Lin Wanxing saw Wen Chengye again when she received the list of students for the exam.

She looked at the roster, attaching each student’s exam admission ticket to the upper left corner of their desk. She was startled when she saw Wen Chengye’s cold ID photo.

Looking carefully at the admission ticket again, Class 1, Grade 12, Wen Chengye, with cold eyes and expression—it was indeed Student Wen.

How should she put it?

The current situation was different from when Wen Chengye didn’t want to return to the football team, and she discovered his cheating and required him to join.

Now there was an eruption of mutual resentment. The students despised Wen Chengye, while Wen Chengye himself seemed completely indifferent to this.

How to resolve it?

It looked like a deadlock.

“Oh, who did you see?”

Behind her, Teacher Xiao Xu, the head invigilator of the exam, appeared.

Teacher Xiao Xu glanced at the admission ticket in her hand. “Wen Chengye? From your football team?”

Lin Wanxing flipped over Wen Chengye’s admission ticket, applied glue, and attached it to the upper left corner of the desk. Calmly, she said, “Yes, but he hasn’t come to play football for a long time.”

“Oh?” Teacher Xiao Xu said. “But that’s also normal. Yesterday, Wen Chengye’s father came to school, saying he might help him arrange to study abroad or something.”

A sparrow outside the window let out a long call. Lin Wanxing’s heart sank, and the reflection from the glass was blinding: “Wen Chengye is going abroad?”

Teacher Xiao Xu whispered: “Then today his mother came, saying she just wants her son to study well at Hongjing Eighth Middle School and told us teachers not to listen to his father.”

Lin Wanxing frowned: “Is it that chaotic?”

“It’s dramatic. I heard his parents are catching each other having affairs. Their home is a mess.”

Lin Wanxing’s steps toward the next desk stopped.

As the college entrance exam approached, the school placed more importance on each mock exam.

The bell rang, test papers were distributed, and invigilators began to patrol the exam room.

As usual, Lin Wanxing sat at the back of the classroom.

Outside the school windows, plants were sprouting. The classroom was bright and fresh.

Wen Chengye sat two seats away from her, “seriously answering” the questions.

The air was filled with the scratching sound of pencils, occasionally accompanied by students forcefully erasing their papers, causing the desks and chairs to shake more noticeably.

Only Lin Wanxing knew that Wen Chengye was still completing the test with the same uniform and thoughtless speed as before.

Although yesterday Lin Wanxing had heard Teacher Xiao Xu gossip about Wen Chengye’s family, she hadn’t said anything about it.

Just as she found it difficult to intervene in conflicts between players, she couldn’t solve Wen Chengye’s family issues either.

As a teacher, she could only do what she could do. Whether students would change or not wasn’t something she could decide.

The bell signaling the end of the exam rang. Lin Wanxing, as usual, collected the test papers from back to front.

When she passed Wen Chengye’s desk, she spent a bit more time, taking a few glances at his paper.

Wen Chengye looked up, and Lin Wanxing’s eyes met his. The boy’s eyes narrowed slightly, with an indescribably cold meaning.

Lin Wanxing just looked seriously into the student’s eyes, then collected the test paper and moved to the next desk.

After the papers were collected, students packed up their stationery and left the exam room in twos and threes, chatting as they went. The entire teaching building became lively because of this.

Wen Chengye was the same.

He was carrying his transparent pencil case alone. As he passed the podium, Lin Wanxing stopped him: “Stay behind for a moment, Wen Chengye.”

Lin Wanxing asked Teacher Xiao Xu to submit the answer sheets. After all the students had left, she began to tidy up the exam room, checking if students had left anything behind, and arranging the desks and chairs neatly.

From beginning to end, Wen Chengye didn’t help. He just stood by the desk, enduring the stares of people passing by outside the window. Lin Wanxing was surprised that Wen Chengye was willing to obediently stay behind and wait. So she deliberately slowed down her tidying, wanting to see where Wen Chengye’s patience ended.

After a while, Wen Chengye finally couldn’t stand it anymore. His way of showing impatience was to simply walk toward the door.

Lin Wanxing called him back: “Come here for a moment.”

Wen Chengye stopped, then turned around, walking over to her with a cold face, but without making any move to help.

“At least help your teacher move the desk. Have you no gentlemanly manner?” Lin Wanxing said. “Besides, being kept after an exam by a teacher and just standing there looks very suspicious, doesn’t it?”

“Are you threatening me, Teacher?” Wen Chengye asked.

Lin Wanxing smiled: “Oh right, I almost forgot I have leverage over you. You haven’t been coming to training these days. Aren’t you afraid I’ll report you?”

“I still have value to you, you won’t report me,” Wen Chengye said coldly.

“But you’re not coming to work anymore, what value do you still have to me?” Lin Wanxing asked as she arranged the last desk neatly.

Wen Chengye was at a loss for words.

These days, Lin Wanxing had been asked many questions she couldn’t immediately answer. Now, finally having someone stumped by her, she felt her quick-witted state returning somewhat.

The boy just stood there, head slightly lowered, looking down at her, his gaze cold and hard.

The situation was deadlocked.

Lin Wanxing knew clearly that he was waiting for her to say something, perhaps an olive branch, or something else.

Someone passed by in the corridor, a girl carrying books curiously peering into the classroom.

Wen Chengye, tired of waiting, turned to leave.

“Wen Chengye,” Lin Wanxing called out.

The boy turned back. Against the light, his profile was ice-cold, showing no emotion.

“You haven’t submitted your homework, have you?” Lin Wanxing said.

Wen Chengye frowned, looking at her in disbelief.

“The winter vacation homework I assigned, you haven’t submitted it yet,” Lin Wanxing emphasized. “That themed assignment—if you’ve forgotten, do I need to repeat the title for you?”

The full name of the winter vacation homework Lin Wanxing had assigned to the students was “Football Is for Victory.”

Before and after the start of school, the other students gradually submitted their homework.

Since they all completed their assignments after losing to Yuzhou Silver Elephant, the emotional tone of their responses was relatively negative.

Qin Ao wrote a small essay agreeing with the view expressed in the title. In his essay, he cited classics and authorities, discussing the significance of victory in football matches. He concluded by stating that football without victory is nothing.

Chen Jianghe made a video as his homework.

Qi Liang completed his homework in a clever way. He directly posted a thread with this title on the Douhu Forum. Initially, there were few discussants, so Qi Liang created an alt account and argued with himself.

As the thread grew, it attracted more and more football fans to reply and discuss. The post went viral and was even recommended by the moderator to the portal’s homepage, generating widespread discussion. His submitted homework was the printout of these discussions.

Lin Lu continued with his four-panel comic.

To show his serious attitude toward completing the homework, he drew an entire booklet, recording the stories of their football team throughout the winter vacation. Lin Wanxing flipped to the end of the booklet and saw that Lin Lu had crossed out “TBC” with a black pen and changed it to “END.”

Everyone completed the homework in their way. What surprised Lin Wanxing was that Fu Xinshu hadn’t submitted his.

“Teacher, I’ve thought about it for a long time. I think this statement should be correct, but I just can’t write it down. I don’t know why,” Fu Xinshu had said.

Naturally, as a member of the class at that time, Lin Wanxing also asked Wen Chengye for this assignment.

“What’s your reason for not submitting the homework?” Lin Wanxing asked Wen Chengye.

“How did Wen Chengye respond?”

Standing on the synthetic track of Wuchuan Road Sports Field, Wang Fa asked.

The weather was getting warmer. After the exam, the students came to the field to train, and Lin Wanxing was also dragged along to exercise. She first ran a lap, then while talking to Wang Fa about meeting Wen Chengye today, she secretly slacked off.

“Would Coach like to guess?” Lin Wanxing deliberately slowed down, stopping in front of Wang Fa.

Wang Fa pressed the stopwatch, blew a whistle at the players training on the field, and said: “I guess Wen Chengye turned and left, and Teacher Lin wanted to run two more laps.”

Lin Wanxing took a breath, looking at Wang Fa in shock, almost unable to catch her breath.

Wang Fa’s guess wasn’t wrong, of course. Wen Chengye did indeed turn and leave. Apart from certain comrades with an abnormal enthusiasm for completing homework, Lin Wanxing had yet to see anyone voluntarily submit homework.

Homework, after all, isn’t something students usually turn in without being asked, right?

After running another half lap, Lin Wanxing said this to Wang Fa.

“Teacher Lin sounds very confident about receiving the homework.”

“It’s not confidence, I’m just doing what a teacher should do,” she said.

“What should you do—collect homework?” Wang Fa asked.

“Treat everyone equally,” Lin Wanxing answered.

Football training time had been shortened.

The students came to the field after finishing their exams at three o’clock, and by around five o’clock, they ended their training.

As the days got longer, it was still bright at five. Everyone was packing up the training equipment when, halfway through, groups of people ran into the field.

As the climate gradually warmed, more and more people came to Wuchuan Road Sports Field to play casual football.

They carried bags, wore professional gear, brought their own footballs. Among the crowd, Lin Wanxing also saw the students’ good friend, Coach Xiao Sun.

Since his previous trial with the team, Coach Xiao Sun had gradually gotten to know a group of football-loving friends, and they would sometimes arrange to play together. But this time, their opponents wore matching uniforms, and their equipment also looked very professional.

The students watched for a while, then pulled Coach Xiao Sun over: “Who are they?”

“They’re from neighboring Yonghua Software!” Coach Xiao Sun, wearing a bright blue compression shirt today, showed everyone his newly bought cleats as he spoke.

“What’s that, programmers?” Qin Ao was shocked. “People who write code can play football now?”

“Looking down on them?” Coach Xiao Sun said. “They’re the champion team of our city’s Enterprise Cup!”

Hearing this, the students’ gazes toward the programmers from Yonghua Software Company were filled with respect.

It was still early, and the students had nothing to do, so they unconsciously sat down at the edge of the field to watch the kickoff.

These days, apart from playing matches themselves, they only watched games on TV. This kind of immersive experience of watching a live match seemed to be something they had never had before.

Coach Xiao Sun was in great physical shape, playing as a defensive midfielder, charging around like a bulldozer, becoming an immovable mountain when holding his position.

The programmers from Yonghua Software would often fall to the ground after colliding with him—the intensity of physical confrontation between the two sides was not on the same level.

The students watching from the sidelines involuntarily exclaimed with excitement.

In casual football, there’s no referee. Players who fell just got up, dusted themselves off, and continued.

Although their physical condition was a bit inferior, the programmers from Yonghua Software had decent foot skills and had been playing together for a long time. Before long, they scored a goal.

The students naturally supported Coach Xiao Sun and immediately started shouting on the sidelines, cheering for him.

Coach Xiao Sun raised his fist toward them.

The atmosphere suddenly became lively.

About ten minutes later, Coach Xiao Sun’s team seized an opportunity. A cross entered the penalty area, and the forward scored, making it 1:1.

As the sun set, the match grew intense, and the students unconsciously became engrossed in watching.

The evening breeze swept across the grass, and someone spoke up: “Will we play football like this after we start working?”

The setting sun dyed the tips of the grass a bright orange, and the rest of the field was gradually covered in darkness. No one on the field answered.