Chapter One: A Game, A Dream

“Writing stories is like shooting basketballs—constantly making shots, constantly missing, then continuing on, relentlessly, until the final whistle.” —The Author

Sometimes, Dang Lei wished his life were just a dream.

But waking up to reality, he found he was just an ordinary person.

From his surname, one could tell that Dang Lei was an orphan, raised in a welfare home.

He had never met his parents. Aunt Jiang, who cared for him at the welfare home, said she found him one winter morning in 1989 at the gate of the orphanage.

At that time, he was sound asleep in a bamboo basket lined with cotton quilts, his small face flushed red from the cold. When Aunt Jiang picked him up, he burst into tears.

Inside the quilts was a note from the child’s mother, entrusting the child’s upbringing to kind-hearted strangers, signed simply as “Rui.”

Aunt Jiang lamented the heartlessness of that mother who abandoned her own child, and so she named the boy “Lei.”

At first, the staff at the welfare home couldn’t understand why such a lovely boy would be abandoned by his parents. Later, they discovered that Dang Lei suffered from a severe congenital heart disease.

Given the medical technology and limited funds at the time, surgery was impossible. The doctors told them he probably wouldn’t live past twenty.

The welfare home was full of children with congenital disabilities and defects—Dang Lei became one of them.

As a child, Dang Lei was unaware of his condition. He grew up carefree alongside the other kids in the home.

Until one day, he noticed that some of his playmates were disappearing one after another. Frightened, he once thought the caretakers were eating the children, so he would hide whenever he saw them.

Later, he learned that the healthy children were adopted, each finding a family with parents to call their own.

But children like Dang Lei, with severe congenital illnesses, were never adopted.

Aside from his heart condition, Dang Lei was like any other child. He attended school normally, excelling in all his subjects—except he couldn’t take physical education or engage in strenuous sports.

While other kids ran freely on the playground, Dang Lei had to sit inside the classroom, watching longingly.

Once, unable to resist, he joined his classmates in chasing and roughhousing, but soon his heart raced chaotically and he struggled to breathe. The frightened teacher rushed him to the hospital.

The doctor told him, “You can never do intense exercise again. It could be life-threatening.”

Little Dang Lei asked, “Can I play basketball?”

The doctor smiled and replied, “Of course not. Basketball is intense exercise.”

Dang Lei lowered his head. He already knew basketball was strenuous, but he couldn’t give up asking.

As if fate had played a cruel joke, the boy who was destined to have no connection with sports, fell in love with basketball.

It was the summer of 1997 when a basketball anime featuring a red-haired boy aired on television. In front of a 21-inch color TV donated by a kind benefactor, Dang Lei was captivated by “Slam Dunk,” spending the entire summer immersed in it.

He even pelted the welfare home's once-pristine white walls with a mottled ball, leaving a patch of blackened marks.

In 1998, when CCTV-5 broadcasted the NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz live, neighborhood kids gathered in the city park to bet on the championship using Water Margin trading cards from packs of instant noodles.

While most bet on Michael Jordan, Dang Lei made an unconventional wager: he staked all the welfare home's Water Margin cards—gifts from volunteers—and bet on the Jazz, led by Karl Malone and John Stockton.

When Jordan made his final shot and won, all the cards were divided among the others. Dang Lei spent the whole summer cunningly winning them back, even gaining extra cards to share with the other children in the home.

In 2001, Wang Zhizhi wore the Dallas Mavericks’ number 16 jersey, becoming the first Asian player in the NBA.

CCTV began regularly broadcasting NBA games, especially those of the Mavericks.

That year, Dang Lei graduated from elementary school and enrolled in the county high school ten kilometers away. He began boarding there, leaving behind the caretakers and friends from the welfare home. Faced with the heavy burden of academic life, he needed a spiritual anchor.

In 2002, Yao Ming was drafted first overall by the Houston Rockets, igniting unprecedented enthusiasm for the NBA in China. Most young basketball fans became supporters of Yao and the Rockets.

Dang Lei was no exception.

Whenever time and circumstances allowed, he never missed Rockets games—especially those featuring Yao Ming.

After school at noon, if CCTV was broadcasting a game, Dang Lei and some classmates would gather at the school gate’s small shop to watch, buying a small bag of shrimp crackers for fifty cents as a fee to the shopkeeper.

Sports magazines like “Sports Weekly,” “Basketball Pioneer,” and “Dunk” became his best escape from dull studies.

Back then, pocket money was scarce among all the students, and aside from meals, there was little left for magazines. So whenever new issues arrived at the newsstand, Dang Lei would gather the boys to pool money to buy a copy, passing it around the entire class.

He was always the first to buy but the last to read; by the time it reached his hands, the magazine looked as worn as if dragged from a dog’s den. Yet that never diminished his enthusiasm.

Across the vast ocean, the distant and passionate world of basketball became a stage where teenagers could release energy and indulge their imaginations during the monotony and confusion of adolescence.

The Chinese Giant, wearing number 11, carried many beautiful yet unattainable dreams. Before anime characters, Korean beauties, and numerous Japanese idols flooded the youths’ minds, this 2.26-meter man captivated most young hearts.

Dang Lei was thrilled by Yao Ming’s achievements in the United States and foolishly believed the “Ming Dynasty” the Chinese media boasted about would one day arrive.

His hopes for Yao and the Rockets carried him through three years of high school, but the Rockets were repeatedly eliminated in the first round by the Mavericks and Jazz; the championship seemed as distant as the dreams of Tsinghua and Peking University among students.

In 2008, the Rockets won 22 consecutive regular-season games, but Yao Ming was sidelined by injury.

Yet at the Olympics that year, Yao led the Chinese men’s basketball team to their best ever performance on home soil.

Dang Lei excelled in his college entrance exams that year, gaining admission to a prestigious university in the provincial capital, leaving his small county behind.

In 2009, the Rockets finally advanced past the first round to the semifinals against the Lakers. Leading the series, Yao was once again sidelined by injury.

The promising situation collapsed, leaving Chinese fans with endless regrets.

That year, Dang Lei turned twenty, and his heart problems began to plague him more frequently. He often felt weak, with chest tightness, shortness of breath, and rapid heartbeat.

In 2010, Yao Ming’s season ended early due to injury.

Despite his health issues, Dang Lei persevered with iron will, earning high grades, scholarships, and stipends. After covering living expenses, he bought thirty boxes of milk, two boxes of books, and a large box of toys for the welfare home children.

When Aunt Jiang called, urging him to save more for his future, Dang Lei promised but immediately ordered three basketballs and a simple hoop to be sent back.

He hoped the kids who loved basketball could play with real balls.

In 2011, Yao Ming played in five games but never returned; his body could no longer endure basketball.

In June, the Mavericks defeated the Heat to win the championship, but number 16 Wang Zhizhi had long left Dallas.

On July 20, Yao Ming announced his retirement, forever leaving the basketball court.

When this news popped up on his screen, Dang Lei only felt a tightness in his chest. Sitting before his laptop, he stared blankly for a while.

He was playing the basketball game 2K11, released the previous October, channeling his passion for basketball through the virtual world since he could no longer play in reality.

In the MyPlayer mode, he created his ideal player, naming him “Gump” after the protagonist of his favorite film, “Forrest Gump”—he envied Forrest’s ability to keep running.

Gump stood 6’10” (2.08 meters), a powerful yet agile inside player.

He had a square, handsome face, a strong build, long arms, and muscular legs—clearly made for basketball.

Dang Lei, starting with 10,000 SP points, focused his limited points on shooting, strength, and blocking.

Through training and matches, Gump’s stats soared under Dang Lei’s careful management, rising from star to superstar.

Now, Gump was a perfect center, excelling in offense and defense, with precise shooting and formidable strength, able to play both inside and out, leading his team toward a dynasty.

The news of Yao’s retirement pulled Dang Lei out of his virtual dream. His basketball dream, once bright and alive, was over—completely and finally.

The beautiful bubbles once supporting his spirit burst at that moment. Yao Ming, only 31 and still in his prime as a center, had left the stage.

The Yao-McGrady duo, championships, the "Ming Dynasty"—all just fan-made fantasies, dissipating like a summer heatwave after a heavy rain.

Dang Lei closed the game, shut his laptop, and decided to get some fresh air—the chest tightness was too severe.

It was summer vacation; instead of returning to the welfare home, Dang Lei stayed at school, tutoring to earn a little living money. The campus was empty except for the rustling leaves of the lush phoenix trees swaying in the evening breeze.

A few steps from the dormitory was the basketball court. Normally, it would be bustling day and night with students playing, the constant thump of basketballs filling the air.

Tonight, however, it was utterly silent. All five courts and ten hoops were deserted. It was surprising.

Though many students had gone home for vacation, some, like Dang Lei, stayed behind. Even people from other schools or the community often came to play here until lights out at ten.

What was going on? It was not yet eight o’clock, and no one was around.

Dang Lei looked at the empty courts and noticed a brown basketball placed beneath the hoop on the south side of Court Two.

It sat squarely in the semicircle directly under the basket—the no-charge zone—exactly centered, as if deliberately left there.

He glanced around; no one was nearby. Suddenly, an impulse surged within him; the ball seemed to be calling him, beckoning him to come pick it up.

Due to his health, Dang Lei couldn’t join games. As a child, he sometimes took a ball alone to an empty court and played shooting games under the hoop.

Basketball, unlike other sports, was unique in that you didn’t need a team—you could enjoy it alone. You could dribble, shoot, retrieve the ball, and shoot again for hours until nightfall blurred the rim.

But the courts were almost always occupied, and Dang Lei, unwilling to reveal his physical limitations, always kept his distance from sports activities.

Tonight, the court was rarely empty, and there was a ball under the hoop.

Clenching his fists, he stepped through the chain-link fence onto Court Two. The bright floodlights illuminated the court, as if he had stepped from the dark stands onto a shining stage, with countless unseen fans watching in the surrounding darkness.

Standing directly under the hoop, he looked up. The rim seemed low and large, as though he could reach it with a stretch of his hand.

He picked up the ball. The brown leather bore the black “Wilson” logo—a relatively rare brand in China.

The NBA’s official ball was Spalding, and most sports stores sold Spalding or knockoffs. Wilson’s ball, once the NBA’s official before 1984, was little known and seldom used domestically.

Weighing the ball in his hands, it felt heavy. He stepped back two paces and shot toward the hoop.

His shooting form was textbook perfect—a result of countless solo practice sessions—and the ball swished cleanly through the net.

“Whew,” Dang Lei exhaled, feeling much of the chest tightness ease. The sensation of scoring was wonderful.

He picked up the ball, dribbled twice, stepped back farther, and shot again. The ball bounced off the backboard and dropped in.

His touch was excellent tonight. He was naturally gifted—a soft, flawless shooting form with coordinated, controlled power.

He gradually quickened his pace, stepping farther from the basket, even beyond the three-point line, still sinking shots.

With his talent, though a professional career was impossible, he could become a local legend if he practiced diligently at the neighborhood courts.

But life had played too many cruel jokes—granting him life but stealing his health away. He faced everything with optimism and fought hard, but deep down he knew time was running out. He felt it.

As he launched an ultra-long three-pointer that missed, reaching to retrieve the ball, his breathing suddenly grew difficult.

A sharp pain gripped his chest, as if a hand was twisting his heart. The tightness intensified; no matter how deeply he inhaled, it wasn’t enough.

His limbs tingled numb, and the world blurred. The bright lights went out all at once.

The last thing he saw was the pitch-black sky with the moon hanging above—only there were two moons.

“If only... if only I were dreaming... that would be so good...”