Kate only felt her body go stiff.
A strange, tingling numbness spread through her entire body from the point of contact in an instant.
It made even the trailing note of the “HUT” she shouted carry a faint tremor.
She turned her head to look on instinct. But Lin Wansheng hadn’t noticed anything at all.
The moment he got the ball, he had already shot out like a cheetah.
The game began!
Facing three kids closing in on him from different directions, Lin Wansheng did not slow down in the slightest. Just as the encirclement was about to form—
Using his left foot as a pivot, he spun at high speed.
In an instant, with a spin move,
he slipped through the interlacing arms of the three kids.
In playing against them, there was only one thing Lin Wansheng paid attention to.
The essence of defense in flag football, to put it plainly, was lowering your center of gravity so that the moment the other person reached out to pull your flag, they would lunge at empty air.
But against this group of little runts, that technique seemed a little ridiculous.
They were already only a little taller than Lin Wansheng’s waist.
If he lowered his center of gravity any further,
Lin Wansheng would start suspecting he had to crawl on the ground.
So shaking off the kids’ attacks as quickly as possible with high-speed movements
was the better choice.
At that moment, off to the side of the field, Hank’s eyes changed instantly.
He stood up from his chair, took out his phone, and quickly opened the stopwatch.
Having shaken off the defense, Lin Wansheng continued forward for five yards.
He arrived at his own 10-yard line.
But then, a more effortless idea suddenly flashed through his mind.
He stopped and glanced at the end zone fifty yards away.
Under everyone’s gaze, his body immediately became like a bow drawn to its limit. With a sharp twist of his waist and swing of his arm,
he hurled the football in his hand with all his strength!
Hank’s pupils abruptly contracted.
The football was like a streak of brown lightning, shooting straight into the distance.
The ball carried a faint sound of tearing through the air as it landed precisely in the end zone fifty yards away.
Hank instinctively looked toward the boy standing on the 10-yard line,
as if he had merely tossed something casually, and an absurd thought exploded in his mind.
“East River is already this cutthroat now? Arm strength at this level, and he can’t even make second string?”
Hank shook his head and took out his phone. “Impossible! I need to call Bob and ask what’s going on!”
The call went out. Hank leaned back in his chair.
A playful smile appeared on his face.
As a retired player, he knew very well how wide the gulf was between being a high school prodigy and stepping onto a professional field.
Especially for a Chinese kid.
He had been observing Jimmy all this time.
His original plan had merely been to take a liking to the kid’s excellent eloquence and talent for dealing with people.
He had intended to sign him once his own agency opened in the future,
train him into an outstanding youth coach, and make him a stable but unremarkable asset for the company.
But now, Hank’s thinking had changed.
At present, football scholarships from American universities had almost never favored Chinese students.
But this field overlooked by the mainstream might also represent a vast, unknown blue ocean.
At the very least, training was also an extremely lucrative big business.
Could this kid in front of him become the opening move for his company?
Interesting.
……
……
……
In the final minute of the game,
during one of Lin Wansheng’s “clumsy” dodges,
Leo found his chance and hugged his thigh. Immediately afterward, four kids, like sharks that had smelled blood, howled as they pounced over.
They completely pinned him down onto the grass.
Lin Wansheng struggled to stretch one hand out from the pile of people and patted the grass.
“I surrender, I surrender~”
The game ended amid the cheers of a dozen or so kids.
Lin Wansheng patted the broken grass off himself while laughing and shouting, “All right, a promise is a promise. Let’s go get ice cream!”
He turned his head and lifted his chin at Kate, who was not far away.
“Come on, my center! Let’s celebrate our victory together~”
Kate rolled her eyes at him, but the corners of her mouth couldn’t help curving upward as she strode over on her long legs.
Hank, however, followed at the very back of the group like a ghost, neither too near nor too far.
At the school gate, a brightly colored ice cream truck with a big smiling face painted on its side had already been parked there for some time.
“Essen!!”
Lin Wansheng waved toward the service window at a Black teenager wearing a basketball jersey.
“Hey, man.” Essen stuck his head out of the window.
Seeing the group of children, his eyes lit up. “Bro, you finally made it.”
The children surged forward, instantly crowding the ice cream window so tightly that not even water could get through.
“I want the rainbow swirl! With chocolate sauce on top! Let me think, and sprinkles too!”
“I want the one with the Spider-Man sticker!”
“I was here first! I want a banana split!”
……
Lin Wansheng was nearly driven insane by the noise of these kids.
He had no choice but to stand at the window and maintain order.
“Hey! Get in line!”
Lin Wansheng asked each kid what they wanted one by one, then placed the orders with Essen.
Before long, a dozen brightly colored ice creams were handed into the children’s hands.
Kate ordered a vanilla cone. Leaning against the truck, she licked it in slow circles with the tip of her tongue.
Her gaze remained locked on Lin Wansheng with unhidden interest the entire time.
After the kids scattered,
Essen handed Lin Wansheng an extra-large chocolate sundae. It was filled with wafer cookies stuck into the top.
“Thanks, brother.”
Essen jumped down from the truck.
He leaned close to Lin Wansheng and lowered his voice. “Business at noon today really depended entirely on you. Much appreciated.”
“My brother said that if there are this many people next time, he’ll make yours free.”
Lin Wansheng accepted the sundae with a smile.
“Forget it. ‘Free next time,’ huh? Your family really is Jewish.”
……
……
Just then, Hank walked over.
“Young man,” he said to Essen, “get me a hot fudge sundae.”
After receiving the sundae, he did not eat it. Instead, he turned to Lin Wansheng and signaled with his eyes for him to step aside.
“Got a minute? Let’s talk.” Hank went straight to the point.
Lin Wansheng nodded and followed him over.
“You’re not a running back at all, kid.” Hank’s first sentence was full of impact.
He pointed at Lin Wansheng with his spoon. “Your coach put you in the wrong position.”
Lin Wansheng did not speak. He only looked at him quietly.
“A running back’s career is measured in collisions. Your build isn’t meant for you to be a battering ram.” Hank’s voice was decisive and firm.
“But your speed, your change of direction.”
“Especially that spin cut just now—that’s the kind of instinct a decent wide receiver has.”
“And that’s not even mentioning the arm strength to casually throw fifty yards.”
“That means your core strength and explosiveness, for your stage, both count as very good.”
He raised his eyes and looked at Lin Wansheng with a burning gaze. “The reason you can’t get on the field right now isn’t that you’re not good enough. It’s that you’re standing in the wrong place.”
This was an evaluation no high school student who dreamed of football could refuse.
Even more so when it came from a former NFL player.
But Lin Wansheng merely calmly scooped a big spoonful of sundae into his mouth and said indistinctly, “So?”