Chapter 1 The Night in Moscow

The summer nights in Moscow are extremely short, with complete darkness lasting only from eleven at night to four in the morning. So when Chen Yingxiong lay in bed, ready to sleep, although it was only half past eleven, the sky was still bright as if the sun had just set.

He looked at the sky outside the window, where a glow lingered in the west.

Most of the sky had already turned dark blue.

In the bed next to him, his father was already sound asleep and snoring loudly—this was his father's habit, he always snored when he slept, and his snores came in all sorts of styles: there was the elongated tail note type, the gradually building to a climax type, the fluctuating type, the violent storm type, and the serenade type…

In short, he tortured your nerves in various ways. It was said that before they got married, Mom didn't know that Dad had this problem—back then, there was no such thing as premarital cohabitation or premarital sex. As a result, after they got married, on their wedding night, she couldn't sleep all night because of the snoring. The next day, she interrogated him and found out that Dad had this problem. When she thought about having to share a bed with such snoring for the rest of her life, Mom immediately felt sad and almost wanted to get a divorce…

But what about now?

The two of them had been together for decades, and Mom often joked that she couldn't sleep without Dad's snoring.

Chen Yingxiong had always known that his father's snoring was loud, but he had rarely experienced it up close like this. He had stopped sleeping with his parents when he was very young.

This trip to Europe could be considered the most direct experience.

At first, it was really earth-shattering and terrifying, but later Chen Yingxiong learned a trick—he put on headphones and turned up the music on his CD player to drown out his father's snoring, and was finally able to fall asleep peacefully.

His snoring father was sleeping soundly, his mind at ease because one thing was settled, and a weight had been lifted from his heart.

Just ten minutes earlier, the father and son had finished their conversation.

This conversation established the core idea, which was—accept Ruslan Panchenko's invitation and try his luck at Zenit Saint Petersburg. Chen Yingxiong had been worried that he didn't have much money left and whether he could keep going, but his father patted his chest and said to his son, "Let me tell you, Yingxiong. We can be short of any kind of money, but we must have the money to go to Saint Petersburg!" He said it decisively.

Chen Yingxiong knew almost nothing about Zenit Saint Petersburg. Although he had been a semi-professional player before, not to mention professional players, even fans didn't necessarily know much about this team. In China, there was very little coverage of the Russian Premier League. Everyone's attention was focused on the top five European leagues, and they knew the big teams like the back of their hand. Leagues like the Russian league were hardly noticed, unless people who gambled on soccer were interested in learning about these smaller leagues.

Chen Yingxiong didn't know that Zenit Saint Petersburg had finished third in the league in the 2004 season, and had also reached the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup in the 0506 season, and was a team that was striving to rise.

Lying in bed, he wondered what he would encounter tomorrow… Would he be humiliated and looked down upon like he was at CSKA Moscow? If that was still the case, what should he do?

Ever since he was released from the club he used to play for, he had been like a stray dog. Today, he finally regained a little dignity at CSKA Moscow.

Not bad, the feeling of slapping someone in the face is really great… He turned over.

If that Zenit Saint Petersburg was the same as CSKA Moscow, then he would definitely slap them hard like he did today, he would do everything he could to slap them!

He wasn't the kind of person who could stand being bullied…

Now that he thought about it, everything stemmed from his inability to stand being bullied.

In the domestic club, when someone gave him a dirty foul, he had to take revenge at all costs.

It was the same when he was humiliated in Moscow.

If you make me uncomfortable, I'll make you even more uncomfortable!

This seemed to be his life motto.

After he beat someone up at the domestic club, his father told him to be calmer and more mature… Chen Yingxiong thought about it, would that make him an old man?

He didn't want that!

He was only eighteen years old, and he wanted to live the way he liked. How could he do everything with restraint and caution?

Forget it, don't think about it. No matter what he encounters tomorrow, he would just do it in his own style.

Who am I? I am Chen Yingxiong!

If you make me look good, I'll make you look even better!

Hey!

Chen Yingxiong put on his headphones and turned on the music.

In the torrential climax of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," the eighteen-year-old Chen Yingxiong fell asleep with the unique confidence and a bit of arrogance of a teenager.

The music drifted out of the headphones and echoed in the quiet room.

"...It's my life—it's now or never! I ain't gonna live forever, I just want to live while I'm alive! It! Is! My! Life!... It's my life! When they call your name, stand up tall! Don't back down, don't give in easy, baby, don't you bend…"

Every note and every lyric became clearer and clearer.

The song seemed to become tangible, and the notes danced in the night sky.

The sky outside the window seemed to be changing with the music.

The distant night sky suddenly twisted, and the starry sky rapidly rotated and changed. Then it suddenly froze, like a sudden stop. This transformation process was extremely short. Even if someone happened to look up at the night sky at this time, they would only be able to see the scene after it had frozen—

A beautiful rainbow aurora stretched across the Moscow night sky, its light flowing and shimmering, making everyone who saw it marvel at its beauty.

This aurora occupied almost half of the Moscow sky. It was so huge and eye-catching that almost no one could ignore it.

Someone was the first to discover it and exclaimed in surprise. Then more and more people looked up at the sky, their mouths wide open. Some people looked incredulous, some were excited, and others took out their mobile phones and cameras and pressed the shutter towards the sky.

Auroras are not too rare natural wonders on this planet, even if the colors of this aurora were a bit more and it looked more beautiful, it was not too surprising.

But it was not normal for it to appear in Moscow.

It is impossible to see the aurora at Moscow's latitude, because it is not high enough. In Saint Petersburg, it is not uncommon to see the aurora…

The aurora changed its shape in the Moscow night sky, like a flowing abstract painting.

After attracting tens of thousands of people to watch and maintaining for half a minute, this unexpected aurora phenomenon disappeared.

The sky instantly returned to calm, as if nothing had happened before. The aurora appeared suddenly and disappeared suddenly, and many people were still looking up at the sky, not yet recovered.

However, it is believed that this spectacle will definitely appear in the major Moscow media tomorrow—in fact, not long after this, there were already reports about this incident on the Internet. Netizens uploaded photos of the aurora they had taken and told netizens in other places about the beautiful scene that had just happened in the Moscow night sky.

But no one knew that the aurora had not disappeared, but had drilled into a guest room in a small hotel, scanned the entire body of a young man who was listening to music and falling asleep, and then turned into a ray of starlight and disappeared.

Ruslan Panchenko opened a newspaper in his car. He came to the training base of CSKA Moscow early in the morning again. As a scout, it seemed to be his duty to find talented players for his club. Of course, in this day and age, all geniuses are already being watched. Nowadays, social information is becoming more and more developed, and almost no genius will not be known. The battle for good seedlings among European giants has already reached players under the age of ten… Those seven or eight-year-old players, as long as their parents upload a video of their children playing football to a video website, they may be targeted by European scouts.

Speaking of developed information… Panchenko looked at the newspaper and啧啧啧啧. The aurora phenomenon, which was usually invisible, suddenly appeared in the sky over Moscow in the middle of last night. The situation at that time could be described as a sensation throughout the city. Even people who were asleep were called up to appreciate this spectacle.

Panchenko was not asleep at the time, and he also saw the spectacle. It was indeed very surprising, because Russia's latitude cannot see the aurora. Moreover, this aurora was very strange. He had seen the aurora many times in Saint Petersburg, but he had never seen such a beautiful aurora—the seven colors seemed to be flowing, constantly alternating and changing. He, who had seen many auroras, was stunned by the scene in front of him.

What happened in the middle of the night yesterday, or to be precise, early this morning, he saw detailed reports in the newspaper now.

With pictures and texts, many people were interviewed, including ordinary eyewitnesses and experts and scholars, who tried to analyze the matter from a scientific perspective.

Not only the newspaper, but also the news program in the morning played the video of the aurora. In addition, all the discussions about the aurora were on the radio and on the Internet. Everyone was very interested, because in Moscow, you cannot see the aurora, and it is so beautiful.

However, Panchenko did not put all his attention on this matter. The aurora was certainly beautiful, and it was very rare for it to appear over Moscow, but it had little to do with him.

He thought of the number he gave to the oriental teenager yesterday and looked down at his mobile phone.

There was no movement all night.

Maybe they thought he was a liar?

Panchenko laughed. He had been a professional scout for twenty-five years, and it was the first time he had been mistaken for a liar.

The father and son said that they had met scammers who claimed to be scouts in Italy, so what other things had they experienced? He was suddenly very interested in the story of why the father and son appeared at the training ground of CSKA Moscow and why they begged for a trial opportunity…

Before coming to Russia, they had also been to Italy? So had they been to other countries? Did they just go to each club to promote their son?

That's really… Panchenko didn't know what to say.

Just then, his phone suddenly rang!

"Hello, is that… Mr. Ruslan Panchenko?" A not-so-standard English sounded on the phone.

"Yes, it's me."

"I am… uh, I am the person you left your phone number to yesterday. You wanted us to try out at Zenit Saint Petersburg. I said I would discuss it with my dad…"

"Yes, yes, yes, I remember." Panchenko was very happy to receive this kid's call, at least the father and son chose to trust him. In fact, he was indeed a bit abrupt yesterday, but he was afraid of losing the opportunity here and not being able to find them in the vast sea of people, so he was so straightforward… which inevitably made people suspicious.

"Um… when can we go to Saint Petersburg?"

"It depends on when you plan to go? Aren't you planning to visit Moscow…"

"We can go now!" Chen Yingxiong interrupted Panchenko.

"That's great, what's your address? I'll pick you up!" After asking for the address, Panchenko started his old "Lada" car and left the parking lot outside the gate of CSKA Moscow's training base.

Is a person who is eighteen years old and has not been discovered yet, and needs to be sold door-to-door, a genius?

Panchenko didn't know, he only knew that he had seen something from the big guy's performance yesterday that excited him.

He didn't know if this kid really had talent, but he was willing to give him a chance.