Chapter 1 Fang Shuai

When Fang Shuai opened QQ, the class group avatar for Class Three of Senior Year popped up first in the lower right corner of the screen, accompanied by a clear "di-di-di" notification sound.

He opened the chat group, and it was full of his classmates discussing which university majors to apply for.

The results of the National College Entrance Examination had been available since late June, so everyone basically knew their scores and how well they had done. Now was the time to consider university applications. Sometimes, applying to universities could be even more important than the exam score itself, so naturally, everyone was being very cautious and wanted to hear more opinions.

Everyone was chattering away, exchanging their thoughts.

"Sigh, I didn't do well this time. Although I made it to the first tier, I'm planning to choose a second-tier university with a good major..."

"Me too, me too..."

"I'm planning to go to Jiao Tong University..."

"Which Jiao Tong University? Shanghai, Xi'an, or Southwest?"

"Nonsense, of course, Shanghai Jiao Tong University!"

"What a coincidence! I'm planning to apply to Tongji University. We'll be in the same city then!"

Fang Shuai watched the chat records scrolling by at lightning speed and suddenly thought of someone. If that person were here, he would definitely be the most active member of the group. How could this kind of occasion lack his jokes and teasing?

However, his avatar had been greyed out in the group for a month. The last time he appeared in the group, he told everyone that he had won the German Youth Cup on behalf of Borussia Dortmund's U19 team.

Due to the time difference, Zhou Yi's online time rarely overlapped with that of his classmates in China, so no one responded to him at the time. Later, after everyone saw his message, they congratulated him one after another.

Since then, Zhou Yi had never appeared again.

Suddenly, someone in the group said, "Sigh, I really envy Zhou Yi. He doesn't have to take the college entrance exam and can do what he loves. How great!"

This sentence plunged the group into a brief silence.

Then someone asked, "Yeah, speaking of which, it's been a long time since we've seen Zhou Yi, right? I wonder how he's doing lately..."

"Last time, he said he won a championship, and then there was no news."

While everyone was discussing Zhou Yi, Fang Shuai opened Zhou Yi's Baidu Tieba forum, "Player Zhou Yi Bar."

This was a fan forum created for him by netizens when he participated in the "Green Field Inheritor" program.

Fang Shuai was not the creator of this forum, but he was one of the administrators, and now he was the only administrator who was still active.

The forum was at its liveliest when the media reported that Zhou Yi had been spotted by Borussia Dortmund and was about to sign with the Borussia Dortmund youth team. During that time, the number of fans in the forum soared to more than two thousand, and there were many messages. Everyone was enthusiastically speculating about Zhou Yi's performance after going to Borussia Dortmund.

However, later, as no more news about Zhou Yi came from the media, the forum gradually became deserted. At first, some people always came to ask about Zhou Yi's situation, but since no one knew, no one could answer, and there were fewer and fewer such people.

If it weren't for Fang Shuai, this forum might have died completely.

Fang Shuai didn't play soccer, but he watched it. He first became involved in Zhou Yi's affairs on the "Green Field Inheritor" forum, where someone questioned Zhou Yi's student status. He posted a post proving Zhou Yi's student status and became famous in the forum.

The creator of the Zhou Yi Bar invited him to be an administrator, and he agreed.

He never thought that he would be the only one left to persevere.

After Zhou Yi re-entered QQ, he would tell his classmates about his recent situation in Germany, and of course, most of it was "showing off":

"We won again today!" "We're in the semi-finals today!" "We're in the finals today!"

Things like that.

Not much was said, and he came and went quickly.

Fang Shuai would post these updates from Zhou Yi to the forum so that those netizens who were still following Zhou Yi could learn about Zhou Yi's situation, although it wasn't very complete, or regular, and... it was really simple.

However, precisely because he did this, this forum was still alive. Under the pinned post "Zhou Yi's Recent Situation (Updated irregularly)," someone would occasionally ask, "Update, please! We're waiting to see how Zhou Yi is doing!"

For Fang Shuai, the support of his high school classmates and the expectations of these netizens were the reasons why he had been persisting in doing this. Even during the most stressful period of preparing for the college entrance examination, he would log in to QQ every day, for fear of missing Zhou Yi's appearance in the group.

But today there was still nothing to say because Zhou Yi hadn't shown up.

Thinking of this, Fang Shuai suddenly became curious – what if I searched for Zhou Yi in the search engine?

But the next second, he slapped his forehead - all he searched for were things related to Zhou Yi and the *I Ching*…

The name Zhou Yi was the same as something extraordinary!

Fang Shuai searched again, this time he used two keywords: "Zhou Yi" and "Borussia Dortmund."

The result was better. At least it had something to do with soccer, but it was all news about Borussia Dortmund and had nothing to do with Zhou Yi.

After flipping through two pages, Fang Shuai only saw links where Zhou Yi and Borussia Dortmund appeared in the same title. That was the report on the domestic website when Zhou Yi was confirmed to join the Borussia Dortmund youth team.

Fang Shuai clicked in to take a look.

At the beginning, this domestic portal website reported this matter as if it were a novel, saying that Zhou Yi's dream had come true, and he couldn't believe it…

Fang Shuai curled his lips. These reporters were just talking nonsense.

Then he closed the page and continued to search through the search results.

After flipping through nine pages, the only news about Zhou Yi and Borussia Dortmund that could be found was still that old news, just different website addresses, and some links from the Player Zhou Yi Bar.

Fang Shuai wanted to give up. It was really boring to do this, but his mouse still clicked on the link on the next page.

When the page refreshed, a link at the top of the page appeared in his field of vision.

It wasn't news from a portal website, nor a post from a forum. The page title was a bit strange, called "Dream Cabin's Blog."

Just a personal blog, why would it be related to Zhou Yi?

Taking another look at the preview content:

"...In the just-concluded German U19 Youth League final, Borussia Dortmund U19 defeated Mainz U19 and won the championship..."

Huh?

German Youth League Champion?

Wasn't that the German Youth Cup champion?

Curious, Fang Shuai clicked in. It was indeed a personal blog. This was a blog post, but it not only had text, but also pictures!

Fang Shuai was immediately attracted by the pictures. The pictures showed the moment when the Borussia Dortmund youth team lifted the cup, but unfortunately the pictures were not big, and there were too many people, so it was really difficult to find Zhou Yi in the low-resolution pictures.

Next was the text.

"...Before the game, everyone thought it would be a contest between Mainz U19's genius Schürrle and Borussia Dortmund U19's genius Götze, but unexpectedly, the one who stood out in this game was...Zhou Yi, a Chinese player who only came to Borussia Dortmund's youth training camp last November! He completed a hat-trick in the game and shone throughout the entire match!"

Fang Shuai's eyes widened.

A hat-trick!

This kid!

Really...amazing!

Fang Shuai clenched his fists excitedly. Although it wasn't him, he was as excited as if he had completed a hat-trick in that game himself.

The article below was an introduction to Zhou Yi's performance in the youth league. It wasn't very detailed because the article itself wasn't very long.

Fang Shuai found that the tone of this article didn't seem like a casual essay written by a personal blogger. The wording and tone were more like a news release.

So he curiously clicked on all the articles on this blog… and then he was blinded.

All the articles were about Zhou Yi!

In chronological order from bottom to top, Fang Shuai clicked on each one and read them all.

At the beginning, the articles were shorter, some even just two or three sentences long. The blogger explained in the articles that he found news reports about Zhou Yi from German media, and then translated them himself. Because his German proficiency was limited, he could only rely on dictionaries, so if the translations weren't very smooth, please don't mind.

Fang Shuai also felt that they looked a little awkward. Now he understood why he felt awkward after reading this blogger's explanation...

However, later, as he read through the articles, Fang Shuai found that the situation of reading awkwardly had greatly decreased. By the time he got to the last few articles, it basically never happened again. Although the blogger didn't explain it anymore, Fang Shuai felt that this blogger's German proficiency must have improved a lot.

After admiring the blogger's German proficiency, Fang Shuai felt that he had found a treasure trove - hadn't he been worrying about not knowing Zhou Yi's situation? He could only learn about it through Zhou Yi's random appearances on QQ. Now that was good, he had a stable channel to learn about it.

And not only were there words, but also pictures!

Fang Shuai saw Zhou Yi wearing a Borussia Dortmund jersey for the first time, and it wasn't a group photo, it was a clear, large picture. Zhou Yi was much darker than he remembered, and he looked like he had gotten stronger.

Fang Shuai also realized that this might be a lifesaver for his forum to become popular again, so he left a message under the blogger's last article: "Hello, blogger. Sorry to bother you. I am the administrator of the 'Player Zhou Yi Bar'. I have been suffering from not knowing Zhou Yi's situation in Borussia Dortmund, so I can't communicate with the forum members. Today I discovered that you have been translating news about Zhou Yi, so may I ask if I can repost your articles to the forum? I will give you credit and attach your original link. Thank you!"