CHAPTER 79: CHAPTER 66: DUEL ON THE TRACK

The starting pistol had just been raised when all the first runners were already in their ready stance. A gunshot echoed, and wisps of white smoke rose. Scattered cheers broke out across the field.

"The first runners are evenly matched in terms of strength," both sides’ first runners, whether in height or speed, were on the same level. It was just that Zhang Fangxiao’s group gained a slight advantage at the start, leading by a body’s length.

"How long did that run just take?" Lu Xun suddenly asked, and it was only then that Ren Minghang stopped his stopwatch, awkwardly looking at the time displayed; he had just... zoned out.

Xia You had her bat-like military uniform tied around her waist, her slender legs swinging loosely in the spacious trousers. Compared to Zhang Fangxiao, who looked tense right beside her, she seemed quite casual. Her long hair, under the sunlight, looked even blacker, and as the wind blew, a faint scent of shampoo wafted around.

"Li Xi, do you have a hair tie?" Xia You had just finished her question when Li Xi gestured helplessly; Li Xi had short hair. Xia You realized she had asked the wrong person, internally annoyed that she had been too hasty this morning and hadn’t tied her hair up properly.

"She’s still in the mood, and you look more nervous than she does," Lu Xun couldn’t help but tease Ren Minghang. Indeed, Ren Minghang looked rather out of it, but when Lu Xun had been Ren Minghang’s instructor years ago, he never saw him so dazed. Lu Xun shook his head.

Judging from the second leg, Zhang Fangxiao’s dorm’s strength was much superior. The one body length deficit from the first leg had turned into a thirty to forty meters difference by the end of the second leg.

"With this thirty to forty meters lead, I can extend it by another thirty to forty meters," Zhang Fangxiao began her lead-off run, her sense of rhythm excellent, and the baton exchange went very smoothly.

In a blink of an eye, Xia You was left behind. Zhang Fangxiao, running ahead, moved her long legs swiftly, the sound of rushing wind by her ears, with just a hundred meters left to the baton handoff.

The cheers of the sports field had quieted down. Something felt wrong to Zhang Fangxiao.

Xi was also gazing ahead; Xia You’s speed... Xia You didn’t look anything special when she started running, like a gentle drizzle of rain. For the first three hundred meters, she kept a distance of around thirty meters behind Zhang Fangxiao, biting at her heels.

Until the last hundred meters, the frequency at which her feet hit the ground suddenly changed. The pacing of her footsteps increased rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, you could only see a blur of white legs.

Forty meters turned into thirty, then twenty. She ran faster and faster, like a runaway train, like a stream turning into a cascading waterfall.

In Xia You’s eyes, besides sunlight and the moving shadows of trees, there was nothing else. No Zhang Fangxiao, no baton, only the blue sky, white clouds, and the breeze on her face.

Zhang Fangxiao dared not look back, but the pounding footsteps by her ears, along with her roommate’s cheers, meant she didn’t need to turn around to know what was happening behind her. At that moment, she felt as if chased by a beast and could feel Xia You’s footsteps already stepping on her heels.

"Her name is Xia You, right? In the last hundred meters, she actually ran faster than male students, no, even faster than the male students. I remember, two days ago, she was still desperately striving for a time of twelve seconds for a hundred meters," Lu Xun rubbed his chin, musing that for a normal person to achieve such progress could only be attributed to two reasons: one could be performance-enhancing drugs, and the other, her explosive power is astounding.

"Hurry up, faster," Ren Minghang’s stopwatch in his hand had become redundant, his eyes closely following Xia You.

"Minghang, you..." Lu Xun cleared his throat.

"Xia You." Li Xi exclaimed, she was already prepared for the lead-off run, at the last turn where she was to take the baton from Xia You. Starting to jog, Li Xi heard the sound of something heavy hitting the ground from behind.

Xia You was lying face-down on the ground, Zhang Fangxiao had already run ahead, passing the baton to the fourth runner. Li Xi turned back and saw Xia You had fallen on the track.

Blood immediately started to appear on her fair chin, and several strands of black hair fell to the ground.

Xia You struggled to prop herself up with her arm, which started to bleed profusely. The yellowish dirt instantly turned red.

Her face hidden behind her hair, no sign of pain visible, "Here," in a lowered voice, Xia You’s arm was still bleeding non-stop.