As Lin Wansheng walked out of Jingxin Zhai, that familiar voice rang out in his mind once more.
【The Path of Enlightenment: ten days of effort have been completed.】
【The attendant’s devotion to learning is most sincere; the Heavenly Dao commends it.】
【Rewards shall be granted according to merit, to encourage your resolve.】
【Specially bestowed: Intelligence +3.】
A cool sensation instantly spread from the depths of his mind.
He had never felt so clear-headed.
Memories that had once been somewhat hazy now became as clear as high-definition photographs.
Even trivial fragments he had forgotten in the corners of his childhood surfaced without warning.
Just as he was marveling at this sudden change, the system’s voice sounded again.
【Yet learning without thought leads to confusion; thought without expression remains shallow.】
【Now you must carry forward what came before and open the way ahead, setting forth words to make clear your aspirations.】
【New task: You must write a policy essay, declaring your own ambitions and analyzing the foundation upon which you will establish yourself.】
【This essay must earn the academic supervisor’s favor before it can become a step for your advancement.】
【This is the beginning of your setting forth words; every character must be a pearl, revealing the mountains and valleys within your breast.】
Lin Wansheng froze.
“A policy essay?” he couldn’t help roasting in his head. “What the hell is a celun?” (What the hell even is a policy essay?)
“What the hell is this? And I have to show it to an academic supervisor?”
Lin Wansheng was utterly baffled. What was any of this supposed to mean?
Could it be that he really had to write an analytical report on the living conditions of miners in 1885?
And then find some “academic supervisor” to grade it?
Or was he supposed to search online for an 1885 Qing dynasty provincial exam topic and write an eight-legged essay?
Then take it to Teacher Li to look over?
Was that reliable?
Forget it. When the boat reaches the bridge, it’ll straighten itself out.
……
……
By the time Lin Wansheng walked onto the field, all he saw was Coach Bob’s face, dark as the sky before a storm.
“What happened?” Lin Wansheng asked in a low voice.
Avery gave him a look and quickly said in Chinese, “Don’t talk too much. Just keep your head down and train. Coach is in a very, very bad mood.”
Before Lin Wansheng could ask more, Coach Bob’s thunderclap of a whistle rang across the entire field.
“Warm-up’s over!” he roared at everyone. “Full pads training!”
“Move! Move! Move! I’m giving you five minutes!”
The players exchanged looks, but no one dared slack off in the slightest. They all rushed toward the locker room.
Five minutes later, when everyone had put on their heavy helmets and shoulder pads and assembled on the field again, the true nightmare began.
“Shuttle sprints!” Coach Bob’s voice held not a trace of emotion. “From the end line to the twenty-yard line! Forty sets! Start now!”
“Forty sets?!” A burst of incredulous cries rose from the crowd. Running forty sets of shuttle sprints in full pads—this wasn’t training at all. This was slaughter.
“What? Got a problem?” Bob’s gaze swept over them like a knife.
“Anyone says one more damn word, and you’ll run fifty!”
The entire field instantly fell silent.
Four hours of hellish training made Lin Wansheng understand for the first time what it meant to wish you were dead.
By the end, he could no longer even feel tired. He only moved his legs mechanically, his mind completely blank.
At last, just as the sun was about to set, he heard Coach Bob’s voice, which sounded like music from heaven.
“Training’s over for today.”
The moment the words fell, the entire team, whether first string or second string, seemed to have had their bones pulled out. None of them could hold on any longer.
One after another, they collapsed onto the grass with thuds.
The field was silent, with only heavy panting and the muffled sounds of pads hitting the ground.
Lin Wansheng lay on his back, gulping in air tinged with the smell of grass.
He felt as if the last thread of strength in his body had been thoroughly wrung dry.
……
……
……
In the locker room, Lin Wansheng sat on a bench, struggling to undo the straps on his pads.
His arms ached so badly he could barely lift them. Every breath pulled at the muscles in his chest, burning with pain.
Just then, Mark suddenly walked over and sat down beside him.
Lin Wansheng glanced at him but said nothing, continuing to struggle with his damned shoulder pads.
“Hey.”
“Want to come to Champion Barbecue Restaurant tonight?”
He paused, seeming to organize his words. “Today’s the first day of Hell Week.”
“According to team tradition, everyone goes there for a meal. Kind of… the last supper before it begins.”
Seeing that Lin Wansheng still didn’t react, Mark added, “You’re a member of the second string now. You should join us for team activities too.”
Before Lin Wansheng could refuse, Avery suddenly came up from behind like a bear and hooked an arm around his neck, answering for him first.
“He’s definitely going! I’m going with him!” Avery grinned at Mark and patted him on the shoulder.
“You guys go ahead. We’ll be there after we change.”
Only after Mark and the first-string players left one after another did Lin Wansheng look at Avery in bewilderment.
“Why did you agree for me? You know I don’t like going to places like that.”
The smile on Avery’s face instantly vanished. He let go, his expression becoming more serious than ever before.
“Jimmy, do you know football is a sport played by eleven people?”
He looked straight into Lin Wansheng’s eyes and said, word by word, “You’ll definitely be able to get onto the field later.”
“But if you keep drifting outside the team like this, are you going to do the same on the field?”
“When the offensive line blocks the other side’s hits for you, when the quarterback throws the ball precisely into your hands.”
“Are you going to tell them you don’t like dealing with them?”
……
……
……
Lin Wansheng and Avery pushed open the wooden door of Champion Barbecue Restaurant one after the other.
By now, the restaurant was already packed with noise and people, more than seventy of them filling the place to the brim.
Besides the players, there were quite a few girls dressed lightly.
Most of them were players’ girlfriends or cheerleaders from the school.
They chattered as they wove between the booths, adding a splash of brightness to the restaurant overflowing with male hormones.
Seeing Lin Wansheng and Avery come in,
Mark, who had been sitting in the innermost booth with an arm around his blond girlfriend, the cheerleading captain, suddenly stood up.
He picked up an empty beer glass and knocked it hard against the table, producing a crisp series of sounds.
The clamor of the entire restaurant instantly died down.
Everyone’s gaze focused on Mark.
Mark grinned, looked at Lin Wansheng, raised the cup in his hand, and shouted.
“Our new family is here!”
He suddenly roared the slogan engraved into the bones of every East River High player:
“Hard work!”
The next second, everyone in the restaurant, whether first string or second string, was like a powder keg set alight.
They raised their fists and responded in unison with all their strength:
“NO FEAR!”
Their voices gathered into a torrent.
They even shook the hanging lamps on the ceiling until they buzzed.
Mark raised his arm again and shouted:
“WE ARE!!”
Immediately after, the entire restaurant completely boiled over. The players pounded the tabletops wildly with their fists.
They shouted, “WINNERS!!!”