The playoffs were in full swing.
And the Pioneer, a group of young men, had unbelievably won the Celestial King Mountain game, making the entire league take notice.
The year before last, the Pioneer were still saddled with the moniker of a "prison team"—notorious and a laughingstock.
When the Pioneer offloaded their core players and Rashid Wallace left for the Motor City, allowing the Pistons to soar into the finals, many in the media mocked the Pioneer. They believed the Pioneer had made a colossal blunder in trading away their core, and that they never should have let the Roaring Celestial Venerable go.
Even Rashid Wallace himself said that Portland was a quagmire and that he regretted wasting so much time with the Pioneer. With the Pistons, he felt he had been reborn.
But no one could have expected that in just one season, the Pioneer would return to the playoffs.
Not only that, but they did it in the hellscape that was the West, clawing their way into the postseason over the Wolves and the Supersonic.
At that time, people were merely surprised by the Pioneer. They felt the team had finally gotten on the right track with their rebuild and had a promising future.
But it was just that—a promising future. No one thought the Pioneer could make it past the first round.
Because their opponents were the Spurs!
But when the Pioneer managed to win a home game, then snatch a crucial victory even with Nash out, and finally take the Celestial King Mountain game, people discovered with astonishment that this young team was far stronger than they had imagined!
There had been many Nuggets fans, and even media members, who felt it was an injustice to Anthony, believing Milicic didn’t deserve to be the second overall pick.
But his performance against Duncan in this series silenced those voices.
Milicic was now labeled a top-tier big man with limitless potential and an immeasurable future.
Then there was Nash.
He had just left the Mavericks when they traded for O’Neal, making him look like the poster child for a foolish decision.
But who could have guessed that he would find new life with the Pioneer, winning the assists title, getting nominated for MVP, and even potentially pulling off the fourth "black eight" miracle in history!
And then there was D’Antoni and his run-and-gun offense.
The media began to take this mustachioed, relatively unknown old coach seriously. They even started digging into his coaching history, mentioning his name in the same breath as legendary coaches like Auerbach and Dean Smith.
Open any newspaper, browse any website, and all you saw was the Pioneer’s name.
Overnight, the Pioneer seemed to have captured the world’s attention.
Amidst all this glory, however, Chen Yu was preparing to leave, his work seemingly done.
"Chen, thank you!"
At Paul Allen’s estate, he shook Chen Yu’s hand one last time to express his gratitude.
Nash’s return for the Celestial King Mountain game had been absolutely critical.
And Chen Yu deserved the lion’s share of the credit for Nash being able to return on schedule.
Chen Yu smiled and waved it off.
"By the way, Chen, I’ll give that matter with the team serious thought. Let’s find some time to talk about it again," Paul Allen added.
During their celebratory chat the previous day, the conversation had turned to Chen Yu’s purchase of a team in China.
In the end, Chen Yu did buy the Sun Hei Group team.
It was a bargain Chen Yu had no reason to pass up.
Of course, the price wasn’t the one million that Tang Hemin had casually thrown out.
The unit of currency was different: one million US dollars.
With the Guang City government mediating, Chen Yu’s side invested one million US dollars to acquire a seventy percent stake in the club.
The remaining thirty percent was retained by the Guang City Sports Commission.
Chen Yu had originally wanted a complete buyout, but Sun Hei Group and Zhongyi Pharmaceutical were reluctant. The shares left to the commission were essentially an exchange for the Sports Commission to handle the two companies.
The final arrangement was that the two companies would exit at a low price but retain naming rights.
However, these naming rights were for the team currently in China League Two.
After Chen Yu’s team takes over, they will form a brand-new team that will use a spot he holds to directly participate in the 2005 Chinese Super League.
The original Sun Hei Group Zhongyi Pharmaceutical team will serve as the new team’s secondary squad and continue to compete in China League Two.
Since promotion and relegation were currently suspended, they had no hope of being promoted to the Chinese Super League anyway. They would just serve as a reserve team to develop players.
The team from Hong Kong was handled in the same way.
In this way, the original Guang City Football Club was essentially preserved.
This was the main reason Chen Yu was willing to buy the team.
The team had a very deep fan base in Nanyue, and Yuexiu Mountain was filled with the memories of Guang City fans.
Chen Yu had essentially paid for a shell, buying the goodwill of this fan base.
In fact, the Guang City fans were overjoyed.
They hadn’t returned to the Jia A league for many years, and with the Football Association suspending promotion and relegation for the sake of the World Cup, their hopes had been completely dashed.
Now, Chen Yu was bringing in a spot to form a new team and join the Chinese Super League directly. For them, it was like a pie falling from the sky. How could they not be happy?
In their hearts, this newly formed team was the same team from their memories.
And their joy didn’t end there.
Shortly after the new year, following the announcement that the Guang City Club had changed ownership, Chen Yu quickly released another piece of news: the War God, Batty, would be joining the newly established Guang City Vanguard Football Club.
Batty!
The moment this news broke, the entire Chinese soccer world erupted.
Even though Batty was already 36 years old, long past his time in the Five Major Leagues, and had resorted to playing in Qatar for a payday, just hearing his name was enough.
For the Guang City fans especially, being able to watch Batty play live, right in their hometown, felt like a dream.
And it didn’t end there.
While the Guang City fans were celebrating and fantasizing about how to welcome Batty, Chen Yu brought them another legendary star.
The Child of the Wind, Claudio Caniggia!
This one was 38 years old, also long gone from the mainstream leagues. Last season, he had been cashing in in Qatar alongside Batty.
After extending an invitation to Batty, Chen Yu had also invited this legendary veteran as well.
Chen Yu had crossed paths with Caniggia quite a bit during the ’02 World Cup and they were acquainted. So when Chen Yu sent the invitation, Caniggia did him the favor and agreed to come play in the Chinese Super League for another year.
His salary, like Batty’s, was four million US dollars a year.
The addition of these two legendary stars instantly made the Pioneer Club the most talked-about team in Chinese soccer.
This year’s Chinese Super League had already started on April 2nd.
According to the plan, Batty and Caniggia would make their official debut on May 1st, during the sixth round of the Chinese Super League.
Which was the day after tomorrow.
This was also why Chen Yu wasn’t lingering in Portland to see if the Pioneer could complete their "black eight" miracle. He was in a hurry to leave because he had to fly to China tomorrow.
And after chatting about the team last night, Paul Allen seemed to have gotten interested too, casually mentioning that he could also invest in a team for fun.
At first, Chen Yu thought he was just drunk and talking nonsense, but it seemed he was serious.
He probably had his eye on China’s vast sports market.
"Alright."
Chen Yu smiled and nodded, then got into the car to head back to his hotel.
He had stayed at Paul Allen’s estate the previous night, so he still needed to go back to the hotel to check out and get his luggage.
A short while later, the car arrived at the hotel.
Just as Chen Yu entered the hotel lobby, he heard someone call his name.
He turned his head and was surprised to see Popovich.
Along with his assistant coach, Budenholzer.
"Chen!" he called out from a distance, then hurried over.
After they greeted each other, Chen Yu asked him the purpose of his visit.
Popovich said, "Chen, we need your help. Game 6 is tomorrow. We’ve already played five games, and the players are exhausted. So I’d like to ask you to help Tim and the others alleviate some of their fatigue."
Down 2-3, the Spurs were already on the brink of elimination.
To make matters worse, the Pioneer were on a roll. In this situation, even the ever-steady Popovich, who had seen it all, was starting to panic.
This wasn’t just about being eliminated from the playoffs and ending the season empty-handed. This was a goddamn "black eight"!
If they really lost, the Spurs would be forever nailed to the NBA’s pillar of shame.
It would also become a huge black mark on his own coaching career.
This was a result that Popovich could not accept, no matter what.
So he thought of the only solution, his final trump card: find Chen Yu to get his players’ bodies in shape, and then have his starters play the entire game.

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