If the World Table Tennis Championships held any regrets, for Datou it was likely his defeat in the singles, for Gaoyuan and Manyu it was perhaps being split up as a pair, and for Shasha it was once again finishing as the runner-up in the singles final.
This marked the third consecutive major tournament where she lost the singles final to a teammate and settled for second place. From the Tokyo Olympics and the National Games to the Houston World Table Tennis Championships, every time she felt her training was finally paying off and she was playing well enough, she would stumble just short of the podium. It felt like walking through a dark tunnel for a long time, where dawn seemed just one more stretch away, yet the light steadfastly refused to appear.
Even though she rarely doubted herself, in the bitter frustration of coming up empty-handed at the very last moment, she could not help asking herself over the course of several sleepless nights following the defeat: Where on earth did she fall short?
Chapter 125