"Don't forget what I told you that night, and don't let me down. Think carefully about why you play basketball. Go for it, go to a bigger stage."
After saying this, the old man gently pushed them toward the boarding gate.
Jian Changnian kept turning back, and he was always smiling and looking around. For some reason, she felt that he looked a bit like her grandmother standing at the gate of the courtyard to see her off every time she left home. As a result, her nose tingled and she almost burst into tears again.
The boarding announcement had already started.
"Boarding for flight CN7089 to Shanghai has begun. Please be aware..."
Xie Shi'an stood still and turned his head back once.
"They're gone."
Jian Changnian wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and quickly followed.
"They're here."
While sitting on the plane, Jian Changnian fastened her seatbelt, turned around, and looked at her face. She finally remembered what Qiao Yuchu had told her, and she opened her mouth.
"Shi An—"
Xie Shi'an, wearing headphones, ignored the noise. As the plane's engine roared to life, she casually pulled down the sunshade and put on her goggles.
It's obvious that they have a "keep away" attitude.
Jian Changnian then swallowed his words back.
After seeing the person off, Yan Xinyuan pressed his fist to his lips and coughed violently.
Coach Liang was heartbroken to hear this, so he quickly got a cup of warm water from the water dispenser next to him and helped him sit down in a chair.
"I advised you to get checked out. You said you wanted to play in the national tournament, and after the national tournament was finally over, you said you wanted to prepare for the World Championship qualifiers. Now you've sent both of them away. You can finally rest and get a medical check-up."
Yan Xinyuan took a sip of warm water and felt a little better.
"Alright, stop nagging. Let's go see it when we get back to Jiangcheng, okay? What time is our flight?"
"At four o'clock in the afternoon."
"Oh, four o'clock? That's still early. We can go to Tianqiao to listen to another crosstalk performance. By the way, has Yu Chu left yet?"
"Hey, I was saying you don't care about your own health, you're always thinking about having fun. You left a long time ago, and you even asked me to tell you that you want to take a few days off to rest and go home to visit your family."
"Of course, of course, I should get some rest. I'm exhausted, let alone them—" Yan Xinyuan slowly stood up, supporting his back, and Coach Liang quickly lent him a hand.
"Oh dear, my old bones are so strong. Let's go, let's go to Tianqiao to listen to crosstalk and relax."
***
After Xie Shi'an and his team arrived in Shanghai, they immediately threw themselves into intensive training and competition. Meanwhile, the draw results for the World Championships were also released. Although Jiang Yunli has retired, she is still ranked first in the BWF rankings. Yin Jiayi, the No. 1 seed, is right behind her and has been placed in the upper half of the draw.
It's worth mentioning that Kim Nam-ji was also placed in the upper bracket, which means that the two of them are destined to fight. Xie Shi-an was placed in the lower bracket, which avoids an internal battle with Yin Jia-yi, but the lower bracket is also full of experts, and the battle situation is not optimistic.
Jian Changnian looked at the schedule posted in front of the training room and felt a wave of toothache. Before coming, Yan Xinyuan had given them a general overview of the world's top professional players and provided them with tactical planning.
Therefore, she recognized most of the names of the people in the photos.
"The second seed in the bottom half of the draw, currently ranked third in the world, is Anton Sevich from Canada; the fourth seed is British professional player Misa, currently ranked fifth in the world; and the sixth seed is Singaporean prodigy Natiya, who just won the World Junior Championships women's singles title last year..."
"Shi An, the second half of your bracket is practically a battlefield!"
Yin Jiayi looked at the schedule, her gaze gradually falling on familiar names, and she became slightly lost in thought.
While they were preparing for the battle, Qiao Yuchu did not return to Jiangcheng. Let's rewind half a day.
She got up very early. When she arrived at the airport, there were still four hours before her flight took off. She found a 24-hour coffee shop, sat down, and contacted Coach Liang by phone to ask for leave.
Shortly after hanging up, her mother called, most likely to scold her again.
Qiao Yuchu hung up, but the other party persisted. Left with no other choice, she had to answer the call wearily.
"Mom, what's the matter so early in the morning?"
The sound of mahjong tiles being rubbed came through the receiver.
Mrs. Joe raised her voice at the card table.
"Is the game over? Come back as soon as it's over. Your Aunt Chen has introduced you to another boyfriend. He's a returnee from overseas, works in a private company, and is tall and handsome..."
She kept babbling on the other end, and Qiao Yuchu suddenly felt annoyed and gave a perfunctory reply.
"Okay, Mom."
After saying that, he hung up the phone.
Qiao Yuchu looked up at the three words "Jiangcheng City" flashing on the airport's electronic screen. It was clearly home, but she felt inexplicably resistant. She stood up with her luggage, and when she turned around, she saw the man standing behind her, holding a mobile phone and smiling at her.
It looks like he wants to call her.
Qiao Yuchu was taken aback for a moment, then laughed as well.
What are you doing here?
"You said you were going back to Jiangcheng today, but you didn't tell me your flight number. I wanted to see you off, so I drove over early this morning to try my luck."
Qiao Yuchu dragged her luggage toward him.
"I originally wanted to go home, but now I don't want to anymore."
Jin Shunqi took the things from her hands without asking any questions.
"Then let me show you around Beijing."
"You're a foreigner, taking me around Beijing?" Qiao Yuchu looked at him with disbelief.
Jin Shunqi started shouting and yelling.
"Of course, I've been in Beijing for at least a year now. I may not know much about famous historical sites, but I'm definitely an expert in food, drink, and entertainment. I guarantee Miss Qiao will be satisfied!"
Unbeknownst to Qiao Yuchu, while she and Jin Shunqi were touring the capital, a quiet upheaval was taking place in her family.
"Hey, this child, he hung up the phone before he even finished speaking." Mrs. Qiao put down her phone and continued playing mahjong.
The aunts and uncles next to them exchanged glances, their eyes filled with gossip.
“We’ve been trying to introduce her to potential partners every year, but she’s never interested. Maybe she already has someone else out there.”
Before Mrs. Qiao could speak, someone next to her chimed in.
"Young people these days are really into things. They're into what you call premarital cohabitation! Take Old Liu's daughter, who used to play cards with us all the time. She's three months pregnant and her fiancé kicked her out of the house. What a nice girl, pregnant out of wedlock and then dumped. She's going to have a tough time from now on."
Upon hearing this, Qiao's mother also began to have doubts.
“Our Yu Chu has always been very obedient since she was little, she shouldn’t do anything so outrageous.”
The group laughed again, and started playing mahjong, taking turns playing one tile at a time.
Halfway through the game, the middle-aged woman sitting opposite Mrs. Qiao received a phone call, her expression immediately changed, and she threw down the mahjong tiles and left.
"I have something to do today, let's play another day."
"Hey, don't go! We're three players short, how can we play this game?"
Mrs. Qiao tried to persuade her to stay, and the remaining people exchanged meaningful glances with her. They waited until the people were out of sight before speaking.
"Don't keep her here. She's busy catching her cheating lately."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
The card table has always been the place where gossip spreads most widely, and Mrs. Qiao pricked up her ears.
The older woman sitting next to her continued playing the rest of her cards and said coolly, "You don't know? Her good-for-nothing husband found her another mistress, and apparently she's pregnant. My brother-in-law lives in the same neighborhood as her and saw her drag the mistress out of her husband's car by the hair. They were both disheveled at the time. Because of this, her family has been in constant turmoil these past few days."
Another person said.
"Haven't Xiao Chen and her husband been married for many years? How could this happen all of a sudden, especially at the entrance of the residential area? Xiao Chen's son is about to take the college entrance exam, how will he ever be able to hold his head up again?"
"That's right. Xiao Chen and her husband met when they were young and were a model couple for most of their lives. Who would have thought that they would be kicked like this in middle age? Who can stand this?"
"It's said that it started when the man was transferred to work in another city. He hadn't been home much for more than half a year. Even when he did come home occasionally, he wasn't enthusiastic about 'paying his dues,' claiming that he was too busy and tired at work and refused to have marital relations. It turns out that he had already been having an affair with his secretary."
The group was talking animatedly, but Mrs. Qiao's hand, holding the cards, slowly froze in mid-air.
Everyone glanced at her.
"Yu Chu's mother, what's wrong with you?"
Mrs. Qiao came to her senses and smiled.
"No...nothing much, come on, come on, shuffle the cards."
"If you ask me, you should keep a closer eye on your husband, Lao Qiao. They say a man is in his prime at forty. At this age, if he has nothing but a house, a car, and money, who knows how many young girls are eyeing him."
Mrs. Qiao shuffled the cards with a normal expression.
"Oh dear, I can't trust anyone but Old Joe."
That's what she said. She usually plays mahjong from morning till night, and sometimes even all night when she's on a winning streak. But today she made an excuse and left the mahjong table before noon.
When Mrs. Qiao returned home, she sat on the sofa and looked at the cold, lifeless living room. The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt.
She took out her phone to call her husband, but saw that apart from the necessary household expenses and transfer records, there wasn't even a few words of greeting in the chat. She also thought about how he would come home occasionally with a lack of interest, and how he wasn't even willing to go through the motions in their sex life. Apart from a few smiles for their daughter, he rarely gave her a kind look, and his politeness was tinged with distance.
Mrs. Qiao felt as if she had been pricked by a needle.
She removed her thumb from the dial pad, bought a train ticket to the provincial capital, hurriedly packed a few clothes, and left.
***
Although Yan Xinyuan was extremely unwilling, Coach Liang still took him to the hospital for a check-up as soon as he returned to Jiangcheng City.
The doctor looked at his chest X-ray and frowned.
"The X-ray shows a shadow on the lung, but I suggest you go to a specialized chest hospital to get it checked out to find out what it is."
Upon hearing this, Coach Liang became anxious.
"Doctor, what exactly is it? Please explain it clearly."
Yan Xinyuan coughed a few times, slightly out of breath.
He already had a bad feeling that he needed to see a specialist at a chest hospital for his illness.
"Doctor, is it cancer?"
The doctor looked at them, his expression somewhat troubled.
"It's hard to say whether it's cancerous or not right now. Judging from the scan, it's definitely a shadow caused by a nodule. But tumors can be benign or malignant. We're a general hospital, so to avoid delaying your treatment, we suggest you go to a chest hospital for further pathological tissue analysis."