9 Trials (4)
90-meters was the furthest distance in an archery competition. At this distance, it became extremely difficult to maintain a high level of accuracy.
But those from Yuhang City seemed to defy this, shooting 300 point games, which attracted wild cheers from the crowd.
After the end of the 90-meter preliminaries, all the events in the morning were over, and the audience withdrew. The coaches of each team also began to find their archers who had advanced past the preliminaries and began to discuss the afternoon finals.
As expected, whether it was the 50m, 70m or 90m event, Yuhang City had the most archers through to the next round.
In the 70m event, five of the eight archers who made it into the next round were from Yuhang City.
In contrast to this, the 50m was a lot more diverse. They had Song Sizhe from Wenzhou City, Li Tao from Taizhou, Qiu Tian from Huzhou City, plus Tang Yan.
Four of the finalists weren't from Yuhang City.
It was worth mentioning that, of the 10 archers from Lotus City, the only one to qualify for the next round was Tang Yan.
After a short break at noon, the afternoon finals were kicked off.
Compared with the morning, the number of people watching the trials increased significantly, reaching more than 2,000 people, more than double the morning.
More viewers also made the tension at the scene increase, and for many of the young archers, this was also a psychological test.
The first competition was the 50-meter quarter finals. The first pair of archers were Tang Yan and Song Sizhe.
This round of the archery competition was quite different from the preliminaries. At the preliminaries, everyone shot at the same time. But now, they would take turns to shoot a total of 12 arrows.
They would shoot three sets of arrows each round for a total of four rounds, and they were now limited to two minutes as well instead of four. The person with the highest amount of points at the end would win and move onto the next round. If they got the same number of points, they would go into overtime where they would continue to shoot three sets of arrows until a final winner was decided.
Tang Yan had ranked higher in the preliminaries, so he had the right to shoot first.
"Old Chen, do you think Song Sizhe has a chance to win?" The judges began to discuss again.
"He does have a chance albeit a small one. The pressure on the players in the finals compared to the preliminaries is different, and look at the size of the audience now. This will be a test of their mental fortitude as well as their abilities. Although Song Sizhe's preliminaries weren't as good as Tang Yan's, he has more experience in competitions like this. This might just give him the edge over Tang Yan to win."
"What you've said makes sense. I really think that'll be the case. In the morning, it may have been because Tang Yan was from Lotus City which caused people to be surprised and put them off their game. This quarter final does seem to lean more towards Song Sizhe's favor."
...
At the judges panel, Shao Ping and Sun Hao sat together. In the morning, the two men had ridiculed each other, and now in the afternoon, their archers were facing each other. They both became silent and stared straight at the shooting gallery.
Tang Yan walked to the white line and took a deep breath after adjusting his stance. He didn't have the slightest bit of tension; instead, he was filled with excitement.
The referee quickly signaled the start of the round.
He took another deep breath and quickly calmed his emotions.
However, he didn't immediately start shooting like usual; instead he held his bow up, aimed then held it.
"What's Tang Yan doing? Why isn't he shooting? Don't tell me he's overcome with nerves and can't move?"
Seeing Tang Yan not shooting his arrow, not only the audience, but even the judges became shocked.
He looked like he had frozen up like a character out of a horror movie.
"Haha... Shao Ping, it seems like your golden goose has ..." Just as one of the coaches began to mock Shao Ping...
Tang Yan moved.
Like a flash of lightning, he released the arrow.
Twang!
Boom!
10 points!
Just as the crowd reacted and began to cheer,Tang Yan took out another arrow and carried out a series of extremely smooth technical movements.
Twang!
Boom!
The second arrow was another 10 pointer!
Not stopping, he took up his third arrow and fired.
Twang!
BOOM!
Another 10 pointer!
After shooting, he glanced at the results, turned and strode back to his resting area.
....
What tension? With the abilities of Lu Guang, What did he have to fear? With a system behind him, who could stop him in this life?
Song Sizhe after seeing all of this began to feel immense pressure. In fact, Tang Yan shooting a perfect 30 points didn't surprise him. After all, it was only 50 meters, but Tang Yan's three consecutive shots in just a matter of seconds left him flabbergasted.
However, as an old veteran, he was quick to recover. As he walked to the competition area, he stabilized his mind.
His archery speed was very slow. In fact, in the final stage, as long as the 3 arrows were shot within the specified 2 minutes, the results were the same. He shot in a slow and stable manner.
He steadily shot a perfect round of his own, which attracted a cheer from the audience.
After shooting, he took a long breath and found that his clothes were a little wet with sweat. Against a high school student like Tang Yan, he felt pressure he had never felt before.
After Song Sizhe's shot, Tang Yan took up his bow and walked to the white line.
The audience at the scene looked at him with a slight nervousness. As the game progresses, the pressure on the archers would continue to increase each round.
Tang Yan easily nocked his arrow and shot directly.
Song Sizhe's perfect round should have increased the pressure on him, but he was quick and clean as he shot another perfect round of 30 points.
The audience watched intently as the two continued back and forth, shooting perfect rounds.
But just as things were reaching its peak, Song Sizhe made a mistake and shot a 9 pointer on his last arrow in the third round.
His performance was exceptional, but that slip up was enough to cost him the game against Tang Yan.
