Chapter Three: The Embers Ignite

There were no sprint tests or measurements. Candidates played three-minute possessions, losers rotating out. Anyone who made the existing lineup better could stay. Lin Mo, a deaf guard who could not shoot but smothered anyone he defended; Gao Ta, an overweight restaurant apprentice who collected offensive rebounds without tiring; and Wei Chuan, a thirty-seven-year-old point guard expelled years earlier for exposing a teammate’s gambling, earned the final contracts. They had eight. The mockery only grew. “That’s not a team,” one verified commentator wrote. “It’s lost and found.” Su turned her phone facedown. “Let them try to guard us.”