During the Snowstorm by Mo Bao Fei Bao

Chapter 5.2 The Tide of Time

Lin Yi Yang's hand tightened around the cue chalk, the familiar weight, and texture grounding him in the present. He surveyed the snooker table. The green felt stretched tautly over its surface, and then turned his attention to the group of onlookers gathered around him.

"Fifty shots," he declared, his voice steady and confident. "If I miss the pocket three times, I'll count it as a loss."

The challenge hung in the air, the tension palpable. This wasn't just any snooker game but a test of precision and accuracy.

As Lin Yi Yang began to prepare for the shot, he reflected on his younger days. He thought that when he was a teenager, he could achieve not missing a single ball. But unfortunately, the snooker table was still too unfamiliar to him. He has been playing on a small nine-ball table for years, and he doesn't dare to say that he could avoid missing a ball if he switched to a large snooker table.

Li Qingyan searched his memory again for who this Lin Yi Yang was, but he had no conclusion.

"He's a pro," Li Qingyan whispered to Xiaozi as he walked behind him.

Xiaozi nodded in agreement. "That's right. He knows his stuff."

As soon as Lin Yi Yang uttered the words, "I don't play snooker," a murmur rippled through the room, and everyone present knew that he was no mere amateur. His calm and collected demeanor amidst a group of seasoned experts spoke volumes about his experience and skill on the billiards table.

Lin Yi Yang's piercing gaze swept across the nine-ball table, sizing up the angles and calculating his moves with the precision of a chess grandmaster. His refusal to play snooker only heightened Xiaozi's confidence that this was a man who knew his way around a cue stick.

Xiaozi deftly placed the red ball in the center of the table, an easy position that belied the tension in the air. As the first ball was struck, the sound of the cue meeting the ball echoed through the room, signaling the start of a fierce challenge.

Lin Yi Yang felt a sense of admiration for Meng Xiaodong's leadership. He was impressed by these people's ability to challenge him while remaining polite. With a steady hand, he placed the white ball on the service line and sunk it with ease, leaving no room for doubt in anyone's mind.

"Next one," he said, pointing to the table and motioning for them to continue setting up. As the minutes ticked by, the red ball was placed in increasingly tricky positions, but Lin Yi Yang didn't falter once. It was as if he was in a trance, fully focused on the game and nothing else.

The more complex the setup became, the more he seemed to thrive. He moved with precision and ease, sinking each ball with barely a pause in between. By the time he reached the 20th ball, Shaozi had set them up conventionally, and they all fell into the pockets.

But then, something changed. Shaozi began to place the balls in trickier and more challenging positions, hoping to trip up the confident newcomer. But to everyone's surprise, Lin Yi Yang continued to sink them all effortlessly.

As they approached the 40th ball, the room was filled with palpable tension. No one had ever seen anything like it before. The silence was broken only by the sound of the balls clinking against each other as Lin Yi Yang lined up his next shot. And then, as if by magic, the white ball flew across the table and sunk the red, leaving everyone stunned.

Forty shots in, and not a single miss. Lin Yi Yang was truly a force to be reckoned with.

......

The younger ones in the room were completely absorbed, their eyes fixed on the forty-odd red snooker balls scattered across the table. The precision required was beyond what these thirteen or fourteen year olds could achieve, and they were fully aware of it.