Chapter 63 The Vacation is Over

Sonny Deane was once again awakened by the shrill screams and joyful laughter of children coming from the backyard.

He opened his eyes in bed, looking at the bedroom which was no longer pitch black, as the morning light filtered through the gaps in the curtains.

Instead of getting up immediately, he lay there staring blankly at the ceiling with an expression of utter despair.

He had been woken up in the exact same way yesterday...

At that time, he had tried pulling the blanket over his head to continue sleeping.

Yet, the children's laughter and screams still managed to pierce clearly into his ears, even through layers of heavy blankets and pillows.

He tossed and turned in bed, constantly searching for a sleeping posture that could block out the sound.

The end result, however, was simply exhausting himself awake.

So today, he decided not to bother at all; it was a futile effort anyway.

He lay stiffly in bed like a corpse for who knows how long, clearly hearing the sound of every single kick of the ball.

He could even distinguish from the impact sounds which balls were kicked by Wang Lie and which ones were kicked by his two children...

Realizing that his mind was now exceptionally clear and it was truly impossible to fall back asleep, he let out a long sigh and sat up in bed.

At the same time, he picked up his phone to check the time:

8:36 AM.

If he remembered correctly, when he tossed and turned unable to sleep yesterday and got up to check the time, it was around this exact same time...

Tch.

Even more punctual than a damn alarm clock!

After making a mental complaint to himself, Deane threw off the duvet and swung his legs out of bed.

Then he headed straight to the bathroom for a shower.

It was his daily morning habit; taking a shower right after getting up made him feel refreshed and sharp.

After finishing a quick shower and changing his clothes, Deane walked over to the window and pulled the curtains all the way open. The room instantly became much brighter than before.

Through the closed window glass, he cast his gaze toward the backyard of his next-door neighbor.

The old rascal was out there kicking the ball around with his two kids.

Judging by his movements, he was demonstrating dribbling through a slalom of poles for the children, and he completed it smoothly.

Then the older boy tried to copy him, dribbling through the poles.

To be honest, though... his dribbling was clumsy and really not very good.

The little girl was just purely playing around, not following her father's demonstrated method at all. Instead, she just punted the ball forward, burst into loud laughter, and chased after it like a madwoman—most of the screams and giggles Deane had been hearing came from this energetic little girl.

Seeing this scene reminded Deane of what Wang Lie had said to him previously:

"During this time, I bring my son along to practice soccer every morning..."

He gave a disdainful chuckle:

You call this practicing soccer?

Clearly, you're just messing around to amuse the kids!

He turned away, not wanting to watch the routine of a father playing house with his children.

***

"Barring any unexpected circumstances, I still plan to start Deane in our next match against Brighton Whites."

Sam McNeil said to his coaching staff colleagues.

Unlike last time, no one raised any objections.

Although Deane's performance in the previous match could not be considered stellar, he did manage an assist and faithfully executed the tactical assignments given to him by the coaching staff.

This was already much better than his substitute appearance against Hillingham FC earlier.

Seeing no objections, McNeil said to fitness coach Giovanni Faletti: "You need to come up with a specialized fitness training program for Deane as soon as possible and get his physical condition to its optimal level. He doesn't have the stamina to play a full ninety minutes yet."

Faletti nodded, accepting the task.

Assistant coach Varo let out a snort, then sneered with a remark: "It's honestly ironic. Twenty-seven-year-old Deane apparently has worse stamina than thirty-eight-year-old Wang."

On the first day of training after recovering following the match against the Scousers, McNeil had arranged a physical fitness test for Wang Lie.

To win the match against the Scousers, he had made Wang Lie—who had just celebrated his thirty-eighty birthday—play the entire match.

In truth, he had been worried that Wang Lie's physical exhaustion would take a whole week to recover from.

However, the results of the physical test surprised almost everyone.

Fitness coach Faletti told him that Wang Lie's physical condition was exceptionally good. Although he was inevitably somewhat tired right after playing a match, it was well within the normal range, and there was no sign whatsoever of him being a thirty-eight-year-old veteran.

If anything, his physical age appeared much younger than his actual chronological age...

Because it wasn't just stamina; his speed, explosive power, cardiovascular endurance, and so on, all measured data looked nothing like what a thirty-eight-year-old should possess.

When McNeil first received the report, he thought he had misread it. After rubbing his eyes hard, he suspected Faletti might have written the report incorrectly.

Having confirmed repeatedly with Faletti that the report was accurate, he even had Faletti pull out the physical test report from when Wang Lie first joined the club to make a comparison.

As a result, all the comparative data showed that the current Wang Lie was in much better physical condition than when he first joined the team.

McNeil had then fallen silent while looking at the two reports.

He couldn't figure out why this was the case...

In the end, it was Faletti who offered a line of reasoning:

He believed it might be because, during his final half-season at Sough United, the rhythm of Wang Lie's training and matches had been irregular. Especially right before his departure when he was temporarily banished to train with the youth team, the training efficiency failed to keep up, leading to a decline in Wang Lie's physical fitness.

After coming to Tyne and undergoing targeted, systematic training, his physical fitness naturally and gradually recovered.

Wang Lie had always placed great emphasis on physical training, so it didn't seem so incredible after all that his bodily functions appeared younger than his actual age.

McNeil also felt that the truth of the matter should be just that. After all, the excellence of Wang Lie's physical fitness was universally acknowledged.

Hearing the hint of mockery in his partner's tone, McNeil still chose to put in a fair word for Sonny Deane:

"Wang is a freak of nature and cannot be used as a standard. The mere fact that he has gone eighteen years in his professional career without suffering a major injury is something almost no one else can achieve. Not to mention this is his performance after undergoing consecutive knee surgeries. It's simply incredible."

If he had never suffered a severe injury in the first place, it might still be somewhat understandable.

Yet Wang Lie had suffered the exact same severe injury to the same spot twice within the span of two years from age nineteen to twenty, requiring two surgeries. To return from those injuries and go on to play for eighteen consecutive years without a major injury was truly miraculous...

His ability to become the current active leading goalscorer in professional football was also largely due to his ultra-high and remarkably stable appearance rate.

It wasn't as if no one had ever tried to investigate the reasons behind Wang Lie's formidable physique.

Yet the conclusions drawn every time ultimately boiled down to a single word: "talent."

This was perhaps Wang Lie's greatest talent.

Or perhaps his original physique had been in some kind of imbalance, which was why he suffered two severe left patellar tendon injuries. Paradoxically, the surgeries might have repaired his body, bringing it into a state of perfect equilibrium, thereby freeing him from major injuries ever since.

***

As soon as Sonny Deane heard the laughter drifting over from the backyard, he threw off his duvet and got out of bed.

This time, he didn't lie staring blankly at the ceiling.

After a quick shower and changing clothes, he went downstairs and poured himself a glass of milk from the refrigerator.

Carrying his glass of milk, he walked back up to the second floor, stood by his bedroom window, and watched Wang Lie playing soccer with his two kids.

It made him shake his head repeatedly.

The old rascal possessed such high soccer talent, so why did his son lack any talent whatsoever?

He recalled what the old rascal had said to him earlier:

"Would you like to join us too?"

Was the old rascal short of a training partner, and thus using the method of teaching his kids to practice as a subtle way to invite him?

Hah!

Just say it directly!

If you don't say it directly, how would you know I wouldn't agree?

If you had said it directly, I could have refused you directly!

Ha!

Deane imagined in his mind what expression would appear on Wang Lie's face if he rejected him outright.

Then he stood alone by the window, chuckling softly to himself.

Yet as he laughed, the expression on his face gradually turned desolate.

Even a little kid with no talent at all could play soccer with his father.

While he, despite possessing such extraordinary soccer talent, had never once had his father play soccer with him...

His memories of his father were terribly hazy.

Deane held his glass of milk, turned around, and left the bedroom window.

Even the tightly closed doors and windows could not block out the laughter and merriment outside.

***

"Oh, right, I suddenly remembered something..."

While lying in bed at night, his wife Tang Xingmei suddenly spoke up.

Wang Lie shifted his gaze from his phone to her: "What is it?"

"I remember you mentioned before that you invited Deane to join you for morning training as well?"

"That's right," Wang Lie nodded.

Tang Xingmei smiled: "It looks like you failed."

"That kid is completely impervious to reason, so I'm out of options," Wang Lie spread his hands.

"Didn't he change his attitude even a little bit?"

Wang Lie thought about it carefully: "To say he hasn't changed at all wouldn't be accurate... You can still feel that he's taking training a bit more seriously now. Oh, and also. In the past, he wore headphones in the locker room most of the time, listening to his own music and seeming completely indifferent to whatever everyone else was chatting about. Now, though... ever since we beat the Scousers, it seems he really does wear his headphones less often as soon as he enters the locker room..."

Having heard her husband's description, Tang Xingmei nodded and said with a very certain tone: "Then that actually counts as a change, and it's still much better than his previous state. With a stubborn person like him, you can't expect him to transform overnight; you have to take it slow."

Wang Lie expressed his agreement as well: "Yeah, I just leave him alone now. When he first joined the team, seeing his arrogant attitude made me somewhat anxious... I thought about pushing him a bit. But he turned out to be the type who pushes back harder the more you pressure him. If you just leave him alone, he actually figures out what he needs to do on his own."

Tang Xingmei nodded repeatedly: "To put it bluntly, he's just an overgrown kid. He knows all the principles in his heart, but if you force him to do something, he gets unhappy. Qiqi is sometimes like that too; for instance, when I tell him to clean his room, he gets very upset. Even though his room is already a mess and I'm telling him to clean it for his own good, what on earth is he unhappy about? Later on, he told me that he was originally planning to do it anyway, but because I used a commanding tone to tell him to clean, he felt forced, which annoyed him to no end..."

Wang Lie laughed: "Are you comparing Deane to our son just to roast him? A twenty-some-year-old adult actually acting like an eight-year-old kid..."

"Some things are universal. Anyway, every time you talk about Deane's situation, the image of a rebellious teenager pops up in my head. Speaking of which, what's his family situation like? What about his parents?"

"Word has it that shortly after he was born, his father divorced his mother, first moving to Southampton and later to the United States. They rarely keep in touch, and the father-son bond is extremely distant. As for his mother... perhaps deeply affected by the divorce, she developed a drinking problem and didn't pay much attention to him when he was little. Deane grew up on the streets, and if he hadn't possessed soccer talent and been selected by Tyne's youth academy, he'd probably be in prison right now."

When Wang Lie was at Sough United, he hadn't paid attention to Deane's background; after all, they weren't teammates, why would he care about all that?

Once he arrived at Tyne and became teammates with Deane, while also feeling that the kid was a ready-to-use asset worth utilizing, Wang Lie had specifically gone online to look into some of Deane's past to figure out how his current condition had been shaped.

Hearing her husband's account, Tang Xingmei sighed: "The impact of one's original family..."

Wang Lie, however, curled his lip in disapproval of his wife's remark: "What original family impact... Where in this world is there a 100% perfect original family? If everyone blames their own problems and failures on the impact of their original family, then everyone could rightfully just give up, lie flat, and comfortably become a piece of trash. It's like someone committing murder, arson, and robbing a bank because they're poor—with so many poor people in the world, why is it only him acting out maliciously?

"Soccer already gave Deane a chance to change his destiny, yet he still acts all slacking and carefree. If he ultimately fails, who else can he blame? Speaking of original families, I left home from a very young age to go play and train at the Oriental Football School, and my parents weren't around either. How come I didn't turn out bad?"

Tang Xingmei glared at him: "You think everyone is thick-skinned and carefree like you?"

"What do you mean thick-skinned and carefree? It's a big heart!" Wang Lie poked his own chest with his thumb.

"Fine, fine, fine, you have a big heart. But how many people in this world have a heart as big as yours? You can't always assume everyone else has to be just like you, old Wang..." Tang Xingmei said earnestly. "Otherwise, why doesn't Qiqi have your soccer talent?"

"Uh..."

Wang Lie was left speechless by his wife's retort.

When he first found out that his son had no soccer talent, Wang Lie had actually taken quite a blow.

He didn't demand that his son achieve the same level of career success as himself, but could he at least become a professional player? Could he make the national team?

As a result, he could tell from a very early age that Wang Ziqi didn't even have the basic aptitude to become a professional player...

He felt very depressed. True, the success of his career had the assistance of a system cheat, but that merely prevented him from getting injured.

Everything else was the result of his own hard work, stemming from his native talent and abilities, coupled with the sweat of his arduous toil...

He considered his talent to be truly one-of-a-kind in the history of Chinese football.

Yet such an awesome talent hadn't been passed down to his son even in the slightest...

He still remembered how young he was when he first displayed his soccer talent—just over three years old, not yet four.

Back then, his family didn't have many toys, but they had soccer balls, because his father was a fanatical football fan who threw a soccer ball to him as a toy to play with.

When going downstairs to play in the residential compound, he had to bring the soccer ball along—his father made him run around the compound with the ball just for fun.

Every evening after dinner back then, quite a few children would run around the compound, laughing and playing.

Little Wang Lie wanted to join them too, but he was afraid of losing the soccer ball toy his father had given him, so he simply used his feet to dribble the ball while chasing and running wildly with them.

Then Wang Lie's father discovered that his son, dribbling a soccer ball at his feet, actually ran faster than those kids of the same age!

He would keep the ball glued to his feet even when climbing slopes and crossing ridges; he would flick the ball up when going up steps and juggle it down when descending steps.

Word quickly spread around the compound that there was a little kid who couldn't even speak clearly yet, but was exceptionally good at playing soccer.

It was from that very moment that Wang Lie's father conceived the notion of training his son to become a professional player.

He himself lacked talent, but his son had it!

Perhaps his own football dream could be realized through his son, right?

Following that, Wang Lie's father began specialized soccer ability training for his son.

Wang Lie progressed step by step from kindergarten to primary school, earning achievements and a reputation until he caught the eye of Xu Dongfang, the founder, principal, and head coach of the Oriental Football School...

Because he had experienced that himself when he was little, Wang Lie had also tried letting Wang Ziqi dribble the ball around when he was just over three years old.

As a result, after taking numerous tumbles, Wang Ziqi stubbornly refused to touch a soccer ball for nearly a year, crying at the mere sight of one—he thought his father letting him kick this round object was a punishment...

It wasn't until he grew a little older, gained some understanding, and realized that his father was a wildly successful football superstar across the entire world that he was willing to try playing soccer again under his father's guidance.

However... although he was willing to practice soccer, he still learned clumsily and things did not go smoothly at all.

Consequently, Wang Lie could confirm that his son genuinely had no soccer talent.

He abandoned the idea of letting his son inherit his mantle, treating it simply as cultivating a hobby for him instead.

Now, whenever he talked about teaching his kid soccer every morning, it was actually just parent-child bonding time, playing and running around wildly with his child, enjoying a brief moment of domestic bliss...

***

As Deane looked at the figures playing soccer in the next-door backyard, for some reason, a sudden thought popped into his head:

If that kid accidentally kicks the ball into my yard, could I use the opportunity of returning the ball to them as a natural pretense to join in?

The moment this thought surfaced in his mind, it gave him a start—Damn! Why would I even think that?! Who wants to join them?!

Right at that moment, the little boy suddenly punted the ball hard, sending it truly flying toward the garden wall separating their two properties.

Deane's heart clenched in tandem, and a vague sense of anticipation bloomed as the ball soared over the wall.

His eyes remained fixed on the football in mid-air, like a dog watching a frisbee, ready to leap at any second.

He even put down the cup of water in his hand in advance...

Under his watchful gaze, the ball flew toward the garden wall, only to abruptly dip downward, failing to actually cross over into his yard.

Useless piece of trash!

Deane cursed inwardly.

You can't even kick it over a wall this short! You're a disgrace to your father's surname!

He turned and walked away.

Yet he quickly turned back, picked up the water cup he had left aside, and then departed.

***

Taking advantage of a training break, Deane sought out Wang Lie and asked bluntly: "Did you know your kid has no soccer talent?"

Wang Lie replied with a deadpan expression: "I know. What about it?"

Deane wore an incredulous expression: "Then why do you still bring him out to kick the ball every single morning?!"

Wang Lie answered even more simply and directly: "Because I feel like it."

"..." Deane took a deep breath, slapped his own forehead, and turned to walk away.

How the hell did I forget?

I shouldn't have come looking for this old rascal in the first place!

***

"Daddy, Daddy, can you sleep with me tonight?"

At dinner time, Wang Zilin widened her eyes and looked at Wang Lie with full expectation.

"Me too! Me too!" Big brother Wang Ziqi raised his hand and chimed in eagerly.

"Wang Ziqi!" Tang Xingmei glared at her son, "You're the older brother, yield to your younger sister!"

Wang Ziqi pouted and fell silent, but the aggrieved expression on his face was unmistakable.

Wang Lie reached out and grabbed his wife's hand, then said to the two little ones: "Tonight, all of us will sleep together. Anyway, the bedroom bed is big enough, however the four of us want to sleep will fit!"

Hearing their father say that, the two little ones cheered: "Yay!"

Then they began arguing again: "I want to sleep next to Daddy!"

"I want to sleep next to Daddy too!"

Wang Lie spread both hands to make arrangements: "Boys on the left, girls on the right. Qiqi on my left, Linlin on my right."

"Yay! My side is the left!"

"Yay! My side is the right!"

The two children raised their hands and cheered repeatedly, while Tang Xingmei looked on with a smiling expression, gazing at this heartwarming scene before her.

***

"Are you uncomfortable?"

In the quieted bedroom, the only sounds were the soft breathing of the two children and his wife Tang Xingmei's hushed inquiry.

Wang Lie replied in a similarly low voice: "Not uncomfortable."

"As if..." Tang Xingmei chided softly, "You can't even turn over and have to maintain this exact posture the whole time. How could you possibly not be uncomfortable?"

Lying flat on his back, Wang Lie gently turned his head to look at the two children curled up on either side of his body. Each of them was hugging one of his arms and sleeping soundly.

"In a little while, once they fall into a deeper sleep, I'll be able to move around a bit..."

"Thanks for your hard work!"

"Tch, what's so hard about this... It's you who are going to have a hard time ahead. You have to take care of the kids and look after my mom too..."

"With sister Deng around, it won't be all that hard for me. You're the one working hard all by yourself in Newcastle, so I'll try to come visit you as often as possible."

"That sounds great..."

The couple whispered back and forth like this with the children between them, enjoying a uniquely tender "world for two."

***

When Sonny Deane woke up from his slumber, what met his eyes was the ceiling illuminated by the morning light.

This was the ceiling of his bedroom in the Northumberland mansion.

It was a familiar place, but lying in bed at this moment, he felt a strange sense of unfamiliarity, as if it didn't quite match the scene he was accustomed to.

He stared blankly at the ceiling in thought for a few seconds, then suddenly sprang up from the bed and reached out to grab his phone from the bedside table.

8:40 AM.

Right, this was the time!

So why... was it so quiet outside?

There was no children's laughter and screaming, nor the muffled thud of a ball being kicked.

Recovering his wits, Deane hopped out of bed, ran barefoot to the window, and pulled back the curtains.

The next-door neighbor's backyard was completely quiet, devoid of a single soul.

***

Deane parked his car in the training ground's parking lot, and just as he stepped out, he saw a familiar face getting out of the Chinese-made electric SUV parked diagonally across from him.

He widened his eyes, staring at the person with a look as if he had seen a ghost, and then let out a strange squawk:

"No way? Seriously?"

Wang Lie frowned: "Haven't you sobered up yet, Deane?"

Deane shook his head in denial: "I didn't even drink yesterday!"

Then he gloated maliciously: "It's you instead, Wang. Did you drink too much last night? Didn't you wake up on time today? Otherwise, how could you possibly arrive at the same time as me? Ha! Who was it before that said I always arrived right on the dot for training? Huh? Who else arrived right on the dot for training today? Hahaha!"

Deane danced around with joy, finally having caught Wang Lie in the act!

If the parking lot ground hadn't been made of concrete, he would have loved to slide on his knees in front of Wang Lie...

Wang Lie looked at his performance with the gaze one would reserve for an absolute fool, and said: "I just dropped my wife and kids off at the airport before coming over."

"Ah?" The ecstatically distorted Deane froze, stopping his dancing in its tracks. "To the airport?"

"Yeah, the kids' winter break is over, and they're flying back home today."

Deane thought of the dead silence in the backyard that morning.

He suddenly realized that perhaps not just this morning, but every single morning hereafter, he would no longer be awakened by cheerful laughter and chattering.

Amidst his astonishment, a question slipped past his lips before he could stop it:

"So, are you still going to practice soccer early in the morning from now on?"

The moment he spoke the words, he regretted them; he wished he could cover his mouth with his hands, but it was already too late.

Wang Lie on the opposite side curved the corners of his mouth upon hearing this: "Of course. Do you want to come?"

Deane snorted: "I'm not that silly bird Vitini!"

With that, he turned and walked away, eager to escape this scene of awkwardness as fast as possible.

Wang Lie didn't call him back, but instead shouted loudly behind him: "My front door is always wide open, Deane. You're welcome to come anytime."

Deane broke into a jog, making a beeline for the first-team locker room.