Chapter 23: The Beginning of the School Year

Long Bisheng quickly realized that the portly principal's words were not entirely truthful. It wasn’t due to any keener powers of observation than his father’s, but simply because the facts were plain to see.

When Long Yuyun left, there were still five days before the official start of the football school. Within those five days, as more and more students arrived, the school replaced all the beds in the dorms with bunk beds, increasing the number of students in each room from four to seven. Contrary to Long Yuyun's expectation of about fifty students, the actual number was close to a hundred.

The spacious cafeteria also failed to live up to the principal’s glowing description. The food was bland and uninspiring. The only redeeming feature was that the portions were generous enough to satisfy the appetite of a growing boy like Long Bisheng, who was on the cusp of adolescence.

And this was all before classes had even begun—already, there were issues with both accommodation and food. Long Bisheng could only sigh. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his father about these problems. Even if he could, it would hardly matter; the full semester’s fees had already been paid, and neither he nor his father could simply leave the school because of these shortcomings.

All Long Bisheng could hope for was to receive proper football training here; he desperately hoped there wouldn’t be any issues in that regard as well.

The other six boys sharing his dormitory had already moved in. Compared to Long Bisheng, who came from a military family, dressed simply, and spoke and acted with a certain rustic awkwardness, the other boys seemed to come from much better-off backgrounds. Judging by their clothes and personal belongings, they were far better equipped than he was, suggesting their families were wealthier as well.

Yet, at nearly one meter sixty, Long Bisheng towered above his dormmates, making him stand out like a crane among chickens. Thus, just as in his previous schools, no one picked on him, but no one sought out his company either. Within a few days, the other boys had begun exchanging the various snacks they’d brought from home, bonding easily with one another, as most of them came from counties and towns near Xi’an. Their shared dialect and habits helped them quickly blend into a tight-knit group.

But Long Bisheng? He was the student whose home was farthest from Xi’an—Urumqi, Xinjiang. The name was familiar to people across the country, but few had actually been there, or even knew much about it—especially not these boys, all just ten or so years old. Long Bisheng’s Mandarin, tinged with a Xinjiang accent, sounded strange to them, while he himself struggled to understand their northern Shaanxi dialect. This subtle barrier only deepened his sense of isolation.

Long Bisheng didn’t mind. He hadn’t come here to make friends, but to play football. In a specialized school like this, his only goal was to train hard and improve his skills. Realistically, of these hundred students, perhaps only ten might have a shot at a professional football career. He had no intention of wasting his energy on socializing. Long Bisheng was keenly aware that this football school would only be a fleeting episode in his life. If he played well, in a few years, he might make it onto the youth team of a professional club; if not, he’d return home and consider joining the army if the opportunity arose. Given that, what reason did he have to form any deep attachments to classmates who were destined to be mere passersby in his life?

Admittedly, such an attitude was unusual for a child. At any stage of life, friends are essential—even if, in the end, you only keep a handful close, and true confidants are even rarer, no one can go without the nourishment of friendship. Yet for Long Bisheng, this mindset seemed to help him focus on the football training that lay ahead.

In truth, Long Bisheng did long for friendship. But his reserved nature made it hard for him to reach out to others. Even though he’d grown up in a crowded army compound and was always friendly to everyone, he didn’t know how to bridge the gap and truly connect. For children his age, it’s easy to form small cliques, and once you fail to join one at the start, it’s hard to break in later. That was exactly Long Bisheng’s situation.

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Two days later, the school officially opened for the semester. At the opening ceremony, under the sweltering sun, the plump principal delivered a lengthy, meaningless speech, then announced something that excited the students: “To celebrate the opening ceremony, the school has decided to take everyone to the nearby cinema to watch a movie!”

The students cheered, but Long Bisheng frowned. He hadn’t enrolled in this expensive school to watch movies—he was here to play football. Going to the movies meant that today’s training would be postponed.

What frustrated Long Bisheng even more was that the school required students to pay for their own tickets—ten yuan each. The so-called cinema was nothing more than a video hall.

The principal beamed as he watched the students file out under their teachers’ supervision. In truth, the movie outing was a last-minute decision. After the previous semester, one of the coaches had resigned, and it had taken considerable effort to find a replacement. But the new coach, from Sichuan, couldn’t make it to the school in time. Upon learning that the coach would only arrive the next day, the principal had a sudden inspiration: send the students to the movies. The video hall nearby never did much business, and it quickly agreed to the principal’s offer of five hundred yuan to reserve the place for an afternoon. Whatever else could be said about his abilities, the principal certainly had a knack for making money.

But this was only a minor interlude—at least from the school’s perspective. The next day, Xi’an Hope Football School’s new term finally began in earnest.

As far as curriculum went, Xi’an Hope Football School had a fairly reasonable schedule. There were two periods of academic classes in the morning, finishing by half-past nine, followed by light, basic physical activities led by the coach. After lunch came a midday nap, and from two in the afternoon, different groups received various levels of foundational football training, depending on age and experience. Each week, the students were divided into teams for a proper match, with teams and positions shuffled according to age and ability. After all, at this age, it was far too soon to determine which positions suited which players.

ps: Did everyone have a good time last night? Old Guo certainly enjoyed himself...