By the time Coach Bob arrived at the field, it was still early. The entire campus was quiet.
He had long grown accustomed to his captain, Mark, showing up for morning practice every day without fail.
But today, as he drew near, he heard something besides the sound of a football slicing through the air.
There was actually conversation.
He stopped, somewhat surprised. He hadn’t expected anyone other than Mark to be on the field at this hour.
He quietly walked to the shadows beneath the bleachers and saw Mark patiently teaching Lin Wansheng how to adjust his wrist motion when throwing the ball.
As for Lin Wansheng, though his movements were still green, even somewhat clumsy.
The intensity of focus in his eyes—the kind that seemed like it could set the very air ablaze—showed Bob something far more precious than raw talent.
Beneath the bleachers’ shadows, Bob stood still and watched quietly for a while.
He didn’t step forward to disturb them. He simply turned and silently walked back to his office.
Walking down the empty corridor, Bob’s mind replayed everything he had just seen.
“This kid…” he couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
Although Lin Wansheng’s technique was still rough.
He possessed that instinct to find opportunity in chaos, that intuition for how a game changed on the field.
Sigh.
He had been foolish before, keeping him at running back all this time.
Keeping him in an unsuitable position, wasting him away.
The more Bob thought about it, the more frightened he became. He realized that as a head coach, he hadn’t been qualified.
He had nearly destroyed a potentially great prospect through his own negligence, using the wrong approach.
“No,” he said to himself. “I absolutely cannot make this kind of mistake again.”
Thinking this, he quickened his pace.
He planned to set aside time today to review all the game and practice footage from the past year.
He wanted to see if there was a second.
Or even a third “Lin Wansheng” on his team, buried in some corner because of positional issues.
……
……
……
Meanwhile, in an apartment in Queens, sunlight was struggling to push through grime-stained windows.
“Hey, Kevin, time to get up.” Kevin’s brother nudged the sofa with his foot.
“Your team should all be there by now. You still have morning practice.”
“Are you still hungover?”
Kevin lay on the sofa, surrounded by a dozen or so empty beer bottles. He opened his eyes groggily and blocked out the glaring sunlight with his hand.
“Kevin, if you keep this up, they’ll kick you off the team.” Derek’s voice was full of disappointment.
“Whatever, man.” Kevin waved his hand impatiently.
“You’re my brother, not my mom.”
“You think you’re some amazing player? Your coach isn’t going to put up with you like this forever.”
Right then, a girl wearing only an oversized men’s T-shirt, with long, pale blonde hair, walked out of the bedroom.
She went straight to the sofa and lay on top of Kevin without a care for anyone else around, giving him a good morning kiss.
After kissing his girlfriend, Kevin looked at his brother with a disdainful smile.
“I’m still way better than you ever were. Didn’t you never start a single game? What was your longest playing time again?”
The girl laughingly helped him add: “Five minutes~”
Derek’s face instantly darkened.
“You need to understand, Kevin, life isn’t the cover of some Complex magazine.”
He looked at the two stuck together on the sofa with revulsion.
“Forget it. Talking to you is just a waste of my time.”
After Derek slammed the door and left, the girl rolled over and said in a complaining tone.
“Don’t you think Ashley is really annoying? Why did the coach make her your tutor?”
Kevin answered with his eyes closed, impatiently: “Because she’s the cheerleading captain, and she’s an all-A honor student.”
Only then did the girl ask lazily, “So can you start this week?”
Kevin answered indistinctly: “Probably not. The makeup exam is next Monday.”
The girl leaned close to his ear and gently blew: “Then are you still going to class?”
Kevin didn’t answer. He simply rolled over abruptly, grabbing the girl who was still lying on him and pressing her down beneath him.
The girl let out a short cry of surprise, which quickly turned into giggling.
Kevin looked down at her, the corner of his mouth curving into a wicked smile.
“We’ll talk about class later.”
……
……
……
On the field, time ticked away second by second.
Under Mark’s patient guidance, Lin Wansheng felt his understanding of the quarterback position deepening at an unprecedented rate.
Finally, when the clock pointed to 8:47, a new line of text slowly appeared on the translucent panel in his mind.
[Willing to learn from others, you have grasped the rudiments of the method. Even an inch of progress merits reward; you are granted half a point of physique, to serve as your foundation.]
[This task is complete. Yet the sea of learning knows no bounds; glimpsing the entrance is merely the beginning.]
[May the Executor persevere diligently without cease, seek instruction with an open mind, and fully receive the teachings transmitted, so as not to squander this fortuitous opportunity.]
A burst of joy welled up in Lin Wansheng’s heart.
At the same time, a familiar warm current spread through his four limbs and hundred bones.
By now, there were only a few minutes left before the first period bell.
“Go, go, go, we’re gonna be late!” Mark glanced at his watch and, not caring about practicing anymore, grabbed Lin Wansheng and ran toward the locker room.
The two jogged along, still radiating heat from their morning practice.
“Your improvement is faster than I imagined,” Mark praised between breaths as he ran.
“Plenty of power on the throw. You just need to work on your wrist motion more.”
“With the best teacher around, of course it’s fast,” Lin Wansheng answered half-jokingly.
Chatting as they went, the two quickly reached the locker room door.
Mark reached out and pushed the heavy iron door.
However, the door only opened a crack before getting caught on something.
“What the hell?” Mark frowned and put more strength into it.
With a piercing screech, the door was forced open.
An indescribable stench—a mixture of various rotting foods—instantly assaulted the two of them.
“What the f*ck?!”
Instinctively, they stepped back and covered their mouths and noses.
The scene before them left them completely stunned.
This could no longer be called a locker room.
Nearly every locker had been violently overturned onto the floor, doors twisted and deformed. All the players’ personal items inside had been roughly pulled out and mixed together with all kinds of trash, scattered everywhere.
And in the late-summer heat, after a night of fermentation, this garbage was emitting a devastating odor.
But most jarring of all was the wall directly facing the door.
There, in huge letters, had been spray-painted the Titans’ proud motto:
“Hard work, no fear, we are winners.”
But now, a thick streak of black paint crossed out those words from start to finish.
And beneath that scar, sloppily spray-painted in the same black paint, was a new message:
“F*ck you all.”
“You ain’t sh*t.”
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