Maggie looked at Lin Wansheng and spoke slowly.
“I can try to convince the company to sign you.”
Then, with even a hint of condescension, she continued, “Of course, that might take quite a bit of effort on my part.”
Lin Wansheng only looked at her without saying anything.
“However, I do think you have market potential.” Maggie continued to sweeten the offer, leaning forward slightly.
She tried to suppress the young man before her with her presence. “It’s just that right now, your value isn’t very obvious yet.”
Lin Wansheng finally spoke. He finished the last sip of coffee in his cup.
Only then did he say, unhurriedly, “Then let’s talk again after I become the New York State champion.”
The professional smile on Maggie’s face faltered slightly.
She leaned back against her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and reassessed the young man before her.
“If we want to polish you in advance, there’s a lot of preparation to be done,” she explained patiently.
It was as if she were instructing an ignorant child. “Packaging, media exposure, laying the groundwork with connections... all of that takes time.”
She leaned forward a little. “Jimmy, you still don’t really understand the entertainment business.”
“No,” Lin Wansheng shook his head and looked straight into Maggie’s eyes.
“I do understand. I just think that if I’m strong enough myself, that’s stronger than anything else, isn’t it?”
He had thought it through very clearly.
To put it plainly, this Maggie was just like Hank from before.
If you sign me at this point, the initiative is in your hands.
I’m just a commodity with potential, and you get to set the price.
But if you wait until I really do win the state championship.
By then, the balance of power will be reversed.
To be honest, he had the system to thank for understanding all these twists and turns.
If it hadn’t been for those headache-inducing classical Chinese texts it gave him, forcing him to gnaw through quite a few ancient Chinese books,
he really might not have seen through the tricks involved here.
...
...
...
On Sunday afternoon, Coach Bob’s new house was extraordinarily lively. Dozens of SUVs and pickup trucks had nearly filled the streets of the entire neighborhood.
Bob and Tina stood at the door, warmly welcoming every guest.
The most eye-catching among them was undoubtedly the “ladies’ group” made up of the mothers of several core players.
As if they had discussed it beforehand, they were all wearing exquisite summer dresses, their blond hair meticulously styled, each elegantly carrying a bottle of white wine in hand.
Zowa Layton, the mother of Rod, the defensive unit’s core player, was the first to give Tina a loud cheek kiss, her voice cloyingly sweet. “Oh my God, Tina! You look absolutely wonderful!”
“This really is such a beautiful house,” Mark’s mother chimed in right after.
She had not even entered the house yet. Instead, from across the yard, she called out to Bob, who was somewhat flustered as he greeted guests, her voice sweet and bright.
She made sure that everyone present could hear her praise for the coach.
Tom Houston, the team’s biggest sponsor, heard this and walked forward with a smile, giving Bob a firm pat on the shoulder.
“Of course. For those who have contributed so much, East River High School will spare no effort in showing support.”
Then he leaned close to Bob’s ear and said in a low voice,
“By the way, I mentioned your wife’s job to the board. They think the school counselor position would suit Tina very well. What do you think?”
Tina did not hear this conversation about her future.
She was wearing an impeccable hostess’s smile as she warmly took the wine from the ladies’ group.
“Oh, girls, you even brought wine. That is really too kind of you.”
“Of course, my darling,” Zowa said with a trace of a fake smile in her voice. “How could we possibly come empty-handed?”
As she spoke, however, her eyes swept silently and quickly across the living room.
When she saw the corner of an unopened moving box still faintly visible in the second-floor hallway, the corner of her mouth twitched downward unconsciously.
Looking at the spectacle outside the door, where there were far more than twenty cars, the smile on Tina’s face began to stiffen.
Taking advantage of this wave of guests having just entered the house, she hurriedly pulled Bob aside and lowered her voice, her tone full of anxiety.
“Didn’t you say around sixty people? Just that group that came in now is almost sixty people already! A lot of your players still haven’t arrived yet! Exactly how many people are coming?”
Coach Bob’s face was almost wrinkled into a ball. A forty-year-old man, at this moment, could not help but show the embarrassed expression of a student who had done something wrong.
“I... I actually don’t know exactly how many people there are either.”
Just then, Lin Wansheng and Avery happened to walk in and greeted Coach Bob and Tina.
Tina took a deep breath and put her hostess’s smile back on.
“You’re here. Hurry in.”
She turned to Bob and said,
“Let’s not just stand here either. Go entertain the guests first. I think that punch bowl is almost empty.”
She suddenly remembered something and stared at Bob. “Where’s the ice I asked you to buy?”
“What ice?” Bob looked blank.
“When you went to the school this morning to pick things up, I asked you to bring back ice on the way!”
“Oh, oh, oh,” Bob said in sudden realization. “You mean the ice... that I forgot to bring?”
This time, Tina was truly anxious. She felt her blood pressure soaring. She hurriedly called into the house, “Anna!”
As she spoke, she fumbled cash out of her wallet, originally intending to count out a few bills for her daughter.
But after thinking about it, she simply stuffed all the cash in her wallet into her hand, then handed over a credit card as well.
“Quick! Go to the supermarket and buy me ten bags of... no, twenty bags of ice!”
At that moment, Tom also spotted Lin Wansheng and the others and immediately walked over with a smile.
“Well, if it isn’t our rookie king, Jimmy?”
He enthusiastically patted Lin Wansheng on the shoulder.
“Why didn’t your parents come?”
Avery had just been about to help explain when Lin Wansheng had already answered directly, neither servile nor overbearing.
“My parents run a small supermarket. They can’t get away during the day on Sunday, so I came by myself.”
“Oh?” Tom nodded.
Avery watched as Lin Wansheng dismissed this somewhat annoying major sponsor in just a few words and felt that Lin Wansheng seemed to have changed a little.
But he did not think much of it. He gave Lin Wansheng a look, while he himself slipped away like an eel toward the large bowl filled with punch.
Unexpectedly, just as he reached out, the sharp-eyed Coach Bob caught him and hauled him back.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Bob said solemnly, holding him by the shoulder. “No alcohol.”
He pointed to the table piled with drinks on the other side. “There’s Dr Pepper over there. Isn’t that your favorite?”
Meanwhile, in the corner,
Tina looked at the number of people in the house, which had already grown so large that they were beginning to spill out onto the backyard lawn, and panic rose in her heart.
After thinking for a moment, she called back Anna, who had been about to go buy ice.
“Go to Mighty Quinn’s and buy at least thirty orders of ribs.”
She thought for a moment, then added, “And fried chicken wings. Buy extra dipping sauce!”
Anna’s head hurt just from listening, her face filled with reluctance.
She was just about to find an excuse to refuse when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two able-bodied laborers who had just been lectured by her dad and now looked as if they had nothing to do.
Lin Wansheng and Avery.
Anna’s eyes lit up as if she had found her saviors, and she immediately strode toward them.
“Hey, you two,” she stopped them.
“Perfect. Come with me to work.”