To put it selfishly, Taylor didn't care what kind of results Arsenal ultimately achieved.
She only wanted to see her boyfriend enjoying himself on the pitch. As long as he was happy, that was enough.
As for whether he achieved anything, that wasn't what mattered to her.
Li Yufei also understood his girlfriend's thoughts. After all, when he had chosen to pursue a career in professional soccer,
Taylor's first reaction had actually been, "Soccer? What's that?"
To Chinese people, that might have seemed like an utterly absurd question.
But to a native-born American, it really wasn't strange.
Conservatism was prevalent in America, and many Americans cared only about their own little corner of the world, showing no interest whatsoever in things beyond it.
As citizens of the world's greatest superpower, they possessed a natural sense of superiority.
America was the beacon of global civilization, and Americans were God's chosen people.
They only needed to take care of their own little patch of land. As for what happened elsewhere, they couldn't be bothered to care.
Soccer was hugely popular across the world, and it was the world's number-one sport?
Who cared?
What the hell did it have to do with Americans?
Even though the United States had hosted the 1994 World Cup,
soccer was practically a niche sport on American soil.
Li Yufei remembered seeing an annual ranking of television viewership for various programs in the United States in his previous life.
In America, among the hundred programs with the highest viewership over the course of a year, football alone occupied seventy-five spots!
All the remaining programs combined occupied just twenty-five spots!
Among those twenty-five programs, the MLB World Series and the NBA Finals each took up one spot, and both ranked near the bottom.
Most of the rest were entertainment programs such as talk shows.
As for soccer?
Sorry, but even matches featuring Messi's Inter Miami had viewership figures amounting to only a few dozen times less than those of the hundredth-ranked program...
Even the final of the 2022 Qatar World Cup failed to make America's annual top-one-hundred viewership list.
That was how poorly the world's number-one sport was treated in America.
By comparison, although China was also a soccer desert, the viewership and audience numbers for major soccer tournaments definitely weren't small!
Every year, matches involving the Chinese National Team could make China's top-ten domestic viewership rankings!
It was even common to see several Chinese National Team matches appearing in the top ten.
As for the World Cup, the world's greatest sporting event held once every four years, the Chinese people had also embraced the spirit of participation.
Even though the tournament had nothing whatsoever to do with the Chinese National Team, the Chinese fondness for joining in the excitement had still been preserved.
Many armchair fans and fake fans who normally paid no attention to soccer at all would also join discussions about the World Cup.
From this perspective, China's soccer atmosphere completely crushed that of America, another soccer desert.
Li Yufei had lived in America for so many years, yet he really had never heard the people around him privately discussing soccer.
Football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey were what they loved most!
If not for the memories of his previous life, then after living in such an environment for so long, Li Yufei probably would never have crossed paths with soccer in his entire life.
After hearing Taylor's concern, Li Yufei stroked her delicate hand and explained softly:
"No, that won't happen. The club's targets this time are all young players, around my age."
"They don't yet have the ability to compete with me for a starting spot. This is more about investing in the future."
Only after receiving her boyfriend's assurance did Taylor finally let out a sigh of relief.
She knew that her little man was just as devoted to his career as she was to hers.
If her goal was to become the Pop Music Queen, then her boyfriend's goal was to become the Football King.
They were both ambitious and capable of achieving their goals. That was what made theirs a relationship between two equally career-driven people.
Taylor knew that if she dated a man with no real ambition in his career,
they would probably break up before long.
Their attitudes toward life would be completely different, and so would their values!
People whose fundamental values were incompatible could only come together temporarily. They could never last.
Unless one of them yielded along the way...
But given Taylor's personality, she absolutely would never yield.
As for Li Yufei, based on what Taylor knew of her boyfriend, his pride meant that he wouldn't yield either.
They loved each other deeply and always considered each other's feelings, but when it came to their careers, there was no room for compromise.
In the end, they could only break up and find new partners.
The situation they had now was quite good. Taylor could focus on writing songs, releasing albums, holding concerts, and doing everything she could to win awards while raising her commercial value and fame.
Li Yufei could also focus on playing soccer, achieving results, earning individual honors, and securing endorsement deals.
They could even occasionally collaborate across fields to generate more buzz for both sides. What could be better?
When they were free, they could live like any normal couple, curling up in their shared home and enjoying their private world together without worrying about the storms outside.
Just thinking about such a life made it feel full of promise.
"Big Sis, could you sing me a song from your New Album? I want to hear it."
Faced with her boyfriend's coquettish request, Taylor burst out laughing. She didn't refuse, instead teasing him:
"Brother Frye, if people outside saw that proud, supremely confident striker from the pitch acting spoiled with his girlfriend in private, they'd probably be shocked out of their minds."
Li Yufei wasn't ashamed in the slightest. Instead, he proudly ran with it:
"Those guys on the pitch are all rough men. Why should I be polite with them?"
"Only by crushing them will those simple-minded, physically strong fools grow afraid of me and stop provoking me whenever they feel like it."
Taylor shook her head helplessly, reached out, and ruffled Li Yufei's hair several times before going to the music room to get her guitar.
Two minutes later, Taylor brought out a guitar that wasn't one of her signature models and played it for Li Yufei.
Although Li Yufei didn't know much about guitars, he could tell that it was expensive from the way it gleamed beneath the lights, with a spruce top and maple back and sides!
"Big Sis, where's that glittering silver guitar of yours?"
Li Yufei remembered Taylor using a particularly eye-catching silver guitar during her tours. It had been so dazzling that he still remembered it.
What he didn't know was that the guitar wasn't actually silver. It had been decorated by hand with more than three thousand crystals, making it look silver under the stage lights...
Taylor knew which guitar her boyfriend meant as soon as she heard his description.
"Oh, you mean the Swarovski custom guitar? I didn't bring it with me. I left it in Nashville."
"What, does Ah Fei want it?"
Li Yufei quickly waved his hands. Was she kidding? He was a musical idiot who could barely sing five notes in tune. What would he want a guitar for?
He had only asked casually. He hadn't meant anything by it.
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