Chapter 1 Maria

"Hero! Hero!" Anyukov rushed into the locker room waving a newspaper, successfully attracting everyone's attention.

Then, without even catching his breath, he lunged at Chen Hero.

"Is it true? Is it true?!" He waved his arms and the newspaper, shouting at Chen Hero.

"What's true or false?" Chen Hero was bewildered.

"Maria! Maria Sharapova!" Denisov yelled.

"Who's that?" Chen Hero continued to look at Denisov with a blank expression.

"Don't pretend! Hero!"

"I really don't know." Chen Hero shook his head and spread his hands.

"You never watch tennis?"

"I'm not interested in that kind of sport where women go back and forth like they're competing in a screaming match..."

"I thought you'd be interested because of that... Okay, that's not the point! The point is, you really don't know who Maria Sharapova is?"

The teammates beside them were drawn to their conversation.

"What's this about Maria Sharapova? What does it have to do with Hero?" Anyukov squeezed in to ask.

Denisov was too lazy to explain to them, so he simply unfolded the newspaper and showed it to everyone.

The headline was very eye-catching:

"Maria Sharapova's Rumored Boyfriend? Hero!"

Below was a photo of Sharapova walking out of Chen Hero's apartment building—a building many people recognized, especially the members of the "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry" group, because they had all been to parties there...

Everyone was stunned!

Except for Chen Hero, who was very dissatisfied with the headline—why was he her rumored boyfriend, instead of "Hero's rumored girlfriend"?! Wait... who is this Maria Sharapova?

Everyone turned their gaze to Chen Hero, and... it was mostly unkind. As if Chen Hero wouldn't be allowed to leave the locker room door unless he gave an explanation today.

"No way, Hero!!"

"Tell us! How did you get your hands on this idol of all Russia?!"

A group of people were indignant, some even cracking their knuckles.

Chen Hero's answer made them want to beat him up even more...

"Is she very famous?" Chen Hero looked confused.

"Very, very, very, very famous!" Denisov said while shaking the newspaper, making a rustling sound.

Chen Hero snatched the newspaper and stared carefully at the woman in the photo.

Her name is Sharapova?

Anyukov suddenly yelped "Ah!"

Everyone turned to look at him.

Anyukov suddenly pounced, grabbed Denisov's shoulders, and shook him hard: "That woman in the bar that day was Sharapova!!"

"Ah—"

This time, Kerzhakov, Škrtel, Arshavin, and Denisov simultaneously grabbed their heads and screamed.

"Despair! I despair at this world where Hero can meet Sharapova even if she just goes to a bar once!"

Chen Hero ignored his friends' strange cries and quickly scanned the news.

The reporter gave a detailed introduction to who Maria Sharapova was.

Maria Sharapova, female, born in 1987 in Nyagan, Russia, in the former Soviet Union, just turned twenty years old this year. She is a famous female tennis player. In 2004, at the age of seventeen, she unexpectedly won the Wimbledon Open, her first professional Grand Slam title. Since then, her career has soared, and in 2005 she became the number one player in women's tennis. She has also become the most representative and charismatic player in women's tennis.

The newspaper also specially introduced that Sharapova has been the champion of the world's highest-paid female athletes list published by the American magazine *Forbes* for three consecutive years since 2004.

Seeing this, Chen Hero raised his eyebrows. He remembered Sharapova's excitement when she heard him say she was extorting him... Now that he thought about it, she did have a reason to be excited. With an income of twenty-three million US dollars last year, she didn't need to extort someone like him, who only earned two million euros a year...

But so what if you have money? Does having money mean you can slander people at will?!

It's rare for me to be such a Liu Xiahui, such a gentleman, and I still get scolded as a despicable, shameless, and scoundrelly rogue. Is there any justice in this world?! Is there any fairness and justice!

When he came to training yesterday, he specifically asked Denisov and the others about what happened the night before. He thought it was impossible for everyone to be drunk, and there would always be someone who was relatively sober, right?

From his friends' mouths, he learned that he and that woman were both drunk. He also asked where that woman lived, but a group of people encouraged Chen Hero to take the woman back to his place. As for what to do after taking her back, they didn't care.

So, he found a taxi and sent Chen Hero and the woman back together.

Yesterday, those bad friends asked him about the specific details with lewd smiles, gossiping one by one. Chen Hero, of course, righteously said that he didn't do anything because he was too drunk and went to bed as soon as he got back. Others were skeptical of his answer, and some hinted ambiguously that everyone understood...

Chen Hero didn't pay attention to them at the time, but he supplemented his own imagination and thought that the truth should be like this—after he and that woman went back, they were both drunk, so they fell asleep on the bed, without even changing their clothes.

Then he was kicked awake by that damn crazy woman...

Damn it! If I had known I would be treated like this, I should have just *circled circled crossed crossed* before anything else...

Chen Hero looked at Sharapova's introduction in the newspaper. His teammates were in an uproar, and everyone envied, was jealous of, and hated Chen Hero's good luck for having the opportunity to sleep with Sharapova.

"Hey, Hero, how does Sharapova feel?"

"You guys didn't really... really do that, did you?"

"Why does this kind of good thing happen to you!"

"My goddess... my goddess..."

Chen Hero returned the newspaper to Denisov, who looked as if his parents had died, shrugged, and repeated what he had said yesterday: "I have no story with her."

He didn't tell anyone about his misunderstanding and quarrel with Sharapova—at first, he felt that being entangled by a crazy woman was unlucky, and it wasn't something worth showing off, so he naturally kept his mouth shut.

"Bullshit! I would believe it if anyone else said that, but I don't believe you!" Denisov raised his middle finger at Chen Hero.

Chen Hero looked innocent: "I'm very serious..."

Denisov stretched out a fist: "Hero, do you know what this gesture means?"

Then he started to make a "crank" gesture with his other hand, "cranking" his middle finger.

Chen Hero rolled his eyes. He originally used that trick to deal with Škrtel, who was feeling empty and lonely after a 3p session, but he didn't expect the leader and the others to learn it so quickly.

When Sharapova saw the photo of herself walking out of that man's apartment building in the newspaper, as well as the large subtitle accompanying the photo, she angrily threw the newspaper on the table. After returning to the hotel yesterday, she also felt that she had overreacted at first. She was reflecting on her actions, and her dislike for Chen Hero was not as deep as before. Who would have thought that she would see this today... The ashes of her about-to-be-extinguished anger were like a gust of wind blowing over them, and they suddenly burst into flames again.

The innocent newspaper lay quietly on the table, unable to utter a single protest. But the eye-catching headline seemed to be mocking the angry woman in front of her at all times.

"Maria Sharapova's Rumored Boyfriend? Hero!"

Before her anger could subside, her phone rang again.

It was her agent calling.

As soon as the call connected, her agent, Max Eisenbud, asked head-on, "What exactly is going on, Maria?!"

"What's wrong?"

"Rumored boyfriend, rumored boyfriend!" Max Eisenbud reminded her.

"How did this happen..." Sharapova didn't expect her agent, who was far away in the United States, to know about it...

"A journalist I know called me... Maria, are you and that Hero really..."

"No! Absolutely not!" This was the most annoying thing for Sharapova. She didn't like Chen Hero in the first place, but the media paired them up, which made her feel violated and disgusted.

"Then how could you..." Agent Max Eisenbud couldn't figure it out.

Sharapova suddenly didn't know how to explain it to her agent. After escaping safely that day, she felt that the matter was too embarrassing, and it was better not to tell anyone. So, when she called her agent to tell him why her phone had been turned off all the time, she didn't tell him about her affair with that man.

"This is a gimmick created by journalists to create news... In fact, I just happened to appear, uh, appear at... Hello? Hello?"

"Hello? I can hear you, what's wrong? Maria? I can hear you, tell me?" Agent Eisenbud was listening to the critical moment when he suddenly found that Sharapova's signal seemed to be bad, so he quickly called out.

Sharapova, of course, knew that her agent could hear her, because she could hear him too. She was doing it on purpose—at this time, what else could she do besides pretending that the signal was bad?

"Hello? Hello hello hello? Damn... why did the signal suddenly get worse..." she muttered pretentiously, and then hung up the phone.

Just when she thought she could breathe a sigh of relief temporarily, the phone rang again like a death knell.

This time it was her father, Yuri Sharapov!

There was no way to avoid this call...

She answered the phone.

"Maria! Maria! Who is that damn man!" It was the same head-on questioning, and her father's angry voice was just as clear and powerful, even across the ocean.

"I don't even know who that damn man is!" Sharapova replied angrily.

As soon as she said this, she realized—she had been arguing with that man for a long time, and the reporters used them as rumored lovers, but she didn't even know what that man did!

What a mess!

After hearing his daughter say such words, Yuri Sharapov was stunned for a moment, and his tone suddenly improved: "Ah ha, my baby, don't pay too much attention to what those reporters say, they always like to make up news that doesn't match the facts, just to attract attention... How's your trip in St. Petersburg?" He immediately changed the subject and stopped talking about it. When he saw that his daughter was actually messing around with an unknown football player, he was so angry that he called his daughter to question her. In his opinion, his woman should be with someone like Charlie Ebersol, the son of the owner of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), to be worthy.

"It's okay..." Sharapova muttered. She could hear the perfunctory tone in her father's words, and she certainly knew what her father was calling for in such a hurry. Wasn't it because he was worried that she would be mixed up with a poor boy he had never heard of, which would be detrimental to her status? He hoped that she could marry those rich people in the future. Tennis is a sport that depends on youth. What should she do after she retires? Source of income, how will the family be supported? Her father had already considered these things—marry into a wealthy family!

Her father only cared about this, as for her psychological feelings, he cared about them perfunctorily... just like now, saying nice platitudes, but in fact, he didn't care at all. She could bet that her father must have breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that she had nothing to do with that Hero.

She found that she couldn't find a suitable confidant. At this time, those singing stars and movie stars she knew seemed to be hundreds of thousands of miles away from her. She was unwilling to tell them the depression in her heart.

She couldn't even find someone who could listen to her and give her real comfort...

Sharapova pouted, feeling a little lonely. Her call with her father also seemed a little perfunctory.

"Don't always dwell on those bad things, whether it's that damn kid or that damn shoulder injury! Just have fun and relax."

"Thank you, Dad. I know." Sharapova said.

After hanging up the phone, Sharapova looked down at the newspaper she had thrown on the table, looking at Chen Hero's photo on it, and suddenly remembered their first meeting in the bar that day. She was in a bad mood at the time, but this person made her laugh so hard that she lay on the table in a very unladylike manner, and all her troubles were temporarily cleared... Although it came back later, and it came back even more violently. But at least at that moment, she felt pretty good.

She leaned over and picked up the newspaper again.

Okay, I just want to figure out who this damn bastard is...

She did this while saying this to herself in her heart.

A football player?

After reading it, she learned Chen Hero's identity. The forward of Zenit St. Petersburg. According to the reporter's description of him, he seemed to be quite well-known in St. Petersburg.

Sharapova was not a football fan, but she knew some things. For example, Zenit St. Petersburg, this is the only professional football club in the city, and it is quite popular. For the second largest city in Russia, it means that the player is quite successful to be well-known in this city...

Sharapova herself is also an athlete—a tennis player, so she has a little sense of intimacy with athletes.

But when facing this Chen Hero, she didn't have the same feeling at all. In this report, the reporter used every means to make readers believe that Sharapova and Chen Hero were having an affair. Some details they even helped readers outline. People who read this report can completely imagine themselves and Chen Hero going in and out together, showing affection...

These nauseating descriptions made Sharapova shiver... The little bit of goodwill that she had just established towards Chen Hero was crushed into powder by the reporters' descriptions.

This damn football hooligan!

Sharapova blamed her dissatisfaction with the reporters on Chen Hero. Who told her to have such a deep impression of Chen Hero?

If Chen Hero knew, he would definitely be in tears—Damn it! I'm getting shot even when I'm lying down!