21: Goddess's encouragement

The door was gently closed.

In the entire film room, only Lin Feng remained, surrounded by the harsh glare of the lights.

He stood there, still processing the information-heavy "private lesson" he had just received.

Every word from Kobe was like a precision scalpel, cutting through his flashy stats from tonight to reveal the massive underlying issues.

A Swiss Army Knife.

The term echoed repeatedly in his mind.

Tonight, he was a powerful heavy artillery piece, but artillery can misfire, and enemies will do everything they can to dismantle it.

A Swiss Army Knife, however, meant versatility—it meant having a solution for any situation.

Driving to the rim, mid-range jumpers, post-ups, passing... skills he had touched upon in training but hadn't yet honed into weapons now became crystal clear and incredibly important in his mind.

Kobe had opened a door for him, a door leading to the hall of true "superstars."

The path behind that door was covered in thorns, requiring sweat and perseverance to pave.

6:00 AM tomorrow, the practice facility.

A surge of heat welled up in Lin Feng's chest.

It wasn't the feverish excitement of victory, but a primal desire to become stronger, ignited by a higher goal.

He glanced at the clock on the wall and turned to walk out of the film room.

Immense pressure and endless expectations gripped his heart like two giant hands from either side.

The hallway was empty, with only the echo of his own footsteps.

By the time he returned to the locker room, the noise had long since dissipated.

Most of his teammates had already left, leaving only a few close ones still leisurely packing their things.

Seeing Lin Feng emerge, Nick Young winked at him and lowered his voice.

"Hey, Lin, that guy didn't do anything to you, did he?"

He was referring to Kobe.

Lin Feng shook his head, a smile appearing on his face that others would find hard to understand.

"He gave me a lesson."

"A lesson worth its weight in gold."

Nick Young shrugged, clearly not quite understanding.

Lin Feng didn't explain further and walked toward his locker.

The sense of floating brought on by his twelve three-pointers had been completely shattered by Kobe. What remained was an unprecedented sense of groundedness and clarity.

He sat in front of his locker and picked up his phone.

As soon as the screen lit up, a flood of messages poured in like a tide.

The phone buzzed incessantly, and the notification bar at the top of the screen was instantly filled.

There were over a dozen missed calls and hundreds of unread messages.

The first one to pop up was a text from his Agent, Jeff Austin—seven or eight messages in a row, all filled with exclamation points.

"My God! Lin! You are a god! Did you see those stats? 12 threes! You've made history!"

"My phone is ringing off the hook! Nike, Adidas, Gatorade... everyone is going crazy!"

"Listen, kid, we're rich! Get ready for an unprecedented endorsement contract!"

Lin Feng just glanced at them and swiped past.

This was all within his expectations.

Next were messages from friends back home; the content was mostly the same—shock and congratulations, filled with a sense of disbelief.

Lin Feng smiled and continued scrolling down.

There were also many texts from unknown numbers, mostly unsolicited commercial collaboration offers ranging from car brands to luxury watches—all sorts of things.

After Kobe's talk, these messages seemed somewhat dull.

Lin Feng's face remained expressionless as his fingers swiped quickly across the screen, bypassing the noisy congratulations and invitations one by one.

He was like a traveler passing through a noisy marketplace, deaf to the surrounding cries of vendors, focused only on finding the goal in his heart.

Suddenly, his finger stopped.

It was a number from South Korea.

A familiar number he had long since memorized.

It was Yoona.

His heart skipped a beat.

He tapped on the message.

There was no long-winded text, just a simple photo.

The composition of the photo was somewhat casual, as if it had been taken on a whim.

In the picture, Yoona was wearing a pink, soft-looking, comfortable set of loungewear, sitting on a sofa with her legs curled up.

On the TV screen behind her, the frozen frame showed Lin Feng being interviewed by ESPN after the game.

On the TV, he looked high-spirited and spoke with confidence.

But in the photo, she didn't show her face.

The camera angled down, capturing only a corner of the TV and her own small, fair feet in pink bunny slippers.

Her feet in the cute slippers were slightly pressed together, her toes curled playfully.

The angle and the scene looked just like a young girl secretly taking a photo with her idol on the TV.

Cautious, yet with a hint of irrepressible excitement and admiration.

Below the photo was a line of text.

It was written in somewhat awkward Chinese, likely produced by translation software.

"You're amazing! So proud of you!"

Following the text was an emoticon of someone pumping their arms for encouragement.

(ง •̀_•́)ง

Lin Feng looked at the message and the cute photo.

The exhaustion of the entire night, the high tension during the game, the immense pressure from Kobe's critique... everything heavy seemed to be gently brushed away by a soft hand at this moment.

His tense shoulders relaxed involuntarily.

The corners of his mouth curled up uncontrollably.

In the heart of Los Angeles' noisy vanity fair, under the mountain-like pressure of Kobe, this clumsy yet sincere message from a distant land was like a spring of clear water, instantly nourishing his strained heart.

It was a sliver of the purest solace he had found in this chaotic world of fame and fortune.

He stared at the photo for a long time, as if he could see through the screen to the girl on the sofa, hugging her knees and seriously typing out that line of Chinese.

He picked up his phone and tapped on the screen.

He wanted to say so much—to tell her what he had just gone through, and about Kobe's teachings.

But in the end, all those words were condensed into a few simple ones.

"Thanks."

"Get some rest."

He hit send.

After the message was sent, he set his phone aside and prepared to take a shower.

Tomorrow, another tough battle awaited him.