The game has now reached the bottom of the ninth inning.
The scoreboard towering above the outfield remains unchanged—the score was turned to 1-0 by the SoftBank Team in the top of the second inning, and since then, it's as if the scoreboard has frozen in time, with subsequent inning scores continually being logged, creating an illusion of time being frozen.
On the far right of the scoreboard, next to the strike count display, two red lights have quietly lit up; in the batter's box, the last batter of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles is ready to strike.
The familiar figure still standing on the pitcher's mound is Lin Guanglai, slightly hunched over, continuously patting anti-skid powder onto his right hand, trying to keep his hand dry; after finishing, he continuously rubs the baseball thrown by Hosokawa Kei in his palm as if performing a mysterious ritual.
