If Only You Could Be Gentler

After finishing breakfast, Hu Lixin set his bowl on the table and got up to head for the door. "I'm off to work."

"Okay, take care. Be careful on the road." His wife, Xie Lan, poked her head out from the kitchen to see her husband off.

Hu Lai was bent over his porridge when he suddenly felt someone staring at him. He looked up and, sure enough, saw his dad standing at the door, looking at him.

"Uh, bye, Dad..." Hu Lai quickly said.

"Study hard. Don't go messing around with this and that." Hu Lixin spoke with a stern face.

"Don't worry, Dad. I promise I'll finish all my homework this morning!" Hu Lai said with a broad grin.

Hu Lixin said nothing more. He merely nodded, then left the house to go to work in the residential complex half an hour away by electric scooter.

If nothing unexpected happened, he would work there until six thirty in the evening, have dinner there, and only then ride home.

Hu Lai calculated it in his head. Kickoff was at three in the afternoon. With eighty minutes of match time, a fifteen-minute halftime break, and stoppage time, it would probably take around a hundred minutes.

The match should end at around four forty-five. Even if he headed home from school then, he would have plenty of time.

So there was no need to worry about his dad finding out that he had joined the school team and gone to play in a match.

The only one he couldn't hide it from was his mom.

But Hu Lai had never intended to hide it from her.

Based on what he knew about his mom, there was a pretty good chance she would agree to let him go to school for the match. Of course, that depended on whether he behaved well himself.

So what he had just told his dad was not nonsense. He really did plan to study hard that morning and finish all the homework he needed to do.

That way, the rest of his time would be his to arrange, and his mom would not object to whatever he wanted to do.

It was just that he was going to play in a football match now. Under normal circumstances, he might simply have gone out to have fun.

After breakfast, Hu Lai helped his mom clear the table, then said to her, "Mom, um, I won't be eating lunch at home..."

His mom's eyes widened. "What are you up to?"

"Didn't I join the football team? We have a match this afternoon, so I need to go... Don't worry, Mom, I promise I'll finish all the schoolwork I need to do this morning!" Seeing signs that his mom might explode, Hu Lai hurriedly explained without daring to pause, afraid of giving her an opportunity to interrupt. "I guarantee I'll finish everything properly and on time! Then I can arrange my afternoon freely and go to school for the match. I'll definitely be back before dinner. Don't worry, Mom. Playing football is better than going to an internet cafe to play games, right? At least it's exercise!"

His mom really did try several times to interrupt, but every time she opened her mouth, she found no chance to get a word in. She could only let Hu Lai finish everything in one breath. Then she glared at her son and asked, "What does that have to do with you not eating lunch at home?"

"Our coach asked the team to eat together in the school cafeteria." Hu Lai was not lying about that.

Considering they had a match that afternoon, Li Ziqiang required everyone to eat the pre-match meal together so he could better keep track of the team and prevent players from eating carelessly, getting upset stomachs, and affecting their condition for the match.

Even players who would not be taking the field had to come. It was all for the sake of building team cohesion.

Xie Lan looked at her son, shook her head, and sighed. "If only you were this serious about studying..."

Hu Lai hurriedly defended himself. "I'm serious about studying too! My grades are bad because my brain doesn't work!"

"If you keep talking nonsense, I won't let you go!" Xie Lan raised her hand.

Hu Lai immediately darted into his bedroom. "I'm going to do my homework! Thanks, Mom! You're the best, Mom!"

Watching her son's retreating back, Xie Lan slowly lowered her raised hand, then smiled helplessly.

Li Qingqing came downstairs in her pajamas, her hair a mess, and saw her dad sitting in the living room. He was eating breakfast while reading his tactical notebook.

"You're up?" Hearing the movement, Li Ziqiang spoke without even raising his head.

"Mm..." Li Qingqing answered groggily.

"Go wash up first. The buns are in the pot."

"Okay..."

Li Qingqing turned toward the bathroom, combed her hair smooth in front of the mirror, then gathered it behind her head with both hands. She slid the elastic band wrapped around her wrist down and tied her hair tightly.

Then she shook her head. Her ponytail swished back and forth behind her head without coming loose.

Only then did she smile at her reflection in satisfaction.

After washing up, Li Qingqing returned to the living room and found her dad still reading his tactical notes, a half-eaten bun in his hand.

"Dad," she called.

"Mm?"

"The oil. The oil from the bun..."

Only then did Li Ziqiang realize that oil from the bun in his hand had run down his wrist.

"Oh, oh..." Li Ziqiang hurriedly put down the notebook and scrambled to clean himself up.

"Is No. 50 Middle School really strong?" Li Qingqing swung her long legs over and sat astride the chair at the dining table, asking curiously.

"Not especially strong, but it's the first match, so we still need to take it seriously. Besides, we had too little time to prepare." Li Ziqiang wiped the oil from his hands with a napkin.

"Didn't they say Dongchuan Middle School is actually pretty strong? In all of Andong Province, second only to Jiaxiang?"

"That's true, but this school that's supposedly second only to Jiaxiang has also failed to reach the Andong Cup semifinals twice in the past five years," Li Ziqiang explained.

Li Qingqing glanced at her dad's tactical notebook.

In the 4-3-3 formation, Luo Kai was not placed at center forward. Instead, he was assigned to play left wing.

Having watched the school team train every time over the past two weeks, Li Qingqing was no stranger to her father's arrangement.

Although Luo Kai was not the center forward, the nominal center forward was not actually a scoring threat. His role was simply to draw the opposing defense away and pin down their back line for Luo Kai.

Moreover, Luo Kai was a fairly complete player himself. He was good with both feet, capable of scoring with shots and setting up his teammates with passes. Playing him as a winger also made it easier to bring out his all-around abilities.

When the team needed a goal, he could drive straight into the opposing penalty area and serve as the goalscorer charging through enemy lines. When the box was too crowded, he could drift out wide or drop into midfield to link up the attack and deliver brilliant passes to his teammates.

If the team's attack seemed too heavily weighted toward the left, he could also switch positions with the right winger and move over there. His positioning was highly flexible.

Having such an outstanding and well-rounded player allowed the team's tactics to become more flexible. He was exactly the kind of player any coach dreamed of having...

Li Qingqing silently marveled at Luo Kai's strength.

But that was all. She had no special feelings toward Luo Kai. He was just a classmate.

Hu Lai had indeed kept his promise and finished all the homework he needed to do that morning.

Then, after saying goodbye to his mother, he dashed downstairs and rode his beat-up bicycle toward school, its bell jingling and clattering all the way.

Watching her son's lively figure riding away from the balcony, Xie Lan thought of how timid and shrinking he looked in front of her husband.

Was that why she was willing to help her son hide it from her husband? Perhaps she simply did not want to keep seeing that timid version of him?

She wanted her son to be full of youthful vigor and energy. So if liking football could bring about such a change in him, then let him like it.

She knew why her husband did not want their child getting involved with football, but what was wrong with treating it as a hobby at school?

"I'm heading to school. The food's in the pot. Just heat it up when you eat later," Li Ziqiang called upstairs from the doorway.

His daughter poked her head out from the stairwell above. "Okay. I'll go to school this afternoon to watch the match. Good luck, Dad!"

She raised her fist and waved it.

Looking at his well-behaved daughter, Li Ziqiang felt a flicker of guilt in his heart.

She had been doing so well at her previous football school, already the core starter of the girls' team in her age group.

If it had not been for him, she could have continued her studies at that football school and eventually embarked on the path of professional football.

But now, she could only follow him to this ordinary middle school as a transfer student. And this school did not even have a girls' football team...

Ever since his wife passed away, it had been just him and his daughter relying on each other. He had long sworn that he would make his daughter happy.

It was just that he had only recently arrived here, and there was far too much work to handle. Once things with the team were on track, he would find his daughter a team so that she could keep training and maintain her form outside of school.

Thinking of this, Li Ziqiang gave his daughter a gentle smile and waved. "I'm off."

"Okay. Bye, Dad."

Li Qingqing stood on the stairs with her hands behind her back, maintaining her smile as she watched her father leave.

Whenever he faced her, her father was always so gentle.

But just as she thought that, the scene she had witnessed on the training ground that day resurfaced before her eyes.

Her gentle father had bent down and roared at Hu Lai, snarling and baring his teeth as though he wanted to swallow Hu Lai whole.

Even though Li Qingqing had seen her father strictly demanding high standards from the players during training, she still felt that he was always harsher when facing Hu Lai.

She knew her father was strict with Hu Lai for Hu Lai's own good, but it would be nice if he could be just a little gentler with him...

At that thought, the smile faded from Li Qingqing's face. She pouted at the already closed door.