After the Premier League's opening match had ended.
Li Yufei spent two days glued to Taylor, being all lovey-dovey.
Then it was back to his usual training and daily routine.
Seeing how well Li Yufei had performed in his debut, the old man rewarded him with an extra day off.
You could say Li Yufei had special privileges.
After all, during the past few years at Arsenal's youth academy, Li Yufei had often skipped training.
At first, the youth team's head coach, Neil, would talk to him about it.
But later, he realized that no matter how Li Yufei behaved in his daily life, he always carried the team on match day, so he stopped bringing it up.
The old man had originally planned to put a stop to Li Yufei's bad habit.
But when he found that Li Yufei performed about the same in matches whether he trained or not, he decided to turn a blind eye.
Of course, that was only as long as Li Yufei didn't take things too far. He still had to follow the regular training schedule.
Li Yufei understood that.
The reason he wasn't so diligent about training wasn't that he didn't want to work hard.
It was that his physical gifts had already reached their limit.
No matter how much he trained, it was hard to improve.
From here on, he could only rely on system points to boost his stats and cheat his way forward.
That was the real reason Li Yufei couldn't be bothered to put too much effort into training.
Most of his training now was just to stay in shape and keep his touch sharp, not to improve his abilities.
At this stage, Li Yufei had pretty much maxed out all his attributes. There was nowhere left to go.
From here on, he could only leave things to his cheat system. If it required him to train, he'd naturally start grinding like crazy.
Otherwise, it would all be pointless!
It was also after the first league match.
At long last, the terms of the First Team Professional Contract—the first professional contract of Li Yufei's life—had been settled.
In fact, negotiations over Li Yufei's professional contract had already begun.
That was when Li Yufei had been promoted from the youth academy to the first team.
After all, now that he was part of the first team, he couldn't keep earning a youth player's apprentice wage.
Although Li's Father had bought Arsenal, that was one thing, and this was another.
Li Yufei couldn't play for Arsenal at a friendly discount just because his father was one of the club's major shareholders.
First of all, that would clearly violate the rules, and the FA wouldn't allow it.
Otherwise, the whole of European football would have descended into chaos long ago!
Second, setting Li Yufei's father aside, Li Yufei's relationship with Arsenal was essentially that of an employee and his employer.
That naturally adversarial relationship wouldn't change just because Li's Father was involved!
Both Li Yufei himself and Allen, his agent,
would do everything they could to secure him a better contract.
Likewise, Arsenal's executives would try to drive the price down as much as possible.
The two sides would have to bargain it out.
Still, Li Yufei's unusual status had indeed worked in his favor during the negotiations. It was a fact that Arsenal hadn't dared to push the price down too far!
On top of that, Li Yufei had been simply dazzling in both the preseason games and the first league match!
With plenty of leverage, Allen had thoroughly outmaneuvered Arsenal's hesitant executives.
"Li Yufei, your contract is settled!"
"Arsenal probably saw how well you performed after joining the first team, and your father's involvement helped too. They gave in without much of a fight."
"Your contract is for four years, with a weekly wage of forty thousand pounds. Your salary will increase by a fixed twenty-five percent each year."
"On top of that, I got you the goal and title bonuses you asked for."
"The goal bonus is five thousand pounds per goal, and the assist bonus is three thousand pounds per assist."
"There's also a win bonus. For every match you play in, you'll get three thousand pounds if the team wins."
"As for the title bonuses you asked about, if Arsenal win the League Cup with your help, you'll get three hundred thousand pounds."
"If you win the FA Cup, you'll get six hundred thousand pounds."
"If you win the Premier League, you'll get one and a half million pounds."
"Finally, if you win the Champions League, you'll get three million pounds."
"Of course, there's a condition: you have to play at least two-thirds of the total minutes in the competition."
Hearing one pound-related clause after another, Li Yufei couldn't help giving Uncle Allen a thumbs-up.
As expected of the agent his mother had specifically assigned to him.
He was seriously good at his job!
Honestly, for a newcomer, this contract was absurdly generous!
Take Messi, for example. He signed his first professional contract with Barcelona during the 2004–05 season, with an annual salary of 300,000 euros.
Remember, that was 300,000 euros a year—less than 6,000 euros a week.
Messi's first pay raise came in the 2005–06 season, when his annual salary rose to one million euros.
Then came his second raise in the 2006–07 season, when his annual salary climbed to five million euros.
That five-million-euro salary remained unchanged for another two years, until 2008, when Messi won the Silver Ball Award and looked poised to claim the Ballon d'Or.
His contract then went up to an annual salary of 8.5 million euros.
It wasn't until 2009, when Messi officially won the Ballon d'Or, that his annual salary rose to its current level of 10.5 million euros.
And what about Li Yufei?
In the first year of his first professional contract, his weekly wage was already forty thousand pounds, which worked out to 2.08 million pounds a year.
That was more than double Messi's one-million-euro annual salary after his first pay raise!
If that comparison didn't make the gap clear, just look at the wages in the Arsenal squad.
The highest-paid player at Arsenal was Fabregas, on a weekly wage of 100,000 pounds.
Next was "The Tsar," Arshavin, on 80,000 pounds a week.
Goalkeeper Almunia came in third, earning 75,000 pounds a week.
Even Arsenal's legendary manager, Wenger, earned only 75,000 pounds a week, the same as Almunia.
As for Little Tiger Walcott, his weekly wage was 70,000 pounds, putting him in fourth place.
And the real "General Van," Van Persie, earned a measly 35,000 pounds a week!
In other words, Li Yufei was already earning more than Van Persie, who had been in the game for years.
It sounded outrageous and unbelievable, but it was the plain truth!
Still, considering Van Persie's pitiful availability and disastrous injury record,
that salary was actually pretty reasonable!
After all, half the season each year, he was laid up in bed with an injury.
You could say Van Persie had spent his first few years at Arsenal struggling to get regular playing time. It was only this season that he started appearing consistently.
The following season, he put in the best performance of his career, scoring thirty goals in a single Premier League season and winning the Premier League Golden Boot!
But at the start of the 2010–11 season, no one knew that Van Persie, who had spent years as a walking injury risk, was about to enter his prime.
Not even Van Persie himself was sure what the future held. After spending his whole career getting injured, even the most rebellious person had to accept reality!
So when he heard about Li Yufei's contract, he could only feel a little jealous in private. He didn't say anything.
Wilshere, on the other hand, had been Li Yufei's good friend since their youth academy days. He threw his arms around Li Yufei and turned green with envy.
"Li Yufei, I'm so jealous of your salary! I've been playing for the first team for two whole seasons, and I'm only earning thirty thousand pounds a week. You're getting forty thousand right off the bat. I'm dying of envy!"
"Hahaha! If you weren't injured so often, you'd definitely be earning more. Look after yourself, and be careful how you play. Don't go all out when you don't need to. Staying healthy is what matters most."
Li Yufei laughed, then gave Wilshere some advice.
Before you continue