Chapter One: After the Final Buzzer

The ball slipped from Shen Xinglan's fingertips with 3.2 seconds left. The roar of twenty thousand people in Harbor Arena stopped as if severed by a blade. She lunged toward the sideline, sneakers shrieking across hardwood, but the orange ball sailed beyond her reach and into the hands of Beichen Crown guard Xu Manqing. Manqing did not celebrate. She hugged the ball and looked across half court at Xinglan. The horn sounded. 78–77. The Harbor Storm had lost Game Seven of the Finals—and the closest chance at a championship in franchise history. That had happened five years ago. Everyone remembered Shen Xinglan's turnover. No one remembered that she had played forty-three minutes on a swollen right knee and scored thirty-two points.