Bundesliga matchday arrived.
Li Luo and his teammates boarded the club bus and headed for Gelsenkirchen.
The slightly murky rivers on either side of the road flowed slowly.
The once-golden wheat fields had been harvested clean, leaving dark brown earth exposed. A thin frost coated the remaining stalks, glimmering faintly in the morning light. A few resident birds swept past, searching aimlessly for food.
"Did you watch the UEFA Champions League? Schalke 04 held Chelsea to a draw."
"I did. Chelsea missed three open goals. Put me out there and I'd have scored a hat trick."
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"More and more Manchester United fans have been coming to watch us lately."
"They're not watching us. They're watching Li."
The group chatted idly.
Li Luo looked at the densely packed messages on his phone, typed a sentence, then copied and pasted it into several chats as a quick reply.
While shooting the Bayer commercial, some respectable-looking girls had asked for his contact details. He switched his phone off afterward.
He wanted his body and mind in match mode ahead of time.
They approached the Ruhr Area.
The colors outside the bus windows grew increasingly cold and stark.
The bitter wind howled, lending an especially solemn air to the abandoned mine headframes, rust-streaked blast furnaces, and smokestacks.
Along the weathered, graffiti-covered walls stood a heavily made-up woman every ten yards or so.
A group of oddly dressed men went from woman to woman, demanding money.
A nine-headed hydra was tattooed across their shoulders and arms.
They were champions of justice, an organization dedicated to protecting women.
Media outlets began building up the match.
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