3 Dark Horse or a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?

Adjusting himself to his surroundings he looked around, the laughter of the crowd still filled the air.

He could vaguely see the judges on the sides whispering whilst glancing over at him.

Taking everything in, he tightened his grip around the recurve bow in his hand.

......

"Wang Tao, the standards of this trial are just too low. This is only 30 meters but look at the performances of these people, that kid over there hasn't even managed to hit the target once even after five shots. You need to raise the requirements next time. " said a white haired old man looking over to the middle-aged man beside him.

"Yes, Li Lao next time we will set higher requirements, this time because of the time constraints I allowed them to loosen the reigns a bit. But it seems that was a mistake." replied the middle-aged man called Wang Tao.

He was the vice president of Lotus City's archery team. The old man besides him was Li Lao the president of this provinces archery team.

As he was passing through town, they had invited him down to watch the event.

In fact, Lotus City was a weak city in terms of archery, their performance was always sub-par but even then a performance like Tang Yan's was too much.

....

"Okay that's the first round done, you can begin preparing for the second round." shouted a staff member from beside the archery field.

Upon hearing this voice, the archers around him put down their recurve bows on the grass and took a seat, resting themselves.

There were a total of 4 rounds in this trial. Each round they were given 4 minutes to shoot 6 arrows. They were using standard targets which had 10 evenly spaced rings. Each ring had a colour and a set value of points.

White: 1-2 points

Black:3-4 points

Blue:5-6 points

Red:7-8 points

Gold: 9-10 points

The outermost ring of that colour was worth less than the innermost section. For example the outer section of the white ring was worth only 1 point while the inner section of the white ring would be worth 2 points.

The maximum amount of points possible per round was 60 points.

Tang Yan had shot 5 arrows off target and ran out of time to shoot his last arrow, leaving him with a glaring score of 0 after the first round.

Looking at his score he couldn't help but smile.

The archer to the left of him had scored 48 points, averaging 8 points per arrow. The archer to the right hand side of him had scored 55 points, averaging 9 points per arrow.

'If I get a score like that, I'll still have a chance of getting selected!' thought Tang Yan.

He put down his recurve bow and sat on the grass.

"Hey, classmate is your vision okay." asked the archer to his right after turning around and looking at him with a smile.

"Yeah, why?" Tang Yan looked at him with confusion.

"What and you still scored 0 points, damn you really are next level trash." said the student laughing.

Tang Yan looked down at the name sticker on the chest of the student. His name was Qian Feng.

"If I was you, I would find an excuse to leave after this round. If you keep on missing targets like this, don't blame us for ridiculing you. At this rate you'll end up the school clown." said Qian Feng with a look of derision.

Tang Yan knitted his brows, but didn't speak.

Though the words of Qian Feng were harsh, they were true. In the past this was exactly what had occurred, he had become the laughing stock of the city."

"We will begin the second round now." shouted a staff member.

The rest time in between each round of the archery competition was 1 minute. After giving the athletes enough time to adjust the next round would begin.

Tang Yan took a deep breath and got up. Taking the recurve bow and he walked up to his position in front of the archery white line.

Seeing that Tang Yan hadn't listened to his advice, Qian Feng gave a dismissive snort and took up his bow before walking up to the white line.

"Look, Tang Yan is still competing"

"Wow he really is thick skinned!"

"Haha, thicker than a city wall."

...

Some students watching the game on the side of the field saw this scene and couldn't help but whisper.

Archery wasn't really a popular sport among competitive sports. In addition, Lotus City was weak in terms of archery, as such the attention it received wasn't high.

So there were no stands for the audience.

They had marked out a spectator area though. Currently there were around thirty to forty local students watching the event.

The spectator area wasn't far from the venue, as such their words naturally passed into Tang Yan's ears.

The timer at the side of the field had already begun counting down. In 240 seconds, he had to shoot 6 arrows.

He took a deep breath and left the words of the students behind him. He held the bow in his left hand, his feet were a shoulder-width apart.

He stood in a square stance. The weight of his body fell evenly on his feet.

He took an arrow from the arrow pot and nocked it into the bow. Adjusting his grip, he began to draw the bowstring back and aimed.

After this series of actions, he was able to clearly sense that something had changed.

Even after ten years of shooting with a bow he had never achieved such a smooth transition as now.

He felt a sense of ease. Even pulling back the bowstring had felt effortless.

For most students it wasn't an easy task to load a 30-pound recurve bow.

But he was very relaxed.

Aiming, he felt the 80cm wide target suddenly enlarge.

As if his vision had zoomed in, he could see the 10 rings clearly.

Was this... Li Guang's ability?

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he adjusted his aim and shot.

"Twang"

The arrow shot out the bow and flew straight towards the target.

In the judge's seat Li Lao's eyes suddenly flashed, a sharp glint appearing in his eyes.

A layman saw the outcome but an expert saw the technique.

This arrow of Tang Yan's was completely different from his previous arrows. It was fast, stable and accurate vastly different from the sluggish, imprecise shots of before.

"Boom!"

The arrow pierced the target and made a muffled sound.

All the spectators looked over at once.

He had hit the bullseye!

The umpire stunned, mumbled out: "Tang Yan, 10 points."

10 points!

Tang Yan took a long breath and relaxed his stance.

"Huh, classmate it seems your luck was good." said Qian Feng looking over at Tang Yan surprised.

Tang Yan ignored him and picked up his second arrow.

"What the hell, did Tang Yan just shoot a 10 pointer"

"Yeah, what the hell.He couldn't even skim the target in the first round, how the hell did he do that."

"What's so strange about this, he probably just got lucky."

"It's only 30 meters, give me six arrows and I bet I could probably shoot a 10 pointer as...."

"Boom!"

Tang Yan had shot his second arrow.

The discussions came to an abrupt halt, the last person who was speaking found his words stuck in his throat.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

10 points!

Another 10 pointer!

After shooting 5 arrows off target in the first round, Tang Yan had just shot two consecutive 10 pointers in the second round!

How could this be!

Li Lao couldn't help but sit up straight this time.

Contrast was an amazing thing.

In fact, shooting two 10 pointers at 30 meters wasn't remarkable but shooting two 10 pointers after continuously shooting off-target was shocking.

Tang Yan could feel the gazes on him.

"Dammit, you really are lucky!" said Qian Feng, he couldn't help but curse this time. He had just shot a 9 pointer just now, one point lower than Tang Yan's.

Tang Yan didn't pay attention to Qian Feng, instead he took out another arrow and aimed again.

"Is this going to be another 10 pointer?" This time, the students on the side-lines no longer laughed but looked at Tang Yan with interest.

"Twang"

"Boom!"

"Tang Yan....10 points!"

After a series of sounds, Tang Yan had shot another 10 pointer!

3 arrows, 3 bullseyes!

"Wow!!"

"Three in a row."

"Dammit, is he going to be a dark horse."

"Wait if he can shoot three 10 pointers in a row what was he doing in the first round"

"That's what a dark horse is, it's meant to be unexpected."

"Dark horse my arse, more like a wolf in sheep's clothing waiting to pounce."