Three goals and an assist were a piece of cake; the female reporter was the one who needed a lesson in separating work from private life

After scoring twice, Auxerre's players were delighted, but their motivation had waned a little, and their desire to attack was no longer as strong. They focused on controlling the game from then on, leaving Sedan's players breathing a sigh of relief. They did not want to lose too badly.

At halftime, the score was 2-0.

In the dressing room, Fernandez made few adjustments.

"Keep playing like this in the second half." The veteran coach drew a couple of strokes on the tactics board. "Sedan don't have the stamina to last the whole match. Their defense will get looser and looser in the second half.

"Zhang, you can drift wide more often. Draw the defenders on your side out with you and create space in the middle."

Zhang Kuang nodded and gulped down a couple of mouthfuls of water.

After the second half began, Sedan did indeed show signs of tiring. Their two holding midfielders no longer followed Zhang Kuang all over the pitch as they had in the first half, instead dropping back more often to the edge of the penalty area to protect the defense.

The 51st minute.

Auxerre won a corner. Birsa sent it toward the far post, and Zhang Kuang started his run from near the penalty spot, charging toward where the ball would drop.

Two Sedan defenders jumped at the same time-they knew how dangerous Zhang Kuang was in the air, so they had assigned two men to mark him from the outset.

But Zhang Kuang's leap rendered their double coverage useless.

He rose a full head above the pair, his core strength keeping him suspended as he waited for the ball to drop to just the right height-

It was not an attempt on goal, but a knockdown.

He headed the ball into the center of the six-yard box.

Mignot came galloping in and met it with another header, sending it into the empty net.

3-0.

"An assist! A headed knockdown from Zhang Kuang!" Liu Jianhong shouted. "That's not something an ordinary person could pull off-he clearly could have gone for goal himself, but he chose to knock it down to a teammate in a better position! That shows Zhang Kuang isn't a selfish striker who only cares about padding his stats. He's a team player!"

On the online forums, some people noticed something else.

"How high did he jump??"

"From the replay, he was at least half a body higher than the defenders."

"Isn't that a fucking NBA-level vertical?"

"Pulling off volleyball moves on a football pitch is ridiculous!!!"

"Does he have springs installed?"

"..."

"Fuck." Sedan's head coach, Landry Chauvin, slammed the water bottle in his hand onto the ground. He had prepared for the possibility of losing to Auxerre, but surely they did not have to be reduced to such blatant background props?

The 77th minute.

Zhang Kuang produced his most spectacular individual display of the match.

Auxerre attacked in the final third, and after a series of passes, the ball reached Oliech's feet. Oliech took possession on the right and glanced into the penalty area-Zhang Kuang was surrounded by three Sedan defenders, seemingly without any space to receive a pass.

But Zhang Kuang gestured to him.

Oliech paused-the gesture meant: pass it to me, high, in behind.

He hesitated no longer, scooping his right foot under the ball to loft it deep into the penalty area.

Despite being hemmed in by three men, Zhang Kuang burst into motion.

His explosive first step left all three Sedan defenders out of position. By the time he charged to the right side of the six-yard box, the ball was dropping right in front of him.

Without waiting for it to hit the ground, he struck it on the volley.

Bang-!

The ball flew into the net at the near post. Sedan's goalkeeper had not even gotten a clear look at it.

4-0.

"A hat trick! A hat trick for Zhang Kuang!" Liu Jianhong rose to his feet in the studio-he normally did not stand up while commentating, but today he did, and Xu Yang beside him stood up too.

"Three goals and an assist!" Xu Yang's voice was trembling too. "He's been the driving force behind all four goals in this match! A Chinese player directly involved in four goals in a single match in European football-not only is this a first, it might be something we only see once in our lifetimes!"

This time, Zhang Kuang did not perform his "Siu" celebration.

He walked toward the corner flag, spread his arms, and closed his eyes, his chest heaving. Not from exhaustion, but excitement-he heard all twenty-four thousand fans chanting his name in unison.

"Zhang! Zhang! Zhang!"

The sound surged toward him from every direction like ocean waves, washing against his eardrums layer after layer.

He had never had so many people call his name at once.

The 83rd minute.

Fernandez substituted Zhang Kuang. There was no need to keep him on the pitch padding his stats. He could see Sedan's head coach was already on the verge of flying into a rage. If Zhang Kuang kept playing, Sedan's players might start putting in some vicious challenges.

Zhang Kuang jogged toward the touchline, and the entire stadium rose to applaud once more-not just Auxerre's fans. Even some of the traveling Sedan supporters stood up.

It was not because Sedan's fans had "switched sides," but because they knew what they had witnessed.

It was their most basic show of respect for the strong.

Besides taking Zhang Kuang off, Fernandez substituted two other first-team regulars in one go, replacing all three with youngsters from the youth academy.

With Zhang Kuang and the other regulars off the pitch, along with Fernandez's hints, Auxerre's attack lost some of its edge. The youngsters who came on were desperate to show what they could do, but their ability was limited, and they could not pose a genuine threat.

The match finally ended, with the score at 4-0.

At the post-match press conference, Sedan head coach Landry Chauvin looked somewhat bewildered as he faced the reporters' questions.

"We studied Zhang Kuang," he said. "We watched recordings of his previous two matches and made specific defensive arrangements to deal with his heading and long-range shooting.

"But today, he was directly involved in four goals-the first was a shot from thirty meters out, the second a finish from a rebound inside the box, the third was an assist rather than a goal of his own, and the fourth was a volley after being surrounded by three men.

"Can you say we didn't try to stop him? We did. Weren't three defenders around him enough? But he scored anyway. So my answer is-it wasn't that something was wrong with our defense. Zhang Kuang was simply too strong. We only lost to this Chinese striker."

When a reporter put the same question to Fernandez, however, the veteran Auxerre coach wore a rather peculiar expression.

"Zhang Kuang's performance today? Perfectly normal," Fernandez said, his tone as flat as if he were reading a weather forecast. "That's his normal level. Nothing particularly worth talking about."

The reporters exchanged glances.

Three goals and an assist, directly creating four goals in one match, and he called that his "normal level"?

Those words would have sounded deeply ironic coming from any head coach-but coming from Fernandez, they took on a different flavor.

"Are you joking?" a reporter pressed.

"I'm not joking," Fernandez said expressionlessly. "Zhang Kuang has that ability. He simply showed it on the pitch. There's nothing to make a fuss about."

The next day, France's L'Équipe ran the headline:

"Fernandez: three goals and an assist in one match is Zhang Kuang's 'normal level'-and he isn't joking."

The article's final paragraph read:

"Either Fernandez has gone mad, or Zhang Kuang really is so good that a Ligue 1 head coach considers four goals in one match unworthy of mention. We lean toward the latter-because over his last three matches, this young Chinese player has already recorded eight goals and an assist."

Of course, this was only a France Cup match. Although everyone was stunned by Zhang Kuang's performance, it was not enough to convince them that he really could run rampant throughout Ligue 1.

Zhang Kuang still had to prove his ability in Ligue 1. His France Cup performances were not enough.

Of course, Zhang Kuang did not care about any of that noise. He believed that, with his current ability, while he could not say he would definitely dazzle everyone in French football, his baseline goal was to secure a starting spot after moving to a major club next season.

The live broadcast of this France Cup match gave CCTV-5 a taste of success. That night's ratings were second only to its broadcasts of the UEFA Champions League and other major fixtures involving La Liga's leading duo, Serie A's Big Three, the Premier League's Big Four, and the Bundesliga's Bayern Munich versus the Yellow and Blacks.

This was only a France Cup match. How high would the ratings be for an actual Ligue 1 fixture?

Tsk, we've hit the jackpot.

A huge population meant a huge market. The desperate need for a Chinese football prodigy was a market demand that had to be met!

Zhang Kuang was a money tree. They had to hurry up and find more ways to capitalize on him.

And so Zhang Kuang received a call from that female reporter, asking to meet tonight to discuss the plans for following and filming him further.

But why did we have to meet at night? Wouldn't tomorrow during the day work?

And did we have to discuss it at a hotel? Wouldn't a café do?

Was this having an affair in the name of work, or talking about work while having an affair?

How could a woman mix work and her private life up like this?

And so Zhang Kuang decided he absolutely had to teach this reporter a proper lesson tonight.