Suddenly, a soccer ball came flying over, whizzing past the younger female student in jeans.
The girl in jeans jumped in fright and let out a shriek.
Chen Zijie was just about to curse when the buzz-cut boy who had kicked the ball over beat him to it, calling out with an apologetic expression:
"Sorry!"
"My kick went wide!"
"Sorry for the trouble, but could you kick the ball back? Thanks!"
As the saying went, you did not hit someone who greeted you with a smile.
Chen Zijie let it slide. He got up, walked into the goal to retrieve the ball, and kicked it back to the buzz-cut boy.
Over the next while.
Those members of the university soccer team kept kicking their ball over every so often.
It either hit the picnic blanket or flew past someone's arm.
Every time they kicked the ball over, they would look apologetic and say they were sorry, that their kick had accidentally gone wide.
Once or twice would have been fine.
But after so many times.
Everyone knew they were deliberately being obnoxious.
When they kicked the ball over yet again.
Chen Zijie finally ran out of patience. He promptly stood up and shouted at them:
"Are you fucking done yet? Deliberately kick that ball over here one more time, I dare you!"
"Come on, don't get the wrong idea."
The ponytailed boy spread his hands, looking innocent. "It's soccer. Get the power or direction slightly wrong, and it's perfectly normal for a kick to go wide."
Chen Zijie said, "If you're that bad at it, go play somewhere else!"
The ponytailed boy laughed too. "Dude, this is a soccer field. You're holding a mixer here instead of playing soccer. You're the ones who should get lost."
Chen Zijie was furious. He picked up the ball from the ground, ready to throw it away and see how they would keep playing then.
"Don't throw it."
Gu Qing gave Chen Zijie a meaningful look. "Give me the ball. I'll kick it back to them."
Chen Zijie understood what Gu Qing meant.
He kept his temper in check, set the ball back on the ground, and gently kicked it over to Gu Qing.
As his roommate, he knew just how absurd Gu Qing's physical capabilities were now.
One kick would probably send the ball flying clean out of the soccer field.
Then they could give them a taste of their own medicine.
They would just say it was not deliberate.
Say he had simply misjudged the power.
There would be nothing the other side could do about Gu Qing.
Soon.
Gu Qing slowly stood up, walked over to the ball nearby, and stopped. He shifted his right foot back a step, getting into position to kick.
The ponytailed boy saw what Gu Qing was planning and could not help laughing. He remarked to his teammates beside him:
"Well, would you look at that. He seems to be planning to kick it back hard so I can't catch it and make a fool of myself."
"He probably doesn't know I'm the university team's star goalkeeper."
"That's pretty funny."
The ponytailed boy had barely finished speaking.
When Gu Qing smiled at him from across the way and said:
"Hey, make sure you catch it."
"Go ahead and kick."
The ponytailed boy looked utterly dismissive. He could not even be bothered to get into position to receive the ball, paying no mind at all to a soccer novice like Gu Qing.
He was the university team's goalkeeper. How could he possibly fail to catch a ball kicked by some random student?
Just as that thought crossed his mind.
Gu Qing gave the ball in front of him a light kick.
The instant his foot touched the ball.
The ball deformed.
A deafening bang erupted.
Then the ball shot toward the ponytailed boy at tremendous speed, like a cannonball fired from a cannon.
So fast!
The ponytailed boy was startled.
Then, acting on his instincts as a goalkeeper, he immediately raised his hands to block the ball.
This kick.
Gu Qing had aimed straight at the ponytailed boy.
So the ponytailed boy reached the ball with his hands without the slightest effort.
But... the ball carried far too much kinetic energy.
The instant his hands touched it.
The ponytailed boy felt a tremendous force strike him, instantly sweeping through his entire body.
Then.
Before he could even register what was happening.
The ball, carrying immense kinetic energy, drove his hands back and slammed into his lower abdomen.
With a thud, it knocked him clean off his feet.
His body curled like a shrimp in midair.
Only after a long moment did he crash heavily to the ground behind him, landing flat on his back with his limbs in the air.
At that moment.
Everyone present was stunned.
Especially the ponytailed boy's teammates.
As fellow members of the university soccer team, they all knew how good he was at goalkeeping.
In their coach's words, he was the best goalkeeper in the Haicheng University Student First Division League and had a chance of playing professionally in the future.
Yet this goalkeeper, in whom their coach had placed such high hopes.
Had just been knocked down by an easy shot from some nobody at their university and could not get back up.
The sight was so outrageous that it was almost impossible to believe.
"Brother Yu, are you okay?"
"Should we take you to the campus clinic?"
"Don't move him yet. Let him lie there and recover."
Coming to their senses, his teammates rushed over in a swarm, gathering around the ponytailed boy and asking after him.
The girl in jeans, who had been chatting so enthusiastically with Chen Zijie just a moment ago, also ran over immediately.
She ran to the ponytailed boy's side and crouched down, gripping his hand tightly as her voice trembled with tears:
"Yu, how are you feeling?"
"Don't scare me."
"I was wrong. I shouldn't have deliberately made you angry just now. You have to be okay."
"..."
The ponytailed boy curled up on the ground, both hands clamped over his lower abdomen. His entire face was as white as paper, and a layer of cold sweat instantly broke out across his forehead.
It hurt!
It hurt so much!
That ball Gu Qing had just kicked.
Had carried as much kinetic energy as a large truck loaded with cargo.
The impact sent his lower abdomen into violent spasms and convulsions.
His consciousness grew hazy.
For a moment, he felt as though he was about to cross over to the Otherworld and become a hero.
He lay on the ground recovering for nearly half a minute.
Only then did the ponytailed boy feel a little better. He sat up from the ground with some difficulty, looking at Gu Qing as though he were a monster.
He had started playing soccer in kindergarten, spent over a decade as a goalkeeper, and watched professional soccer for years. He had faced or seen every kind of powerful shot.
But a shot that could send an entire goalkeeper flying was something he had never seen or even heard of.
Was that really a kick a human could make?
The ponytailed boy looked at Gu Qing's long legs, which did not seem particularly muscular.
The longer he looked, the more he questioned everything.
For a moment, he wondered whether he might be dreaming.
"Yu, I'm so glad you're okay. Whatever happens from now on, let's never split up again, okay? Sob..."
Seeing the ponytailed boy sit up, the girl in jeans burst into tears of joy. She threw herself into his arms and cried, hugging him tightly.
On the picnic blanket.
Chen Zijie watched this absurd scene, frozen in place, feeling like a clown.
Gao Fei noticed his embarrassment and reached over to pat his shoulder.
"Fuck, that Lin Xiao is such an idiot."
"Zi Jie, let's forget about her. I'll have Xinyi introduce you to someone else later."
"If there's one thing our Foreign Languages College doesn't lack, it's girls. I guarantee we'll find you someone prettier than her."
The Xinyi Gao Fei referred to was the head of the Foreign Languages College's External Relations Department, sitting nearby in a black dress. She was also his girlfriend.
Hearing him say that, Xu Xinyi found herself caught in a dilemma, unsure whether she should speak.
On one side was her boyfriend's roommate.
On the other was a member of her External Relations Department.
Whichever one she spoke up for, she would end up offending the other. She really could not win either way.
Meanwhile.
Gu Qing found the situation before him a little hard to deal with too.
He had barely been thinking about showing off with that shot. He had purely wanted to vent his roommate's anger for him.
He had not expected it to leave his roommate embarrassed instead.
Still, thinking it over carefully, his good intentions had not actually backfired.
At least he had helped his roommate weed out a bad woman ahead of time.
Otherwise, if his roommate really had started dating that girl in jeans, there would have been a 99% chance of her cheating on him.
Before you continue