After taking the group photo, Brian Clark and the sponsor Mr. Cooper had a pleasant conversation, which made Mr. Cooper very happy and satisfied. He patted Brian Clark on the shoulder and praised him repeatedly: “With you here, we’re sure to win this time!”

“Then I’ll go warm up, Mr. Cooper.”

“Alright, go ahead!”

After saying goodbye to the sponsor, Brian Clark walked toward a corner of the field. He originally planned to just do a casual warm-up, just like he did in those previous amateur matches—stretch a bit, get his body warmed up, and that’s it. In matches of this level, sometimes he didn’t even break a sweat before winning. He didn’t need to sprint at full speed during the game; even jogging was enough to win. There really was no need to take it too seriously.

But just as Brian Clark was about to do that, he remembered the conversation he had with Old Man yesterday evening.

“You’ve been with me for a year now. Has your left foot injury ever relapsed? You’ve played so many unofficial matches outside—have you ever felt any discomfort in your left foot? Don’t you have any sense of your own condition?”

Almost a year ago, Brian Clark had fled back from Milan like a stray dog. Unwilling to face his parents at home, he hid out at Old Man’s place. The football school where Old Man used to work had long since closed down due to a lack of students, so he had come south and opened a football training class here, barely scraping by.

At that time, Brian Clark had no idea what he was going to do next. At first, he didn’t even dare to touch a football. But eventually, he couldn’t resist and started playing again, joining these wild amateur matches.

Looking back on the past half year of matches, it seemed his left foot injury hadn’t shown any signs of relapse at all...

Of course, maybe that was because the intensity of amateur matches wasn’t very high.

He remembered what Mr. Harris told him today: their opponents were very strong, runners-up in the city-level amateur football tournament, and even had some players who had played in professional leagues.

Brian Clark thought that if they were really as strong as Mr. Harris said, it would be a good test to see if his foot could handle it.

With that in mind, Brian Clark decided to take things more seriously.

He started warming up with the full set of routines used by professional players.

……

While Brian Clark was warming up, Director Harris stood on the sidelines, looking around.

This was a football field on a university campus. Besides the people who had paid to book the field, there were actually a lot of college students playing football. Since the match hadn’t started yet, they could still play on the field, but soon the administrator would come and make them leave.

Apart from these students playing football, there were also some sports enthusiasts jogging on the track. In the corners of the stands, you could always spot a few couples, heads leaning together, whispering who knows what secrets. There was even someone sitting in the stands, holding a book and loudly reciting English—in this wide and noisy place, that kind of volume didn’t attract attention and didn’t disturb anyone. In fact, it was more effective than reciting in the study room.

Director Harris looked at all this and couldn’t help but smile.

He liked it here. He liked the university.

Almost twenty years old, Director Harris had never attended university. He had gone into professional football right after elementary school. If it weren’t for the nine-year compulsory education policy, he wouldn’t even have a junior high diploma.

With only a junior high education, he felt both envious and curious about everything in university—envious of these gifted students’ free and easy lives, and curious about all the aspects of university life he hadn’t seen.

How wonderful it would be to go to university...

Director Harris dreamed about it in his heart.

Then a sharp voice interrupted his fantasy: “Hey! Isn’t this Director Harris?”

Chapter 5 “Golden Right Foot”

“Hey! Isn’t this Director Harris?”

Hearing this distinctive voice, Director Harris’s heart sank. Then an arm hooked around his neck and landed on his shoulder.

“It’s really been a long time, Director Harris!”

That sharp voice was now right by his ear—the owner of the voice was standing right next to him.

Director Harris turned his head and, sure enough, saw Michael Bolton with his yellow hair and a sly, monkey-faced grin.

“Yvonne Foster, your friend?” Next to him was a slightly older man, who asked curiously. This man was surrounded by three others, clearly the leader of the group, the Big Brother.

“Yeah, yeah, an old friend. Haven’t seen him in years—didn’t expect to run into him here, ha!”

“Your friend is a bureau chief? Why not introduce us?” Big Brother put on a big smile for Director Harris.

Yvonne Foster quickly waved his hand and laughed: “What bureau chief! His name is Director Harris—Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, and ‘Ju’ as in bureau chief, that’s his name...”

Someone behind Big Brother laughed: “Wow, what a weird name!”

Yvonne Foster laughed even harder: “Right? Because of his name, we all call him ‘Chief.’ Oh, George Allen, you misunderstood! This guy, just like us, is a footballer... well, used to be a footballer!”

Director Harris felt Yvonne Foster’s arm tighten around his shoulder. To outsiders, it might look like a friendly gesture, but Director Harris’s neck was being squeezed so hard he could barely breathe...