Chapter 147 Apology

The next day, sitting in his office, Lin Xianrong had a copy of yesterday's *Sports Weekly* on his desk, which he had asked his granddaughter to get for him.

He put on his glasses and carefully read the report titled "The Most Awesome Draft Player Suspected of Falsifying His Resume? Zhou Yi Is Not a Student!"

When he saw the passage "...we contacted the Qingyang No. 1 High School, which he claimed to attend, but the school said they had never heard of this person. 'We don't know, we're not sure'...", he took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose with both hands, and sighed.

He really hadn't expected this...

Just then, he suddenly heard a burst of arguing from the window.

Listening carefully, it seemed to be coming from the direction of the school gate downstairs.

He got up and walked to the window. Three floors below, at the gate of Qingyang No. 1 High School, several people were confronting each other.

Since it was class time, the campus was relatively quiet, so he could clearly hear the content of the argument downstairs.

A woman waved her arms and shouted, "Call your principal out! Why do you say my son isn't a student at your school! You can't just say anything you want!"

Then she tried to break in with the man behind her, but was stopped by the security guard at the gate: "This is Qingyang No. 1 High School, not a place for you to run wild!"

Seeing this scene, Lin Xianrong turned and left the window, heading straight for the office door.

He didn't choose to call the security room, but instead went in person, because he felt that this was the only way to show his sincerity.

When he arrived at the school gate, the security guard was shouting, "Our leaders are very busy, you can't just see them whenever you want! Who do you think you are? Asking to see the principal by name? Our principal is not here!"

"What do you mean he's not here? Don't use such excuses to fool us! Our child hasn't done anything wrong, so why doesn't your school recognize him? All you know is how to shirk responsibility. How can a school like this educate students?!" The woman was still very agitated, her voice a little hoarse.

The man beside her didn't speak, but protected her, preventing the security guard from directly touching her.

Seeing this scene, Lin Xianrong walked straight up to them, appeared in front of everyone, and said to the woman who was extremely emotional, "I am Lin Xianrong, the principal of this school."

The security guards were shocked to see the old principal come out. The security guard who had been so sure that the principal wasn't there even took a step back reflexively...

Li Cuiyun, who had been like a mad tigress, suddenly couldn't make a sound after seeing this famous principal who often appeared on local television.

Zhou Jianliang, who had been helping his wife block the security guard, quickly stepped forward: "Principal Lin, we are the parents of a student... We know it's not good to come here like this, but... I hope you can understand how anxious we parents are. The thing is..."

Lin Xianrong interrupted him, "It's okay, let's talk in my office."

The security guards next to him were so frightened that they almost cried out—this was Lin Xianrong, Old Lin! Which student's parents could go to his office? And he had taken the initiative to invite them!

They looked at the middle-aged couple again. Their clothes were very ordinary. They didn't look like rich people or leaders...

How could they be invited to the office by Old Lin?

Just like that, a group of people stared in disbelief as Lin Xianrong led the parents who had just been causing trouble at the school gate toward the teaching building.

They couldn't help but guess in their hearts whether these two parents had a great background, or were poor relatives of some big leader, whom even Old Lin couldn't afford to offend...

※※※

After the secretary made tea for Zhou Jianliang and Li Cuiyun, she retreated and closed the door.

Now there were only three people in Lin Xianrong's office.

Zhou Jianliang and Li Cuiyun exchanged glances, and finally Li Cuiyun spoke first.

"Principal Lin, we didn't mean to disrupt the teaching order. We were just... just too anxious... Oh, I forgot to introduce ourselves. We are Zhou Yi's parents. I am his mother, and this is his father."

Lin Xianrong actually knew what they were here for, but he didn't interrupt them and let them speak.

"I don't know if Principal Lin knows, but yesterday we saw a very influential newspaper nationwide that said our child isn't a student at Qingyang No. 1 High School, and that Qingyang No. 1 High School confirmed this..."

Li Cuiyun was a little anxious and spoke a little incoherently.

Zhou Jianliang had to add to her statement, "It's actually about a TV reality show called *Green Field Heir*... My son is a contestant on their show, recording in Europe. He asked the school for two months' leave before..."

The couple said a sentence each, finally finishing the story.

They just wanted to ask the school if reporters had really come to the school to inquire about their son, and what the school's real answer was. Because this matter involved their son's reputation, they had no choice but to do this.

After listening to the two of them, Lin Xianrong stood up from his chair, then came to the two of them, and then... to Zhou Jianliang and Li Cuiyun's surprise, he bowed to them!

This scared the two of them so much that they jumped up from their chairs and were about to come up to help Lin Xianrong—as parents of students at Qingyang No. 1 High School, they naturally knew very well what kind of person Lin Xianrong was.

To have Lin Xianrong bow to them?

What kind of good deed had they accumulated in their previous life?

"Don't dare, don't dare..."

"You mustn't, you mustn't..."

Lin Xianrong raised his hand to stop the two parents who wanted to help him up: "I must apologize to you, and bow to you. Because this is our school's dereliction of duty, and also the dereliction of duty of me, the principal. So I must apologize to you, please accept my apology, I'm sorry to have caused you and your child to be criticized."

Zhou Yi's parents stared in disbelief at the stubborn old man bowing sincerely and saying sorry.

After bowing and apologizing, Lin Xianrong then explained to the two why he did this.

Because of their negligence in their work, they responded to the media rashly, and also because as the principal of Qingyang No. 1 High School, he had actually not remembered the student's name.

"This is a very shameful thing for me."

Looking at an old man in his seventies bowing his head and saying this in front of them, Zhou Yi and Li Cuiyun really felt uncomfortable.

The intention to question him had disappeared.

Such a great figure had already apologized to them, so what else did they want?

The two looked at each other and understood each other's meaning from each other's eyes.

So Zhou Jianliang said, "This... since it's a misunderstanding, then we have nothing... Principal Lin, you're busy, we won't disturb you..."

This was wanting to say goodbye.

But Lin Xianrong stopped them: "No, no, I just apologized, but I know that some things can't be solved with just an apology."

Zhou Jianliang and Li Cuiyun were stunned, not understanding what Lin Xianrong wanted to do.

For them, they originally wanted to ask the school for an explanation. The school's attitude was so good, and they were embarrassed to make trouble again, so naturally they stopped while they were ahead.

"It's like this... I personally have some connections in the media. Since this matter was caused by our school's own work errors, then I hope you can allow our school to come forward and help Zhou Yi, this child, to prove his identity. What do you think?"

Zhou Jianliang and Li Cuiyun looked at each other, both very surprised.

They originally thought of clarifying the situation with the school, and if it was the media's problem, they would go to the media for trouble. But when they came and heard that the school had a problem, they had no way to make trouble with the media. They had indeed asked the school, and the school had said the wrong thing.

The responsibility for this matter was on the school.

And the school's attitude was very good, and they didn't plan to ask anything of the school.

As for the child's reputation, it was actually quite helpless. They were all ordinary people, without much power, and they didn't know any big shots in the cultural or media circles.

If ordinary people are slandered by the media, if the impact is not big, they may just let it go. Chinese people pay attention to "tolerance," tolerate it, things will always pass, take a step back, and the sea and sky will be vast.

They had to put their hopes on time, waiting for time to prove everything.

What Zhou Jianliang and the others could do was the latter.

When the child finished recording, he would return to Qingyang No. 1 High School. At that time, reporters would come to see if he was a student at Qingyang No. 1 High School.

What they didn't expect was that Lin Xianrong, as the principal of Qingyang No. 1 High School, thought more than they did.

He planned to clarify everything now, so that the rumors would not continue to spread.

This surprised and moved Zhou Yi's parents.

People said that Lin Xianrong was the conscience of Qingyang's education community, and now, it was truly well-deserved.

The conscience was old, but the conscience was still there.

This could be seen from such a small matter.

As the head of a school, he was already extraordinary to apologize in person. Next, he could completely ignore it.

"This... since the school is willing to do so, we have no objections. That would be great..." Li Cuiyun said somewhat embarrassedly.

※※※

As Zhou Jianliang said, *Sports Weekly* was a very large sports newspaper with influence across the country.

Therefore, when such a newspaper published an article accusing Zhou Yi of falsifying his resume, the reaction it caused was conceivable.

And the program production company, Northern Hemisphere Film and Television Production Company, was also pushed to the forefront.

Northern Hemisphere Company issued a response to the *Sports Weekly*'s questioning through the media, stating that they were convinced that Zhou Yi was a middle school student player, his resume was completely not falsified, and there was no need to falsify it. At the beginning, he emerged step by step from the audition, which was authentic and credible.

However, Northern Hemisphere's statement also had weaknesses, that was, the audition process was not broadcast at the beginning, but only some graphic reports were conducted on the official website established by them for *Green Field Heir*, which was not persuasive enough.

They said that Zhou Yi came up bit by bit from the audition, where was the evidence? Who knew?

In addition, even the program crew far away in Europe were affected.

Although the young players might not know about this, but... something had to be done, right?

So Hao Dong and Xu Tao jointly found Zhou Yi.

"Someone is questioning that I'm not a student?" Zhou Yi was surprised when he heard this news. He was surprised that he didn't quite understand what was the point of questioning whether he was a student?

What if I am a student, what if I am not a student? Does that mean my skills are all fake if I'm not a student?

"Well, this matter... originally it was just some sporadic voices, we ignored it, but after *Sports Weekly* intervened, things changed..." General director Xu Tao introduced to Zhou Yi. "We are here to find you, definitely not suspecting that you are falsifying your resume, what is your origin, we all know it. We just want to discuss with you, to see if there is any way to prove that you are indeed a student player?"

Zhou Yi listened and felt that this matter was very awkward to say, almost catching up with "proving that I am me."

But he still nodded, indicating that he would cooperate.

Hao Dong saw that the matter was clear, so he waved his hand and asked Zhou Yi to go back to his room. The specifics of how to cooperate would be discussed after they had discussed it. Now, the most important thing was the match against Manchester United's youth team tomorrow. As the starting main player, Zhou Yi's rest had to be guaranteed.

※※※

After Zhou Yi came out of Hao Dong's room, he came to the corner of the corridor, where his friends Sun Pan, Yang Muge, and Guo Nu were waiting for him.

"How is it? What did Director Hao and Director Xu call you for?" Sun Pan asked impatiently.

"It's not a big deal... it's just that domestic media are questioning my identity..." Zhou Yi said.

"What's so questionable about your identity? Could it be that you are actually the illegitimate child of some high official!" Sun Pan speculated gossipily.

"You're thinking too much. If there is a problem, it's not my identity that has a problem, it should be my dad." Zhou Yi shook his head.

"What's wrong with your dad?"

"My dad should be a descendant of a red family. When he was young, in order to marry my mom, he offended the family. In the end, in the face of love and the country, he resolutely chose love, took my mom and eloped to Qingyang, and has been living in seclusion ever since..." Zhou Yi had a look of reminiscence on his face.

Yang Muge was frightened: "Zhou Yi, is your family so powerful?"

Sun Pan curled his lips next to him: "He's talking nonsense, do you believe him?"

Guo Nu nodded: "Ye-yes."

Zhou Yi also smiled and spread his hands: "How's this story? I'm almost imagining a three-million-word urban face-slapping novel."

Yang Muge then realized that he had been tricked by Zhou Yi again, and he patted his forehead annoyedly.

"Th-then what are you going to do? This-this thing?"

"The program team wants me to cooperate with them to prove my identity."

"How do you prove that?" Sun Pan asked strangely, "Standing in front of the camera and saying: 'Hi, everyone, my name is Zhou Yi, I'm seventeen years old this year, I was born on February 22, 1991, I'm from Qingyang City, my dad is called something, my mom is called something, I go to XX Middle School, my grades are not good, I definitely can't even pass the junior college entrance examination, so I came to play football...' How stupid!"

"It's pretty stupid." Zhou Yi nodded, "Also, Sun Pan, my grades are not bad, I can get first in anything I do, I came to play football because I just love to play football! Unlike you, you have no way out and can only come to play football!"

"Nonsense, I just want to prove to those who thought I was useless when I left the basketball team that a genius can be successful in anything!" Sun Pan snorted.

"Okay, let's go back and rest." Yang Muge reminded everyone that it was getting late. "There's a game against Manchester United tomorrow..."

"Hey, actually Manchester United is not strong..."

※※※

ps, today I found that someone said that I'm not watering the principal, but watering the black *Sports Weekly*.

Oh, that's a misunderstanding, I didn't plan to black *Sports Weekly*, this matter is just a guide, leading to one of the final themes of this volume. If you think that I made a big fuss just to blacken *Sports Weekly*, then you are wrong, that is just incidental.

And what I wrote is just one of the characteristics of the domestic media, and it can't be called black.

I won't say more about the problems in these chapters, I hope to let everyone find the answers in the novel, instead of analyzing them one by one in ps, then there is no fun in reading.

Admittedly, there are many people who skim through it and think it's watered, boring, and that nothing is said.

But I believe there are still people who will see something from it.

Those who haven't seen it don't need to rush to scold the water or anything, it's not that it must be writing about football to not be water. If you don't understand what these chapters are for, you will naturally understand when you see the last chapter of the first volume.

To be honest, if writing a novel always requires explaining to the reader what I'm writing this paragraph for, what things are involved later... that's really boring, that's not a novel, that's a manual.

There is a golden house in the book, it doesn't mean that when you open the book, a 24k gold three-bedroom and one-living room house will pop out.

There is Yan Ruyu in the book, it doesn't mean that when you open the book, a sexy beauty will pop out and hug you and kiss you.

There are thousands of Zhongshu in the book, it doesn't mean that when you open the book, rice, flour, and oil will appear in your kitchen...

It's not that straightforward.