
His fingertips seemed to still hold the feel of the basketball; his muscles remembered the unfamiliar stretch and power of the jump shot. A wholly different kind of longing, like an undercurrent beneath a dormant volcano, was awakening within him.
At this moment, that thought was running wild inside him, carrying a scorching heat.