Lin Wansheng lay on the floor of Hank's office, a throw blanket casually grabbed from the sofa beneath him.
In the brief moment of relaxation, he even had the idle luxury to let his thoughts wander.
“Hank’s wife is quite something, actually bothering to decorate this office that her husband practically never sets foot in.”
The rustling sound of Kate getting dressed reached his ears, and Lin Wansheng’s mind went blank for a moment.
If he could secure a full football scholarship and then study pre-law, that would undoubtedly be the best path to the future.
Stanford and Notre Dame—could he even dare to dream about them?
But that thought merely flashed by before being extinguished by reality.
He was completely unknown right now; one game’s performance was far from enough to attract the attention of those top scouts.
Moreover, this path was even narrower than a single-plank bridge.
According to regulations, for every Division I university.
True football powerhouses like Alabama or Michigan.
They could provide full scholarships to a maximum of eighty-five students.
However, those eighty-five spots weren’t all for freshmen; they had to cover all rostered players from freshmen through seniors.
So most freshmen, unless they were prodigies whose fame shook all of America, could only enter the team on partial scholarships or even by paying their own way.
Then they would fight with everything they had, only getting a chance at that precious full scholarship in their sophomore year, or even their senior year.
Take his own Titans team, for example—though several of them had received so-called verbal offers.
The only one with real weight was the team captain, Mark, who had secured a full scholarship commitment from a top Division I university.
For the rest, the best outcome was nothing more than going to a decent state university and receiving a Division II split scholarship.
And what about him?
Not even NYU, a school where admission was purely based on academic performance,
a Division III program in athletics—not a single scout had contacted him.
Still, Lin Wansheng rolled over, looked at the ceiling, and let out a long breath.
There was still time until the formal signing day in December.
As long as he could steadily play in games this season and make a name for himself.
Then everything still had a chance.
But no matter what.
He absolutely couldn’t take out loans for school.
However, there was one bottom line he was very clear about.
No matter what, he absolutely could not walk out of school hundreds of thousands of dollars deep in student debt.
America’s student loans, on the surface, gave the poor a fair chance to compete, but the real devil was hidden in the details.
Student aid loans came in two types: subsidized and unsubsidized.
If you weren’t lucky enough and took out unsubsidized loans, interest began accumulating quietly from the very first day you set foot on campus.
Although there was a six-month grace period after graduation to find a job, the interest accrued during that time wouldn’t be reduced by a single cent.
Once the grace period passed, the repayment bills arrived as scheduled.
Can’t pay for now? No problem. The government and private institutions had long designed seemingly thoughtful solutions for you.
You could choose to defer or pause payments.
But this was the core of the trap.
Unless you qualified for the highest tier of deferment, during those years of paused repayment, the high interest not only continued to accrue, but the moment the pause ended, it would all be added to your principal—so-called capitalization.
What about subsidized loans?
They sounded a bit better. During the six-month grace period after graduation and during periods of deferred repayment.
The interest was paid by the U.S. Department of Education, so it didn’t accumulate.
But if you attended an expensive private university, or an out-of-state public university.
That bit of subsidized loans was fundamentally insufficient to cover tuition; in the end, you still had to apply for unsubsidized loans to fill the gap.
Thus, through this series of capitalized operations, many people fell into that most absurd cycle.
Even if you chose the respectable income-based repayment plan, the amount you paid each month wasn’t even enough to cover the interest generated by the new principal after compound interest.
The result was that you were paying back money every month, yet your total debt kept increasing.
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Kate had already finished dressing. She walked over to Lin Wansheng, bent down, and a strand of long hair fell down, gently brushing his cheek.
She carried a faint, lingering
scent that belonged to the two of them.
“Shall we go? Grab something to eat?” Her voice carried a hint of husky laziness.
“I want to go to Casa Mono. I’m suddenly craving Spanish food.”
“Their grilled meat is famous there.”
After she finished speaking, her eyes swept over him with clear implication.
A trace of blush appeared on her face. “You should really like eating meat, huh.”
She leaned in closer, warm breath brushing against his ear, and added in a volume that was almost a whisper.
“Big Sister’s treating you~”
But Lin Wansheng shook his head.
Lin Wansheng actually agreed with Hank’s evaluation of his technical level.
After all, it had been too long since he’d played in an official game; before this, he’d been training with the third team, where the intensity of competition was completely different.
Not to mention he had just switched to the new position of wide receiver; many techniques were still being figured out.
But things like route running and separation techniques weren’t skills you could improve by just burying your head in solo training.
They needed to be honed through countless repetitions in high-intensity competition.
What he could do right now was take the physical talent granted by the system.
Through constant training, bring it to its absolute limits.
He sat up, looking into Kate’s expectant eyes.
He said seriously, “Let’s just eat something simple? I want to go to the school gym and train this afternoon.”
Although Kate was somewhat surprised, she simply shrugged.
The two of them casually grabbed lunch at a roadside food truck, and then Kate dropped Lin Wansheng off at the entrance of East River High School.
Walking into the empty campus, Lin Wansheng headed straight for the football field.
He had thought no one would be here at this hour, but unexpectedly, as soon as he approached, he heard the sound of a football slicing through the air.
On the field, Mark and Kevin were actually training.
Mark, wearing simple practice gear, was repeatedly throwing the ball with precision to Kevin, who was running routes in the distance.
And Kevin was tirelessly practicing various routes.
Wide receivers were the aerial weapons of the football offense.
Their core mission was to use precise route running to shake off the defenders covering them on the field, create passing windows for the quarterback, and then complete the catch.
Depending on the tactical formation, there were usually two to four wide receivers on the field at the same time.
They were the key to the team advancing the ball
and tearing open the opposing defense.
And the Titans favored a ground-attack tactic centered on the running back’s rushing, so the formation usually only deployed two wide receivers.
Seeing Lin Wansheng approach, Mark stopped his movements. A hint of surprise flashed across his face, then he revealed an approving smile. “Coming in for extra practice. Good.”
Just as the three youths were preparing to start training together.
None of them noticed that in the shadows of the stadium entrance, a figure had been quietly observing for quite some time.
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