Disobedience To Control chapter 64
Rapid Heartbeat
With the arrival of July, Jiangcheng had become a furnace, hot and dry everywhere.
Jiangcheng University’s summer vacation had begun, and ordinary students had gone home for the break. The swimming team had also started its annual summer training.
After the end of the press conference, Yang Xiaobei moved back to the dormitory from Song Siheng’s house and returned to the team after canceling his leave.
Song Siheng and him weren’t in close contact. Sicheng’s work was busy, and he had gone on two trips with Li Ke. Yang Xiaobei’s main source of daily news had become his psychologist, Xu Pei.
Xu Pei said that Yang Xiaobei had started actively participating in therapy, although he still kept himself closed off, his condition was gradually improving.
“This phase is very important, he might have an emotional backlash. You need to be careful,” Xu Pei reminded Song Siheng over the phone.
Song Siheng paused for a few seconds and could only agree.
He had sent WeChat messages to Yang Xiaobei, inquiring about his condition. Yang Xiaobei replied with several cat emoji, just like before, showing his optimistic and cheerful attitude. He didn’t say much else to Song Siheng.
Song Siheng had the phone numbers of Yang Xiaobei’s dormitory teammates. He had subtly asked them once. They only said that Yang Xiaobei seemed fine, having just returned to the team after recovering from an illness. The coach had only assigned him some light adaptive training and hadn’t increased the intensity yet.
And the watch Song Siheng customized for him, he seemed to wear it every day.
The data from their watches was shared, and every night when Song Siheng refreshed the watch face page, he would receive Yang Xiaobei’s data records for the whole day.
The continuously accelerating heart rate should be from training within the team.
And the stable low speed at night should be during sleep.
His daily routine was occasionally irregular, sometimes staying up until two or three in the morning before entering deep sleep. But without fail, he would return to normal activity by seven in the morning the next day.
Sometimes Song Siheng had a whimsical thought: Yang Xiaobei was like his electronic pet, sending him messages of his progress through these electronic charts.
About half a month later, Song Siheng received a new record push notification.
Yang Xiaobei’s watch uploaded his sports performance: his first 100-meter swim, 51.86 seconds.
After each sports record, Song Siheng had left an input box to record his mood for the day. And on that day, Yang Xiaobei filled it in with a crying emoji.
In the following two or three days, Yang Xiaobei only slept late at night. The deep sleep time recorded by the watch was extremely short, frequently entering the rapid eye movement stage.
A few days later, Yang Xiaobei uploaded his second sports performance record: his second 100-meter swim, 50.86 seconds. Followed by a frustrated emoji holding a thermometer.
Xu Pei called Song Siheng again. Yang Xiaobei’s treatment had made great progress in the past two days. He reported feeling much less nervous when going into the water. But due to the progress of the treatment, he might show some abnormal behavior.
“Such as?” Song Siheng asked.
“Insomnia, and even vomiting,” Xu Pei answered truthfully.
That night, Song Siheng called Yang Xiaobei. He answered quickly.
“How have you been recently?” Song Siheng asked. “Any unusual symptoms?”
“I’m fine, what could be unusual?” Yang Xiaobei answered with just one sentence, without elaborating further. “My coach is calling me, I have to hang up.”
Song Siheng looked at the time on his phone. It was a quarter past eight in the evening. What coach would train at this time?
After that, Yang Xiaobei uploaded several new sports performance records almost every day.
The third time, 50.48 seconds.
The fourth time, 50.13 seconds.
The fifth time, 50.08 seconds.
The sixth time, 50.39 seconds, followed by an angry emoji pounding the table.
…
The thirty-seventh time, 49.89 seconds. A rare smiling emoji appeared.
The thirty-eighth time, 49.79 seconds.
The thirty-ninth time, 49.66 seconds.
For the entire month afterward, each time he uploaded his performance, it hovered around 49.50 seconds.
And in the countless times that Song Siheng reviewed the competition, fifteen-year-old Yang Xiaobei’s championship time was 47.76 seconds.
This gap of less than two seconds seemed like a chasm between genius and ordinary. Nineteen-year-old Yang Xiaobei seemed unable to surpass it no matter what.
In the last week before the end of summer training, Song Siheng had just finished his third business trip. He decided to visit Jiangcheng University.
At the end of August, the nights in Jiangcheng seemed to have shed some of their heat, with a few strands of cool breeze.
Song Siheng didn’t tell Yang Xiaobei in advance that he was coming to his campus. After registering with the security guard at the entrance, he walked to the familiar dormitory building.
Looking up, on the sixth floor of the boys’ dormitory, only one light was still on. In the university campus during the summer vacation, there were two or three bicycles parked under the streetlights that no one was riding. The basketball hoops on the playground stood alone.
Song Siheng stood downstairs for more than ten minutes before taking out his phone and dialing the number.
The phone rang about a dozen times before it was answered.
“Hello?” came the sound of dripping water from the other end.
“Where are you?” Song Siheng asked.
“Ah, I’m taking a shower in the dormitory, what’s up?” The sound of water on the other end stopped.
“I’m downstairs in your building.”
“What?!”
Less than five minutes later, the door of the dormitory building was pushed open, and a tall figure ran out.
Song Siheng stood under the streetlight opposite the door, watching as the person’s hair was still wet, and the T-shirt collar was crooked, obviously coming out in a hurry.
“Why did you suddenly come over?” Yang Xiaobei ran up to him in three steps, breathing still not even.
“Did you get a haircut?” Song Siheng noticed that Yang Xiaobei’s hair was much shorter, and his shoulders seemed broader than before, as if he had been doing strength training with the team.
“It was too long before, it was getting in the way when I went swimming.” Yang Xiaobei touched his short hair, seeming quite satisfied.
“What’s this?” Song Siheng pointed to the area behind his ear, where it looked like someone had deliberately shaved the letter “S” or “5” with a razor.
“Superman’s S,” Yang Xiaobei grinned somewhat recklessly. “How about it, cool, right? It suits my temperament.”
“Let’s go sit over there.” Yang Xiaobei pointed to a small garden across the street, where there were a few benches.
Song Siheng followed him into the garden on the side, tall trees swaying in the breeze. They sat side by side under the shade of the trees.
“We haven’t seen each other in almost two months, and you seem to have gotten younger?” Yang Xiaobei teased him.
Song Siheng was wearing a light-colored T-shirt and jeans that day, and surprisingly, he didn’t look out of place walking on the university campus.
“Shouldn’t I be allowed to dress comfortably when coming to your school?” he asked.
“How’s your freestyle swimming going?” Yang Xiaobei asked first.
“Me?” When Song Siheng was alone, he did go swimming, but he didn’t have much free time, and his progress wasn’t very fast. “The fastest I’ve done is two minutes and eight seconds.”
“Hahaha—” Yang Xiaobei burst into laughter. “You might need a couple more sessions of my master class.”
“Just remember that, you still owe me a class,” Song Siheng said, leaning back on the bench. It had been a long time since he had been on campus like this, and he felt his heart beating incessantly.
“Xu Pei told me that you’ve had some setbacks before,” Song Siheng finally asked.
“Oh…” Yang Xiaobei was rarely speechless. “Why does he tell you everything?”
Song Siheng chuckled.
Yang Xiaobei tugged at the hem of his T-shirt, then slowly raised his head, looking at the branches swaying above.
“You don’t need to complain to me or act spoiled?” Song Siheng looked at him. These used to be his usual tactics.
“It’s no use complaining to you, and you can’t swim for me either,” Yang Xiaobei lowered his head.
“When are the preliminaries?” Song Siheng asked him.
To participate in the National Galaxy Cup competition at the end of the year, you had to participate in the preliminaries first. After getting into the top eight, you could be selected for the Galaxy Cup team.
“In a little over a month,” Yang Xiaobei sighed lightly after speaking.
Then he changed the subject: “By the way, the other day I went to Xu Pei’s office and met someone…”
“Who?”
“Secretary Li.”
“Li Ke?” Song Siheng furrowed his brows slightly.
“Yeah,” Yang Xiaobei nodded. “He didn’t expect to run into me, it was a bit awkward.”
“What was he there for?”
“It seems like he was consulting. After I left, he went in, and he talked to Xu Pei for a long time.”
Song Siheng nodded silently.
The two sat under the tree for about half an hour, with the shadows of the trees swaying and the cicadas chirping.
Yang Xiaobei looked into the distance and suddenly stood up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wanna play basketball?” Yang Xiaobei suddenly pointed to the nearby basketball court.
“I’m not very good,” Song Siheng shook his head.
“Let’s go.” Yang Xiaobei just pulled him up.
It was already past nine o’clock in the evening, and the basketball court was empty, with two lights on each side.
There was still some water on the basketball court from last night’s heavy rain, reflecting the light from the street lamps.
“How do we play?” Song Siheng pushed open the wire mesh gate and turned to ask him.
“One on one, how else?” Yang Xiaobei straightened his T-shirt and found a ball lying idle on the court. “The first to seven points wins.”
Song Siheng had only seen Yang Xiaobei shoot once, and it was when they first went to North City. In the indoor amusement park, he had thrown a few shots at the basketball machine.
“Have you practiced?” Song Siheng asked as he saw him preparing to break through.
“Are you scared?” Yang Xiaobei smiled. “I’ve played with my teammates during physical training classes.”
Before Song Siheng could react, Yang Xiaobei suddenly dodged past him.
Bang! With a flick of his wrist, he successfully scored a two-pointer.
Seeing that he was playing for real, Song Siheng also straightened up.
“It’s your ball.” Yang Xiaobei threw the ball back to him.
Song Siheng didn’t play much basketball, but he had a good athletic foundation and was quick on his feet. He couldn’t shoot threes or dunk, so he could only slowly press Yang Xiaobei towards the basket.
With a turn, Song Siheng made a one-handed layup, scoring another two points.
They quickly played to a tie at six points each.
For the final deciding point, it was Song Siheng’s ball possession, and Yang Xiaobei spread out his arms, guarding closely.
With the ball in his hand, Song Siheng made a move towards the basket, but Yang Xiaobei defended tightly. Forced to take two steps back, Song Siheng created some space for himself.
He raised his hand to shoot, but Yang Xiaobei suddenly stepped aside, giving him an open shot.
With a flick of his wrist, the basketball flew towards the hoop.
Bang! It went in!
“You won,” Yang Xiaobei walked over, smiling as he bumped shoulders with Song Siheng.
Song Siheng understood his trickery and hastily shook hands with him, “You let me win.”
“No, you played well,” Yang Xiaobei tousled his hair.
The two walked out of the basketball court side by side and found a tap to wash their hands.
Water droplets fell onto the asphalt track from their fingertips. Song Siheng turned to him and said, “I have to go.”
Yang Xiaobei hummed in response, standing behind him and watching him walk towards the gate.
The hem of Song Siheng’s clothes fluttered in the evening breeze, and his figure grew smaller and smaller.
“Song Siheng!” he heard someone call his name.
He turned around, and Yang Xiaobei was standing about three meters away from him.
“What’s wrong?”
Yang Xiaobei suddenly opened his arms, looking into his eyes.
“Can I have a hug?”
Song Siheng was stunned.
Seeing him not reacting, Yang Xiaobei quickly added, “Just once.”
Five seconds later, Song Siheng walked over and extended his arms to hug him.
It was just a warm, gentle hug on a summer night, but the surroundings were so quiet that he seemed to hear the resonance of their hearts.
“The preliminaries start in early October, right here in Jiangcheng,” Yang Xiaobei whispered in his ear, “You must come.”
At the same time, Song Siheng’s watch received an instant notification.
—”Your monitored subject has experienced a fast heart rate.”