IBABS Chapter 65.2 — Trip to Germany

According to Jiang Fan’s introduction, the hospital they chose was the top sports medicine facility in Germany. Not only was the surgery performed by the best surgeon in the relevant department, but the post-operative rehabilitation plan was also a comprehensive, three-dimensional program developed by the hospital’s best team based on various aspects of Chen Zhi’s recovery, addressing all the key points that needed consideration.

The foreign coach specially hired by the national team for Chen Zhi had also arrived in Germany recently to join Chen Zhi’s team. Based on his own experience, he began communicating with the hospital’s rehabilitation experts to adjust the overall plan most suitable for Chen Zhi.

“Recently, he’s been able to walk a certain distance with assistance devices. His recovery is going well. The phased muscle recovery training and other plans are already scheduled. Also, the hospital is considering using a three-dimensional dynamic instability system for balance and stability-related recovery training…”

By the time the car reached the hospital, Jiang Fan had thoroughly recounted every details of Chen Zhi’s situation to Su Zhe, giving him a basic understanding of Chen Zhi’s condition.

His recovery was progressing well. The Tokyo Olympics qualification period would last until June 31, 2020. Given his current recovery state, plus the one-time repair halo from the system, it shouldn’t be a problem for Chen Zhi to regain his competitive form within the qualification period.

When Su Zhe pushed open the door to Chen Zhi’s hospital room, he saw Chen Zhi sitting by the window, turning his head to flash a smile at him, his eyes filled with gentle warmth.

Around Chen Zhi were his head coach, Tian Fangzheng, foreign coach Taylor Way¹, and several staff members from the national team, likely discussing something related to Chen Zhi.

Upon seeing Chen Zhi in the hospital room, Su Zhe immediately broke into a smile and called out, “Xiao Zhi-ge, I’m here!”

Seeing him, Chen Zhi also smiled and nodded. “Yes, I can see that. Thank you for coming all the way to Germany to see me.”

The surrounding staff members all greeted Su Zhe, smiling as they said, “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Chen Zhi has been praising you to high heaven these days. Our ears have grown calluses from hearing it! Finally, we get to see you in person!”

Chen Zhi’s head coach, Tian Fangzheng, also had a happy expression. “He deserves the praise, what’s wrong with praising him to high heaven? If I hadn’t been in Germany this whole time, I’d be green with envy seeing Lao Su now. How is his luck so good? The talents he discovered, Chen Zhi and Zhao Zhixuan, are all top-notch prospects. That Zheng Jian from your S Province Sports Team isn’t bad either. And then he has such a talented son like you…”

Not just Tian Fangzheng, but even Chen Zhi’s foreign coach Taylor Way gave him a thumbs up.

Obviously, as Jiang Fan had mentioned, everyone in the room had been closely following his matches over the past period.

Su Zhe somewhat embarrassedly greeted everyone in the room one by one.

Tian Fangzheng and Taylor Way looked at Su Zhe with obvious excitement. From the moment he entered the hospital room, before he could even exchange more than a few words with Chen Zhi, they started pulling him into a discussion about his recent training plans and results, expressing a bit of disbelief at his training intensity.

After Su Zhe entered the room, he ended up chatting with them for over half an hour before they finally left the hospital room.

Once everyone had temporarily left, Su Zhe collapsed into a chair and let out a long sigh of relief.

He really wasn’t someone skilled at conversing with many people, and today’s round of chatting was equivalent to what he would normally do over three to five days.

Chen Zhi watched him from the side and teased, “Xiao Zhe, didn’t you say something before about maintaining your image? Why are you sprawling in the chair now?”

Su Zhe waved his hand dismissively. “Come on, Xiao Zhi-ge, I’ve already left the entertainment circle. The idol image management doesn’t matter to me anymore. Now I need to focus on maintaining my training and adjusting my competitive state.”

Since Su Zhe grew up together with Chen Zhi in the sports team since childhood, there was no need for formalities between them. The mental tension Su Zhe had maintained during this period, completely immersed in training and competition, now slightly relaxed.

Taking advantage of this relaxed state, he chatted idly with Chen Zhi while selecting the one-time repair halo he had previously drawn from the system. He then chose to gift it to Chen Zhi.

“Ding, host has selected to gift an item.
Recipient: Chen Zhi.
One-time Repair Halo: Automatically activates upon gifting, nourishes the user’s body for 24 hours, accelerates healing process, gradually repairs internal injuries.
Effective duration: 30 days. (Note: Halo cannot be turned off. During healing state, consumes 200,000 reputation points daily, which will be paid by the gifter.)
Please confirm, do you wish to gift this item?”

Confirm, of course confirm.

Su Zhe chose to gift the item without hesitation.

Although he was somewhat confused why this gifted one-time repair halo needed to consume 300,000² reputation points daily, he figured it was understandable given the system’s remote operation and it was probably some “long-distance tax.”

Besides, his reputation points were increasing at a decent rate, while his usage needs were temporarily limited. Not to mention that the current training plans in the training space already left him unable to add any more attribute points. If the system’s data storage became full and asked him to convert it to attribute points later, who knew what new strange scheme the sand sculpture system would come up with?

In any case, consuming this amount of reputation points in exchange for Chen Zhi’s physical recovery was worth it.

After Su Zhe confirmed, as if to demonstrate that his usage was worth the cost, the one-time halo really appeared above Chen Zhi’s head in the form of a halo, making Chen Zhi look like a little angel with a halo, which made Su Zhe burst out laughing with a “pfft.”

???

Chen Zhi looked at Su Zhe with a confused expression. “What did I just say? Was it that funny?”

“Ah…” Su Zhe coughed and immediately put on a serious face. “No, no, Xiao Zhi-ge, you’re absolutely right. There’s nothing funny at all.”

Seeing Su Zhe’s reaction, Chen Zhi silently covered his forehead and sighed helplessly, “Alright, Xiao Zhe, I was just asking if you had any thoughts about your training for your first 60m. What were you even listening to? What do you mean ‘absolutely right’? Watching you compete recently, I thought you had matured quite a bit, but now you’re acting like a child again?”

Hearing Chen Zhi’s question, Su Zhe scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly.

Over the years, he had restrained his childish attitude, but when he saw Chen Zhi and gave him the halo to ensure his injury recovery, Su Zhe couldn’t help but relax.

Back when Chen Zhi was training with the sports team, he practically lived at Su Zhe’s home, and they grew up like real brothers. Behaving this way in front of Chen Zhi had long become a habit for him.

Putting these trivial matters aside, Su Zhe replied, “When my dad and the others go back, they’ll probably create a new training plan for me. I expect it will still focus mainly on explosive power training. As for the 110m hurdles, Coach Lü has already discussed with me about developing a technical adjustment plan to switch from eight steps to seven steps. The goal is to stabilize the new seven-step approach before next year’s Tokyo Olympics.”
Regarding his own training, apart from having his father and Lü Fei looking after him, he also had the system’s space training to provide substantial help, so Su Zhe wasn’t particularly worried.

He shifted the conversation toward Chen Zhi. “Xiao Zhi-ge, I don’t have any issues here, but what about you? Were you having difficulties with your technical adjustments before?”

Chen Zhi didn’t hide anything from Su Zhe’s question. “Yes, I was adjusting my stride length and frequency. After discussion, the coaching team believed I still had room for adjustment in both areas, but the training wasn’t going particularly smoothly. Increasing stride length leads to more airtime, which reduces stride frequency, but increasing stride frequency requires strengthening the lower limbs…”

Hearing this, Su Zhe nodded in understanding.

Chen Zhi’s previous injury was a stress fracture in his lower limbs, which must have occurred during training to strengthen his lower limbs.

Thinking about that accident, Su Zhe couldn’t help but frown as he advised, “After this recovery, you still need to be careful in training…” After a moment’s thought, Su Zhe added, “My dad asked me to tell you something: even without Chen Zhi, the track and field world won’t collapse.”

Hearing this, Chen Zhi immediately smiled and shook his head. “I understand Master’s meaning, but you know, besides the pressure, my heart is also on the track.”

Chen Zhi’s response left Su Zhe speechless, his mouth opening slightly before deciding not to say anything more.

Looking at Su Zhe, Chen Zhi smiled and said, “Xiao Zhe, you know I’m 28 this year. Theoretically, I’ve already passed the golden period for 100m sprinters, but I still want to run on the track, still want to keep breaking through… If before I was running with some pressure, now you’ve helped me share part of that burden.”

“I never got the chance to say this to you, but thank you, Xiao Zhe. Now, I can run with all my strength, for myself. I don’t believe I’ll stop here. I also want to recover soon, to meet you on the track sooner. I hope that when we’re both at our best, we can compete against each other on the field.”

Seeing Chen Zhi’s serious expression, Su Zhe finally didn’t say anything more.

Since that year when he was seven and first met Chen Zhi, he knew how much this person loved running. The joyful light in his eyes when he raced down the track said it all.

Su Zhe composed himself and smiled at Chen Zhi. “Alright, didn’t we already make a promise? We’ll definitely meet on the track soon!”

How exhilarating would it be to compete against Chen Zhi at his best on the track?

Thinking about this, a spark of excitement lit up in Su Zhe’s eyes.