An Unremarkable Person Like Him

As a forward for the first team, Li Zhiqun worked hard to find chances to shoot and score inside the second team's penalty area.

But when he turned around, he saw Hu Lai right beside him, giving him quite a fright.

"What are you doing here?!" he cried.

"Why can't I be here?" Hu Lai looked innocent.

"You're a defender. What are you running up here for?"

"A fullback joining the attack!"

Li Zhiqun was so annoyed that he laughed. "A fullback joining the attack? You've run all the way to their goalmouth! Is that how a fullback joins the attack?"

Hu Lai couldn't tell Li Zhiqun that the system had assigned him a hat-trick mission. But making up excuses was no challenge for him. He puffed out his chest, raised his head, and declared righteously, "I'm an attacking defender!"

"..." Li Zhiqun nearly choked. An attacking defender, my ass! Was he carrying a nail clipper or a pencil sharpener?

Standing by the sideline, Li Ziqiang held a hard-cover notebook. Inside was a table listing the names of every player taking the assessment. Beside each name were four categories, each corresponding to a quality a player displayed during a match: "tactical awareness," "completion of positional attacking and defensive duties," "application of technical movements under physical pressure," and "match conduct and psychological state."

Each category was worth ten points, for a total of forty points—the maximum score for this practical assessment. Added to the earlier scores for physical fitness and technical ability, the full score came to one hundred.

On the field, Chu Yifan and Yan Yan were serving as referees, while head coach Li Ziqiang observed every player taking the test from the sideline and scored their performances.

The match had only just begun, so there was not much to judge yet. But he had noticed that the first team's number two, the left fullback, had repeatedly abandoned his position and charged into the opposing penalty area.

He could understand that behavior well enough. It had to be someone who wanted to play forward, score goals, stand out, and win favor, but had been assigned a defensive position instead. Unwilling to accept that, he still wanted to fight for a high score through goals.

But unfortunately, he did not judge a player's overall match performance based solely on goals.

He had not told the players his scoring criteria because he did not want them deliberately chasing points.

Only then could he see how they truly performed on the pitch.

For now, that number two seemed convinced that scoring goals would earn him a high evaluation, which was why he had abandoned his position and rushed forward again and again, hoping to score.

He did not know that this was precisely the wrong approach. Everyone had their own responsibilities. Since he was a defender, he needed to do a defender's job well. Defenders and forwards were judged by entirely different standards. It was not as though a defender who could score was automatically a good defender.

At that thought, Li Ziqiang gently shook his head and found the first team's number two in his notebook.

Hu Lai.

When he saw the name, Li Ziqiang could not help laughing. He really lived up to his name—he certainly knew how to mess around...

But the price of messing around was—

Li Ziqiang gave him a zero in the "completion of positional attacking and defensive duties" category.

Then he raised his head and turned his attention back to the field, continuing to observe the players. Soon, his eyes settled on the second team's number ten, Luo Kai.

He had long heard of this strongest freshman in the first year of high school, so naturally he paid him extra attention.

In this thirty-minute trial match, Luo Kai had performed exceptionally well.

Less than five minutes into the match, he had already scored a goal.

That goal set off a tremendous uproar in the stands, with countless girls' screams ringing through the sky.

"He's handsome and he's great at football. If I were that good, I'd love football too—I'd love it to death, haha!" Song Jiajia laughed from the stands at the sight.

"Now look at Hu Lai. That kid's hopping around and running all over the place, but he can't even touch the ball. He looks like a clown..."

Song Jiajia pointed at Hu Lai on the field and laughed.

Hu Lai seemed determined to make the opposing penalty area his home. Whenever his team attacked, he appeared there, looking more like a forward than an actual forward.

But Li Qingqing did not agree with Song Jiajia.

At first, like Song Jiajia, she thought Hu Lai was running around blindly and felt anxious for him. Of course, she knew how her father would score each player's performance in the match.

A fullback like Hu Lai charging desperately toward the opponent's goal as soon as the match began would definitely not earn her father's approval. Setting aside everything else, based on that alone, Li Qingqing could already imagine that Hu Lai probably would not make the school team...

But as Hu Lai charged into the opposing penalty area again and again, Li Qingqing's expression changed.

"No, he isn't running around blindly," Li Qingqing said to Song Jiajia.

"And that's not running around blindly? Looks like a headless fly to me," Song Jiajia snorted.

"It only looks like he's running around blindly because he can't get the ball, right?" Li Qingqing asked.

"What else could it be? If he can't even touch the ball, what is it if not running around blindly?"

"Not getting the ball isn't Hu Lai's problem. It's his teammates' problem—they won't pass to him."

Song Jiajia turned to look at Li Qingqing, somewhat incredulous. "So it's all his teammates' fault?"

To his surprise, Li Qingqing nodded and said with absolute certainty, "Yes, it's his teammates' fault."

As she said that, she glanced at the field. It happened to be the first team's turn to attack, and sure enough, Hu Lai charged to the front again.

As the first team's attack developed down the right flank, Hu Lai had already rushed into the second team's penalty area.

He ran into an open space and stopped, then raised his arm high to signal for his teammates to pass to him.

Seeing Hu Lai take up that position, Li Qingqing's eyes lit up in the stands, but they quickly dimmed again.

Because no one passed him the ball, no one even spared him a glance. The ball was passed to Li Zhiqun.

Li Zhiqun failed to control it—there had already been a defender beside him before he received the pass. After the ball came over, the opposing defender bumped him with his body, throwing Li Zhiqun off balance and naturally costing him possession.

Team One's attack ended there.

Amid thunderous cheers and screams, the ball was quickly passed to Luo Kai. As he received it, he used his physique to brush aside a Team One player attempting to challenge him, then charged toward Team One's goal with the ball.

At that moment, Luo Kai became the center of attention for the entire field. Even Li Ziqiang turned his gaze toward him, faintly anticipating what he would do next.

Li Qingqing was one of the few people who did not keep her eyes on Luo Kai. She was still watching Hu Lai.

Hu Lai was running back as well, but with his speed, he would probably find it difficult to catch up to the ball.

Li Qingqing's head turned slightly with Hu Lai's movements, like a sunflower following the sun.

One moment, he ran with his head raised, his tongue lolling around outside; the next, he lowered his head and charged forward with all his might.

When Hu Lai first appeared in the right position, Li Qingqing thought he had merely gotten lucky. But when he appeared in the right open spaces again and again, she knew it was not just dumb luck.

Song Jiajia, standing beside her, could not help letting out a heavy sigh. "Sigh, Hu Lai really has no talent for football..."

Li Qingqing watched Hu Lai as she answered him. "No, he does."

"He does?" Song Jiajia looked at Li Qingqing in confusion.

"Mm."

"What talent? A talent for being funny?"

Li Qingqing shook her head. "Hu Lai knows where the goal is. That's his talent."

"Where the goal is? I know that too. Isn't the goal right there?" Song Jiajia said, pointing at the goal on the field.

This time, Li Qingqing did not explain it to him. Her gaze remained firmly fixed on that somewhat bedraggled figure. Before he could even run back to the fullback position, Luo Kai had already broken through the middle and scored.

Deafening cheers and screams erupted from the stands again.

Amid the cheers, Luo Kai casually waved a hand, as though he had long since grown accustomed to it all.

In Li Qingqing's eyes, that figure came to a stop, bent over, and braced his hands on his knees as he gulped in great breaths of air.

Beneath that dazzling brilliance, he was so inconspicuous.