As Qi Rui-Feng returned to the dorms with his arm around Ming Tian and the others, he was still humming in high spirits, and then, he caught sight of his coach, Yuan Roon-Mei, leaning on the door outside his dormitory. She was smiling, but her eyes radiated a cold light.
In that instant, Qi Rui-Feng felt a blast of cold wind right to his face and was abruptly much more sober.
Ming Tian"s and Zheng Ling-Ye"s faces turned an interesting colour, and they quickly took the first chance they had to slip away.
Yuan Roon-Mei smiled widely at Qi Rui-Feng. "Thinking to get married already?"
"Cough."
"How about I be the one?"
Qi Rui-Feng felt chills throughout his body; the alcohol had been completely driven away by fear. He bowed his head and said in a small voice, "Boss Yuan, I was wrong."
"What did you do wrong?"
"I shouldn"t have posted that Weibo. I"ll delete it now." So saying, Qi Rui-Feng reached into a pocket to grab his phone.
Yuan Roon-Mei sniffed coldly. "What use is it to delete it now?"
"Erm, then what should I do?"
Yuan Roon-Mei did not answer but asked another question instead. "Besides posting a Weibo which you shouldn"t have, what else did you do which you shouldn"t have?"
"Shouldn"t have? Uh, drink?" Qi Rui-Feng wasn"t too sure about this, because there wasn"t an explicit rule prohibiting drinking in the team.
"You plan to just stand there and talk to me?"
When Qi Rui-Feng heard this, he reacted especially quickly — he immediately dropped to the ground and began doing push-ups at a rapid pace.
At this time, Wu Yong walked over and leaned against the other wall of the corridor. He smiled at Yuan Roon-Mei and said, "Matron Yuan, bullying the kids again?"
"Big-Beard Wu, it"s none of your business."
"I know that. I"m just here to watch." Wu Yong was somewhat enjoying another"s misery — he knew that this was not nice, but he just could not help it.
Yuan Roon-Mei had an unhappy expression on her face as she looked down at Qi Rui-Feng and said, "Get up. Go back and write a reflection. No less than 800 words, and the words and grammar must be filled with sincere emotion. Summarize everything you"ve been up to in these past 3 months. Hand it up to me tomorrow."
Boom! Qi Rui-Feng tumbled to the ground. His face was white. "Matron, no!"
Writing reflections was what Qi Rui-Feng was most afraid of. By optimistic estimations, his composition level was around year 3 of primary school. For him to write an 800-word reflection was even more painful than swimming 10,000 metres.
Yuan Roon-Mei was unmoved. "Don"t let Tang Yi-Bai write it for you." Done speaking, she left.
Qi Rui-Feng climbed up from the ground and shouted at Yuan Roon-Mei"s back, "Matron, what if I can"t finish writing it?"
"Then you can stop training. Whenever you"re done is when you"ll train."
Observing from the side, Wu Yong shook his head and sighed, "So ruthless!"
Top athletes were very invested in their training — by banning him from training, Qi Rui-Feng himself was certain to be the first one to become anxious. As such, Qi Rui-Feng could only obediently write his reflection, and the process would inevitably be agonising ... Wu Yong could not bear to think any deeper than that. Frankly speaking, he had no quarrel with Qi Rui-Feng — in fact, he quite liked the little fellow. He just could not see eye to eye with Yuan Roon-Mei, that"s all.
After Yuan Roon-Mei left, Wu Yong asked Qi Rui-Feng, "Where"s Tang Yi-Bai?"
Dispiritedly, Qi Rui-Feng mumbled, "He"s sending Yun Duo back."
"Sending ... what?"
"Yun Duo. Yun Duo is a person."
"This name ... what casual naming sense these parents have," Wu Yong commented wryly, before he continued to ask, "Is it a girl?"
"Yeah."
"Sigh, a boy grown never stays," said Wu Yong, shaking his head. Then, with his hands behind his back, he ambled off.
********
The next day, as expected, Qi Rui-Feng"s Weibo marriage request made the headlines of the sports sections of all the major newspapers. The official response to this was: Qi Rui-Feng had dropped his handphone at the canteen, and it had been picked up by one of the young cooking staff. The young cook had just broken up with a little waitress and was feeling depressed, and so he had used Qi Rui-Feng"s handphone to post that Weibo message, hoping to vicariously satisfy his wounded male pride a little.
The netizens" reaction: The original owner of the handphone was already suffering from Chuunibyou syndrome, fine — but why was the young chef who had picked up the phone suffering from an equal case of Chuunibyou syndrome? Could it be that the root cause was actually a curse effect on the handphone itself? Anyone who uses it would be infected with Chuunibyou? Qi Rui-Feng, you better quickly throw that phone away and get a new one! This is your only hope of overcoming the demons of your disease!
Qi Rui-Feng did not see these earnest well-wishes of the netizens. He was cooped up in his room writing his reflection. Tang Yi-Bai returned to the dorms after lunch, a copy of "Sports Weekly" in his hands.
After Tang Yi-Bai finished reading "The Full Story of Qi Rui-Feng"s Marriage Request", he sighed, "This story was crafted by Matron Yuan, right? This kind of person must definitely be stopped from ever entering the literary world."
"No clue." Qi Rui-Feng was in a very bad mood.
Tang Yi-Bai had been reading the paper for a while when he suddenly received a call.
Qi Rui-Feng heard Tang Yi-Bai say on the phone, "Haven"t I been really busy recently? It hasn"t been that long since the Winter Championships, and it"ll be the Spring Championships in another month. And after the Spring Championships, there"s still the prep work to do for the Asian Games ... It"s really not on purpose. Please believe me, the one I love most in all the world is you ... Don"t be like that. How can you bear to be like that when I love you so much ..."
After speaking for a long while, Tang Yi-Bai finally hung up and let out a long sigh. Qi Rui-Feng put down his pen and stared at Tang Yi-Bai strangely. He asked, "You and Yun Duo have already come so far?"
"What rubbish." Tang Yi-Bai did not know whether to laugh or cry. He shook his phone and said, "My mom."
"Oh, Auntie chewed you out?"
Tang Yi-Bai felt rather helpless. "My mom said that if I still don"t take a trip home, she"ll make me sleep in the dog house."
Qi Rui-Feng was greatly amused. "Then you really shouldn"t go home. I want to see you sleeping in a dog house."
Tang Yi-Bai"s home was actually in the city they were in, so there was nothing forcing him to live at the training base. It was just that his home was too far from the training base. An athlete"s time was precious — it was painful just thinking about wasting two to three hours on the road every day — so he usually stayed at the base, only going home occasionally. Ever since he had started partic.i.p.ating in compet.i.tions again, the events had come one after another, so the times he had gone home had decreased even more ...
And so his mother had become enraged.
Moreover, his mother was already menopausal — her emotions were unstable and she was quick to anger — so her rage was currently at MAX level.
It was really a headache ...
Yun Duo was also suffering from a headache. Her good follower, Lin Zi, still had not produced a single ma.n.u.script from the time he had started work. It was an embarra.s.sment to her as a superior! Today, she had once again suffered the contempt of Director Liu. Strange as it was, Director Liu had never praised Yun Duo when she performed well, but the moment there was anything to criticize, the old man would zoom in on her with all kinds of magnifying gla.s.ses. Furthermore, Director Liu had disliked Lin Zi from the start. Now that she and Lin Zi were a team, they had become the "so annoying, just go and die" team in Director Liu"s eyes.
Yun Duo had tried to guide Lin Zi onto the right path, but Lin Zi had already cultivated the scary notion of "what should I be afraid of? My boss has my back" — he was very, very, very unmotivated, relying fully on Yun Duo for everything. Yun Duo was the one writing all the ma.n.u.scripts; even when Lin Zi occasionally composed a t.i.tle, the t.i.tles were all nonsensical and full of sensational hearsay. Sometimes, he would take photographs, but the only function the resulting twisted photography techniques had was to prove that he was a heteros.e.xual man.
In short, basing solely on the professional requirements of a reporter, this person was completely useless.
How she regretted bringing in this fool just for the sake of a few good meals ... even though she had told herself not to care about it, when she saw how much he was holding up the work, Yun Duo truly felt very, very ashamed ...
In the end, Yun Duo used her last resort. "I"ll give you one final chance. If you still don"t write anything for the Spring Championships, I"ll ask Director Liu to send you off to a different team."
Director Liu wouldn"t care which team Lin Zi went to, but this was critical for Lin Zi. He only wanted to remain by Yun Duo"s side, because then he would have access to interview the swimming team.
Lin Zi replied calmly, "Director Liu will not separate us. The two of us are the two people he hates most in the entire agency."
Dammit! Can you not say such things so proudly?!
Yun Duo was speechless. "In any case, I have ways of dealing with you. At worst, I"ll report you to the agency and chase you out. Hmph!"
Lin Zi hesitated. "Don"t be like that. Let me stay on account of my little sister. My little sister really likes swimming."
"Enough! You keep bringing up your little sister, but I"ve never even met this little sister of yours!"
Lin Zi"s jaw dropped a little and his expression dimmed. He sighed softly, "I really have a younger sister."
Yun Duo paused, and looking at his dejected expression, she felt as if she had said something wrong. "I- I"m sorry."
"It"s fine." He shook his head. "I"ll work hard to write a ma.n.u.script."
Yun Duo looked at how downtrodden he seemed and felt her heart soften. "If ... if you really can"t do it, it"s okay."
"Alright."
His reply was so quick and direct that Yun Duo felt as if she had been tricked ...
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