18. Flowing ceaselessly through you

Don’t think that Bai Haonan, the former professional footballer, has any grand entrepreneurial plans or life strategies. He’s simply decided to keep playing football at the Medical University’s pitch!

Every morning and evening, Chen Sufen teaches tai chi and yoga for a training institute at the east gate of the large park next to the Sports College. She’s got proper certifications and, after graduation, she’ll be a sought-after instructor at any high-end fitness center. That’s the best path for ordinary students from the Sports College after graduation. This vast landscape park, preserved since the Three Kingdoms period, separates the Sports College from the other universities, which are thus clustered on this side. Among them, the Provincial University is reputed to have grown large enough to merge with the Medical University a few years ago, so now the Medical University is essentially part of the Provincial University—a large campus area that belongs to it. Only the Nationalities University and the Conservatory of Music remain independent.

Bai Haonan knows that this Provincial University has a decent school team, even placing in the national college league. But the university league and the professional football system are two entirely separate worlds. Almost ninety-nine percent of professional players are first registered as athletes under some sports federation, not as university students playing in these leagues. So, playing here, he’s unlikely to be noticed by the professional football circle. The key is to avoid the Sports College altogether.

By comparison, the football atmosphere at the Nationalities University and the Conservatory is lackluster, less fun. The Medical University campus, part of the Provincial University, is relatively remote and seldom noticed.

Yes, Bai Haonan truly intends to keep playing, perhaps because he’s never really considered working for a living or doing anything outside football. Only gambling ever crossed his mind, because Bai Haonan can’t imagine how his unique, replay-like memory could be put to use anywhere but on the pitch—maybe in a casino, counting cards?

This is the narrowness bred by his environment. How much can you expect from a professional athlete with little education, even if he’s luckier than most in recognizing his own talent?

Anyhow, when it comes to poker, mahjong, and games like that, Bai Haonan rarely meets a match on the team. For example, in the popular game of Landlord, once he’s seen the cards and heard the bids, he can basically deduce his opponents’ hands. After a few rounds, he can even pinpoint the exact cards left in their hands, naming each one. Whether he calculates it mentally or aloud, not even Bai Haonan is sure—he struggles with basic arithmetic, after all.

His unique memory aside, his aptitude comes from endless practice, just like flirting—professional athletes, besides training, spend the most time playing cards. When the coach locks them in the training base, restless athletes have nothing to do but play cards.

But Bai Haonan also knows this is a dead-end path. Once you try to make a living off cards—not just playing for fun with friends, but truly gambling—it’s like a street footballer trying to break into the professional scene: most get burned. He’s heard plenty of cautionary tales—gamblers losing everything, especially among athletes who mix with all walks of life.

So the cunning Bai Haonan sticks to football. Deep down, he knows: first, he’s still got one or two million in his account; second, Old Chen’s got his back. This is just a rough patch. Once it blows over, he can slowly return. If he can’t play football professionally, he’ll still find a way to get by. The main thing now is to keep a low profile and not get caught while tempers are hot.

Thus, from that day on, Bai Haonan began dressing like a student, bought a pair of cheap canvas football boots with rubber studs—something he’d never worn before—for a dozen yuan, picked up a couple of random kits and a standard football, one of those high-end ones for a few hundred yuan. Every day, he’d drive over, blend in with the Medical University students, mess around in the internet café or dorm during the day, then walk to the pitch at four in the afternoon. He’d start with a half-hour jog around the field, do some simple dribbling drills, and by the time the college students came to play their pickup games, he’d take the lead, surrounded by a crowd. He enjoyed this feeling, but rarely socialized after playing—at most, he’d have a meal with them before leaving. Then, he’d spend the evenings at a bar, drinking a few beers, occasionally hooking up with a bar girl for a quick fling in the alley or even the restroom. He wasn’t prowling for women with lecherous intent, nor did he see Chen Sufen. But every night, just after two in the morning, he’d dutifully go to that upscale bar called Daji to pick up Qiao Yingna after her shift.

It was only a seven or eight-minute walk home, but Bai Haonan had made a bit of a fool of himself here. At first, he told Qiao Yingna the bar’s name was Danyi. It took the Medical University girls several days to realize that Bai Haonan truly didn’t recognize the first character, nor did he know the legendary enchantress from history. Their laughter almost turned into squeals!

Ever since that morning’s incident, Qiao Yingna barely spoke to Bai Haonan. When they walked home side by side, there was always a one-person gap and silence. After all, what Bai Haonan did could be called indecent, even vulgar. But since he didn’t press further, what was this ambiguous state supposed to be?

Women hate this most of all!

It wasn’t until she realized he was simply illiterate, not playing dumb, that Qiao Yingna burst out laughing and couldn’t stop: “Get lost! Besides teasing women, what else can you do?”

Bai Haonan grinned smugly: “Play football…” but his voice dimmed, “Not that well, really—just enough to scrape by.”

Women are hypersensitive to the slightest shift in mood, especially mature women. “I heard from Xiao Fen you got into some trouble and came here to lay low?”

This time, Bai Haonan didn’t boast: “There was a death over a football bet. I didn’t do anything major, but the underworld wants my head, so I had to run.” Since he wasn’t wanted by the police, Bai Haonan saw no reason to hide it. In fact, such stories often have an irresistible pull on foolish women—a killer move in seduction.

As he spoke, they’d already reached the building. In this ancient city, most urban renewal is still a long way off, so five- or six-story walk-ups without elevators are everywhere. On the stairwell, in the dim glow of the streetlamp, Qiao Yingna glanced back to see Bai Haonan looking like a scolded child, a little aggrieved and dejected. Perhaps out of natural maternal instinct, she turned and embraced his head, her voice gentle: “It’s all right. It will pass. Learn your lesson, and it will all pass…”

Sometimes, the relationship between two people is so delicate. After those few minutes of excitement, this gesture felt perfectly natural to Qiao Yingna. But with Bai Haonan’s head buried in the softness of her chest, he wasted no words—the next thing she knew, he’d lifted her skirt and pinned her against the wall!

Who could blame him? She was under five foot three, standing two or three steps up—just the right height.

It was almost too much for Qiao Yingna. She struggled, resisting as he pulled away the last scrap of fabric beneath her skirt, but her protests were muffled: “Stop! No! I saw you with someone at the bar… Who knows what you might have caught!”

But Bai Haonan deftly fished a strip of those flat packets from his jeans pocket, tearing one open with his teeth: “I always practice safe planning…”

Qiao Yingna objected again: “I am not that kind of shameless woman…”

Bai Haonan wasn’t foolish enough to ask if she wanted him to use it or not. Since she claimed to be respectable, he simply got on with it, from the stairwell all the way to the bedroom!

He had the technique and the stamina, and didn’t lack for endurance. Qiao Yingna couldn’t restrain her own cries, finally forced to bury her face in a pillow, nearly losing her life in ecstasy.

In the darkness after passion, only their breathing filled the bedroom. It was a long time before reason returned from the dying embers. Qiao Yingna, her voice trembling with a steadiness she could never achieve in practice, emphasized, “This… is just an occasional physical need, absolutely not a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, understand?”

The former athlete answered her with the steady breaths of deep sleep, half his body still sprawled across her.

Sometimes, the less you think, the better you sleep.

Especially when you’ve kept up enough exercise.