Chapter 19 A Reunion in the Locker Room

Having shaken off Mark, Zhou Yi pushed open the locker room door alone. To his surprise, everyone was already there, and there was one more person than usual.

The one surrounded by his teammates in the middle… Mario Götze!

Zhou Yi spotted him instantly.

Götze noticed someone entering and turned towards the door, seeing Zhou Yi.

He was visibly surprised upon seeing Zhou Yi, an incredulous expression on his childlike face. He immediately abandoned everyone present and walked straight toward Zhou Yi.

Standing before Zhou Yi, he scrutinized him from head to toe, a gaze that made Zhou Yi feel uneasy.

He turned to seek help from Mark, only to realize he’d left him behind.

He leaned back slightly and asked, "Are you nearsighted?"

Götze, hearing this, paused. "You can speak German?"

"What language did you think you were hearing?" Zhou Yi retorted.

"No, why can you speak German?"

"I learned it," Zhou Yi replied, beginning to think this kid had some issues.

Götze seemed to realize his question was foolish and tried to salvage his image. "No, that’s not what I meant. I meant, why are you here?"

Zhou Yi rolled his eyes. "What, am I not allowed to be here? I was scouted by Borussia Dortmund for my outstanding performance, and then I came… Isn't that normal?"

He was now questioning his long-held impression of Götze.

He hadn't thought this kid was so dumb when they exchanged jerseys…

Could it be because he didn't speak German at the time, so they hadn't communicated much?

The group of U17 players watched Götze and Zhou Yi's exchange, feeling awkward. After that match, Götze had taken the initiative to exchange jerseys with Zhou Yi, so they all assumed the two were on good terms. Who would have thought this reunion would feel so strange… Were they friends or not?

"Oh, oh…" Götze seemed to understand. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. I actually meant…"

Zhou Yi mentally rolled his eyes countless times. *Which* did you mean?

Still, Götze's realization that his words might have offended Zhou Yi prevented Zhou Yi from actually thinking he and Götze were enemies…

From their brief interaction, Zhou Yi concluded that while Götze might be a bit slow, he wasn't malicious.

His assessment was immediately proven correct.

Seeing that he couldn't explain himself clearly for the moment, Götze simply extended his hand. "Hi! Anyway, congratulations on joining Borussia Dortmund! It was the right choice!"

The explanation was sincere enough, and Zhou Yi shook his hand.

Then he asked the question that was on his mind. "Didn't you go to the first team? Why did I hear you went back to the U19s?"

The smile vanished from Götze's face at this question. He said with a sigh, "There's no way around it. The competition in the first team is too fierce, and I can’t get any playing time."

Zhou Yi hadn't expected Götze to so openly admit the troubles he was facing on the first team without trying to hide anything.

This changed Zhou Yi's opinion of Götze once again.

Götze then clenched his fist and said, "But I won't stay in the U19s for long. I'll train and play in the U19s with the first team as my goal!"

"That’s the spirit! My goal is also the first team!" Zhou Yi said.

"Keep it up. I'll be waiting for you on the first team!" Götze said with a smile.

After chatting with Zhou Yi, Götze waved to his teammates behind him. "Goodbye, everyone!"

The teammates enthusiastically said goodbye as well. Götze turned and left, brushing past Mark at the door without noticing him.

Mark, watching Götze's retreating figure, was stunned. "Mario?! What was he doing here?"

Zhou Yi was clearly preoccupied. He said casually, "He seemed to be visiting old teammates."

"Ahhh! I'm also his old teammate! I missed him!" Mark lamented regretfully.

Zhou Yi ignored him, continuing to ponder his own problem.

What concerned him was what Mark had told him yesterday, which had caused him to be momentarily distracted, leading to Mark intercepting the ball and breaking into the penalty area.

If a talented player like Götze couldn't get playing time on the first team and had to return to the U19s…

The competition on the first team was much fiercer than he had imagined.

It seemed that getting to play on the first team was not going to be easy, and realizing his dream would be more difficult than he'd thought.

But should he back down because of this?

No.

If he was going to give up, he should have given up when he was sitting on the scorching bench during the national finals of *Green Field Inheritor*, not now.

He had already glimpsed a beautiful new world through the crack in the door, seen a completely different scenery. How could he even think of giving up now?

"Hey, Mark. I want to go to the first team," he said to Mark.

Mark, who was regretting not being able to talk to Götze, stopped pulling at his hair upon hearing Zhou Yi's words.

"I want to too! But wanting doesn't mean it will…" he scoffed, but he stopped midway, remembering what Zhou Yi had seriously said to him yesterday.

*If you really want to realize your dream, then you have to truly go all out.*

"Zhou Yi… are you going to go all out?" he asked, uncertain.

"Of course," Zhou Yi said. "I won't stay here for long. I'm going to the U19s, and then to the first team, in the near future. We'll go together then, Mark!"

Mark was doubtful. "Me too… Can I?"

"Why not? Have you forgotten your advantages?" Zhou Yi said. "Besides, we can do special training!"

"Special training?" Mark's eyes widened, unable to understand how they would train.

"Yes, special training!" Zhou Yi nodded firmly, as if he already had a complete training plan.

※※※

Later, Zhou Yi regretted telling Mark about the special training, because from then on, Mark kept asking him how they would train all day long, like a fly buzzing incessantly in his ear, impossible to shoo away.

Even after club training ended, as Zhou Yi sat in the car driven by old Wagner, Mark was still asking, "Why aren't we doing special training yet? We're about to leave the training ground!"

"We're not training here," Zhou Yi said.

"Not here?" Mark was surprised, then he frowned. "Let me think… Okay, there's a soccer field near my house, but there are usually a lot of people playing there, so we might not have space for our special training…"

"We're not training on a soccer field either," Zhou Yi said.

"Not training on a soccer field? Is it the gym?"

"We're not training in the gym either."

"This… This I don't understand, Zhou Yi. If we're not on the soccer field or in the gym, where else can we train?"

"In your PS3," Zhou Yi had to answer.

Mark looked at Zhou Yi like he was an alien. After a long while, he realized and said to Zhou Yi, "Zhou Yi, if you want to play *Pro Evolution Soccer*, you don't have to beat around the bush like this…"

Zhou Yi rolled his eyes at him. "That's why I didn't want to say it. You keep asking me, but you can't understand even when I say it. So just wait patiently for the special training. Don't worry, it will definitely be proper special training!"

Mark had no choice but to shut up.

He felt that what Zhou Yi was doing was beyond his comprehension, but since Zhou Yi was so sure, he would just wait and see what kind of special training it would be…

※※※

After dinner, Zhou Yi had to go to his room to receive tutoring from his language teacher, which felt like an eternity to Mark next door.

Seeing that time was running out, he really didn't know how Zhou Yi was going to train him.

Training in the game? It seemed impossible no matter how he thought about it.

What was Zhou Yi going to do?

Finally, an hour passed, and Zhou Yi's teacher left after saying goodbye to Zhou Yi and the old Wagner couple. Mark couldn't wait to grab Zhou Yi. "Special training, special training!"

"Okay, okay, I'll be right there," Zhou Yi said, going straight to Mark's room.

Turning on the console, starting the game, entering the game, but Zhou Yi didn't choose the usual versus mode. Instead, he entered player edit mode.

Then Zhou Yi began to concentrate on… sculpting the face.

Mark was very impatient at first, but when he realized… Zhou Yi was sculpting *him*, he became interested. "Hey, this isn't right. My eyes are clearly bigger! Here, here, the hairstyle isn't right… And here, my lips are quite sexy!"

Zhou Yi was too lazy to argue with him, so he patted him and pointed to the door.

"What?"

"Go look in the mirror yourself. Go see the huge gap between fantasy and reality."

"Hey!"

Eventually, Zhou Yi finally finished sculpting Mark's face, which was about seven-tenths similar to the real Mark. There was no way to make it more similar, because this generation of games could only be sculpted to this extent. After all, this wasn't one of those professional face-sculpting games.

After sculpting the face, Zhou Yi began to set the virtual Mark's body shape. But he didn't ask Mark at all. He directly entered the height and weight data, and he entered it correctly. Mark was a little surprised beside him. "You actually know how tall I am! You actually know how much I weigh!"

Zhou Yi couldn't explain it. He couldn't say that he had already seen Mark's height and weight data in the virtual FIFA Online 3 world, right?

With the body shape set, it was time to choose the jersey and attire. Zhou Yi followed Mark's habits in training.

Finally, it was time for the key setting of various attributes.

The data in *Pro Evolution Soccer* and FIFA Online 3 weren't exactly the same, but they were largely the same. Some data just had different names, but the meaning was the same.

So Zhou Yi set each item without stopping or hesitating.

Mark's mouth didn't stop during the process.

"This isn't right! How can my speed be so slow? My strength can't be this low! …And, and, the most unbearable thing is *this*! How can my shooting stat only be forty-four! I'm a striker! This data is worse than a defender, right?"

Zhou Yi stared at Mark's clamor and finally set the last data item, pressed save and return, and Mark's overall score appeared on the screen: fifty-two.

"All the data is based on your true abilities. There is absolutely no problem. This is your true strength in the soccer world, Mark," Zhou Yi said finally.

Of course, all this data was directly copied from the FIFA Online 3 set of attributes. That was a system that perfectly mapped reality, and the attribute scores for each player were accurate.

Mark Wagner's overall score wasn't even as high as Zhou Yi's.

Zhou Yi now had an overall score of sixty-two. In the seventeen-year-old age group, this overall score was already worthy of the media's labels of "teen prodigy" and "star of tomorrow."

Mark stared at the overall score in stunned silence.