Despite many uncertainties about their future matches, the students still decided to give their all and commit to training.

The only thing Lin Wanxing hadn’t expected was that after the schedule was announced, Chen Weidong came to find her privately.

Chen Weidong hadn’t attended any of the study sessions during the National Day holiday, claiming he had family matters.

Today was Chen Weidong’s first time back at training after the holiday ended.

Qin Ao had many complaints about this, but first, it was a statutory holiday, and second, more importantly, Chen Weidong was voluntarily participating as a replacement for the absent Wen Chengye, so no one felt comfortable demanding too much from him.

During the previous “money-making” activities when everyone was enthusiastic, Chen Weidong thought it was too exhausting and quit after two days, so Lin Wanxing was actually mentally prepared for Chen Weidong coming to talk to her.

“Teacher, I’ve been thinking for a long time, I probably won’t be able to come to training after this,” Chen Weidong said very directly.

“Why?” Lin Wanxing was cooking noodles and was quite surprised when she heard this.

“My school’s sports team has training, and I need to participate.”

Lin Wanxing frowned slightly. Chen Weidong roughly guessed what she was thinking and said, “I wanted to say this much earlier, but playing football with everyone was fun, and we won many games… but I was just roped in to make up numbers from the beginning. I have my events to practice for.”

Hearing Chen Weidong say this, Lin Wanxing quickly understood, “You have other competitions, right? Need to place in the provincial rankings? Apply for high-level athlete special admission?”

“I… just…” Chen Weidong suddenly stuttered.

“It’s okay,” Lin Wanxing reassured him.

“I just, Teacher, you understand… I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket before, but the football side looks a bit difficult. On the track and field side, there’s a championship in November, with preliminaries before that, and I want to participate.”

Although Chen Weidong didn’t clearly explain, his general meaning was quite clear.

The hope of placing in the provincial rankings by training with the football team was slim, unlike his main track and field competition in November, so he wanted to focus on his main event.

Lin Wanxing could understand this quite well, but the awkward fact before her was that Hongjing Eighth Middle School’s team had only 11 players, and if anyone left, the team would have to disband. Lin Wanxing pondered, her finger resting on the iron pot, and only came back to her senses when she was scalded.

She said with difficulty, “But you didn’t mention this during the meeting just now. Otherwise, we could have another meeting and share what you’ve told me with the other students. It’s okay, we can think of solutions together.”

“Please don’t, Teacher,” Chen Weidong hurriedly stopped her. “With someone like Qin Ao, if I say I don’t want to play football, wouldn’t he punch me on the spot!”

“But you’ll have to tell them about your situation eventually,” Lin Wanxing said.

“How can I explain this!” Chen Weidong began to hesitate. “I was just filling in as a substitute and didn’t intend to play for so long. Besides, if I leave, there’s no one else. Teacher, why don’t you find a replacement? I can still play for a while, but after that, it’s uncertain.”

Chen Weidong’s tone finally softened. The boy’s face was full of conflict as Lin Wanxing’s fingers ran under the rushing water.

She said, “Hmm, I understand. Just make your own decision.”

“I’ll think about it some more,” Chen Weidong replied.

Chen Weidong’s hesitation was just an episode of inner conflict.

According to the schedule, on October 20th, Hongjing Eighth Middle School will host Yuzhou Silver Elephants in the first round of the Youth Super League group stage.

This period wasn’t particularly long, but it wasn’t short either.

After the National Day holiday ended, Lin Wanxing resumed her management duties of the school’s sports equipment storage.

Students gathered in the tutoring classroom in the morning.

Lin Wanxing would provide the students with weekly schedules, including possible content and learning objectives.

Based on her curriculum and time arrangements, the students reconsidered and adjusted their daily schedules.

The first class began at 6:30 AM, with two sessions in total.

After 8:30 AM, Lin Wanxing went to work at school.

The students completed morning football training with Wang Fa.

At noon, the boys would take a short nap, and when they woke up feeling refreshed, they would first complete the homework from the morning classes, then go play football.

The afternoon football training sessions for some students lasted 3 hours, ending when Lin Wanxing returned from work.

In the evening, they would have dinner together.

During dinner, everyone would watch movies, TV shows, or meaningful documentaries selected by Lin Wanxing as a form of relaxation.

Evening classes began at 6:50 PM.

The evening classes ended around 10:00 PM, with three sessions in total. Lin Wanxing would assign bedtime reading materials to the students based on each day’s curriculum.

Perhaps due to their natural love for freedom, the boys didn’t like staying in the classroom to read books when they weren’t in class—they genuinely loved the rooftop.

The previous experience of “collecting garbage,” oh no, “recycling learning resources” had provided them with a lot of expertise.

Qin Ao and Lin Lu were very familiar with the waste utilization process. Lin Wanxing didn’t know where they got the old warehouse floor boards from.

They put several wooden racks together to form a simple wooden sofa and exchanged for old foam pads to place on top.

During the afternoon rest time when the sunlight wasn’t harsh, the boys liked to lean there and chat and relax.

Nearby were large stretches of green space, and further away was the city with its varying heights. Student Lin Lu, nestled on the wooden sofa, said it was like vacationing in the Maldives.

Although they weren’t very clear on exactly where the Maldives were, they felt it must be a place with a high-end holiday feeling.

Lin Wanxing had to manage equipment every day. Previously, she would eat lunch at school, but because the kids now treated her house as their base, she would return home during lunch breaks.

At first, the students would go out to eat lunch.

Parents gave them lunch money, but with heavy coursework and mutual influence, the boys were too lazy to go out.

The box of instant noodles that Lin Lu brought during the National Day holiday played a critical negative role. After others followed his lead and started eating instant noodles for lunch, the situation became uncontrollable.

Lin Wanxing had heard before about shut-ins getting sick from eating instant noodles for several years. She thought it was just a made-up story at the time—how could anyone eat instant noodles for that long?

But when she actually saw the students buying various flavors of instant noodles by the carton, eating them three meals a day for a whole week without getting tired of them, she was shocked.

This obviously wouldn’t do. The students who were exercising and training needed proper nutrition.

For this reason, Lin Wanxing specifically raised the lunch issue at the Friday meeting, asking everyone to find a solution.

Initially, Lin Wanxing’s motion to ban instant noodles didn’t even receive a second, and was almost forced to be aborted.

Wang Fa provided the crucial second, pushing the proposal to the next step.

Boys naturally resent harsh, one-size-fits-all approaches.

But after Lin Wanxing explained her viewpoint, pointing out the nutritional deficiencies from long-term consumption of instant noodles, the boys relatively accepted it.

“Eating instant noodles for lunch, even three or four packs, you still get hungry in the afternoon.”

When Yu Ming said this, everyone felt there was some truth to it.

For the students, it wasn’t that they weren’t hungry or didn’t want to eat well; it was just that eating was simply making do and not a big deal to them.

Now that they had to seriously think about what to eat, they became “fussy.”

They couldn’t eat casually; if they were going to eat, they should eat something good. Eating wasn’t just about cost—after all, parents’ money was limited—but also about balanced nutrition, reducing fat, building muscle, and preferably green, natural, and organic.

Lin Wanxing didn’t express any opinion, only stating that she was willing to share in the food costs and refusing to cook.

The self-management model was probably like this—by the time Lin Wanxing realized what was happening, the students had already started moving old foam boxes and soil onto her rooftop.

The boys had drawn up a detailed nutritional meal plan based on the latest version of the “Chinese Residents’ Dietary Guidelines” and combined it with recommendations from some foreign sports science nutritionists.

For the first time, Lin Wanxing fell into self-doubt, wondering if she had taught them too much. How had the students suddenly become so capable?

The rooftop was divided into experimental fields by numerous foam boxes, making Lin Wanxing dizzy just looking at them. “You really want to grow your own vegetables?” she asked.

“Yes!” The students, with hands full of soil, were very righteous. “We’re planning to grow organic vegetables, the top-tier kind!”

“Is it necessary to go to such trouble?” Lin Wanxing was puzzled. “Why not just buy them? How long will it take before you can eat what you grow?”

“Have you not bought vegetables for a long time? Do you know how expensive vegetables are?”

“Some vegetables have very short growth cycles, just one month and they can be eaten.”

“What vegetables? Isn’t it autumn now, can they even be grown?” Lin Wanxing was confused and had many questions.

“Why tell her so much? She doesn’t understand anyway,” Qin Ao put down the bag of soil from his shoulder and said contemptuously.

“Just wait to eat. Fu Xinshu will finish calculating the bill and send it to you, remember to pay,” Chen Jianghe said confidently.

Lin Wanxing looked around in confusion, finally glancing at Wang Fa sitting under the sun umbrella, and came up with a brand new reason.

“This rooftop is half mine and half your coach’s. Have you consulted the coach’s opinion?” she asked.

Wang Fa immediately raised his hand to state his position: “Count me in, send the bill to your teacher.”

Lin Wanxing: “…”

Anyway, the students’ vegetable-growing business began like this.

Although the cause might have been someone’s sudden idea, their immersion in the process was very rapid.

These days of learning had brought the students a comprehensive improvement in goal-setting, task division, and practical abilities. Even without any additional guidance, they naturally and very methodically began to collaborate and divide the work.

Fu Xinshu researched and selected low-cost, fast-growing vegetables. Zheng Feiyang’s grandparents had fields in the countryside, so he was responsible for getting seeds, listening to the elderly’s advice, and leading the team in nurturing seedlings.

Qin Ao mainly did the physical labor, responsible for watering, fertilizing, and carrying things.

All these actions were completely spontaneous and autonomous.

Lin Wanxing discovered that the methods of information gathering and note-taking she had taught the students were being used by them to learn how to grow vegetables.

For the sake of growing vegetables, even Lin Lu stopped playing games. For him, it seemed there was nothing more interesting than squatting down to watch seeds sprout.

The topics the students discussed during training breaks also changed from games and videos to growing vegetables.

Yes, growing vegetables.

Which seeds were good, where to get nursery facilities, soil quality and types…

After listening for a long time, Lin Wanxing even once misheard “Youth Super League” as “Vegetable Growing League.”

Previously, following the students’ interests, Lin Wanxing would show them famous American crime dramas during dinner.

Now that the students were wholeheartedly farming, they had no interest in violent content.

Lin Wanxing was forced to pause the unfinished American drama and switch the documentaries to BBC gardening documentaries like “Small Garden, Big Dreams.” Gentle music, soft-focus shots, beautiful gardens, and a relatively slow pace.

Lin Wanxing had thought the students wouldn’t be interested in these relatively artistic things, but unexpectedly, they not only watched with great interest but even took notes while watching.

The notes were in both Chinese and English, containing names and habits of various plants, compost area design, compost bins, and greenhouse construction.

They would also follow the documentary and learn to draw various garden design drawings.

In Lin Wanxing’s view, the works of British gardening masters seemed very different from her dilapidated rooftop—after all, a dozen or so foam boxes were their entirety—but the students didn’t think so.

They not only began to fantasize and plan for more but even the small patch of ground below the new village building was included in their considerations.

Lin Wanxing neither deliberately encouraged nor denied the students’ interests. Except for forcefully vetoing their proposal to raise chickens on the rooftop, she let them do as they pleased.