The training gym's air bit sharper than usual, two degrees colder, enough to make Lin Mo's breath fog when he leaned toward the tactical board. The word "Grizzlies" loomed there, printed in bold, and his exhalation blurred it, like smudging a line in a scouting report. His left hand tightened around the red pen, and he froze—its tip angled just so, matching the way the boy's prosthetic knee bent when he leaned forward in his wheelchair, straining to reach a stray ball.
His phone vibrated. The boy's photo popped up: seven mineral water bottles on a hospital windowsill, each labeled with a name in thick marker. "Morant" was scrawled across one, "Jaren Jackson" another, "Dillon" third, and a straw stuck straight up from each neck. "Practicing my aim," the caption read. "Kinda like how you're mapping the Grizzlies' pick-and-roll blind spots. See the straws? They're your passes—gotta hit 'em dead center."
Lin Mo traced the pen over "Morant" on the board, red ink bleeding slightly into the paper. Coach Chen shuffled over, thermos in hand, and tapped the cluster of red circles near the free-throw line. "Notice how you keep circling this 15-foot mark?" he said. Lin Mo nodded. "That's where their bigs hesitate before rotating. Remind you of anything?"
It hit him then: the boy's wheelchair, turning too fast on the ward's tile, right wheel locking up at exactly that angle, 15 feet from the nurses' station where he kept his water bottle. "It's… the same as his wheelchair's jam point," Lin Mo said. Coach Chen grunted. "Basketball's just people, kid. Their habits, their kinks—same as anyone's."
The locker room TV blared Grizzlies highlights. Jaren Jackson planted, then swiped at a passing lane, his elbow flicking up to wipe sweat—exactly the motion the boy used when polishing rust off his prosthetic hinge, thumb dragging over the metal. Lin Mo's pen moved again, red ink carving a new line: "Jackson's swipe = 0.5s delay. Target the gap."
Outside, the sun dipped lower, casting the board in gold. Lin Mo's shadow overlapped the Grizzlies' logo, and for a second, it looked like the shadow was drawing, too—like the boy, somewhere, was guiding his hand.