"About everything involving me and the National Youth Team these past two days, the Football Association issued a statement saying it was normal training, that my warped mind made me mistake it for targeting me, and that I was smearing Chinese football abroad.
My dad paid two hundred thousand to get me into the National Youth Team, because only by getting in could I sign with a good Chinese Super League or China League One club and have a good career. I never wanted to join, but I didn't want to disappoint my dad.
My dad died in a car accident while coming to deal with a fight I'd gotten into with someone on the team. My dad was a microcosm of Chinese football: he'd once been full of passion, he'd been through darkness, football had made a failure of his life, and in the end, he even died because of it.
Does Chinese football need me to smear it?
First, I've never made things up, and I haven't smeared anything. Second, I've never planned to return to the national team. Unless the Football Association is dissolved someday, I, Zhang Kuang, will never return to the national team or go back to China to play football.
That's all I have to say. Stop dragging me into Chinese football from now on. When foreign media interview me about my experiences in the National Youth Team, I'll still say what needs saying. After all, those experiences were real. I won't choose to shut up to cover anyone's dirty laundry and let public opinion mistake it for a problem with me personally."
After posting this on Weibo, Zhang Kuang had no intention of paying any more attention to it.
But after Sina called to confirm his identity, they advised him to get verified under his real name, which would lend him more authority.
So Zhang Kuang uploaded his identification and completed real-name verification.
When domestic media saw this post published on the Weibo account of yellow-V user Zhang Kuang, they immediately went wild.
There was no need to describe just how wild; everyone could imagine it. The relevant Football Association personnel slammed their desks in fury. They hadn't expected Zhang Kuang to be this brazen, tearing away every last pretense of civility.
Some domestic media outlets wanted to come to France to interview Zhang Kuang, but he turned them all down.
On January 19, with the twenty-first round of Ligue 1 about to begin, the entire Auxerre squad boarded the team bus for Nice.
It was roughly four hundred and fifty kilometers from Auxerre to Nice, a bus journey of more than five hours.
Zhang Kuang sat by the window in the last row, music playing through his headphones, his eyes on the French countryside racing backward outside while his awareness sank into his mind. Setting aside all that domestic bullshit, he needed to prepare seriously for the coming match.
He opened the system, ready to allocate points.
[Current Qi and Blood Points: 177]
177 points.
That was everything he had saved since his debut.
"177 points. Not a lot, but not a little either," Zhang Kuang calculated inwardly. "If I spend it all, I can improve quite a few things."
He opened the system panel and examined his striker rating again.
[Overall striker rating: 82.97] [Shooting: 70 / Positioning: 75 / Heading: 87.5 / Physicality: 99.38]
Shooting, at 70, had become the shortest plank in the barrel.
Zhang Kuang frowned. In his style of play, shooting was the final link that settled everything-however good his positioning, however strong his heading, if his final shot kept going wide, it was all for nothing.
"Improve shooting."
The system interface switched, and the [Shooting] category expanded, displaying a dense list of ten subcategories.
Zhang Kuang studied the list, deep in thought.
[Shooting-Overall rating: 70]
First-time shooting 74, outside-foot curlers 51, ... finesse shots 69, long shots 77...
He stared at the list for a long time.
[First-time shooting]-the ability to shoot directly without controlling the ball first. This was very important for a striker, his greatest trump card. Many strikers had to receive the ball, control it, look up, adjust, and shoot, badly squandering opportunities. Top strikers all kept this process very short.
So he had to improve this.
[Finesse shots]-also known as curling finishes, an essential skill for cutting inside from either side of the penalty area and shooting toward the far corner.
[Chips]-an elegant solution when facing a goalkeeper charging out.
[Outside-foot curlers]-an uncommon skill, but a lethal weapon when used well. Carlos, Cuadrado, and Quagliarella were all masters of it. Although Zhang Kuang was a striker, he would inevitably receive the ball outside the penalty area during matches, and the curl generated by striking with the outside of the foot was often harder to save than an instep strike.
[Long shots]-he was already at 77. In a league at Ligue 1's level, a long-shot rating of 77 was already enough to make him a threat from around twenty-five meters out.
But to truly become a heavy gunner who could "fire at will from outside the box," he needed at least 90. Currently, Messi had the highest long-shot rating in the world at 94, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo at 93. Those two could shoot at will from outside the penalty area, producing all kinds of worldies.
So he had to improve this too.
"That's what I'll do." Zhang Kuang made his decision inwardly.
He raised [Outside-foot curlers], [Finesse shots], [Chips], and [First-time shooting] all to 85, and [Long shots] to 95.
Heh, he was going to raise his long shots to the highest in the world right now, surpassing Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Then he could fucking blast away outside the box too, hitting worldies at will.
After this round of point allocation, his overall [Shooting] rating reached 79.91, while his overall [Striker] rating reached 85.45.
Tsk, above 85-a genuine world-class striker now. Of course, he was still a dozen or so points short of the elite strikers, and much further behind the current Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi. To compete with them in this era of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, good striker stats alone weren't enough. His winger and attacking midfielder stats had to be good too. He needed to be an all-round frontline warrior.
He had been rated 82.97 on his January 16 debut and scored a hat-trick.
Now he was at 85.45.
In other words, he was a little stronger now than he had been on his debut.
January 20, Nice, Allianz Riviera Stadium.
This stadium could hold thirty-five thousand people and was Nice's home ground. Tonight's attendance was around eighty percent, short of a full house.
Although it was a Wednesday evening match, a midweek fixture, Nice's supporters still filled most of the stadium. Not because Auxerre were particularly strong, but because that Chinese kid's hat-trick in the previous round had been so interesting. They wanted to see for themselves whether he really was that good.
At 3:45 in the afternoon, the match officially began.
Nice manager Didier Ollé-Nicolle had clearly prepared thoroughly. Nice started in a 4-2-3-1 formation, and the two holding midfielders, Digard and Fofana, had a very simple task-choke off Pedretti's passing lanes and prevent comfortable passes into Zhang Kuang's and Jelen's feet.
For the first fifteen minutes, the tactic worked.
Zhang Kuang had a miserable time up front-whenever he received the ball, Digard or Fofana immediately pressed tight against him, and they didn't just press him; they threw in all sorts of sneaky tricks.
Pulling his shirt, jabbing him with their knees, pinching the soft flesh at his waist... they performed this dirty work in the referee's blind spots as smoothly as flowing clouds and running water.
But Zhang Kuang knew how to play that game too. Their tricks did zero damage to him, while his retaliation could double their pain, because he was an immortal cultivator.
So the first time those two tried their sneaky tricks on Zhang Kuang, he didn't retaliate. When they came back for a second go, he struck back, thrusting out the knuckle of his middle finger and using short-range explosive force to jab straight into several areas of the human body most susceptible to pain.
Such as the junction between the edge of the sternum and the costal cartilage in the chest, the tips of the "floating ribs" along the lower ribs at the sides of the abdomen, the "bone gaps" near the spine along the inner edges of the shoulder blades, and the gaps between the spinous processes down the center of the back.
"Aah!"
With a scream, Digard clutched his chest and fell to the ground. Everyone in the stadium looked his way, while Zhang Kuang spread his hands with an innocent expression and complained to the referee.
"Ref, he's being racist. He called me a yellow monkey and said he'd get me off the pitch. Then he suddenly fell down in front of me, pretending I'd attacked him."
"Fuck, you're making that up, you yellow-"
The referee immediately produced a yellow card. "Digard, I'm warning you. No racism on the pitch, or I'll report you to the Football Association for a suspension. I could even report you to FIFA to have you banned worldwide."
Digard said, "NO, NO, NO..." He was frightened. If that happened, his career would be over.
The referee said, "Apologize to Zhang right now, or I'll put this in my report."
Digard said, "Sorry, Zhang. It just slipped out."
Zhang Kuang said, "Brother, disaster comes out of the mouth. Watch it next time."
Zhang Kuang gave him a pretend hug, then viciously pinched and twisted his waist. Just as Digard was about to cry out, Zhang Kuang said in his ear, "Hold it in, or this won't be all you get."
Digard looked at Zhang Kuang in terror, fear taking root in the depths of his eyes.