Yang Yang Had Changed

Yang Yang opened his eyes. It was already the next morning.

He leaped out of the single bed, frantically felt his head and body, then rushed to the mirror hanging on the wall. Only after confirming that he was safe and sound did he let out a sigh of relief.

He had been so worried that he had encountered aliens and been completely remade into some mutant.

But soon, he discovered something else strange.

He had slept for more than ten hours and had also spent more than ten hours juggling the ball in the Super Training Ground. Yet when he woke up that morning, he was full of energy and not the slightest bit tired. It was simply unbelievable.

It seemed Old Bing had been telling the truth. Everything that happened in the Super Training Ground would genuinely affect him, yet it would not affect his sleep at all. This was an incredible stroke of luck. It meant that from now on, Yang Yang could practice for several more hours every day than other people, with the assistance of the most professional training system there was—the Super Training Ground.

At that thought, all his hesitation and unease from the previous night vanished completely.

"Old Bing, Old Bing," Yang Yang called out in his mind.

His most important task now was to confirm that the Super Training Ground truly existed and had not merely been an imaginary dream.

"Stop shouting. You're not dreaming," the cold voice replied. "And don't call me Old Bing."

He strongly protested the name Yang Yang had given him. It was far too tacky and uncultured.

"Ha." Yang Yang relaxed and laughed aloud. Suddenly, he felt that his luck was about to change.

"Old Bing, tell me, can I only enter the Super Training Ground and practice soccer in my dreams?"

"Yes." Old Bing remained as cold and emotionless as ever. "But under normal circumstances, I can also help you at any time."

"But what if I happen to suffer from insomnia? What then?" Yang Yang was in high spirits, and his whole personality had become more cheerful.

"Don't worry. As long as you want to sleep, you'll be able to fall asleep at any time."

"I never expected you to have a sleep-promoting effect too." Yang Yang was delighted.

Good sleep was crucial to everyone, especially professional athletes.

He had even heard John Rep say that in professional soccer, only those who slept well had any chance of succeeding.

That alone showed how important sleep was.

"The Super Training Ground has many other uses. You'll gradually experience and learn to use them. But for now, I suggest you hurry up and wash your stinking body, change your clothes, eat some breakfast, and then start practicing."

"Practice again?" Yang Yang glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. "It's time for me to go to school."

"Juggle the ball on your way there."

"I'll be late."

He usually took the bus to school.

"That's your problem. I'm only responsible for training," Old Bing replied without the slightest trace of emotion.

Yang Yang could not help grumbling inwardly.

Although Yang Yang had always been at the bottom of the team at Almere's Youth Training Camp, he fully demonstrated the truth that [God is fair] at school.

As a transfer student who had traveled all the way from China to the unfamiliar Netherlands, he had not only learned Dutch quickly but had also rapidly caught up with his studies. His grades had always been among the best in his class.

In stark contrast, several of Almere's promising stars who shone brilliantly at the Youth Training Camp were hopeless students academically. Some of them even struggled to pass, giving their homeroom teacher endless headaches. Almere had no choice but to hire tutors to give them extra lessons.

In Dutch youth training, players who failed their academic courses were not allowed to participate in training or matches.

Precisely because Yang Yang's grades were so outstanding, both John Rep and his homeroom teacher felt that he should give up soccer and focus on his studies. If he worked hard, it might not even be impossible for him to get into a good university, perhaps even Amsterdam University.

Yet this model student in his homeroom teacher's eyes was late by an entire class period that morning—a first.

Under the gaze of the entire class, Yang Yang stood awkwardly at the doorway, drenched in sweat, and apologetically offered an excuse.

"Sorry, I missed the bus and got lost."

The entire class burst into laughter. Even the teacher could not help smiling. What an utterly ridiculous excuse.

But top students received special treatment. The teacher merely said, "Don't let it happen again," and allowed Yang Yang inside.

After getting away with it, Yang Yang breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to his seat.

He had barely sat down when the bell signaling the end of class rang.

"Chinese boy, we all thought you'd run away." His teammate Henk Dimer poked Yang Yang hard in the back with the end of his pen and spoke with a grin.

Henk Dimer was a classic dragon on the field and a worm in the classroom. To quote their teacher, if Almere had not partnered with the school, Dimer could forget about ever entering his classroom. Yet Dimer was the captain of Almere's sixteen-to-seventeen age-group team and the hope of everyone around him.

Yang Yang glanced around. His teammates were all looking at him maliciously, clearly sharing the same thought as Henk Dimer. He knew that guessing whether Yang Yang would give up and run away was one of their daily sources of entertainment at school.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to give up that easily," Yang Yang replied with a curl of his lips.

Henk Dimer raised the corner of his mouth and sneered. "Is that so? You'll have to be able to stay first."

"Exactly. Whether it's the overall assessment or the evaluation results, you're at the bottom of the team."

"I really don't understand. What's the point of dragging the whole team down like this?"

"You'll have to leave sooner or later, so why not do it decisively?"

Normally, Yang Yang would have felt indignant after hearing his teammates' taunts, but he would never have dared answer back. Now that he had the Super Training Ground, however, his confidence had soared. How could he hold back?

"Just wait and see. Not only will I pass the evaluation and remain on the team, I'm even going to fight for a recommendation spot to go to Amsterdam and participate in Ajax's Talent Day selection."

Hearing Yang Yang's firm and confident declaration, Henk Dimer and the others froze for a moment. Then they all bent over laughing, as if they had just heard the funniest joke of the century.

"You're going to pass the evaluation? And get a recommendation spot for Talent Day?"

"My God, where did you get that confidence?"

"That's the biggest joke I've heard in my entire life."

Henk Dimer even jumped onto a desk and loudly called out to the class, "Everyone, our great Chinese prodigy Yang Yang just said he's definitely going to get a recommendation spot for Ajax's Talent Day selection. Do you agree?"

"We agree!" More than a dozen teammates and classmates began jeering.

Everyone in the class looked at Yang Yang mockingly. Some of them did feel sympathy, but everyone knew that Yang Yang's performance on the field was worlds apart from his grades in the classroom. They had even decided long ago that he would leave the team and the school after this semester.

And someone like that wanted to get a recommendation spot for Talent Day?

Yang Yang knew that his words had been taken out of context, but he did not explain, because he knew it would be useless.

From the first day he joined the team, these teammates had never looked at him properly. No matter what he said now, it would change nothing. He could only prove himself through his performance—real, tangible performance.

This strengthened his resolve to train hard even further.

He had to succeed, no matter what.

At noon, during the lunch break, Yang Yang entered the Super Training Ground again and continued practicing his juggling.

He had played soccer for six years, and juggling with both feet was his specialty. But juggling the ball five hundred times in a row was still difficult. Once he mastered the feel of the ball and became familiar with its movement, however, there was not much difference between five hundred touches, a thousand, or even more.

What troubled Yang Yang most were his shoulders and head. He had never deliberately trained those areas before, and reaching five hundred consecutive touches would require him to put in a great deal of hard work.

Fortunately, he had the Super Training Ground's assistance. Whenever he juggled the ball, Old Bing tirelessly corrected his movements and offered the best advice, allowing him to improve at astonishing speed.

Especially after finishing his afternoon classes and arriving at Almere's Youth Training Camp for practice, Yang Yang discovered another marvelous use of the Super Training Ground. He could activate an overhead view of the field, an auxiliary tool similar to God's Perspective. With it, whether during training or small-sided matches, he had a clear understanding of every movement made by the players around him, friend or foe.

Although playing with God's Perspective was still very unfamiliar to Yang Yang, he clearly understood how enormous its benefits were. This was especially true during the ensuing keep-away game, when he repeatedly relied on God's Perspective to predict the ball's path with pinpoint accuracy.

As the saying went, the layman watched the spectacle while the expert understood the technique.

John Rep had once been a highly successful professional player, so he naturally knew how to recognize the finer points.

While everyone else thought Yang Yang was still charging around blindly as usual during the keep-away game, John Rep's brows drew tightly together as he muttered, "That boy's a little strange today."

But he could not say exactly what was strange. His many years of playing experience merely told him that Yang Yang was indeed different from usual.

His assistant, standing nearby, chuckled when he heard that. "There's nothing strange about it. He's just running a little less than usual."

Was that really all there was to it?

John Rep did not think so, but he did not argue.

Just as everyone assumed Yang Yang would be toyed with by his teammates for ten minutes as usual, the keep-away game had been underway for less than two minutes when Yang Yang suddenly made his move. He first feinted toward someone nearby, then abruptly changed direction and charged at Henk Dimer.

The moment the rising star of the Almere team received the ball, Yang Yang had already reached him.

Unable to pass the ball in time, Henk Dimer could only watch helplessly as Yang Yang took it away.

Now it was his turn to step into the circle and become the monkey everyone toyed with.

On the sidelines, Head Coach John Rep's eyes lit up.

He was finally certain that Yang Yang had changed.

Although he could not sense exactly what had changed, Yang Yang had indeed become different.

Had he suddenly gotten smarter and finally seen the light?

As this was a new book, please continue to support it! Thank you!