Chapter 4 — Across the Six Meter Line

Tran Luan does not believe in a watch because it is beautiful. He believed it when there was another one running next to him and both were checked before the match started.

On the morning of the semi-finals, he placed three devices on the table: the electronic board, the referee's watch and a large mechanical watch with red hands. Mechanical watch not connected to the internet, no backup battery, scratched glass on the corner. Luan wiped it with his sleeve.

“Who does this belong to?” Chi asked.

"Miss Diep borrowed it from the gym's watch warehouse. It used to be used for swimming tournaments."

“Do you know how slow it is?”

"0.4 seconds slow after ten minutes. But steady."

“Electronic board?”

“Fast at startup, then stable.”

“Watch?”

“Depends on who clicks.”

Luan writes three limits on the paper board. He did not put any device in the highest position. Chi looked at the list and saw that this approach was similar to her lesson: don't trust just one source.

The main referee checks the table. The two captains signed the player list. Hong Ha wears a dark blue shirt, Lightning wears a red shirt. Vy stood near the goal, tapping the post with both hands. Hong Ha's faculty asked Chi about the floor seam. Chi pointed to the pasted yellow tape.

"Marked. Two observers will stand on the sideline."

Khoa asked: "What if I fail?"

"The referee has the right to stop. The observer records the time."

“What if no one falls but the ground changes?”

“Diep will check break time.”

Khoa nodded. “Enough to get started.”

Luan starts the board. 30:00 appears on the screen. Chi pressed the clock, Luan pressed the clock, and the referee blew the signal. All three ran apart by less than half a second. Luan recorded the wrong time and did not correct it to look beautiful.

The match started faster than the cheers. Hong Ha has low defense, Lightning uses Vi as a wing. Tram sat on the bench, holding her shirt straps with both hands. Manh reminded her not to look at the lines. Vy adjusted the defense with short calls.

"Back! Don't open the middle! Six!"

Only know that "six" is not time. That's the regional gap. In handball, a call can have two meanings, and the listener must know who is speaking.

At minute 18, Hong Ha was fined two minutes. The goal referee must record the time the player was penalized and the time he returned. The electronic board shows 12:04. Luan recorded 12:03 in the record, because Chi's watch moved seconds earlier than the table. The two men compared as soon as the ball went out of bounds.

“Which source to choose?” Luan asked.

“Choose a regulated source.”

“The regulations say the table.”

“The regulations also say that the referee confirms the suspension time.”

They record both the time according to the board and the time according to the clock, for the referee to decide. The player returned just in time. No one in the stands knew that the secretary's desk had just solved a small math problem.

Vi scored at a tight angle, slipped on the knee but was able to stand. She turned back to the yard, not looking at Chi. Chi did not clap. She wrote the time and shirt number.

The first half ended 13-12 for Hong Ha. Tram went into the changing room to drink water. Manh does not blame. He asked her what she saw in her opponent's defense.

“They piled into the middle when Vy came up.”

“Where do you stand?”

“Outside the line.”

“So you can receive the ball and turn it into the space, no need to step over.”

Tram looked at Chi who was taking the minutes outside the door. “What if I take a wrong step?”

Manh said: "I know I was wrong. If the floor makes me fall, that's what adults have to answer for."

Diep is checking the seam at break. An observer noted the floor was drier on the right, but there were water drops near the yellow ice. Diep mop, put up a temporary warning sign. She did not let the team return before being confirmed.

In the second half, Lightning changed rhythm. Vi scored two consecutive goals, Tram entered the field in the 21st minute and created space for the defenders. She kept her feet outside the six-meter line, passing at the right time. Vy saved a low-angle throw.

Minute 26, the electronic board flashed. Luan looked at the screen, then looked at the mechanical watch. The board stands at 00:06 for a beat, then jumps back to 00:05. He didn't touch the button. Only saw and recorded the time according to all three sources.

“The board is standing,” Luan said.

"Take note."

“The referee didn't see it.”

“Alert when the ball is dead.”

Hong Ha is on the rise. Khoa threw, Vy pushed the ball out. The referee blew the ball out of bounds. Luan asked to pause and reported a clock problem. The referee asked if the match needed to be stopped. Submit the minutes at the time.

"The board stands for about a second, then continues. The hand clock doesn't stop."

The referee looked at Luan. “Does it take time?”

“Undetermined.”

Manh does not interrupt. Neither does the faculty. Diep called the technician. They checked the log and saw that the power supply fluctuated but could not determine whether the board ignored the counting command or just displayed a delay.

The match continues with the clock as reference source, the display holder. Hong Ha scored, Lightning equalized. The audience booed because it stopped for too long. Chi didn't look up.

In the last three minutes, Lightning led by one goal. Tram was pushed close to the six-meter line, but kept his outside foot and passed to Vi. Vi threw and hit the post, the ball bounced out. Khoa counterattacked, Vy saved with her shoulder.

The final whistle blows when the board shows 00:00. Chi's watch has 00:01 remaining. Luan looked at her.

“About a second,” he said.

“Write it all down.”

The Lightning won 24-23. The audience stood up. Vi hugged Tram, Vy hit the goal post, Manh exhaled. Chi still sat at the table, looking at the last line of the minutes.

The main referee came and asked: "Is the result confirmed?"

Chi replied: "The results according to the table are 24-23. There are display problems and time differences that need to be reviewed by the organizers."

Manh heard it and didn't turn away. Vy stood a few meters away, looking at Chi.

Hong Ha's faculty came to the table. “Does my team have the right to see the log?”

“According to regulations, the team can request copies of minutes and technical data.”

Khoa nodded. “I will ask.”

Vi approached, sweat running down her chin. “Sister Chi, have we won yet?”

Chi looked at her. "We won on the scoreboard. The official results need to be confirmed."

Vi was silent. The hug that had not yet been completed in the dressing room was pulled out with a question mark.

That night, Luan backed up data to two drives. Expenditure on sealing the minutes. Manh brought the team home, not saying the team had reached the finals. On the stadium screen, the final number was still 24-23.

But those six seconds before that, then the last one, turned into a period of time that no one was allowed to pretend didn't exist.

The watch lesson took place in a small room with a window overlooking the badminton court. Hanh brought three devices: a stopwatch, a mechanical watch and an electronic control panel. She placed them in a row like three players preparing to enter the field.

“Which device is correct?” she asked.

Luan replied immediately: "The device has been checked."

"Don't ask for conditions. Ask which device is correct."

No one answered.

Hanh tapped her finger lightly on the table. "In the rules, time is the time confirmed by the person responsible for running the match. Equipment is just a tool. No matter how good the tool is, people need to know when to trust it and when to check it."

Chi sits in the back, doesn't fix it. Hanh speaks slowly but not weak. She had read the rules many times, but reading the rules and speaking the rules in front of an impatient team were two different things.

Luan opened the controller and explained the buttons. Green button runs the clock, red button stops, yellow button restores the set number. There is a small button used to correct each second. Hanh asked what if the operator made a mistake.

“There is no log,” Luan said. “Only the screen.”

“So who is responsible?”

Luan looked at Chi. “Clicker.”

“Partly,” Chi said. “And the system designer is responsible for not having a log.”

Luan frowned. “I don't design.”

“Then don't take all the blame from one system.”

They practice the situation: the ball is running, the board is two seconds late; The ball is dead, the mechanical clock misses a beat; The whistle sounded but the timekeeper did not listen because of the audience. Each time, Hanh had to say the last milestone out loud, Luan wrote it down, and a third person confirmed it. The exercise seems simple but always creates a new problem.

On the fourth time, Hanh pressed stop early. She blushed and was about to say sorry.

Chi stopped. “Error recording.”

“But there is no match yet.”

“This is the time to learn.”

Hanh recorded "stopped about a second early, detected by the tester". Luan looked at the text and said: "If that is written during the match, the team will object."

“Good,” Hanh replied. “They have a right to know.”

Chi left the room for a moment and went to the yard to find Manh. The team is practicing counterattack. She stood next to the electronic board, watching Hanh operate from afar. She noticed that Hanh often looked at other people's faces before looking at the clock. It is a habit of a person who wants to be confirmed. Chi used to have a similar habit, every time she got hurt and waited to see if her teammates thought she was overdoing it or not.

“She needs to be more confident,” Manh said.

“She needs a process that doesn't require confidence instead of accuracy.”

Manh looked at Chi. “You can say this to the team, but don't make Hanh think she doesn't need to be confident.”

“Accuracy and confidence are not mutually exclusive.”

"I know. I'm just learning not to turn every lesson into a dissection."

Chi returned to the table. Hanh moved on to a more difficult problem: the two watches started to differ because of low battery. She must not choose a better number, but find a confirmed source before the match. Luan reminds that mechanical watches can run slowly but cannot stop by themselves. Hanh asked when the ball died. A third person confirmed.

“From now on, every time there is a difference, I say 'difference' before saying 'wrong',” Hanh said.

"Why?" Tram asked, wiping her sweat and looking at it.

"Because the conclusion is wrong. The difference is what I see."

Tram nodded, as if writing down a new rule.

In the afternoon, they tested the board in the yard. Light rain causes the power supply to flicker. The screen turns off twice. Luan ran to check the wire. Diep asked all players to stand outside the wet area. Manh wanted to continue starting without the ball, but Chi asked if the backup power was turned on.

“No,” Diep replied.

“So we haven't run the table yet.”

Manh nodded. No one considers waiting as a waste. They take advantage of stretching, practicing voice commands and remembering positions. When the backup power was turned on, Luan ran the test for a full ten minutes. Stable bright screen.

Hanh wrote in the notebook: "Do not start the match without knowing what source you will use if the power goes out."

Hanh asked Chi: "Do you think one day I won't need you to look at me anymore?"

"Have."

"How long?"

"Don't know."

“I want to know.”

“So let's work today without guessing what answer I want.”

Hanh frowned slightly, but continued. The next time, she discovered that Luan pressed the board more than half a beat late and reported it immediately. Luan don't argue. He recorded the time of operation and adjusted the speed.

At the end of the session, Manh gathered the team together on the field. "If there is a time problem during the match, players do not look at the board and then stop. Players listen to the whistle and continue to follow instructions. People on the field are responsible for reporting, recording, and confirming. No one arbitrarily turns a difference into a goal or loses a goal."

Vi asked: "What if I'm counterattacking and the board stops?"

"I'm still playing. If the referee stops, I stop."

“What if the whistle is not heard?”

“The nearest person reported.”

“What if the nearest person is covered by the audience?”

Luan raised his hand. “There are three sources.”

Hanh added: “And a process.”

Chi looked at the whole team. The previous six seconds had gone from a number to a series of actions. No one anymore thinks that watches are responsible for themselves. It just runs, and people have to know what they are hearing.