***
"Why not just stay home, sleep, play games, and watch dramas instead of taking a two-day break? What's so interesting about this kind of competition? Even children playing house is more fun than this."
“You train so hard, and you just stay at home during your holidays. Orange Juice just wants you to get out and relax.”
"Relax? Hiking, running, swimming, diving, playing games, what can't relax you? Why come here to watch a competition? He probably has his eye on some female student, but he's too shy to ask, so he's here to have us keep him company."
The boy nicknamed "Orange Juice" looked around and quickly bowed and begged for mercy: "Sister, sister, I'll call you sister, please, keep it down. This competition is organized by my dad's company. Who knows what kind of informants he has? If he finds out that I didn't do my homework and went out to play, I'll get a beating when I get home."
Seeing the three people ahead chatting and laughing, Jian Changnian was about to quickly pass them to avoid seeing them, but Zhou Mu pulled her back tightly. The two of them winked at each other, one wanting to overtake and the other wanting to brake, struggling with each other, neither willing to let go first.
Because of their commotion, Cheng Zhen, who was walking in front, turned her head. Jian Changnian swore that she had never seen such a gentle, kind, and affectionate smile on Zhou Mu's face. He looked as kind and benevolent as a clay bodhisattva in a temple, as if he were saving all living beings.
Jian Changnian pinched herself hard to stop herself from laughing, but when Cheng Zhen turned around, she instantly broke down and burst into laughter.
Zhou Mu lunged forward and covered her mouth: "Stop laughing! Stop laughing! If you laugh again, I'll kill myself!!!"
"Okay, okay, stop laughing. By the way, do you recognize those two people next to him?"
As Zhou Mu walked along, he observed and recalled, and shook his head: "I don't think I've seen him at school."
Jian Changnian looked thoughtfully at the three people in front of her. Cheng Zhen was walking in the middle, and the girl on the left was a little shorter with long hair down to her waist. She was wearing a simple dress, and from the back, she seemed to be quite pretty.
According to Zhou Mu, Cheng Zhen is about 180 cm tall, while the girl on the right is only one head shorter than Cheng Zhen, and is estimated to be around 175 cm tall, which is quite eye-catching among girls.
The tall girl had her hair tied in a high ponytail, wore a sports short-sleeved top and a matching sports skirt, and a blue wristband. She was tall with long legs, narrow shoulders and a slim waist, looking very cool and refreshing.
She had rarely seen such a tall and elegant girl, and she looked at her a few more times out of curiosity. But the girl seemed to sense something and turned her head away.
Their eyes met, and Jian Changnian suddenly felt as if she had been stabbed by something, her heart pounding.
She hurriedly lowered her head, while the girl turned her face away, patted Cheng Zhen's shoulder, and continued walking forward.
"It seems you have quite a few fans."
"What are you saying? I only like that girl from No. 2 Middle School..."
The person has already gone far away.
Jian Changnian was still immersed in that glance and couldn't come back to her senses for a long time. The tall girl had very fair skin, a jade-like profile, beautiful eyes, and jet-black hair. She had an icy and snow-like quality to her whole being.
"Changnian, Changnian." Zhou Mu waved his hand in front of her eyes: "What are you thinking about, so engrossed?"
"No, it's nothing." Jian Changnian quickly came to her senses, pushed her away, and changed the subject.
"Where are your teammates? Have they arrived yet?"
"Here she comes! It's Li Jiajia!"
"Zhou Mu! Over here!"
From afar, the group waved, and Zhou Mu quickly pulled Jian Changnian into the stadium to reunite with them.
Preparations before the competition.
Li Jiajia pulled Zhou Mu aside and whispered.
"Is this the person you found? Is he any good?" Li Jiajia asked, glancing back at Jian Changnian.
Jian Changnian was short and thin, wearing an old gray T-shirt and patched sneakers. He looked a bit dull and unsophisticated, not like someone who had received professional training.
Jian Changnian wasn't deaf; she was used to it. She simply sat to the side, unzipped her backpack, and silently wrapped the racket with a cushioning membrane.
Zhou Mu, on the other hand, seemed much more excited than her.
"Why not! She used to be invincible at our town's high school, even our PE teacher praised her talent!"
A male team member came over and made sarcastic remarks.
"What? The town's high school? I think we should just withdraw from the competition. You insist on bringing someone over to play women's doubles with us. Does our team need another championship? Seriously."
Zhou Mu stomped her foot in anger, then abandoned the person and ran away.
"Just you wait and see!"
Seeing her storm back, Jian Changnian stopped what she was doing and whispered.
“Zhou Mu…”
"It's okay, they don't believe you, but I believe you." Zhou Mu took out her classmate's school badge from her schoolbag and pinned it to her chest.
"If we team up, we're sure to win the championship! Then you'll have money, and you can even get a new racket..."
Jian Changnian felt a warm glow in her heart, smiled, and reached out her hand.
"Okay, let's do our best."
Zhou Mu gave her a crisp high five.
"come on!"
***
The competition began, and the stadium was bustling with activity, while two middle-aged men were leisurely strolling on the playground outside.
"Hey Lao Yan, you didn't even say you were coming back. I had to ask Lao Wan to find out. That's not very nice of you. You'll have to treat us tonight."
"Hey, it's nothing to be proud of, what's there to brag about?" Yan Xinyuan strolled along with his friend Song Wei, hands behind his back, chatting as they walked.
Compared to his spirited appearance when I saw him a few years ago, Yan Xinyuan looked much older. He was balding on top of his head, had gray hair at his temples, and his back was slightly hunched.
"Although... you've been with the national team for so many years, how can we let you just leave like that? In my opinion, how about I pull some strings for you and find you a job as a physical education teacher at a school? You'll just be teaching classes, and you'll have winter and summer vacations. It'll be easy, and you can work there until you retire."
"What, you haven't had enough of being a PE teacher yet, and you want to drag me into it too?"
When Yan Xinyuan was still playing professionally for the national team, the two were teammates and had known each other for many years, sharing everything. However, after Song Wei retired due to injury, he returned to his hometown to become a teacher, where he has remained for many years.
As they reminisced about the past, the two burst into laughter.
"I just enjoy spending time with children. Seeing them makes me feel younger."
Upon hearing this, Yan Xinyuan's gaze became somewhat distant.
"I still want to be a coach."
“I know you still have dreams to fulfill…” Song Wei hesitated before continuing.
Cheers erupted from the nearby stadium.
Yan Xinyuan changed the subject: "Oh, what kind of competition is this?"
"Hey, the school rented the venue to a sporting goods company and held a badminton friendly tournament. It was mostly school teams from different schools who came to play."
Upon hearing about the badminton match, Yan Xinyuan became interested and pulled someone along to join him.
"Come on, let's go take a look. Honestly, you're not even a PE teacher to care about your own school team's competition."
"What's there to take seriously? To put it bluntly, it's just a bunch of kids playing around..."
Chapter 4 Help
"Here it comes! Look! See? I told you so, didn't I? Isn't it beautiful!"
Cheng Zhen leaned on the railing of the second-floor audience section and waved frantically at his junior schoolmate, but she didn't even glance in his direction.
Xie Shi'an leaned against the railing, sipping his cold drink.
"I know without even looking that they're ignoring you."
"Hey, can you watch your mouth? I'm going to take a break from school, so I'll probably have to train every day from now on and never see you again."
"Not only do we train every day, but we also have to strictly control our diet and rest. We have to get up at six in the morning to run and we can't rest until 11 at night. There is also roll call before lights out. It's much stricter than high school."
The girl next to her burst out laughing: "Shi'an, since Orange Juice treated us to shaved ice and drinks, say less."
Xie Shi'an snorted and then gave up.
"I'll let you off the hook for Yu Chu's sake."
“You’ve always listened to her and bullied me since we were little. We’ve been classmates since kindergarten, and you’ve never listened to me then.”
"So what if we're classmates? Yu Chu and I are neighbors and teammates." Xie Shi'an deliberately winked, calling Yu Chu in an incredibly intimate way.
The three of them grew up in the same neighborhood. Qiao Yuchu's family and Xie Shi'an's family were neighbors across the street. Because she and Cheng Zhen were about the same age, they were classmates for twelve years, starting from kindergarten, until Cheng Zhen moved to the nearby Chengnan No. 1 High School. From childhood to adulthood, one of Xie Shi'an's great hobbies was to tease people, or more accurately, to tease him.
Cheng Zhen trembled with anger: "You...you you you you you little tagalong!"
"What did you say?" Xie Shi'an gripped the beverage bottle in his hand tightly.
"Tagalong, tagalong, nyah nyah nyah." Cheng Zhen said as she hid behind Qiao Yuchu.
Xie Shi'an didn't waste any more words with him and was about to take action.
The two were about to start fighting, and the scene was extremely bloody. It was truly a case of enemies meeting on a narrow road, unable to bear seeing each other but also unable to part ways.
Qiao Yuchu sighed, grabbed one of them with her left hand, and pulled Xie Shi'an into her arms with her right, pressing them both against the railing.
"Alright, alright, let's watch the game. Hey, not bad, Orange Juice, your junior scored a point!"
The moment the junior schoolmate was mentioned, Cheng Zhen forgot everything else and beamed with joy.
"Good luck, junior!!!"
Xie Shi'an rolled his eyes: "We're not even from the same school. Calling her 'junior' to get close to her is creepy."
"What do you know? All the pretty, kind-hearted girls in the world are my juniors, except for one person, of course."
Xie Shi'an was about to kick him again after hearing this, but Qiao Yuchu stopped him. She pointed to the left side of the field and spoke with a hint of admiration.
"Not bad. By quickly hooking the ball diagonally, you made the opponent run around and exposed the weakness in the backcourt. Then you immediately followed up with a point-and-click kill to score. That was quite a skillful play."
Just as Cheng Zhen forgot everything as soon as she heard the words "junior sister," Xie Shi'an could forget everything else as soon as he heard anything related to badminton, and at this moment he also focused on watching the game.
The match being played is a women's doubles game. One of the two players on the right is the girl with short, shoulder-length hair and a pink dress. She is the junior schoolmate Cheng Zhen mentioned, a member of the school team from Jiangbei No. 2 Middle School.
The two on the left have the same school badge on their chests as Cheng Zhen, and they are members of Chengnan No. 1 Middle School.
The situation on the field was only that Jiangbei No. 2 Middle School scored a few points at the beginning, but they were quickly tied. The ball had just landed and they had already been overtaken.
The two sides switch sides to serve.
Zhou Mu and Jian Changnian gave each other a high five to encourage each other, while secretly glancing up at each other and whispering.
"Chang Nian, Chang Nian, why do I feel like he's watching me? I'm so nervous, my palms are all sweaty."