So You're a Professional

After the school dismissal bell rang, Hu Lai practically sprang out of his seat, grabbed the backpack he had packed long ago, and bolted out the classroom's back door before the other students had even reacted.

Just after he left, Li Qingqing rose from her seat as well, slung on her backpack, and followed him out of the classroom.

Luo Kai's gaze shifted toward the back door.

For three days in a row now, Hu Lai and Li Qingqing had been the first two people in class to leave, one after the other.

Hu Lai had always been like this. Three days a week, he would race out of the classroom as soon as possible. But back then, no one cared what he was in such a hurry to do. To most people, Hu Lai might as well not have existed when he wasn't making a fool of himself.

But Li Qingqing was also in such a hurry to leave with Hu Lai three days a week...

Although they normally seemed to have no interaction at all in school, the sight still made Luo Kai feel as though they shared some kind of tacit understanding.

He stared at the spot where Li Qingqing's graceful figure had disappeared and frowned.

Li Qingqing first went home to fetch the equipment they needed for training, then appeared before Hu Lai with a large black sports duffel slung over her shoulder. She took out all sorts of training gear and guided Hu Lai through different drills based on the training content.

While Hu Lai warmed up on his own, Li Qingqing busied herself in the open space, setting up the equipment needed for the session.

First, she placed five red marker cones in the middle of the field, one meter apart. She then inserted a red training pole into each cone. The five red poles were arranged diagonally, and ten meters ahead of the last pole stood the raised bluestone wall painted with a "goal."

At the starting point of the poles, five meters away, Li Qingqing set down three marker rings in different colors, arranged in a triangle.

As Hu Lai warmed up nearby, he watched Li Qingqing work across the field. Her long black hair was tied into a ponytail behind her head. She wore Dongchuan Middle School's loose-fitting athletic uniform, with a stopwatch hanging around her neck.

As she walked back and forth setting up the equipment, the stopwatch at her chest and her ponytail swung back and forth in opposite directions.

She really looked like a capable female coach.

Once Hu Lai finished warming up, Li Qingqing stood at the far end of the training poles, near the goal, and crooked a finger at him. When Hu Lai ran over, she said, "When I come over later, pass the ball sideways to me."

"Okay." Hu Lai knew that Li Qingqing was about to demonstrate the next drill for him.

Their training sessions always went like this. Li Qingqing would first demonstrate the drill herself, then guide Hu Lai through it, blowing her whistle to stop him whenever necessary and correcting any problems that came up.

After telling Hu Lai what to do, Li Qingqing returned to the three differently colored marker rings. Facing the poles with her back to the rings, she said to Hu Lai again, "Call out any color you want."

"Any color?"

"Mm."

"Black!" Hu Lai shouted.

Almost at the same time, Li Qingqing spun around swiftly. Facing the yellow, red, and blue rings, she froze. A second later, she shouted, "Where did black come from?!"

Hu Lai looked aggrieved. "Didn't you tell me to call out any color?"

Li Qingqing turned back and rolled her eyes at him. "I meant any one of these three colors!"

"Oh, oh, oh, sorry..." Hu Lai had barely begun apologizing when he suddenly said, "Red!"

Even though he had caught her off guard, Li Qingqing spun around in an instant. Both feet landed precisely inside the red ring, then she turned and jumped back out of it, charging toward the training poles five meters away.

She darted into the gap between the first and second poles, slipped back out, rounded the second pole, and cut into the gap between the second and third.

She moved almost flush against every pole without touching a single one. At an astonishing speed, she weaved past all five poles in an instant, burst through, and charged toward Hu Lai.

But Hu Lai was dumbstruck. He seemed to see a butterfly fluttering through a bed of flowers. Her ponytail rose and fell, like glittering dust left in the wake of beating butterfly wings beneath the evening sun.

He forgot what he was supposed to do until Li Qingqing shouted at him, "Pass the ball!"

Only then did Hu Lai snap out of it. He hurriedly kicked the football at her feet, but accidentally put too much force into it.

Yet Li Qingqing brought the powerful ball under control with remarkable ease, as if her shoe contained some kind of ball-sticking magnet. Then she fired the football at the "goal" painted on the wall.

The football struck the upper-right corner of the "goal" precisely before bouncing away.

Li Qingqing turned to the stunned Hu Lai and said, "Did you get it? In a moment, I'll randomly call out a color from your position. You turn around and jump into the ring of that color, then jump back out, weave past the poles like I did, run toward me, receive my pass, and shoot the ball at the goal. It's that simple."

Hearing that, Hu Lai grimaced. The first time he had watched Li Qingqing demonstrate, she had said the exact same thing, only for cruel reality to teach him a harsh lesson.

So he felt that Li Qingqing's "It's that simple" after her demonstration was mocking him, payback for his earlier random answer meant to mess with her.

Li Qingqing switched places with Hu Lai. She stood where he had been standing and told him to wait by the marker rings.

"Ready!"

Hu Lai bent his knees slightly, tensed his whole body, and leaned forward, waiting for Li Qingqing to call out a color.

At the same time, he mentally reviewed the positions of the three colored rings so he would not jump into the wrong one.

Red is at the top of the triangle. I'm standing in front of red. Yellow is to red's left, so it's behind me to the left. Mm, blue is to red's right, so it's behind me to the right...

Just then, he heard Li Qingqing shout, "Purple!"

Hu Lai swayed. His right foot shot forward into a lunge, barely bracing his body before he toppled over.

Then he turned back and shouted at Li Qingqing, "Where did purple come from?!"

Li Qingqing burst out laughing. "Well, there wasn't any black earlier either!"

Hu Lai rolled his eyes—so this was what Li Qingqing had been waiting for...

After ten sets of training, Hu Lai sat down right on the ground, taking advantage of the time to rest.

While he rested, Li Qingqing got busy again. She put away the marker discs, poles, and rings she had set out earlier, then pulled an agility ladder from her shoulder bag. The next part of the training would require it.

Hu Lai watched Li Qingqing skillfully handle the training equipment, placing everything in the right spots to form a new drill.

He finally asked a question that had been bothering him for a long time. "Li Qingqing, how do you know so much? Are you a professional?"

Li Qingqing thought, I learned all this from following my dad since I was little, but she did not say so. If she did, Hu Lai would definitely ask what her father did. She did not want him to know that her father was the head coach of the school team—the very person who would decide whether Hu Lai could join it.

She worried that things would become awkward between them if Hu Lai found out.

So she smiled and said, "Mm, I play women's football."

She was not lying. She really was a women's football player.

Hu Lai was very surprised by the answer. "Women's football?"

There were quite a few girls in his life who liked football, but girls who actually played it were extremely rare. Li Qingqing was the first real, living girl he had ever seen who played football.

Li Qingqing nodded. "Mm. Before transferring to Dongchuan Middle School, I studied at a football academy from the third grade of elementary school until I graduated from middle school."

Before coming to Dongchuan Middle School, Li Qingqing had attended one of the best football academies in the country. If not for her father, she should have continued there for high school, then entered the professional football system and joined a professional women's team...

"Wow... no wonder you're so good." Hu Lai recalled their first meeting, when he simply could not take the ball from under Li Qingqing's feet. At the time, he had been rather discouraged, thinking he was not even as good as a girl. But now his mood brightened instantly—so she was a professional. It was not that he was too weak; she was just too good! Thank goodness... what a relief...

Hu Lai stopped asking why Li Qingqing knew so much about these drills. She had spent six years at a professional football academy, training with this stuff every day. How could she not know?

While Hu Lai trained, Li Qingqing watched from the side with a whistle in her mouth.

Whenever she noticed Hu Lai making a mistake, she immediately blew the whistle, stopped the training, pointed out his error, and had him start over.

But lately, the whistle had been sounding less and less often.

Hu Lai's movements were clearly far more practiced, fluid, and natural than they had been at the start of the special training.

This was what surprised Li Qingqing the most.

Logically, once someone passed the age of thirteen, coordination training would become much less effective—not that it would have no effect at all, only that progress would slow down and the results would not be as good as training during childhood. But looking at Hu Lai's current performance, Li Qingqing could not help doubting her past experience.

In fact, Hu Lai's situation had not started just today. Li Qingqing had noticed it on the very first day of training, which was why she cared so much.

After observing him for this period of time, she found that Hu Lai's coordination really had improved. He might still be far from excellent, but he was much better than before.

When they had first begun coordination training, Li Qingqing had not used drills with the ball. Now they were using the ball, which was much more difficult than the no-ball version, yet Hu Lai was still doing well.

Could it be that his previous lack of talent was only because he had never received professional training?

But what a pity... if he had been able to receive even one more year of training, he probably could have made the school team. But now, Hu Lai only had one week left...

Still, even if he could not join the school team, at least when he played football in PE class, he would not be excluded for performing too poorly, right?

This could count as compensation for the blow I dealt him back then.

This is all I can do for him.

Li Qingqing thought to herself.