Ryan Howard and “WHO” are pronounced similarly.

Ryan Howard used this indirect way to express that this was his own soccer ball.

Why not just write “HU”?

Because Ryan Howard thought it wasn’t interesting enough—he came up with a joke in his head:

“Whose ball is this? ‘WHO’s’?”

“It’s Hu’s ball.”

“Yes, I’m asking whose ball is this? ‘WHO’s’?”

“That’s right, this ball is Hu’s!”

Honestly, it’s a bit lame... but Ryan Howard doesn’t care.

Seeing this word, Ryan Howard could now be absolutely sure that this soccer ball was his, because no one else would be neurotic enough to come up with such a cold joke and then write it on a soccer ball.

There are hundreds of millions of soccer balls in the world, but this one belonging to Ryan Howard is unique, the only one, with no duplicate.

Ryan Howard stood where he was, lowered his head, and looked at the soccer ball he was holding in his hands.

It seemed that he finally had an answer to the question that had been puzzling him all day.

Is this still the world I know?

It seemed that many things related to soccer were different. The players he was familiar with were gone, the clubs had disappeared, replaced by names and people he didn’t know at all.

So is this world no longer the one he was familiar with?

But at school, his classmates were still the same people, with the same names, and their attitudes toward him hadn’t changed—Kevin Carter never looked at him directly, his lackey Brian Lee mocked him, Big Scott had tricked him but in the end gave him ten yuan as compensation...

They seemed no different from how they were yesterday, or before—Fatty might be a bit of a trickster sometimes, but he was still his best friend. After all, in Big Scott’s mind, his deskmate was probably a bit of a trickster too...

Everything around him was familiar, including this abandoned square that hardly anyone ever came to, and the soccer ball in his hands.

Those soccer stars were different, the professional clubs were different, but they were all so far away from him. Could they really affect his life?

Ryan Howard had thought about it seriously.

No.

So is this world unfamiliar?

No.

Since the people around him hadn’t changed, and their attitudes toward him were the same, what difference did this world make to him?

Ryan Howard figured it out—whether he had traveled through time, or the world had, it no longer mattered to him.

He looked at the soccer ball in his hands and realized that what mattered most now was that the half hour he was allowed to be late getting home was probably already half gone.

And he hadn’t even started today’s special training!

He threw the soccer ball to the ground, then kicked it toward the high platform directly opposite.

If you looked closely, you’d see a thin white line on the dark green stone wall, outlining a rectangle the size of a goal.

That was his goal.

In this secret base of his, he kept kicking the soccer ball toward the goal.

With a bang, the ball hit the stone wall, but instead of bouncing straight back, it rebounded at a very odd angle.

Ryan Howard chased after it with all his might, stretched out his foot to try to stop the ball, but the angle of the rebound was just too strange, so even though Ryan Howard was almost doing the splits, he still didn’t touch the ball, and nearly pulled a muscle in his thigh...

But Ryan Howard wasn’t frustrated. He got up from the ground, chased after the ball that had been stopped by the grass, and kicked it toward the “goal” again.

And this time, the ball still didn’t bounce back in the expected direction.

Ryan Howard had to run to the other side of the square to try to catch up with the ball and stop it.

This time he did a bit better than before—at least he touched the ball, even if he just kicked it toward another stone wall...

Bang!

※※※

Bang.

A slender leg stepped onto the wooden stairs, making a dull thud.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang bang bang...

A girl holding a cardboard box in her arms quickly ran up the stairs. With her footsteps, the stair railing trembled, shaking off dust that had been accumulating for who knows how long.

The afterglow of the setting sun shone in through the window facing the stairs, divided into four sections by the cross-shaped window frame. The dust danced in the four orange beams of light.

The girl passed through the light and dust, her swaying ponytail stirring up vortex after vortex of dust behind her.

Not a single speck of dust touched the girl, as if they weren’t in the same world.

The girl plopped the box down on the table with a thud. Just as she was about to turn and run back downstairs, she heard a dull sound echoing from outside the window.

Bang!

Curious, she walked to the window and saw, in the overgrown wasteland below her house, the figure of a boy chasing a soccer ball.

He stumbled after the ball, stopped it, then kicked it toward the stone wall of the high platform opposite.

With a bang, the ball bounced off in the exact opposite direction from the boy, so he turned and chased after it again.

After catching up to the ball, he once again shot it at that stone wall.