IBABS Chapter 47

In the blink of an eye, the track and field team’s closed training was nearing its end. As the World Championships approached, the training intensity for various events decreased to ensure the athletes maintained their condition and physical fitness during the competition period. The focus shifted more toward technical consolidation and continuous technical adjustments.

One week before the World Championships in Country D, the entire national track and field team would travel there early to adapt to the local climate and environment. This would ensure the athletes could perform at their best when the official competition began.

During this final week before the competition, Su Zhe was perhaps the only athlete in the track team who still maintained high-intensity training.

Both the sprint coaching team and the hurdle coaching team’s coordinating coaches had asked Su Yinsheng and Lu Fei whether it was appropriate to let Su Zhe continue such high-intensity training. The responses from both Su Yinsheng and Lu Fei were strikingly similar.

“Looking carefully at Su Zhe’s training state curve, during this high-intensity training period, his explosive power, agility, speed endurance, including physical fitness, cardiopulmonary endurance, joint stability, core strength, and more are all still continuously improving.

Currently, he’s in an explosive growth period for all his qualities and abilities. It would be too regrettable to miss this time. With continued training, it might be possible to maintain this growth period through the competition phase, which would be the best possible outcome.”

Through observing Su Zhe’s strength growth curve, Su Yinsheng and Lu Fei had simultaneously reached similar conclusions, believing that continued high-intensity training would greatly benefit Su Zhe.

Inside the sports channel’s livestream room, many loyal viewers now came to check in daily.

Every day through the livestream, they experienced the athletes’ arduous training under the scorching sun. It was as if they were using the athletes to inspire themselves to be more positive and uplifting people.

On Weibo, the topic #WorkOutWithTheNationalChampion# wasn’t as hot as it initially was, but there was still a large group of enthusiastic followers keeping up with the series updates. The evening hours when athletes went offline remained the peak traffic time for the livestream room, with Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue’s livestreams attracting the highest traffic.

Perhaps because the initially awkward livestreams were so well-received, the sports channel’s production team happily never considered changing the style. Viewers watched with guilty pleasure as two good-looking athletes were forced to recite embarrassing lines either with business smiles or expressionless faces under the production team’s torment. The fatigue from a hard day’s work seemed to wash away.

The livestream audience who called themselves the “Lying Down Weight Loss Party,” or “Lie-Loss Party” for short, had daily catchphrases like “Even national champions are forced to perform for work, so isn’t it normal to be ground down by superiors at the company?” and “Champions also struggle to make a living.”

But among these “Lie-Loss Party” members, there was actually a small group of action-takers. After about ten days of livestreams, some people started showing off their results from following the fitness and weight loss knowledge from the livestream. Although the weight loss data wasn’t very significant, everyone had experienced certain changes in their physique.

The crowd in the livestream room strongly condemned this betrayal of the organization—

[We’re all supposed to be in the Lie-Loss Party, yet some people have betrayed the organization… QAQ]

[I thought we were all lying in bed being couch potatoes, but it turns out some people are actually experts pretending to be slackers…]

During this period, besides the weight loss topic, the post that received the most reposts was probably [Let’s Discuss Su Yinsheng, the Mother of Champions].

Although after receiving Su Yinsheng’s reply, the original poster quickly backpedaled and changed “Mother of Champions” to “Father of Champions” in the Weibo post, the previous version had already spread far and wide. People had even made the angry emoji Su Yinsheng used in his reply the most liked comment and took screenshots as souvenirs. No matter how much blood Su Yinsheng coughed up in rage, the nickname “Mother of Champions” was stuck to him permanently.

Even more outrageously, some anonymous user on the Track and Field Kingdom forum posted something even more offensive.

[Let me get this, Su Yinsheng, the Mother of Sprint Champions… so he’s actually a tigress? XDDDD]

This post was manually pinned to the top headline of the Track and Field Kingdom forum’s first page the moment it was posted, and stayed there for a full week.

The thread was filled with a sea of anonymous “haha”s, and everyone who read it probably forgot how to properly write the character “ha.”¹

In fact, even Su Zhe secretly visited the Track and Field Kingdom forum after learning about this to check out the jokes about his old man. Of course, in the training center, besides Zhang Ye, no other fool dared to show they’d seen the related posts in front of Su Yinsheng.

The most outrageous person regarding this incident was undoubtedly He Datou from the sports channel’s documentary team. As training gradually eased, he began interviewing athletes and staff one by one, and during the interviews, he would casually slip in one question: “What do you think about Coach Su Yinsheng being called the Mother of Sprint Champions?”

Staff and athletes with absolutely no experience in managing their expressions would instinctively snicker, then immediately realize they were doomed. They’d shake their heads claiming they’d never heard of this, and that Coach Su was mighty and masculine. He was truly a Father of Champions!

The only one who escaped He Datou’s scheme was probably Su Zhe. Thanks to the idol expression management skills he had learned over the past two years, he successfully controlled his expression during the surprise interview, calmly stating that he had never heard of such rumors.

This result left director He Datou quite disappointed.

Of course, besides witnessing his father’s embarrassment, Su Zhe also had a persistently mischievous friend who enjoyed laughing at him.

Every day after the livestream ended, Su Zhe would receive persistent greetings from Jiang Hanning: “Hahahaha you were even more awkward today than yesterday!”

At the same time, Jiang Hanning was passionate about collecting various forced work expressions of Su Zhe and video compilations of the “Fitness Bar” livestream. He would send these to Su Zhe daily with creative variations, and even used Su Zhe’s forced work expression packs for his Moments posts, truly embodying the role of a teasing friend to the end.

During the first few days, Su Zhe could push back Jiang Hanning with the question, “Watching these every day, did you pass your makeup exam?” But when Jiang Hanning arrogantly announced he had passed his makeup exam, Su Zhe was helpless against this joker.

What’s more absurd was that during “The Third” group days, everyone knew Su Zhe and Jiang Hanning had the closest relationship. Back then, many fans had shipped them as a CP, and they even had a CP name called “Ning Zhe’s Not Gay.”

Originally, when Su Zhe flopped after the company-arranged marketing stunt incident, this CP also faded away.

But with Su Zhe’s thriving success in the sports world after leaving the entertainment circle, many former CP fans picked up their love for this pairing again, resuming their shipping, and even slightly boosting Jiang Hanning’s popularity as a result.

After Jiang Hanning sent Su Zhe their CP video edits with a string of “haha”s, he proudly declared to Su Zhe: “Look! In these videos the girls edited, I’m always the top! What does that mean? It means I’m more manly than you!”

Faced with a friend who had such a peculiar train of thought, Su Zhe had nothing to say and could only silently reply with two words: “Get lost.”

While various training programs were conducting tests to verify the results of this training camp, the “Chasing the Light” crew, who had previously contacted the Track and Field Management Center’s Commercial and Events Department, also confirmed their visit date.

For this visit, the Chasing the Light crew didn’t promote it on Weibo in advance. Instead, they planned to make a unified announcement after their arrival.

Although Su Zhe already knew about the crew’s visit plans early on, he had pushed it to the back of his mind during this period of intense training, until the previous night when Shao Xingchen ended their chat with a casual “See you tomorrow.”

???

Su Zhe was stunned for a moment before realizing that the next day must be the scheduled visit of the Chasing the Light crew.

The date was chosen quite cleverly. The next day was September 23rd, the final day of the closed training camp. The crew’s visit at this time wouldn’t affect the athletes’ training. Instead, they could capitalize on various training tests taking place, and they might even be able to have some fun around the training base.

Early the next morning, as soon as Su Zhe woke up, he received today’s random task from the sand sculpture² system – interact with any person during the livestream and obtain 10,000 satisfaction points.

10,000 satisfaction points?

Su Zhe was slightly surprised by this requirement. As the training progressed and the livestream’s popularity gradually increased, the sand sculpture system gave him different tasks each day, with varying data requirements.

However, 10,000 points was indeed the highest target so far during this period.

But considering today was the last day of training, and he alone had three report tests to complete, plus tonight’s livestream would be the final episode, it was guaranteed to have higher traffic than usual. Su Zhe felt reassured about meeting the 10,000-point requirement.

As for the requirement to interact with any person, this had appeared before. When he first received such a task, Su Zhe was worried whether it had any special requirements. In the end, he determined that he really just needed to interact with random people. Whether through conversation or training together, it would be counted as an interaction. The only issue was that the final audience satisfaction value would be divided into different portions, categorized as satisfaction generated when interacting with different subjects A, B, C, and D.

Overall, although this sand sculpture system was ridiculous, it had never actually tricked him.

When Su Zhe arrived at the training field, it was around 8 AM. Since he had three consecutive report tests today, Su Yinsheng did not arrange any high-intensity training for him. He just asked him to continue familiarizing himself with and consolidating some technical movement details after warming up.

By 9 AM, Su Zhe had completed his warm-up training and was communicating with the coaches about adjustments to his movements and rhythm control issues during competitions.

At this time, outside the national track and field team’s training center, a bus arrived quietly. After communicating with the training center staff, the bus was allowed to enter.

On this bus were the members of the Chasing the Light crew.

There were four main members coming to visit Su Zhe and promote the drama: Director Liu Zhengyan, male lead Shao Xingchen, female lead Ye Chichi, and the elderly actor Qiu Mingchi who played the coach in the drama.

Some additional staff accompanied them, but these four were the main people who would appear on camera. The female lead Ye Chichi, who was known for her lively and cheerful personality, was assigned to host this visit.

From the moment she stepped off the bus, Ye Chichi, with her ponytail, held a microphone and began her hosting mode.

“Wow, this is the first time I’m entering the legendary national team’s closed training base. For this opportunity, I must first thank our visit subject today – the actor who plays Lu Ming in our Chasing the Light, our classmate Su Zhe!”

“Speaking of which, when I first joined the crew, I always thought Su Zhe was just an ordinary actor, until Su Zhe started running on the track at our filming location… That was really the first time in my life I saw someone run so fast in front of my eyes… Thinking back now, I still feel Su Zhe was so cool!”

“I hope today we can also see Su Zhe’s cool side!”

Shao Xingchen, who had also gotten out of the car, was observing the environment of the training base.

Today he wore a loose black T-shirt with a somewhat stylishly designed loose jacket over it. The cuffs were casually folded up, and he paired it with black pants and sneakers. He also had a black baseball cap on his head, giving his overall appearance a very low-key look.

Behind Shao Xingchen, Director Liu Zhengyan was expressing his good fortune to the veteran actor Qiu Mingchi from the crew.

“At that moment, with just one glance, I felt the role of Lu Ming belonged to no one but him. If our drama series didn’t have a cooperative relationship with the Track and Field Management Center, with Coach Su’s stubborn temperament back then, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get Su Zhe to join the crew.” Liu Zhengyan sighed with a smile, “Originally, I just thought that Ah Zhe’s image, temperament, and professionalism all fit Lu Ming’s character too well. Who would have thought that he would be even more impressive off-screen than on-screen?”

Qiu Mingchi also nodded with a smile, “Su Zhe is indeed very good. When I’m not on set, I sometimes watch track and field competitions at home. These days I haven’t missed any of his competitions; I’ve watched them all. His fighting spirit and talent sometimes make me think that the character of Lu Ming was written based on him.”

The crew, led by staff members, chatted and recorded as they made their way to the training ground where Su Zhe was located.

It was only at this point that the publicity staff following the crew released the news, allowing the staff waiting at their computers to post the announcement about this surprise visit.

[Chasing the Light crew – Director @Liu Zhengyan, Xie Wei @Shao Xingchen, Ming Lu @Ye Chichi, Coach @Qiu Mingchi, all visiting “Lu Ming” @Su Zhe’s national team closed training. Live stream address: online link.]

Soon, this Weibo post was promoted on the drama’s official account.

In the blink of an eye, Satellites³ had occupied the comment section of this Weibo post. Occasionally, they would tag Su Zhe’s fans, and both fan groups engaged in mutual praise in the comments.

The news of the Chasing the Light crew’s visit spread not only through the official Weibo but also in the sports channel’s livestream, where many curious viewers discovered this event.

As a result, a large number of casual viewers began entering the livestream from different channels, joining the celebration of the final day of training.

At the training site in the training base.

Su Zhe had already finished communicating with the coaching team. He arrived at the track and crouched in front of the starting blocks.

Today he had three tests to complete, and naturally, the 100-meter test would be the first to begin.

When Ye Chichi saw Su Zhe, she was about to speak up, but Shao Xingchen beside her stopped her, making a gesture for silence while indicating that Su Zhe was about to start his test on the training field.

Whether it was the sports channel’s livestream director or the drama crew’s own livestream cameraman, everyone immediately shifted their cameras toward Su Zhe’s position.

“Wow! I can’t believe we’re so lucky to catch Su Zhe’s first test report today just as we arrive!” Ye Chichi suppressed her excited voice, quietly introducing the current situation to the livestream audience.

“Before coming, the crew had already received news that Su Zhe would have three test reports today, but the exact timing wasn’t clear. The crew’s visiting time is limited, so whether we could catch Su Zhe’s test also depended on our luck.” Ye Chichi said happily, “But our luck is obviously good. Su Zhe is about to begin his test report!”

As she spoke, Su Zhe had already adjusted his starting blocks and prepared himself in the ready position.

Zhang Ye called out, “Ready!” and then the starting gun fired!

Almost the instant the gun sounded, Su Zhe shot forward like a gust of wind. His explosive power at the start seemed even stronger than before, naturally giving him an even greater advantage in starting acceleration.

When this powerful wind swept through the first 30 meters of the track, both the crew members and the livestream audience were still somewhat dazed.

“Ah, Su Zhe started…”

Ye Chichi only had time to introduce this one sentence to the viewers, with not enough remaining time to explain anything more.

Everyone felt that with just a blink of an eye, Su Zhe had already run past the halfway point, and his form looked extremely relaxed and effortless, without much sense of urgency.

The viewers in both livestream channels were fixated on Su Zhe’s sprint test.

During this period, Su Zhe hadn’t yet run a complete 100 meters in a training venue that allowed livestream filming. Although the viewers knew Su Zhe would definitely have improved during this training camp, they found it difficult to estimate exactly where the improvements were or how much his performance would advance.

But this report test gave the audience an opportunity to understand Su Zhe’s current condition.

[This… why does Zhe-shao⁴ look so relaxed?]

[At this speed, he seems to be in peak form!]

In ten seconds, before the livestream comments had time to discuss anything, Su Zhe had already passed the halfway point and easily reached the finish line through the final sprint.

Obviously, he didn’t exert his full effort to achieve his best result in this report test, but the coaching staff on the side showed no intention of making him repeat it. Instead, they recorded his performance with satisfaction.

“Ah, that was really fast!”

Seeing that Su Zhe’s test was over, Ye Chichi finally spoke boldly, her tone filled with excitement, “But watching Su Zhe run in person is really such a cool experience!”

As she spoke, Ye Chichi passed the microphone to Shao Xingchen. “Xingchen, you just watched Su Zhe’s test, what do you think?”

“Very impressive.” Shao Xingchen was characteristically brief, paused for a moment, and only added, “He’s improved a lot.”

“Eh, is that so?” Ye Chichi was somewhat confused. “We can’t see the results from our position. How do you already know Su Zhe has improved a lot?”

Under Ye Chichi’s slightly puzzled gaze, on the training field, Su Zhe had already noticed their presence and smiled while waving at them.

Shao Xingchen also waved back at Su Zhe, then nodded to Ye Chichi before turning and walking toward Su Zhe.

“Sigh, okay, Xie Wei has rushed off to Lu Ming again.” Ye Chichi criticized without mercy: “If it weren’t for the fact that our Director Liu and the scriptwriter are both hardcore straight men, sometimes I would suspect I’ve been given a female supporting role script. The friendship between men is truly terrifying!”

After Shao Xingchen, Ye Chichi, Director Liu Zhengyan, and Qiu Mingchi also walked over to Su Zhe.

Having not seen each other for a long time, Su Zhe was very happy to see everyone arrive. The sprint team’s report test was still an hour away, so with Su Yinsheng’s permission, he took everyone for a tour around the area. He briefly introduced the training center’s setup and their training situation.

On this topic, Ye Chichi quickly transformed into a little reporter again. “Oh, right, Su Zhe, can you tell us what your final result was in that test just now? Xingchen saw you finish and said you ran impressively and that you’ve improved a lot… but we haven’t even seen your results???”

Hearing Ye Chichi’s words, Su Zhe was somewhat surprised.

He nodded at Ye Chichi. “The result just now was decent, 10.12 seconds.”

In fact, his real report test had already been conducted in a non-public venue. Running another trial within the livestream area was only arranged according to the sports channel director’s requirements.

The coaching team’s instructions to him were not to run too hard, but also not to be too fake, just to moderate himself appropriately.

On one hand, he had already been tested, so there was no need to run at full strength again. On the other hand, during this training period, his performance had indeed improved significantly, and the coaching team didn’t want him to fully reveal his results in the test, otherwise it might bring too much pressure from excessive audience expectations.

But in the upcoming 4×100-meter relay test, their relay team would be more serious. The purpose of this was to give the audience some confidence and anticipation after the relay team’s previous difficulties.

But then again.

Su Zhe glanced at Shao Xingchen – if one didn’t regularly watch him run, it wouldn’t be easy to tell whether his running form was relaxed or not. This meant… as his career fan, did Boss⁵ Shao watch a lot of his races?