At that time, Wang Fa didn’t answer that question.

Because he hadn’t heard clearly.

Wang Fa leaned back in his chair and asked, “What?”

By then, Lin Wanxing felt the moment had passed, and she couldn’t repeat the question.

She could only smile and shake her head.

Perhaps inspired by the phone, the students privately decided to record a video for Wang Fa. They would edit it later and send it to their coach as a memento.

Lin Wanxing was pulled aside by Fu Xinshu, who quietly informed her of this activity.

This had to be done secretly, so most people stayed outside barbecuing, and when it was someone’s turn, they would go into the room alone to record their video.

By the time it was Lin Wanxing’s turn, the sky had completely darkened.

She sat in the dim room, with the sounds of students’ laughter coming from outside.

A desk lamp was lit on the table, with a phone propped in front of it, the front camera turned on.

The phone screen was the brightest light source in the room.

Lin Wanxing looked at herself on the screen, feeling a strange sense of bewilderment.

She saw the girl in the camera tilt her head slightly to the left, then pull at the corner of her mouth in a smile.

People occasionally have moments like this.

You see yourself in the mirror and wonder, “Who is that?” “Is that me?”

The inside and outside of the room were two separate spaces. The “crackling” sound of flames invaded the room, and she could smell the aroma of grilled meat drifting through the window cracks.

Lin Wanxing sat in the room for a long time before finally ending the recording.

When she went back outside, the charcoal in the grill was burning bright red.

“What were you doing?” Today, Wang Fa was extraordinarily drinking with the students.

He sat among them, head slightly tilted back, his tone and gaze softened by the effects of alcohol.

“If I say ‘I’m not telling you,’ would that seem very suspicious?” Lin Wanxing looked at the pile of drinks on and under the table, finally choosing a can of Yongchuan draft beer, the same as Wang Fa’s.

With a “hiss,” white foam overflowed.

Wang Fa didn’t respond, just raised his can and lightly clinked it against hers.

There was a spicy scent of chili or pepper in the wind.

Lin Wanxing took a big gulp of beer, the bubbles rushing straight to her head, but she couldn’t quite identify the taste in her mouth.

They didn’t speak again.

The grilled meat was arranged on stainless steel plates, brought over plate by plate, and consumed skewer by skewer.

At first, there were issues with the meat being either burnt or undercooked.

Later, head chef Feng Suo mastered the timing and seasoned it with care, making it no different from what Lin Wanxing would eat in a restaurant.

The students horsed around on the rooftop, drinking big gulps and eating large pieces of meat. Though it was a farewell dinner, the overall mood was still joyful.

Lin Wanxing could no longer remember exactly what everyone had said that night. She only remembered the many spicy flavors, the cool summer breeze, and how alcohol could make one forget worries.

In any case, she didn’t say much, just kept watching them until they had eaten and drunk their fill, until the gathering dispersed.

She wasn’t sure who first signaled that dinner was “over,” but the students pushed back their chairs and stood up one after another.

Today they didn’t push tasks onto each other but worked together to clean up the table and trash.

Everyone was busy, but conversations between them grew less and less frequent until only the occasional clink of utensils remained.

In the dim light, Lin Wanxing watched the busy figures of the students, waiting for the farewell that would follow.

She didn’t know how Wang Fa had spoken to the students, but in any case, the boys seemed very straightforward. They didn’t dawdle either, saying they needed to leave after collecting the trash.

The boys carried the garbage, with the rooftop’s iron door behind them, while Wang Fa was at the sink on the other side.

Between them were tables, grills, piles of bricks, and various items.

In the night, the boys waved to their coach from a distance.

“Coach, we won’t see you tomorrow, right?”

“Come visit us when you have time.”

“Don’t forget us.”

The students spoke one after another.

They had smiles on their faces, garbage in their hands, and their clothes stained with the field’s soil after a day of training.

Although their gazes were full of reluctance, no one spoke those words.

Wang Fa stood by the sink, sleeves rolled up, about to wash his hands.

He looked back at the students, his expression as usual, just like during their daily partings.

“Goodbye,” he said.

Lin Wanxing went downstairs with the students.

She usually didn’t have the habit of seeing the students off, but this time was an exception because Fu Xinshu had informed her beforehand to come down together.

Lin Wanxing wasn’t sure what they were up to, so she picked up a bag of trash, but before they had walked down two flights of stairs, she was surrounded and questioned by the students.

“Why are you such a coward?” Qi Liang stood on the same step as her, speaking in a “you’re so embarrassing” tone.

“What?” The stairwell was stuffy, and with the alcohol going to her head, Lin Wanxing felt a bit dizzy.

“Why are you acting like you’re going through a breakup? Modern women should bravely pursue love!” Qin Ao stood on the step below, exaggeratedly clenching his fist to encourage her.

Lin Wanxing couldn’t understand the students’ thought processes at all. She had been reflecting on the coach-player separation, but in the students’ eyes, it became a “breakup”?

“Have any of you ever been in a relationship, to say I’m like going through a breakup?” Lin Wanxing was speechless.

“Of course! Who hasn’t been in a relationship?” Lin Lu said confidently.

“You?” Qi Liang snorted, “With Princess Yao Yao?” “Little Lu’s CP!” Lin Lu corrected.

“I haven’t,” Feng Suo admitted honestly.

“Then you’re like Teacher,” Zheng Feiyang said innocently.

Lin Wanxing felt like spitting blood listening to them.

But after the students bickered, the stagnant low pressure dissipated quite a bit.

Lin Wanxing urged them to go downstairs and not stay in the stairwell smelling the stench anymore.

They threw away the large bags of garbage at the trash bins and walked toward the exit of the residential complex.

The streetlights cast gentle light, and the camphor tree branches swayed and rustled in the autumn night.

There was a faint scent of camphor trees in the air, helping Lin Wanxing’s earlier tipsiness dissipate.

The boys were still arguing about her performance on the rooftop earlier. “Listen to Teacher’s stubbornness, she’s just too embarrassed to say it!”

“Yeah, she didn’t say things like ‘I’ll miss you’ or ‘Don’t go’ to the coach.”

The students mimicked her gentle tone, giving Lin Wanxing goosebumps.

“What are you talking about!” She quickly interrupted the students’ imagination theater. “How could I ask the coach to stay? But why didn’t you guys act up and just let him leave so obediently?”

The students’ calm acceptance of Wang Fa’s departure, organizing the barbecue dinner, and saying goodbye to the coach without any attachment all surprised Lin Wanxing greatly.

“Of course we wanted the coach to stay!” Qin Ao walked forward with his hands behind his head. “But are you stupid? You know we weren’t asleep that day.”

Lin Wanxing was confused but quickly realized.

“That day” referred to the day they had beaten Green View International.

Wang Fa had gone to Yongchuan for an interview, and the students had returned victorious but exhausted, sprawled out sleeping in her room.

That day, she and Wang Fa had eaten hotpot on the rooftop. She had asked Wang Fa how his interview in Yongchuan went, and Wang Fa had told her he was leaving.

“15 million euros, that’s just too much money,” Qin Ao jumped onto a low flower bed, speaking in an excited yet regretful tone.

Under the streetlights, the shadows of the students stretched long.

Because the topic of “persuading him to stay” had been brought up, everyone’s voice carried a hint of helpless fantasy.

“We waited for several days, thinking that the mysterious person who sent us the letter might send us something else that could make the coach stay,” Fu Xinshu said.

“But none of us received anything,” Yu Ming said.

“But we have 1,500 yuan!” Lin Lu laughed.

“We don’t have 1,500 yuan anymore, we just ate it all,” Chen Jianghe calmly reminded everyone.

The students were all very calm, but most of them still maintained joy and hope.

Lin Wanxing realized then that how could she be the only one who felt reluctant about Wang Fa’s departure.

But what the students faced was an enormous sum of money.

So much money that even blood-filled, crazy youngsters knew they had no chance of winning and had to surrender.

So, they had to say goodbye obediently.

Walking slowly to the entrance of the residential complex, the bus stop was on the right, and the students who could walk home went to the left, waving goodbye to her.

Lin Wanxing waited for the bus with the remaining students.

“We’ll find another coach in the future,” Zheng Feiyang said.

“If not, the coach can teach us remotely,” Feng Suo said.

“Don’t worry,” Fu Xinshu said.

Lin Wanxing hadn’t expected that such a day would end with the students comforting her.

The students boarded the bus one by one, and she saw all the children off.

Lin Wanxing sat at the bus stop, with the hot and bright advertisement light board behind her.

This was a rare moment of quiet solitude.

She lifted her head, looking up at the hazy night sky illuminated by the city lights.

Various emotions are intertwined; people can solve some problems, but not all.

Finally, she stretched and let out a long sigh.

Back, Lin Wanxing kept imagining what she would say to Wang Fa when she went upstairs.

Discuss future contact methods.

Ask Wang Fa to recommend a reliable new coach?

Surely not confess her feelings?

They didn’t seem to have that kind of relationship between men and women.

It seemed to have something more than ordinary love but also lacked certain other elements.

After nine o’clock at night, some of the landscape lights in the residential complex would be turned off to save energy. The road was darker than before, with swaying tree shadows and sparse light coming from the windows of the buildings.

A stray cat darted out from the bushes. Lin Wanxing looked up and saw the light on the second floor.

The bright classroom lights spilled into the night of the old residential complex.

It took Lin Wanxing a moment to realize that the large area of freely-used lights upstairs was coming from the second floor of 17 Wutong Road.

That was the classroom where her grandparents used to run tutoring classes. Under the illumination, the faded red characters on the window were still visible in rough outline, reading “Yuan Yuan.”

Lin Wanxing felt she must still be a bit drunk.

Had someone used the classroom today? Why were the lights on? Had the students forgotten to turn them off?

It couldn’t be Wang Fa in there, could it? Did he turn them on?

Lin Wanxing was thinking this as she opened the building’s security door. The motion sensor light between the first and second floors suddenly lit up as she climbed the cement stairs step by step.

Second floor, at the tutoring entrance.

The green iron gate was open a crack; the door wasn’t completely closed.

The bright light from the classroom flowed through the door crack into the hallway, illuminating the reddish-brown door of the teaching storage room opposite.

Lin Wanxing put her keys in her pocket, preparing to go in and turn off the lights.

With a “creak,” she pushed open the iron door.

The building suddenly became extremely quiet. In that moment, Lin Wanxing could even hear the sound of slippers sliding across the tiles upstairs.

The keys jingled in her pants pocket as Lin Wanxing walked to the classroom door and peered inside. No one was there.

She found the switch on the wall and with a “click,” turned off the lights.

But in the next second, the lights flashed on again, bright as day.

Lin Wanxing’s hand was still on the switch. She looked at the classroom blackboard in disbelief.

There were two lines of characters that hadn’t been there before.