Chapter 833 — Sent the Ball Flying

After Shen Yushu finished her shot, it was Gu Mengyao's turn. This time Wei Zhao had kept his energy well in hand, so Gu Mengyao's shot, apart from looking a little too forceful, betrayed nothing at all out of the ordinary...

Wei Zhao let out a breath of relief. When it came to handling this energy, he was actually getting rather handy at it.

Then it was Shen Yushu's turn again — but that earlier spectacle did not repeat itself. Just another plain, unremarkable shot, which set Zhen Yingjun's mind at ease. Apparently Shen Yushu's earlier stroke had indeed been a blind cat stumbling onto a dead mouse; otherwise she would surely have played that kind of ball again this time.

At last it was Zhen Yingjun's turn. He was rather pleased with himself; judging by the way the balls lay on the table now, he would certainly clear it in a single visit! With his skill, these were nothing at all.

Unhurried and composed, Zhen Yingjun picked out his first target, then bent low and gracefully pushed his cue forward.

The instant Zhen Yingjun's cue struck the cue ball, Wei Zhao sent energy into it.

As a result, Zhen Yingjun's cue ball went whoosh — like a rocket launching, it left the table and flew clean off! He had played a beautiful jump shot.

Before the crowd could quite react, the cue ball landed with a bang on the face of one of the onlookers, bloodying his nose on the spot and knocking out two of his front teeth. Stung by the pain, the man let out a howl, then glared and jabbed a finger at Zhen Yingjun. "You bastard, are you blind? Where are you aiming? You've knocked your grandpa's front teeth loose!"

"Sorry, sorry, my apologies..." Arrogant as Zhen Yingjun usually was, he knew well enough that he was in Songshan City now, not Donghai, his own turf, and stirring up trouble here would be unwise. Besides, he prided himself on the principle of civilized womanizing and could not afford to look too brutish, so he could only take out his wallet apologetically, count out three thousand yuan, and hand it over. "This is for medical expenses. Consider it my compensation to you."

The man was a jobless drifter who never worked a day in his life. At the sight of three thousand yuan his eyes lit up at once. He pocketed Zhen Yingjun's money and stopped complaining, standing off to one side with a hand clapped over his mouth.

Zhen Yingjun had no time just then to dawdle with these people. His chief aim was to defeat Shen Yushu and Gu Mengyao and thereby prove that he was qualified to teach them billiards, so he simply paid to avert disaster.

What rotten luck! Zhen Yingjun thought to himself. He really had been a bit impatient — he had carelessly put too much force into the shot and popped out a jump ball! Still, a jump ball was not something just anyone could pull off; he had made one without even meaning to, which was pretty damn impressive.

Apparently he had merely been careless and failed to gauge the force properly, and that was what had produced the present situation. Next time he would have to be more careful.

"All right, my turn!" Once Zhen Yingjun had made a fool of himself, Shen Yushu took a fresh cue ball and set it on the table, ready to break.

Shen Yushu sighted one of the balls, then struck!

Still, it had to be said that Shen Yushu had found a decent angle. The cue ball struck one of the balls in her own color group and pushed it out; it looked about to drop into a pocket, but because the force had been a touch too weak, the ball reached the edge of the pocket only to falter for lack of momentum.

"Go... go... go..." Shen Yushu grew a little anxious as she watched the ball slow and slow, about to stop at the mouth of the pocket.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly and fed in some energy, whereupon the ball, which had been about to stop, suddenly seemed to be running on stimulants and shot into the pocket with a whoosh.

"Huh?" Zhen Yingjun had been gloating, all set to lecture Shen Yushu on the force required in billiards — that ball, with just a touch more power, would have dropped into the pocket, but Shen Yushu's weak stroke had produced the current situation.

Yet the last thing Zhen Yingjun expected was that Shen Yushu's ball, at the very moment before it stopped, could suddenly muster its strength and go straight into the pocket! What on earth was going on? Had someone tampered with it?

But that couldn't be. So many people were gathered around the table; if Shen Yushu had done something underhanded, surely someone else would have noticed. And even if no one else had, he himself had been staring fixedly at that ball the whole time — could he really have missed anything amiss?

"Wahahahaha!" Seeing the ball drop into the pocket, Shen Yushu was beside herself with joy, dancing about. "I told you I'm Shen Yushu, the billiards prodigy! See? A hair more force and it's wasted, a hair less and it's all for nothing, and this was just exactly right — no more, no less!"

Gu Mengyao had sensed something off earlier. How could a billiards expert like Zhen Yingjun suddenly play such an unbelievable shot — and hit a spectator, no less?

Then look at Shen Yushu's ball: it had clearly been about to stop, yet suddenly it moved again and rolled into the pocket all on its own. Gu Mengyao could not help suspecting that all of this was Wei Zhao's doing. She did not know how he managed it, but she knew very well how uncanny Wei Zhao was.

"That shot of yours was actually quite risky!" Zhen Yingjun could only say. "It really was a close call — next time, better to use a bit more force!"

"More force? Like you — hitting someone in the face?" Shen Yushu shot back, glancing at Zhen Yingjun.

"Gah!" Needled by Shen Yushu like that, Zhen Yingjun flushed crimson, ground his teeth, snorted, and said no more.

Now it was Gu Mengyao's turn. She too just hit the ball casually; it was her first time playing billiards, and she had no technique to speak of. Since she already knew Wei Zhao was helping, she knew he would surely make his move at exactly the right moment.

The ball Gu Mengyao hit had no chance of going in, but in the course of its travel it struck another ball, and that ball happened to belong to Gu Mengyao's color group as well. Judging by the trajectory of this second ball, by Wei Zhao's reckoning it could go in, so once the first ball had come to a stop, he fed in some energy — whereupon this ball, much like Shen Yushu's, was just about to run out of momentum when it suddenly moved again and rolled on until it dropped into the pocket.

This time Zhen Yingjun really was dumbfounded! What was going on? A supernatural event? For there was no other explanation. To say someone had tampered with it was also unlikely, since everyone was standing at the edge of the table; no one could have reached in to touch the balls on the table. How could anyone have tampered with it?

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