Yonghe Road

Chapter 19 Village BA
There is a village called Taipan in Guizhou. Every year on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, they hold the "New Harvest Festival", which is a traditional festival celebrating the harvest. The highlight of this festival is the basketball game.

The people of Taipan Village love basketball, which can be traced back to the 30s when Taipan Village had its first basketball court.

From the original dirt basketball court to the later cement court, and then to the standard basketball hoop, Taipan Village's basketball facilities have been continuously improved for nearly a hundred years, and the villagers' enthusiasm for basketball and persistence in the game have become stronger and stronger. Especially last summer, Taipan Village's basketball game attracted tens of thousands of spectators to watch the scene, and it was spread to all parts of the world through short video platforms, gathering huge traffic.

With the explosion of traffic, the National Hemei Rural Basketball Tournament, a national and mass sports event aimed at strengthening the construction of rural spiritual civilization and enhancing the fitness awareness of farmers, has quickly become popular and become a brand event with wide influence. It has also brought new opportunities to promote the development of local sports and rural cultural tourism industries.

This rural basketball sports event also has a resounding name: Village BA.

In the new year, the "Village BA" competition is about to kick off. Basketball enthusiasts from all over the country are eager to go to Taipan Village for a top-level "Village BA" showdown, but first they must break through the siege from various provinces and obtain qualifications before they have the opportunity to participate in the national basketball competition among amateur masters.

How do provinces form teams to participate in the competition?
Teams must be formed based on townships or villages. Each team consists of a manager, a coach, and no more than 1 players. All players must be registered as residents of the same township or village. For newly relocated residents, the registration must have been in place for at least one year, and the age limit is 1 to 12 years old.

Because this is a mass sports event, in order to ensure the fairness of the competition, professional players who have been registered in the Chinese Basketball Association CBA or NBL leagues are not allowed to participate.

"We have such great basketball players in Baile Village. How about forming a separate team?" Mei Wending asked Wang Zian and Zhong Ziqi. Then he thought that forming a team should be led by the village committee, so he turned his attention to Secretary Wang Kai.

Secretary Wang Kai agreed without hesitation: "Okay!"

"In addition to the two of them, we also need a team leader, a coach, and ten basketball players. Can Baile Village provide them?" Mei Wending confirmed with Secretary Wang Kai again.

Secretary Wang Kai patted his chest and said, "Our Baile Village is now thriving. We can't even muster a team of more than ten people..."

Compared with other mountain villages with declining populations and gradual extinction, Baile Village, a nationally renowned star village, has more than 2,000 local villagers. In addition, the industrial area and nuclear power contractor camp have attracted thousands of outsiders, making it very popular and lively on weekdays.

"The key is not the number of people, but the ability to play basketball," Mei Wending emphasized.

"Don't worry, Director Mei, our Baile Village might be able to easily win the city championship." Secretary Wang Kai guaranteed.

Mei Wending laughed. This Old Wang always had an enthusiastic aura when he did things and spoke. Outsiders nicknamed him "Wang Huyou". Fortunately, he was good at fooling people and good at implementation. It was precisely because of his good character of fooling people and implementing things that he was able to transform the poor Baile Village into the star village it is today.

Mei Wending somehow found Wang Kai's wrinkled face reminiscent of his youth, the hardships Baile Village had faced, and his own graying hair. Youth had faded, and even if one had surpassed many ordinary people in life, the twilight of one's life brought a sense of melancholy.

"Wang Kai, you will retire after completing this term, right?" Mei Wending asked.

Wang Kai nodded.

Mei Wending then asked, "Have you chosen a successor? Baile Village is a star village and a pilot village for common prosperity. Whether Baile Village can do its job well depends on its role model. The successor must be carefully selected."

Secretary Wang Kai nodded and said, "We are still searching. We will respect the opinions of the people of Baile Village and consult the township party committee."

The urgent task now is to select teams for the "Village Basketball Association" competition. Mei Wending also instructed Wang Zian and Zhong Ziqi to leverage the "Village Basketball Association" as an opportunity for each province to organize grassroots basketball tournaments during slack seasons, integrating them with agricultural activities and festivals, local cultural displays, agricultural product exhibitions, and rural tourism. This approach aims to bring basketball games to the countryside, embodying the fun and flavor of rural life.

Each province will send two teams to the regional competition. Four regional divisions will be established nationwide: Southeast, Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest. Provincial teams will compete simultaneously in these four divisions. The winning teams from each division will advance to the third stage, the finals, to be held in Taipan Village, Guizhou.

Each team that wins the top three spots in each division will receive a corresponding bonus. The better the result, the higher the bonus.

Wang Zian remained noncommittal, but the lure of money was too great for Zhong Ziqi. In a few months, his sister-in-law, Lin Yingying, would be giving birth, and his eldest brother, Zhong Ziwang, hadn't received a cent yet. Furthermore, he had a keen interest in basketball. Zhong Ziqi still turned a questioning eye to Wang Zian. He was currently a worker at the tea factory, and whether he could participate in the competition depended on his boss's willingness to let him go.

"You two are both such good basketball players. With such a great opportunity, why are you still hesitating?"

After hearing Xie Anmin's urging, Wang Zian had nothing to disagree with.

That’s settled. Mei Wending was very happy as he gained a lot from this trip to Baile Village.

After having a simple meal at Secretary Wang Kai's home, Mei Wending got up and said goodbye, left Baile Village and returned to the city.

As soon as Mei Wending left, Secretary Wang Kai frowned and said sternly to Wang Zian and Zhong Ziqi, "How did Director Mei know you could play basketball? When did you let him see your poor skills?"

As a father and elder, Secretary Wang Kai did business outside when he was young, and later returned to Baile Village to serve as the village secretary. He devoted himself to the cause of leading the whole village to become rich. How could he care whether his own son could play basketball?

It was only after he coaxed Wang Zian to go for a physical examination and received the notification that Wang Zian had passed the examination that he realized that his son's physical fitness was so good.
As for Zhong Ziqi, because of the special family situation of the Zhong family, an orphan with a widowed mother, Wang Kai devoted a lot of effort to this young man. However, Zhong Ziqi was naughty and mischievous since he was young and did not like to study, which made Wang Kai feel very disappointed with him. Later, Zhong Ziqi was admitted to the local high school as a basketball specialty student. In Secretary Wang Kai's opinion, this kid was not doing his job properly and it was just an accidental success.

Now, the news that the two boys could play basketball had even reached Mei Wending, the chairman of the People's Congress, leaving Secretary Wang Kai unsure whether to be happy or worried. For young people, was this an opportunity or a pitfall?
As a father and elder, Secretary Wang Kai felt a little uneasy.

He had made all the promises and assurances he'd made to Director Mei Wending, all done with a heavy heart. He had no idea whether this would pan out or fail.

Facing Wang Zian and Zhong Ziqi at this moment, he couldn't help but feel anxious.

"Secretary Wang, Zi'an and Ziqi, their skills are not bad at all. They play basketball very well. I have seen them in person. They must be quite professional among amateurs." Xie Anmin spoke up from the side.

She had grown up in a democratic and liberal family atmosphere and could not bear to see parents acting in a domineering and authoritarian manner with their children. Secretary Wang Kai's loud voice was merely a sign of his lung capacity, but in Xie Anmin's eyes, it looked like an old father bossing his children around. Especially Wang Zi'an's gentle and delicate appearance, which had a certain pitiful quality, aroused Xie Anmin's protective instinct.

At this moment, she fully agreed with the view expressed by the leader's wife, Director Mei Wending's old high school classmate, in the farmhouse villa that night: Secretary Wang Kai was rough-looking and looked like a man, while Wang Zian... Wang Zian did not look like a woman, but was more handsome and elegant than Secretary Wang Kai.

With Xie Anmin's testimony, Secretary Wang Kai was skeptical. He looked at Wang Zian and Zhong Ziqi and said, "Really? Are they really that good at basketball? I don't believe it unless I see it for myself."

(End of this chapter)