Monday. The first day of school.
The hallways of East River High were packed with students reunited after the long break, the noise nearly loud enough to lift the roof.
Lin Wansheng pushed through the crowd and found his locker.
Before he could even open it, he was stunned by the gaudy sight in front of him.
His locker door had been covered from top to bottom with ribbons and stickers.
Written across it in fancy lettering were “Go Jimmy!” and “79.”
Beside them were several printed photos of him making hits on the field.
“Yo, our ‘Rookie of the Year’ is back?” a teasing voice came from the side.
Lin Wansheng turned and saw his two Chinese friends, Li Ang and Zhou Yi.
They were the mainstays of the school math team.
Their friendship had begun with a classic everyday nerd disaster.
As a football powerhouse, East River High still needed a few genuinely good students to maintain the fig leaf of an elite private school and keep its college admission rate looking respectable.
And so, the Li and Zhou families, who had just moved from Los Angeles to New York, had been sweet-talked into enrolling by the admissions office.
As a result, on the very first day of tenth grade, these two model students were cornered in a bathroom stall.
For no other reason than that they kept raising their hands and answering questions in every single class.
That led the teachers to look upon their class “with special favor,” assigning them far more homework than the other classes.
And the ones who cornered them were several burly guys from the school wrestling team.
Just as they were about to let the two nerds experience East River High’s “hospitality,” Lin Wansheng happened to pass by and bailed them out.
Li Ang looked Lin Wansheng up and down and teased him in Chinese, “Not bad, bro. One summer apart, and you’ve finally climbed back into our school’s top tier?”
At East River High, there was a clearly defined chain of contempt among the students.
It formed a social pyramid with rigid ranks.
And the very top of that pyramid forever belonged to one group alone.
Football players.
They were the gods of the campus, enjoying every privilege the high school could offer.
In the crowded cafeteria, they always occupied the largest long table in the very center.
They also had exclusive parking spaces closest to the academic buildings.
And their girlfriends, naturally, were the equally radiant cheerleaders in the crowd.
They were also the first names on every party invitation list, the focus of every girl’s gaze.
There were even core players whose parents’ jobs had been arranged by the school.
And Mark, as the team’s star quarterback and captain, was the king of this pyramid.
Right beneath him was the “aristocracy” made up of core football players, star athletes from the other varsity teams, and popular pretty girls. They surrounded the king, forming the upper structure of the pyramid.
However, before this summer, none of this had anything to do with Lin Wansheng.
Although he was a member of the football team, as an eleventh grader, he had still been hanging around with tenth graders on the freshman team, the third team.
This meant the social status he gained from sports was actually lower than the status he gained from good grades and decent looks.
Only now, all of that had completely changed, starting with last Friday’s game.
Lin Wansheng smiled and was just about to retort when Zhou Yi also came over and patted the photo on his locker door.
“All right, stop showing off. Hurry up. We’ll talk at lunch. We have to get to AP Calculus.”
At three in the afternoon, practice officially began.
Lin Wansheng changed into his gear and walked out of the locker room at an unhurried pace.
As soon as he reached the hallway, several chattering girls blocked his way.
The one in the lead was running back Brian’s girlfriend, Jessica, who was also a cheerleader.
She had lively brown curls, a tall figure, and thanks to years of cheerleading training, not a trace of fat on her flat stomach. Her legs were long and toned, full of healthy vitality.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Jessica said, looking him up and down, her eyes filled with undisguised curiosity.
“You were absolutely insane in that game Friday night. So awesome!”
The cheerleaders beside her chimed in as well.
Lin Wansheng merely shrugged. “I just did what I was supposed to do.”
“Either way, nice job.” Jessica smiled and casually flicked her curls.
“Oh, right. Kevin’s having a party at his place Saturday night. You’re going, right?”
Lin Wansheng looked at her and gave a noncommittal answer. “I’ll see when the time comes.”
With that, without waiting for Jessica to say anything else, he politely nodded, turned, and headed toward the field.
That ambiguous response clearly took Jessica by surprise.
She looked at Lin Wansheng’s retreating back, a flicker of astonishment crossing her face.
As for Lin Wansheng, he had already tossed that little episode to the back of his mind.
He walked to the sideline and looked at the practice field before him, both familiar and unfamiliar. For a moment, he was not entirely sure where he was supposed to go.
On the field, each group had already begun warming up on its own.
The first-team offense, led by offensive coordinator Coach Payne, occupied the most central area of the field.
Spencer was among them, but he was clearly a little distracted. While doing perfunctory stretches, he laughed and joked with his teammates beside him, occasionally making faces at a few girls on the sideline.
Lin Wansheng’s gaze swept across the entire field, but he did not see Avery anywhere.
At the far end of the field, head coach Bob was crouching on the ground. Beside him stood only one rather nervous-looking tenth-grade freshman.
That was this year’s new backup quarterback. Coach Bob was pointing at an open playbook, quietly saying something to the freshman.
Lin Wansheng’s gaze finally returned to the first-team practice area.
Coach Payne was clapping his hands, telling the players to begin their route-running drills.
He saw Lin Wansheng standing alone on the sideline, but merely gave him an indifferent glance, as if he were nothing but a puff of air.
Then he turned his head and continued loudly assigning the plays.
Lin Wansheng understood.
He smiled silently, shrugged, then turned and walked toward the other side, where the second-team players were gathering.
Just then, a booming voice rang out behind him.
“Lin! Where the fuck are you going?!”
It was head coach Bob. He strode over, grabbed Lin Wansheng halfway there, and hauled him back.
He brought him straight in front of the first-team offense.
Looking at Payne, then sweeping a glance at Spencer, whose expression had instantly turned ugly, he announced loudly:
“Starting today, Lin trains with the first team. I don’t care who was the starter before.”
“From now on, I want to see with my own eyes which one of you two is better.”
He pointed at Spencer, then at Lin Wansheng, his tone devoid of the slightest emotion.
“You want to start? Go earn that shit.”
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