Chapter 43: When Glory Returns (2)
The bow lasted a full ten seconds.
When Lin Yiyang straightened up again, he immediately reached for a piece of chalk powder, appearing eager to resume the match. In truth, he was avoiding the live broadcast cameras, hoping the tears would vanish the moment he lowered his head.
In the lounge, Yin Guo watched the man on the screen stand tall, his eyes still red. Some things couldn’t be hidden or suppressed—especially tears. No one could fully control their emotions.
"Lin Yiyang, this player, was He Wenfeng's last disciple. Unfortunately, he left the school early," the commentator's voice echoed through the lounge. "It seems he could never forget his mentor."
"This player's personal journey is quite interesting. He spent the past year playing Nine-ball in the U.S. Everyone assumed he'd change nationalities, but up until the China Open, he remained a Chinese citizen."
The two commentators continued their discussion.
It was break time, and everyone in the training base—staff, players, and sparring partners—was watching the match.
From the very beginning until now, Lin Yiyang had always been a controversial player.
Even his bow just now drew criticism from some male players. "Jiang Yang and Meng Xiaodong's positions might be in jeopardy. This guy has both skill and cunning. That bow earned him a lot of goodwill points."
Another male player chimed in, "This guy's a money magnet. He swept through prize money in local Nine-ball tournaments in the U.S."
"He's in it for the money. The prize pools in those small local tournaments are no joke," said a thin-faced man. "But if you lose, you get nothing—just wasted money on flights and hotels. It's a loss."
"The heart of Nine-ball has always been in Asia. That's where the real masters are. Even if he wanted to compete here, he wouldn't stand a chance."
These two were newcomers who had debuted this year. The thin-faced one had won his first championship in Hangzhou and was riding high on his success.
Yin Guo glanced back.
Lin Lin happened to be standing nearby, arms crossed, wearing her coach's uniform. She had overheard the conversation. Without even batting an eyelid—after all, no one could outdo East New City's crew when it came to arrogance—she made a mental note to drag these two into a match when she was in a better mood. She’d show them what it meant to meet someone beyond their league.
"Alright, everyone, the afternoon sparring matches are about to start. Same as before—mixed doubles," Lin Lin announced.
The group began filing out of their seats. Yin Guo took one last look at the man on the screen, dressed in his shirt, and remembered him in last year’s apartment, buttoning up while asking her, "Still good to look at?"
...
She couldn’t miss it—the way Lin Yiyang wore his shirt, the way he fastened his buttons—all of it was a display of the countless memories etched into his bones from his time backstage at tournaments.
As Yin Guo walked alongside Lin Lin toward the training room, she suddenly asked, "We can pick our own opponents today, right?"
Lin Lin’s eyes glinted with amusement, as if asking, Who do you have in mind?
Yin Guo looked toward the Hangzhou champion.
Lin Lin gave an OK sign. "Perfect. He’s been looking for someone on his level too."
The opponent Yin Guo had chosen was at the peak of his confidence, a rising star who had made it to the national team right out of the gate. Yin Guo, on the other hand, was last year’s World Championship runner-up and a key player in the national team’s development plans.
A clash between two rising stars—this match wouldn’t be any less thrilling than the Snooker showdown happening right now at the Olympic Center.What's more, Snooker requires strategic planning, and star players are all a bunch of calculating old men—watching the matches demands patience. In contrast, 9-ball is fast-paced, with players showcasing more individual styles, each shot brimming with aggression.
When it comes to head-to-head battles, 9-ball is far more exhilarating.
The rounds are quick, the clashes fierce, with dazzling trick shots that leave the audience in awe.
Yin Guo brought her A-game, and the surge of adrenaline had all the girls competing against the guys hooked. From positioning to striking, not a single one of them held back.
She, in particular, performed exceptionally.
One after another, the color balls dropped into the pockets—flawlessly, without a hint of deviation.
Lin Lin and a few sparring partners sipped green tea on the sidelines, cheering now and then, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
Out of twelve tables in the competition, the female players had an astonishingly high win rate.
Yin Guo’s table was evenly matched, making for a nail-biting showdown with intense tension. In the end, Lin Lin wrote the final score on the whiteboard: 11-8. Having won the match, Yin Guo leaned against the edge of the table, her temples damp with sweat, her eyelashes so wet that blinking blurred her vision.
"Impressive," the man across from her conceded.
Catching her breath, she said to her opponent, "Last year, I played against Lin Yiyang in New York—I lost. His achievements in this sport aren’t just talk. If you don’t believe in him, use this."
She tightened her grip on the cue in her right hand and concluded, "On the court, we let this do the talking."
Inside the Olympic Center Stadium, not a single extraneous sound could be heard.
Meng Xiaodong sat beside the competition area, watching his old rival.
In the first half of the match, he had taken a commanding 3-1 lead. But then, Lin Yiyang mounted a fierce comeback, winning four consecutive frames with century breaks, flipping the score to 3-5.
Perhaps it was because his coach was present at the start, or perhaps because this place held special meaning for him—Lin Yiyang had initially played cautiously. But by the sixth frame, he was growing increasingly uninhibited.
Not many red balls remained on the table.
Lin Yiyang wasn’t in a hurry to take his shot. It seemed he was determined to set a record in this frame. He walked over to a nearby table, picked up a glass of iced green tea, and drank while calmly studying the layout on the table.
Soon, he returned.
After bending into position, he reconsidered and straightened up again, his lips pressed together as he lost himself in thought, calculating how to achieve a maximum break of 147.
"We see Lin Yiyang picking up the rest, but it doesn’t seem to be working well for him," the commentator noted. "From this angle, is he trying to commit suicide?" The commentator chuckled, his tone a mix of anticipation and tension.
The angle Lin Yiyang was attempting was risky—the slightest misstep would send the cue ball into a pocket. A gamble like this was something someone like Meng Xiaodong would never take. This was the difference between the two.
"He’s abandoned the rest."
Suddenly, without warning, Lin Yiyang struck. The black ball dropped into the pocket, and the cue ball ricocheted off the edge of the pocket before bouncing back out.
A collective gasp of surprise filled the arena, followed by a brief, synchronized round of applause.
This time, he didn’t pause. He chalked his cue tip, circled to the opposite side of the table, and took another shot—the black ball, freshly replaced by the referee, dropped in again, followed immediately by another red.
He kept sinking reds, and he kept sinking the highest-value black."What a shot!" Time and again, he managed to create opportunities to sink the black ball.
The applause in the arena suddenly grew fervent but remained brief, quickly quieting down to give the player space.
Lin Yiyang bent over, steadied his left hand as a bridge, and stared at the cue ball and the black ball for a second before straightening up again.
He was thinking about positioning.
After a few seconds of contemplation, he suddenly leaned down and took the shot. The black ball dropped, and the cue ball caromed halfway around the table before settling into a perfect position—still an ideal angle for the next shot.
The last red ball thudded into the pocket.
Only the color balls remained on the table. All he had to do was pocket them in order, and this frame—along with the entire group match—would be smoothly secured.
Amid the applause, Lin Yiyang grew even more relaxed.
One by one, the color balls disappeared into the pockets.
When only the cue ball and the black ball were left on the table, the applause erupted unexpectedly.
This applause wasn’t just congratulating him for winning the frame—it was also celebrating the imminent second maximum break (147) of his career.
Meng Xiaodong was the first to stand, extending his right hand. "Congratulations."
The referee also shook Lin Yiyang’s hand with a smile, murmuring, "Congratulations."
Everyone knew that at Lin Yiyang’s level, the last black ball would undoubtedly find its way into the pocket, and the final points would be secured. So even before the last black ball was potted, the audience, his opponent, and even the referee chose to celebrate in advance.
Having returned to the competitive scene just over a year ago, he had already achieved his second maximum break. His future would undoubtedly be radiant.
And this was on the very first day of the Open’s main event, on home soil, with a domestic player setting a maximum break record. This glory wasn’t just Lin Yiyang’s—it belonged to the entire Chinese contingent!
Since the first maximum break in 1982, there had only been a little over a hundred 147s recorded in the entire history of Snooker.
Every single one was documented by the International Billiards Federation.
Every single one.
Lin Yiyang gave Meng Xiaodong a light pat on the back, as if to say: Old friend, sorry, but I won this one first.
Meng Xiaodong smiled faintly and took two polite steps back, yielding the table to him.
Lin Yiyang picked up the chalk and rubbed it on the tip of his cue. He bent down and took the shot without even needing to aim—after practicing for hours every day since childhood, he had probably made this exact shot, at this angle and with this force, hundreds of thousands of times.
There would be no mistake.
The black ball shot into the corner pocket at lightning speed—no suspense, no deviation.
Cheers erupted, and the arena exploded with applause.
The entire audience applauded in gratitude, thanking Lin Yiyang and Meng Xiaodong for the thrilling match. As fans, witnessing such a spectacular game and the birth of a maximum break was nothing short of a privilege.
Under the spotlight, amid the roaring applause, Lin Yiyang glanced at his coach’s seat—it was empty. The old man must have left, unable to sit for too long at his age. Lin Yiyang waved to the audience, nodded in acknowledgment, then picked up his cue and walked down the corridor leading to the backstage lounge. Waiting for him along the way were Wu Wei, Jiang Yang, and Fan Wencong.
Jiang Yang immediately pulled his junior into a hug, thumping him on the back. "The coach said you played well."
"He’s waiting for you backstage," Jiang Yang added, releasing him.The two men locked eyes, the fearless warrior on the battlefield now gazing toward the corridor exit...
"What? Afraid to go out?" Jiang Yang asked. "Scared?"
Yes, he was scared.
There were only a handful of people in this world who could make him feel fear.
This was a fear born of reverence—a respect that hadn't diminished with age but had grown clearer with time, like an immovable boulder pressing on his heart, keeping him from reckless action.
He removed his bowtie and slowly tucked it into his trouser pocket. With his brothers giving him encouraging pushes from behind, he tightened his grip on the cue and took the first step.
The moment had finally come. In foreign lands, he had asked himself countless times: What if, upon returning home, the old man was already gone? Lin Yiyang, what are you waiting for? Why insist on only coming back when you're strong enough to compete on home soil, strong enough to win championships?
Aren't you afraid?
An octogenarian could leave this world at any moment—aren't you truly afraid?
His field of vision gradually widened.
Backstage staff and resting players were immersed in their own worlds—some busy, others trying to calm their minds, seeking the optimal mental state for competition...
And there sat the old man on a temporary black leather folding chair outside the Chinese team's rest area, flanked by two family members. They recognized Lin Yiyang immediately, their faces lighting up as they bent to whisper in the elder's ear.
Under his teacher's gaze, he moved forward until he stood before the chair.
The once straight-backed teacher could no longer sit upright, thoroughly exhausted from watching the Snooker match. Behind his reading glasses, those eyes shone with the joy and relief of "finally seeing you again."
Lin Yiyang struggled to voice the word "teacher," but his voice failed him. Then a rough palm brushed against his hand—the teacher had grasped his left hand, the one not holding the cue.
This touch transported him back to the day he'd first joined East New City as He Wenfeng's disciple.
The room lighting had been dim then, only the tables brightly illuminated, while commentary from match recordings drifted through the slightly ajar office door. Even now, he remembered everything—the scent of the billiards hall, the water streaks left by mops on concrete floors.
He'd known all along he was wrong.
Wrong in his stubbornness, wrong in leaving East New City, wrong in refusing to admit any fault. His greatest mistake had been abandoning both mentor and brothers, relinquishing the hard-won "home" and achievements rather than swallowing his pride.
The arrogant, obstinate youth had believed departure was the most dashing choice, the most principled exit—even convinced everyone was deliberately making things difficult, suppressing him, humiliating him... forgetting it had all begun with his own mistakes. Regardless of their nature or severity, wrongs should be acknowledged with bowed head.
"Little Six," He Wenfeng choked out, holding his hand, repeating after a long pause, "Little Six..."
Everyone expected He Lao to comment on the recent maximum break.
Instead, the elder wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and murmured emotionally, "You've grown taller. Your hands weren't this big before..."
The teacher could no longer hold your hand properly.
Lin Yiyang knelt, setting his cue on the floor, and clasped the old man's hands in both of his—those hands now just skin stretched over bones and joints, wrinkled and veined.Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at his teacher. "It's cloudy outside, and if it rains, it won't be easy for someone your age," he said, his words ordinary but stuck in his throat, making it hard to continue. "Next time... when there's a live match, I'll call you ahead of time so you can watch it at home."
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