“Teacher, stop making excuses, we know you’re the ‘culprit’!”

At the staff housing of Hongjing Eighth Middle School.

The sky had just brightened when Qian Jianjun was awakened by knocking at his door.

There were several missed calls from unknown numbers on his phone. Qian Jianjun had a background in boxing and was somewhat chubby, so he wasn’t afraid of anyone seeking revenge. He opened the door with a yawn and was instantly startled awake by the formation outside.

Eleven robust high school soccer players with somber expressions, plus one soccer coach with an icy cold face.

Before he could speak, the young men started talking over each other.

Qian Jianjun was prepared—he knew the team’s students would come find him one day. But when he heard “courier” and “fax,” he narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow, not understanding what had happened.

The students finished their final statement.

Qian Jianjun thought for a moment. “You say you received a new courier delivery and a fax?”

The students, as if ready to interrogate him, immediately pulled two pieces of paper from a document bag and put them in his hands. “Stop with all this mysterious stuff. Tell us quickly, what happened to Teacher Lin?”

Qian Jianjun slowly read the contents of the two papers, thought for a while, and finally said, “I don’t know what this is about.”

“Teacher, you’re still pretending!”

As they spoke, the students held up the document bag, showing him the colorful handcrafted items inside one by one. “Wasn’t this crossword puzzle made by you? Our teacher said it was you!”

Though it had been only about half a year, seeing the students bring out those things again filled him with emotion.

“These were made by me, oh, not just me,” he admitted.

“And Coach Jiang—we know you were in it together!”

Hearing that name, Qian Jianjun finally looked up. His gaze studied each of them deeply.

Compared to half a year ago, these students’ skin had darkened, their bodies had become more toned, and their eyes showed a determination to never give up until reaching their goal.

Mixed emotions stirred within him. After a while, Qian Jianjun resolved to speak again. “You want to know what this is all about?”

“Yes!” the students replied almost in unison.

After a moment, he slowly began, “Then come with me to a place.”

Around Qingming Festival, Phoenix Mountain was always shrouded in mist. There was smoke from memorial offerings and the spring mountain haze.

Qian Jianjun led the students off the bus. The cool breeze caressed their faces as pine trees swayed across the mountains.

Looking at the cemetery before them, the students already had a premonition.

They all quieted down and followed Teacher Qian, slowly climbing up the mountain path.

Qian Jianjun led the students up the steps, telling the story as they went.

His and Coach Jiang’s story wasn’t complicated, and the students knew most of it.

Years ago, when the country was promoting youth soccer education, the city happened to have a promising youth team. The old principal made a special recruitment agreement with their coach. Hongjing Eighth Middle School gained a soccer team, and that team’s coach, Jiang Lei, joined the physical education department as their colleague.

During the student’s first year of high school, the team still had regular training and competitions.

But in the second semester, Coach Jiang left.

Tombstones were scattered all over the mountain, and pine needles covered the entire stone path.

In this setting, the students had already figured it out.

“He didn’t go to Yongchuan for youth training? He lied to us?” Lin Lu asked in disbelief.

“He did go to Yongchuan, but not for youth training. That year during the school staff physical examination, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, already in its late stage. His son in Yongchuan took him there for treatment,” Qian Jianjun explained slowly.

Qian Jianjun glanced at the signpost and turned onto the path to the left.

The students stood frozen in place.

Although they had a premonition upon arriving here, the cruel reality of life and death happening to them still felt unreal.

A thin mist rose in the mountains.

Teacher Qian just kept walking forward without looking back.

Wang Fa patted the students’ shoulders, signaling them to follow.

Qin Ao finally awoke from his daze. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

Teacher Qian stopped in front of a tombstone.

The boys followed him. On the left and right of the grave were two lush-crowned Masson pines, creating a quiet, cool little world.

“I couldn’t understand it before either. But maybe our generation has a strange mentality of ‘doing what’s best for the children.'” Teacher Qian squatted down, gently brushing away the thick pine needles from the grave. “Jiang Lei probably just wanted you to play soccer happily, not thinking ‘Our coach is dying, we have to win for him.’ He said that would make him look pitiful.”

“But he told us he was going to Yongchuan for youth training,” Yu Ming’s voice was bewildered, like falling dust.

For the boys, they had complicated feelings about Coach Jiang. Deep down, they felt abandoned. But boys this age, both proud and rebellious, would never admit these feelings out loud.

“He also said, as long as we trained well, once he established himself in the Yongchuan youth training team, we could go to the big city and continue playing with him,” Zheng Feiyang said quietly.

But the tombstone before them was undeniably real.

“A lifetime of kindness brings a hundred generations of worthy descendants”

“The Tomb of Jiang Lei”

There was a couplet on either side of the tombstone, with the name in the middle.

A smiling photo of Coach Jiang was pasted in the center.

The students finally understood that his last promise was more encouragement for himself than a promise to them.

If he could recover, there would still be a chance to take the players to Yongchuan, to chase their dreams on bigger green fields.

Unfortunately, that day would never come.

The date on the tombstone showed that Jiang Lei had been gone for almost a year.

The boys awoke from their daze, clutching the document bag and sinking into greater uncertainty. “Coach Jiang passed away long ago, so these things… if they’re not from him, then who?”

The students insisted on knowing the truth.

Teacher Qian stood for a while and finally simply sat down on the steps in front of Jiang Lei’s tomb. From his posture, it seemed like he even wanted a drink. “Jiang Lei cared a lot about you. While getting treatment in Yongchuan, he wanted to know how you were doing. Several of us in the PE department, unable to resist him being sick, helped him keep an eye on you.”

Teacher Qian’s words were profound.

The students knew better than anyone that after Coach Jiang left, they began to self-destruct in confusion, filled with a hatred they couldn’t quite understand.

The school did find someone else to coach them, but they never trained properly. Second-year coursework was also difficult, and in a high school that was beyond their level, their grades plummeted. Until Fu Xinshu’s leg injury completely shattered the team, and they simply stopped playing altogether.

“Coach Jiang knew about all of this?”

“He did, so he felt extremely guilty and responsible for letting you down.”

On the narrow cemetery path, everyone sat around Teacher Qian. As they listened to these deliberately concealed stories, they sank deeper into confusion and silence, until this last statement.

“What does this have to do with him?” Fu Xinshu raised his head, recovering somewhat from his sadness. “Our problems are our own, they have nothing to do with Coach Jiang.”

“It’s normal that he got sick and had to leave us for treatment. Just because he raised us from a young age and taught us soccer doesn’t mean he has to be responsible for us our whole lives,” Chen Jianghe said seriously.

Only at this moment did Qian Jianjun fully appreciate what changes Lin Wanxing and Wang Fa had brought to these children. It wasn’t just their academic progress or improved soccer skills. They had clear thinking and could distinguish right from wrong—this was the most valuable growth.

Qian Jianjun thought that if Jiang Lei could hear what his students were saying now, he probably wouldn’t have left this world with so many regrets.

But the fact was, that Jiang Lei had been very upset before his death.

He knew the children he had raised from infancy had become the school’s garbage students.

He deeply regretted, because of his love for soccer, stubbornly leading them down this path.

The children lost the opportunity to choose a normal life path, and he was powerless to fulfill any promises.

They would all die mediocre deaths, becoming dust in the world, the only difference being sooner or later.

So Jiang Lei’s dying wish was that the soccer team kids he had raised would be luckier than him, with a chance to choose their life path anew.

Everyone’s life has regrets.

Among the vast sea of dying wishes, few are genuinely heard.

But that day, in this cemetery, Jiang Lei’s wish was heard.

“It might have been a coincidence, but it was also arranged by heaven.”

Teacher Qian looked up at the sky, and then toward the stone path ahead.

There, an old man carrying a jar of liquor was slowly walking toward them.

Qian Jianjun waved at him and called out, “Old Chen, you’re here.”

A breeze blew through the mountains, and a layer of yellowed pine needles fell again with a rustle. Stepping on them gave a thick, soft feeling.

The old man walked with a slight limp and had thick eyebrows. The students found him somewhat familiar and stared at him for a while.

Soon, the old man reached them.

He immediately handed the wine jar to Chen Jianghe and then pulled three small wine cups from his pocket. He placed one in front of Coach Jiang’s tomb, then turned and scolded, “What are you standing there for, kid? Pour the wine!”

At these words, Chen Jianghe suddenly exclaimed, “Teacher… Teacher Chen?”

The old man before them was Lin Wanxing’s predecessor, the former equipment room manager of Hongjing Eighth Middle School.

Various scenes suddenly flooded back, and Chen Jianghe blurted out, “Was it you who put the ball-borrowing card in my desk?”

Old Chen didn’t answer.

He stood up, walked around the Masson pine, and went to the tomb next to Coach Jiang’s.

The students slowly followed.

They saw Old Chen place the remaining two wine cups on the grave next to Coach Jiang’s. When they saw the names on the tombstone, the students were completely stunned.

Those two names were too familiar.

Or rather, it wasn’t the names themselves that were familiar, but they took classes and played at their home every day. Though they had never met, every corner of that house had traces of the two elderly people, as if they were already the students’ closest grandparents.

Scattered light filtered through the dense pine needles, falling on the tombstone—it was the tomb of Lin Xuya and Shen Shuyuan.

Lin Wanxing’s grandfather and grandmother.

Old Chen placed the wine cups in front of the tomb.

The pine needles on the elderly couple’s grave were sparse, much fewer than those in front of Coach Jiang’s. A bouquet was placed before the tomb, indicating someone had recently come to pay respects.

With two soft clinks, Wang Fa had just regained his senses.

He took the wine jar from Chen Jianghe’s arms, knelt, and poured wine into the cups.

The amber liquid gurgled out.

“What’s the connection between Coach Jiang’s situation and Lin Wanxing?” Wang Fa asked slowly.

Old Chen looked at the tombstones of Lin Wanxing’s grandparents and said, “The connection is right here.”

Old Chen said he had known Lin Wanxing for a long time.

He came from the school kitchen staff and was well-acquainted with Lin Xuya and Shen Shuyuan. During holidays, he often helped cook and take care of students at the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center, so he knew that the elderly couple’s granddaughter was a top-scoring student with excellent knowledge and character.

But because Lin Wanxing’s parents had a strained relationship with her grandparents, he had only met Lin Wanxing once.

Later, as the elderly couple’s health deteriorated, they were forced to close the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center, and he visited less and less.

In the final chapter of their lives, the two elderly people enjoyed sitting in the sunshine on the rooftop terrace every day. They loved the vibrant scenes from the Wuchuan Road Sports Stadium, and of course, they also liked the soccer team students who used to train there.

“Did grandpa and grandma watch us play soccer?” The students were completely confused.

“With all your shouting and noise during training at the stadium early in the morning, who hasn’t seen you?” Old Chen said somewhat impatiently. “It’s just that they were good-natured and, being elderly, enjoyed the lively atmosphere. They even mentioned that once they felt better, if you had matches, they wanted to be invited. As retired teachers, they wanted to go support the school’s students in person.”

The boys fell completely silent, and even felt somewhat happy. Because they had never thought that they weren’t just boldly entering a stranger’s home and “misbehaving.” It turned out the teacher’s grandparents also liked them, though this kind of liking was similar to seeing a kitten downstairs and wanting to pet it.

“But you ungrateful lot just quit playing!”

With a change in tone, Old Chen took an angry swig from the jar and continued.

After the team disbanded, the two elderly people’s health deteriorated day by day.

When they both became seriously ill and passed away one after another, he finally met Lin Wanxing at their grave.

“Was it you who invited our teacher to teach us?” Zheng Feiyang asked.

“At that time, I couldn’t even think about you a lot. When I saw your teacher, I couldn’t understand why such a pitiful girl existed.” Old Chen took another sip of wine, his voice dropping completely. “Do you think such a thing happens in this world? Your grandparents pass away, but your parents don’t tell you. Not only do you miss the chance to be with them in their final moments, they won’t even let you attend the funeral. You can only secretly kneel at your grandparents’ grave, the pain and numbness, I suppose, making you unable to even cry.”

“What exactly happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Old Chen.

“You’ve been talking all this time and still don’t know? This is agonizing,” Qin Ao was practically jumping with frustration.

“What happened to our teacher!”

“I don’t know the details, but something major happened to Wanxing that made her parents feel so ashamed they didn’t even want to mention their daughter,” Old Chen sighed.

The students’ hearts dropped, completely unable to comprehend. “Ashamed???”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know exactly why—I was hoping to ask you,” Old Chen shook his head. “I only know that the elderly couple’s greatest concern was Wanxing. Before they died, they just wanted to see their granddaughter one last time, but they never could. Wanxing’s parents not only kept it from the elderly couple but also said their granddaughter couldn’t come because of school matters. The duty nurse said that on their deathbeds, they kept muttering one phrase, ‘Our little star must be well.'”

Dense shadows fell under the Masson pines.

Though spring sunshine was warm and gentle, standing before the graves of the two elderly people, everyone seemed to feel the bone-chilling cold of that day.

The elderly people in the hospital room who could never let go of their concern, the girl kneeling alone at the grave.

Cold rain, slippery stone steps.

Lin Wanxing finally knelt alone before the tomb, like a white flower pinned to a lapel, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.

“The elderly couple donated all their money, but they left the house at 17 Wutong Road to Wanxing. I know your Teacher Lin doesn’t care about money at all, but I guarantee that the house is her only memento in this world. So I advised her to think positively and to live well no matter what happened. I even helped her deal with inheritance matters, telling her that no matter how difficult the outside world was, it’s better to come home.”

Recalling some of Lin Wanxing’s words, that was indeed the most difficult period of her life. Though difficult, she still used an almost stubborn approach to tell Heaven she wanted to walk a bit further.

“Thank you,” Wang Fa said very sincerely.

Old Chen waved his hand dismissively.

“Did you want to find something for Teacher to do when she returned to Hongjing, so you asked her to teach us?” Fu Xinshu asked.

“Actually, if not for Old Jiang’s son’s suggestion, we wouldn’t have thought of this,” Teacher Qian sighed heavily.

“Coach Jiang’s son?” Wang Fa was very surprised.

“Yes.”

“He knows Lin Wanxing?”

“He probably doesn’t know Wanxing, but Old Jiang’s son, Jiang Xun, was also a student at our Hongjing Eighth and took classes from the elderly couple.” Teacher Qian glanced at Coach Jiang’s tombstone and took over from Old Chen to tell what happened next.

After Jiang Lei died, he was brought back from Yongchuan to be buried in Hongjing. On the day of his burial, all their PE department colleagues came. Old Chen happened to mention the two elderly people in the adjacent grave and his encounter with Lin Wanxing.

Perhaps it was at that moment that heaven showed mercy. The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.

A few days later, Jiang Xun approached them, suggesting that Lin Wanxing should coach the soccer team students.

For Old Chen, finding something for Lin Wanxing to do, to distract her, was a good idea.

So they agreed immediately. While he persuaded Lin Wanxing to find a job, he also spoke with the executive vice principal, allowing Lin Wanxing to stay at the school.

But as for how to get Lin Wanxing to educate these stubborn troublemakers on the soccer team, the few rough men in the PE department and Jiang Lei’s son truly racked their brains. Although the elderly couple had mentioned “wanting to see the students play matches together,” using this reason to make Lin Wanxing do it would be manipulative.

“Were all those fancy things thought up by you?” Qin Ao couldn’t help asking.

“Don’t underestimate our ‘gang.’ What’s that saying again? ‘Curiosity is the ladder of human progress’?” Old Chen smacked his lips.

“It’s ‘books.'” Feng Suo corrected.

“Well, you get the idea.”

Their “gang” discussed it for a long time, and from many options, they chose the one most likely to arouse curiosity, allowing students to gradually come into contact with Lin Wanxing.

Having been Jiang Lei’s “spies” for too long, they knew the students very well.

Knowing Chen Jianghe liked to go to the equipment room to “steal” soccer balls, they placed a “100 Free Ball Loans Card” on Chen Jianghe’s desk.

Understanding that Qin Ao was the team’s most difficult troublemaker who only listened to Fu Xinshu, they made a small crossword puzzle to get the students to find Fu Xinshu with Lin Wanxing.

But for Jiang Xun, who wanted to fulfill his father’s wish, reorganizing the team wasn’t the main part of the plan.

What he wanted was for Lin Wanxing to help these students study well and get into university—that was the true meaning of choosing a new path in life.

Conveniently, the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center had been idle for some time, as if there was some predestined connection. They gave the “treasure map” to Fu Xinshu, guiding the students to the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center.

“Wanxing is truly smart. She even specially came to give me a book of ‘Crossword Puzzles,’ making me break out in a cold sweat!” said Qian Jianjun.

“That’s our teacher! She had you figured out early on, otherwise we wouldn’t have found you so quickly!” Yu Ming said with a hint of pride.

“But she was also too independent-minded, which we hadn’t anticipated.”

Qian Jianjun looked at the students they had observed for two years, feeling emotional. “Even after we handed you over to her, she didn’t completely follow our wishes by just helping you study for exams. She truly put her heart into educating you, wanting to nurture you into independent people, encouraging you to pursue what you truly want to do.”

“Your Teacher Lin is truly a remarkable young woman,” Teacher Qian finally said.

The story from Teachers Chen and Qian was roughly like this.

It began with Old Chen’s compassion for Lin Wanxing and continued with Jiang Xun’s attempt to fulfill his late father’s wish.

This was Phoenix Cemetery, and under the dense shade were two graves that buried the unfulfilled wishes of those who came before.

Separated by life and death, it was a concern that death could not sever.

As time passed, they finally received heaven’s response at a moment of intersection.

Whether it was Lin Wanxing or the students, they all spent a happy and fulfilling time under this arrangement.

The ending of this story should have been the students graduating smoothly, with Lin Wanxing sending them off to university campuses.

But her sudden departure completely shattered this peaceful scene.

Wang Fa wasn’t sure if his presence influenced Lin Wanxing’s decision to leave.

It was at this moment that he suddenly realized, if Lin Wanxing and the students’ meeting was carefully arranged, then what about him?