8 Trials (3)

After the second round, there were only two people with perfect scores. One was Li Cunde from Yuhang City, and the other was Tang Yan.

The judges were slightly stunned. Seeing such a performance from someone from Lotus City was definitely unexpected.

Tang Yan looked at the expressions of the judges and smiled before looking over at Li Cunde.

Could he maintain his perfect streak as well?

In fact, Tang Yan's performance had drawn the attention of the audience as well. They became excited at the idea of a confrontation between two masters.

After a short break, the third round begun.

Tan Yan still maintained his previous rhythm, ignoring the increased attention he was receiving.

His third round was perfect as well.

After shooting his last arrow, he laid down his bow and arrow and walked back to the grass to sit down.

The emotions of the audience were tense.

Of the two, Li Cunde was a much more cautious archer, thus his archery was slower as he paid more attention to each shot. Whilst Tang Yan had finished shooting, he was just on his fourth arrow.

Taking a deep breath and aiming his bow, he released the bow string.

Twang!

Boom!

10 points!

"Beautiful shot!" Tang Yan couldn't help but comment.

After the fourth arrow, Li Cunde was on a perfect score of 40 points. Although he was slower than Tang Yan, it was stable.

Looking at Li Cunde, Tang Yan couldn't help but sigh. This somewhat chubby high school student looked to be two or three years younger than him. Back in Lotus City, he was named a prodigy due to being only 18yrs old. If that was the case, then what was Li Cunde? From this, the disparity between the cities could be seen once again. Talent in one city was just average when moved to another.

In all honesty, he hadn't expected Li Cunde's mentality to be so strong. At such a young age, he could already steadily shoot perfect rounds at a provincial competition and so stably at that. He would be a strong opponent in the future.

Li Cunde's stable play continued until the end of the round, although slower, his results were the same as Tang Yan's: a perfect score of 60 points!

At the end of this round, there was a burst of cheering from the crowd.

In this round of the competition, the confrontation between Li Cunde and Tang Yan became extremely popular.

"Old Chen, do you think those two can shoot a perfect game?"

The judges began to discuss after seeing the results of this round. In the first group, Zhang Han's performance had made them satisfied. But he had only shot 349 points. Now seeing these two shooting three rounds of perfect scores, they began to ponder if it was possible for the two to shoot a completely perfect game.

Seeing so many talented young archers, it seemed the future was bright.

"It's hard to say. Tang Yan shoots very quickly, so whether he can maintain his accuracy is difficult to guarantee. Li Cunde, on the other hand, is much slower, but his shots are steady. If you really want to hear my thoughts, I think Li Cunde has a better chance of shooting a perfect game," said the coach, known as Lao Chen.

"I disagree."

"Oh? You think Tang Yan has a greater chance?"

"Naturally, since he can be so accurate while shooting so quickly, he can slow down and shoot even more precisely. Plus, doesn't it feel like he shouldn't be on this event but the 70m event instead?"

.....

Twang!

Boom!

"Tang Yan, 10 points."

Tang Yan, having maintained his previous speed and accuracy had just finished a perfect game of 360 points!

The audience burst into cheers once again.

Tang Yan had finished exactly one and a half minutes ahead of schedule. This was definitely an unprecedented performance. Although Li Cunde was still in with a chance, everyone could see that there was a gap in their strength.

Twang!

Boom!

"Li Cunde, 10 points!"

The umpire reported the results of Li Cunde's fifth arrow, causing the scene to fall into chaos.

Loading his final arrow, Li Cunde drew the bow back and aimed; he held his position a while then shot...

Twang!

Boom!

"Li Cunde, 9 points."

Silence filled the arena, all that could be heard were the gasps of the audience.

Xiao Yan could be seen shaking his head helplessly.

The second group preliminaries ended, and the results of this group were released.

Tang Yan came in first place in his group with 360 points. He was also ranked in first place out of all the current archers.

Li Cunde was in second place in the group and overall, with 359 points.

The veteran archer Song Sizhe from Wenzhou City scored 357 points, making him third in the group and third, overall.

The results of their group were quite good; the top three were basically guaranteed to advance into the finals.

The 50-meter event wasn't a mainstream event; therefore, there were only 48 people competing in it. There were a total of eight archers in each group for a total of six groups.

After the four remaining groups had finished shooting, another person had achieved a perfect score of 360 points.

In the fourth group, Zhou Ning from Yuhang City had also shot a perfect game like Tang Yan.

However, because Tang Yan used less time, he was ranked in first place in the preliminaries, while Zhou Ning was second.

In the final stages of the competition, of the 48 players, only the top eight would be advancing to the quarter finals.

Tang Yan's opponent in the quarter finals was Song Sizhe, and he was ranked eighth.

The quarter finals would take place in the afternoon after the 50m preliminaries, the 70m and 90m preliminaries took place.

After the 50m event, the audiences' emotions were on edge.

Tang Yan returned to the resting area to watch the other events.

As he was watching the 90-meter preliminaries, an uninvited guest appeared- Shao Ping.

"Coach," said Tang Yan respectively upon seeing Shao Ping. Though he didn't particularly like Shao Ping, since he was the head coach, he knew to be respectful.

"Well done at the preliminaries. I hope you continue to perform well in the afternoon. Try your best to win the event, and I will try my best to help you get into the provincial team."

Hearing what Shao Ping said, Tang Yan was stunned. He hadn't expected Shao Ping to advocate for him.

He suddenly felt that maybe Shao Ping wasn't as bad as the other team members made him out to be.

"Of course, I will try my best. Thank you so much, coach," said Tang Yan with excitement clear in his voice.

Shao Ping nodded with a smile, patted him on the shoulder then headed back to the judges panel.