A Super Pretty Girl

"What the fuck..."

The athletes behind Coach Miller could hardly believe what they had just seen. Even Travis himself had never expected Li Wei's physical ability to be this absurd.

Li Wei shoved aside the two defensive tackles hanging off him, got to his feet, took off his helmet, and spat out his mouthguard.

"Coach..." The assistant coach beside him swallowed. "Should we test him again..."

"Shut up!" Coach Miller cursed under his breath, then suddenly took a deep breath and strode toward the edge of the end zone.

"Holy fucking Mother Mary..." Miller first glanced at the defensive tackles still groaning on the ground, then whipped around and roared at the starters who were still standing there dumbfounded. "Look! All of you, fucking look! Bruce Lee just crushed our defensive line like he was dragging dead pigs! Tony! Especially you, you stupid pig! You spread your legs like a whore and let him ram you straight into the air!"

"Hey, Coach..." Tony tried to argue. "I just wasn't warmed up..."

"Shut up, Tony!" Miller strode over and pressed his forehead against Tony's. "Let me ask you! Tony, where are you from?"

"I..." Tony immediately froze. "I... I'm from Queens—"

"Wrong! Dead fucking wrong!" Miller sprayed spit all over Tony's face. "You came from your mother's pussy! Remember what I said before? Some people come from their father's balls! Others come from their mother's pussy! And you, I can tell you came from your mother's pussy! That's why you can't get hard at all!"

Those words made everyone except Li Wei turn three shades paler.

"Evan! Get your ass over here!" He turned and shouted at the top of his lungs.

A pale-faced white boy walked over, still clutching a quarterback practice ball tightly in his hands.

"Evan, you're being demoted to the reserve team," Miller said, snatching the practice ball from Evan's hands and rudely stuffing it into Li Wei's arms. "I keep my word. Li Wei, you're now the backup quarterback for the varsity team!"

Li Wei raised an eyebrow. He hadn't expected this Black coach, whose foul mouth was second only to Don Quixote when he was cursing someone out, to actually keep his promise—and put him straight on the varsity team.

Most football teams able to compete in New York State high school leagues had complete rosters. Franklin K. Lane High School alone had three full squads.

The freshman team, the reserve team, and the varsity team. Only the varsity team was entered into the league and could play against other schools.

Although he was only the backup quarterback, he had essentially been added directly to the starting roster. He could be said to have stepped onto this path.

Coach Miller blew the whistle hanging around his neck, its sound shrill and piercing.

"All right! That's enough training for today!" He dismissed the team, then said to Li Wei and Travis, "You two rookies, report to the athletic department's strategy room at three in the afternoon on the first day of school!"

After thinking for a moment, he pulled a playbook from his back pocket and stuffed it into Li Wei's hands.

"We'll copy you a digital version after you get to the strategy room," he said. "Bruce Lee, use that Olympic competition brain of yours and memorize this playbook as soon as possible!"

"My name is Li Wei, Coach."

"I don't care what your name is. Here, you're Bruce Lee. Now get lost!"

With that, he blew his whistle again, signaling that Li Wei and Travis could get lost.

On the way back, Travis regretfully said that he had missed his chance to get on the field today. If he had gone in himself, he definitely could have used his running back speed and agility to run circles around those three defensive tackles.

Li Wei casually flipped through the playbook Coach Miller had given him while even more casually brushing off Travis's one-man conversation with vague responses like, "Mm-hmm, yeah, I see."

A football playbook contained fifty to a hundred different basic plays. Every play came with a string of code words, each of which corresponded to a different formation, movement, and specific route.

Li Wei roughly skimmed through Coach Miller's playbook. In the mere ten-plus minutes it took to walk, he had already reached about the second half of it, having basically memorized everything before that.

After shaking off Travis, Li Wei unexpectedly ran into Michael at the school gate. He hadn't seen Michael in a long time, ever since he had started going to the gym less often.

Michael was also stunned when he saw Li Wei, then eagerly came over and gave him a hug.

"Yo, long time no see." He patted Li Wei on the shoulder. "I'd completely forgotten that today was the placement exam."

"If nothing unexpected happens, we'll probably see each other in AP Class in a few days," Li Wei said. "How have you been lately?"

"I've been really busy lately. Didn't I tell you I have a younger brother who's in a gang?" Michael said with a bitter smile. "Carl—my brother—something happened with his gang recently. It seems like two bigger gangs higher up are fighting, and the boss of Carl's little gang has started getting restless too. I had a huge fight with him recently while trying to talk him out of it."

Michael then said that he had secretly saved up some money. Once he had enough, he would send his younger brother to rehab and help him cut ties with the gang for good.

Li Wei had originally wanted to advise Michael to cut ties with his brother as soon as possible, because a brother like that would only drag Michael into an endless abyss.

But after thinking about it, he felt that would be too presumptuous for someone he barely knew. So he merely offered Michael a few words of comfort, and the two parted ways.

Since it was still before three in the afternoon, Li Wei decided to spend another three hours slacking off for wages at Dolores's buyer's boutique.

He had also discovered an advantage to working the afternoon shift: when he got off work, he could take home some of the desserts and snacks the store had prepared for customers who had made purchases that day. Anything left over before closing was given to the employees to finish off—and it was all top-tier stuff. According to Emma, the purchase price of a single macaron alone was over ten dollars.

How could Li Wei possibly pass up such a perfectly legitimate chance to mooch off employee benefits? Besides, Emma messaged him every day, waiting for him to come in for his part-time shift.

Gossiping with Li Wei about customers' fashion sense, behavior, and other juicy tidbits was also one of Emma's favorite hobbies.

After an intense period of internet surfing, Li Wei had finally figured it out—Emma might have started treating him as her work buddy.

By the time he arrived at Dolores's buyer's boutique and changed into his uniform, Emma came over with an excited expression, muttering to herself.

"Ah," she sighed, pretending to be regretful. "A super pretty, super elegant girl came into the store this morning. Too bad you weren't here this morning, so you didn't get to see her."