The Cursed Number

When Hu Lai arrived at the school cafeteria, he saw Mao Xiao waving at him. "Over here, Hu Lai!"

As soon as he came over, Mao Xiao stuffed a stainless-steel tray into his hands and pulled him into line beside him to get food.

Dongchuan Middle School had a cafeteria, but it normally wasn't open on Saturdays or Sundays.

Now, because the school football team needed meals, it had been temporarily opened on Saturday specifically to provide the team with lunch.

And this meal wasn't just something the cafeteria had thrown together. Li Ziqiang had provided a menu and instructed the cafeteria to prepare the food according to it.

The nutritional balance had to be reasonable, and the food absolutely could not be greasy.

The school had offered the fullest possible support in this regard. Whatever Li Ziqiang said, the school cooperated. It seemed they were truly determined to revive Dongchuan Middle School's title as a "traditional football powerhouse."

Even though this was only a middle school football team, Li Ziqiang still demanded the same professional standards he had used at the football academy.

He couldn't control what his players ate in their daily lives, but at the very least, he was going to manage this pre-match meal properly.

Standing in line, Hu Lai looked at the bland-colored dishes behind the serving window and smacked his lips. "If I'd known, I would've eaten more this morning..."

Just looking at those dishes was enough to kill anyone's appetite.

Clearly, Hu Lai wasn't the only one who felt that way. Quite a few players frowned when they saw the food the cafeteria was serving.

Whispers also spread among the players.

There was no need to guess what they were saying—they were complaining about the utterly unappetizing-looking food.

Mao Xiao smiled and explained, "Professional players seem to be required to eat this stuff too. It may not taste good, but it's healthy."

Up front, near where the cafeteria ladies were serving food, head coach Li Ziqiang was loudly repeating his instructions. "Don't eat too much. Avoid indigestion and getting sleepy in the afternoon. Don't worry about being hungry—there'll be bananas at halftime to replenish your energy!"

Mao Xiao continued, "Professional teams usually provide fruit or snacks at halftime to help players restore their energy quickly."

Meng Xi curled his lip beside them. "Great. Our team's dietary standards are already professional-level!"

The three of them carried their trays to an empty table for four and sat down.

Mao Xiao and Meng Xi sat side by side, while Hu Lai sat opposite Mao Xiao.

Meng Xi looked down at his tray and poked at the boiled broccoli with his chopsticks. "I think our coach is overthinking it. Nobody's going to eat too much of this stuff."

Hu Lai also stared at the broccoli. "Why can't they make it into dry-pot cauliflower? Throw in some fatty pork belly, stir-fry it hard until the oil comes out, cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces, soak it in the oil..."

"Stop talking! You're making it even harder to eat!" Meng Xi reached out to stop Hu Lai.

Hu Lai picked up a piece of boiled broccoli, put it into his mouth, then closed his eyes and chewed. He nodded. "Mm. If you picture the taste of dry-pot cauliflower in your head, this broccoli starts to have that flavor!"

"That works?" Meng Xi frowned.

"Try it if you don't believe me. Think of something you love to eat, really recall the taste, then eat what's in front of you," Hu Lai instructed.

Half convinced, Meng Xi picked up some broccoli and put it in his mouth. He closed his eyes and chewed carefully, then... spat it out. "It's nowhere near spicy crayfish!"

Mao Xiao ate with a frown. He didn't think the food tasted very good either; the low-oil, low-salt dishes were truly hard to accept. Still, he was doing his best to eat. But he couldn't follow Hu Lai's advice and think about foods he liked, or he really wouldn't be able to finish this meal.

He decided to change the subject. "Hey, I heard our new jerseys will be handed out before this match. Then we'll find out our numbers. Didn't they conduct a survey before this and ask us to report our favorite numbers?"

"What's the point? I picked number nine, but I don't believe they'd really give me number nine." Hu Lai paused before continuing. "But if they dare give it to me, I'll dare take it!"

"What's with that hopeful tone?" Meng Xi teased. "I think I'll definitely get the number I like. I picked number one. As the team's starting goalkeeper, it's not too much to ask for number one, right? As for you..."

Meng Xi pointed at Hu Lai.

"Doesn't matter what number you get. You should be grateful if you get one at all."

Hu Lai held the newly issued jersey in both hands, its plastic wrapping still unopened.

Dongchuan Middle School's jerseys and shorts were primarily bright yellow, with blue stripes decorating the collar and the edges of the shorts.

The jersey's color scheme reminded Hu Lai of a team from another world—Sichuan Quanxing. It was a team that had no particularly impressive achievements in the history of Chinese professional football, its highest finish in the top division only third place, yet it had been extremely popular.

Sichuan Quanxing did not exist in this world, and the designer of this uniform certainly could not have used Sichuan Quanxing's kit as a reference.

The yellow primary color actually came from Dongchuan Middle School's emblem. Even Dongchuan Middle School's uniforms were yellow-and-blue tracksuits, entirely unlike the generic blue-and-white or red-and-white uniforms of other schools.

He turned the jersey over and revealed the number on the back: 14.

That surprised him somewhat. He had originally thought he would be assigned number 36, since it was the last number. He hadn't expected number 14 instead, much further toward the front.

He was even a little pleased.

Then Meng Xi's puzzled voice came from beside him. "You can actually still smile, Hu Lai?"

"Huh?" Hu Lai was completely baffled, unable to understand why Meng Xi would say that.

"This is number fourteen. For Chinese football, it's a cursed number," Meng Xi said solemnly. "In 2001, we came closest to reaching the World Cup finals. But in the most crucial match, Wang Xiaojun scored an own goal, making us lose that decisive battle and ultimately miss out on the World Cup finals. And Wang Xiaojun was wearing number fourteen at the time! If that had only happened once, fine. But three years later, in the Asian Cup final, held in our own home stadium—what happened? We lost the championship because of a handball goal by Japan. That was the closest we'd ever come to winning the Asian Cup, and Sato Koichi, the one who scored with his hand, was wearing number fourteen! See? That's twice already."

Meng Xi held up two fingers, his expression exaggerated and his tone even more so. "But do you think that was the end of it? No! In 2005, China made another attempt to qualify for the World Cup, but this time we fell before even reaching the final qualifying round. Just fourteen minutes into that match, Zhao Kangming was sent off. He was our starting center back! That was the third fourteen!"

Meng Xi's raised fingers became three.

"And that day just happened to be April 14th! Things don't happen more than three times, but look—we had four fourteens! Later, people started saying that the number fourteen was cursed. As long as Chinese football had anything to do with fourteen, nothing good would happen..."

Only then did Hu Lai remember. On the day he had transmigrated, he had searched online for a great deal of football information from this world and had seen this so-called "Fourteen Curse," but it simply hadn't come to mind just now.

This world differed from the one he had known in many ways when it came to football, yet some things still felt strangely familiar.

For example, in that world, no matter how poor the Chinese national team was, they had at least made it to the World Cup finals once—the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. In this world, the 2002 World Cup had indeed been held in Japan and South Korea, but China had fallen short in the final qualifying round and failed to qualify. And ever since then, all the way up to 2019, the Chinese team had still never made it to the World Cup finals.

Rumors that China wanted to bid for the World Cup also surfaced from time to time in this world, but every time they did, they were met with a barrage of mockery—You've never even reached the World Cup finals, and you have the nerve to host one? Which past host nation hadn't participated in the World Cup finals at least once before?

As for the 2004 Asian Cup, the two worlds were the same. It had indeed been held in China, and China had ultimately failed to win the championship, losing to Japan in the final. There had also been a controversial goal in that final.

But in his previous world, Hu Lai remembered that the player who had used his hand to score Japan's second goal was named Koji Nakata, and his shirt number had not been fourteen, but six. Here, however, it had become Sato Koichi in the number fourteen shirt.

In the 2005 World Cup qualifiers, the Chinese teams in both worlds had similarly failed to reach the final qualifying round, but the reasons for their failure were not quite the same. In that world, they had tried to play dirty but failed to outdo the West Asians. Here, they had simply and cleanly lost to their opponents, missing out on the final qualifying round.

And so, a number that had merely been ordinary in the history of Chinese football in that world had somehow become a cursed number in this one...

"Hu Lai, don't listen to Meng Xi's nonsense. It's just superstition." Mao Xiao stepped forward to comfort Hu Lai, afraid that Meng Xi had exaggerated too much and frightened him.

Meng Xi was displeased. "Who's talking nonsense? It's a universally acknowledged fact. Look, since what happened in 2005, which key player at any Chinese Super League club has chosen number fourteen? Of course those players won't admit it openly, but they've all voted with their feet. Their mouths may deny it, but their bodies are very honest! Besides, fourteen was never a particularly lucky number to begin with—it sounds like 'want to die'..."

Faced with the facts, Mao Xiao had to admit it. "Number fourteen really is generally left for young players or substitutes. Hardly anyone chooses it voluntarily..."

"There are people who refuse to believe in it," Meng Xi snorted. "But none of them performed particularly well after putting on number fourteen. Want me to give you some examples?"

"Enough, Meng Xi." Mao Xiao stopped his friend in a stern tone, signaling with his eyes at the same time. Stop rubbing salt in Hu Lai's wounds.

Being assigned a number nobody wanted was depressing enough already. Making him listen to all those cursed-number stories was like attending someone's relative's funeral and comforting them by saying, "Don't be sad. You'll be reunited with him sooner or later anyway."

Meng Xi made a face, but he shut up.

Hu Lai understood Mao Xiao's good intentions, but he did not actually care about this supposedly cursed number.

He had just searched through the football knowledge he had learned since arriving in this world and discovered that in this world's football history, number fourteen was merely an ordinary number in world football. Some star players had indeed worn it, but there was no shortage of such stars in the world. After all, any footballer with even a little fame could be called a "star." That was all.

So perhaps the people of this world could not understand what was special about number fourteen.

This was Johan Cruyff's and Thierry Henry's number!

Hu Lai tore off the plastic wrapping, took out the jersey, and shook it open, holding the number directly before his eyes.

As if guided by unseen hands, this number had been delivered to him, like a bridge linking two worlds.

Those names he knew so well, those classic moments, those legends and tales... all of them converged upon this number, reminding him that he had come from that other world.

"I like this number!"

Hu Lai said, holding up the jersey.