In truth, Lin Wanxing didn’t understand Wang Fa at that time.

She thought when he mentioned a phone, it was first a joke, and second a reference to “just as playing games requires hardware foundations, playing football also requires excellent physical qualities.”

Wang Fa said these things out of his responsibility as a coach.

But later, Lin Wanxing wondered, why was he willing to try again and again.

She truly didn’t understand Wang Fa.

The next morning, Lin Wanxing was awakened by a series of knocks on her door.

Yesterday the students had stayed late, and today she had to work, so she had set her alarm for 8 o’clock.

And now…

Lin Wanxing rolled over and grabbed her phone, feeling a bit disoriented by the 6:30 displayed on it.

She quickly changed clothes and opened the door to find a group of energetic faces outside.

Chen Jianghe, Qin Ao, Fu Xinshu, Yu Ming… and Wang Fa???

How could Wang Fa possibly be standing at her door with the students at this hour?

Lin Wanxing looked at the rising sun on the horizon and thought she must be hallucinating.

She closed the door, planning to go back to sleep.

Her head had just touched the pillow, and she hadn’t even had time to pull the blanket over her head when another series of knocks came at the door.

Knock knock knock!

“Teacher, get up quickly!”

Knock knock knock!

“You promised to go jogging this morning!”

Knock knock knock!

“Think about muscles! Think about abs! Get up quickly!”

Lin Wanxing threw off the blanket and sat up, rubbing her face, confirming it wasn’t a hallucination.

In late summer and early autumn, the morning was still very hot.

Lin Wanxing opened the door again, and the morning light was already blindingly bright.

A flatbread and fried dough stick were stuffed into her hands, and without further discussion, the students surrounded her and headed downstairs.

In her dazed state, Lin Wanxing found herself standing in the small teaching storage room of the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center. The smell of old books hit her, and she became a bit more alert.

“Ready to study hard and improve every day?” Looking around the small room crowded with students, Lin Wanxing asked, confused.

“Teacher, how can you be so forgetful!”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that you wanted us to design a plan?”

“Have you designed it already?” Lin Wanxing asked, shocked.

“Of course not!” Lin Lu said very proudly. “But we have a coach!”

“Huh?” Lin Wanxing looked at Wang Fa. The young man yawned, seeming as sleepy as she was.

“You said yesterday to let us design our plans, but we don’t know exactly how to do it. It’s just like school—we do whatever the teachers and coaches tell us to do.”

Lin Wanxing smiled — “But when teachers tell you to study seriously, you don’t follow those instructions either.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Qin Ao waved his hand.

“Mm,” Lin Wanxing nodded, indicating for him to continue.

“But we thought, just like studying for exams, the purpose is to have some idea in our hearts of where we stand. We also need to know what level our football skills are at before we can set goals…”

Seeing the students seriously analyzing these issues, Lin Wanxing also quieted down.

“There are many aspects we need to improve, such as… some are necessary conditions that the coach has been reminding us about all along, like physical fitness. We don’t know how to improve it, but we feel we first need a test.”

She listened to the students’ earnest analysis and suggested directions, and attempts at planning. Though there were various imperfections, the attempt itself was remarkable.

“So, what help can I provide for you?” After hearing Qin Ao’s statement, Lin Wanxing asked.

“Do you know how to fix a printer?” Qin Ao asked.

“Huh?” Lin Wanxing touched her ear, suspecting she still wasn’t fully awake.

“We want to print something, but the printer isn’t working,” Qin Ao patted the machine beside him.

The students all looked at her expectantly. Lin Wanxing thought for a moment, pointed at the printer, and asked — “What is this?”

“A printer,” the boys shouted in unison.

“And this?” She pointed at another object on the table.

“A computer!”

The sound resonated through the room filled with various miscellaneous items.

Righteously confident.

Lin Wanxing nodded and said very calmly — “So since the computer is here and the printer is there, and now the printer isn’t working, why can’t you use the computer to look up the reason and fix it yourselves?”

“We tried, but it didn’t work.”

“It’s connected to the computer, but nothing prints out.”

“The printer must be broken.”

The students spoke one after another, seeming a bit aggrieved.

Lin Wanxing didn’t speak either, just quietly listened to their complaints until, at some point, everyone had finished talking.

Lin Wanxing — “I don’t understand. Can you only look up how to fix computers online, not how to fix printers?”

“Well…”

“It’s just that…”

The students stalled again.

Lin Wanxing understood the students’ thinking. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to repair the printer or make more effort, but it seemed like this kind of specialized task should be done by adults. Because no one told them they could, they never tried.

Lin Wanxing — “It’s okay, feel free to try. If it breaks completely, I’ll take responsibility.”

The small teaching storage room of the Yuanyuan Tutoring Center was crowded with many people, making it very warm. After Lin Wanxing finished speaking, she and Wang Fa left to give the students time and space to handle this matter themselves.

She stood at the end of the corridor outside the room, facing the window, unwrapping the plastic bag of her breakfast, and took a bite of the fried dough stick.

“Did they come looking for you?” With the morning breeze on her face, Lin Wanxing ate her breakfast and looked up to ask the person beside her, “What won you over?”

“They said they bought flatbread and fried dough sticks for Teacher Lin, and for me, they bought oil pancakes wrapped with shumai, which tastes better than yours,” the young man’s leisurely voice sounded.

“…” Lin Wanxing’s bite of flatbread stuck in her throat, and suddenly it didn’t taste as good.

Soon, there was a commotion inside the room, and the door opened again. The students rushed out, seeming to have discovered the key issue, all eager to speak.

“Teacher, it’s an HP laser printer!”

“The toner cartridge isn’t broken, it’s just out of toner!”

“We want to try adding some toner powder to the cartridge. Though the process is a bit complicated, we think we can try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to replace the cartridge.”

Fu Xinshu took out his phone and finally said — “I just checked the price of toner powder and compatible cartridges on Taobao. Can we buy the toner powder first?”

At that time, Lin Wanxing hadn’t finished her fried dough stick, and the students were looking at her with excited and expectant eyes.

Lin Wanxing said — “No need.”

“Why not?”

“Teacher, have you had a change of heart and want to buy us a new printer?”

“There’s toner powder in the teaching storage room, you can go directly and get it,” she said.

“Ah, how do you know?”

“Did you know in advance that the printer had a problem and prepared for it?”

“Because of my grandfather. He’s the kind of person who prepares everything.”

The students indeed found toner powder in the cabinet where teaching supplies were kept, but adding it to the cartridge wasn’t a simple task.

Although they often said they could just go work in a factory tightening screws certain screw-tightening jobs require technical skills.

They carefully removed the positioning pins, took out the drum core, unscrewed the fastening screws, and slowly added toner powder.

When the first test print succeeded, the room was filled with enthusiastic applause, as if everyone had completed some major project together.

After the test was completed, it was time for official printing, and the printer quickly spat out sheets of paper one after another.

Only then did Lin Wanxing see what the students wanted to print. As they had said, it appeared to be some physical fitness test items.

Lin Wanxing carefully looked at the entries on the paper, which were different from the usual 50-meter sprint and such. There were terms she didn’t understand, like “30-yard agility,” “T-shaped training,” and “F-shaped training.”

“Did you prepare these forms for them?” Lin Wanxing looked at Wang Fa in shock. “You did all this for an oil pancake with shumai? How is that different from selling your soul?!”

Yu Ming heard this and became anxious — “Coach, how could you sell us out!”

“You promised not to tell the teacher!”

Wang Fa maintained his usual leisurely attitude — “It’s fine, your teacher won’t get jealous.”

Lin Wanxing — “…”

One clipboard, forms, pencil, measuring tape per person…

Wang Fa’s requirements were many, and the measuring tape was finally found in the school’s sports equipment room.

Lin Wanxing had known Wang Fa for so long, and at most, she had seen him with a small notebook and pencil in his pocket. She had never seen him like this, so thoroughly and seriously prepared.

She carried the clipboards and forms that Wang Fa had requested, joining everyone at the old sports field grass.

The students lined up one by one, with Wang Fa standing in front of them.

Wang Fa said — “Regarding the importance of a ‘good phone’ for ‘playing games well,’ you should understand better than I do. But phones have all their hardware specifications fixed at the factory and only deteriorate with use, while people are different.

For humans, one fortunate aspect is that from birth, we continuously explore how to control our muscles and use our bodies. Therefore, through proper training, everyone can experience comprehensive improvement in their motor abilities. Although individual innate conditions differ, as long as you’re not in extreme circumstances, training can completely enable your bodies to handle the current competitions with ease.”

Wang Fa spoke very practically, without any flashy encouragement or promises. Precisely because of this, it made the students feel they could try and succeed.

“What we need to accomplish today is a ‘speed, agility, and reaction time test.’ Perhaps you’ve undergone similar training before, and they have various names, but no matter how they change, these three items are important foundations for many sports, including football.”

The boys nodded seriously.

“I will introduce all the items in the form. If there’s anything you don’t understand, please remember it, and there will be time for questions after the explanation is complete.”

He didn’t say much, but his words about training matters were precise, and his speech was clear and forceful, so the students listened very attentively. After his explanation, the students also asked many questions.

Wang Fa answered some questions on the spot and told them that others would be demonstrated further during the specific tests.

Wang Fa — “If there’s nothing unclear in theory, next, we will begin the first test.”

Lin Wanxing stood beside Wang Fa, and hearing him say this, she couldn’t help but grip her pencil. Bathed in the morning sunlight, she felt a natural sense of mission to assist in completing the test.

Wang Fa — “You join in too.”

Lin Wanxing pointed at herself.

Wang Fa nodded.

“Aren’t we together?” Lin Wanxing shook the clipboard in her hand and half-raised her head to ask him.

But Wang Fa casually took the “assistant” tools from her hand and said — “I mean, please join the students in completing these tests, Teacher Xiao Lin.”

“I’m doing the physical fitness tests with the students?” Lin Wanxing was confused.

“Yes, if Teacher Xiao Lin has anything unclear, I can explain it to you separately. Do you need that?” Wang Fa asked.

Lin Wanxing looked up, the bright sun shining all over her body. She felt that she truly hadn’t fully awakened that day.