Thanks to Schneider, Zhou Yi earned a hundred euros. For his parents, this hundred euros was almost a third of their respective salaries.

He also got a kiss from a beautiful woman, although that beautiful woman was just putting on a show.

But no matter what, after this trip to the bar, Zhou Yi's homesickness-induced moodiness finally improved.

Young people are always easily distracted, and even if they are in a bad mood, it won't last too long, otherwise they'll become depressed.

And Zhou Yi is clearly not the type of person to get depressed.

On Christmas Eve, Zhou Yi called his parents in China, reported on his recent situation, and wished them a happy holiday.

On the phone, his father was still long-winded, and his mother still didn't say much.

Listening to his parents' voices, Zhou Yi's restless heart completely calmed down.

In the month he had been away from home, Zhou Yi had gained an unprecedented understanding of the concept of "home."

Before, home was a very bookish concept. Whenever he thought of "home," it had no meaning other than the dictionary definition.

But now, Zhou Yi's understanding of "home" was more real and profound.

Whenever he felt depressed or frustrated, he would regain the motivation to continue fighting as soon as he thought of his parents at home.

He had seen the saying "home is a safe haven" in books before.

But Zhou Yi felt that if "home" was a harbor, it wasn't for sheltering from the wind, but for refueling and resupplying.

Home is the starting point of every journey and the place of return after every journey.

Home is the beginning and the end.

Home is the brightest star in the night sky. Whenever a traveler is lost in the darkness, looking up at the night sky, that brightest star can always guide him to find the direction to move forward, giving him the courage to continue.

After ending the call with his parents, Mark's family had a very rich Christmas Eve dinner in the local time that evening.

Even Konata, who rarely came home, had returned.

The girl who seemed arrogant and aggressive outside had put away her sharpness at home and looked like an ordinary daughter and sister.

Zhou Yi found it really hard to connect her appearance to her performance in the bar that day.

Konata also acted very normal after seeing him. Both her eyes and expression showed no embarrassment. It seemed that she had forgotten that passionate moment she had shared with him.

On the other hand, Zhou Yi was a little embarrassed when he saw Konata. His eyes would always fall involuntarily on her lips, savoring the feeling of that kiss.

Zhou Yi had fantasized about his first kiss, but none of his fantasies involved a dimly lit, noisy foreign bar and a woman who didn't seem to like him.

Seeing that Konata didn't seem to care about the kiss at all, Zhou Yi couldn't help but marvel at how open-minded foreign women were. At the same time, he couldn't help but wonder if Konata was very experienced in that area? Otherwise, why would she be so composed?

Thinking like this, Zhou Yi's heart became a little confused.

Could such an arrogant woman be so open-minded in that area?

Zhou Yi felt it was too contradictory. He couldn't understand or imagine it...

"Zhou Yi, Zhou Yi!"

Mark was calling him, bringing him back to his senses.

"Huh?"

"Merry Christmas!" Mark's mother, Mrs. Wagner, handed him a well-packaged gift box. "This is your first Christmas with our family, Zhou Yi. I hope you like this little gift."

Seeing the gift, Zhou Yi hesitated, "But I didn't prepare a gift..."

"Hey, you don't need to prepare a gift." Mark said quickly, "Just accept it!"

Zhou Yi thanked Mrs. Wagner and accepted the gift.

He remembered that foreigners seemed to have to open gifts on the spot to be polite, but just as he was about to open the gift, Old Wagner handed him another gift box: "Merry Christmas, Zhou Yi!"

"Thank you, Uncle Wagner." Zhou Yi took the gift.

Mark also handed over a gift: "I have a gift too!"

"Thank you, Mark! But I don't have a return gift, so I'll just give you a kiss!" Zhou Yi joked and went to kiss Mark.

"Thank you, but I'm not interested in men!" Mark quickly dodged.

The two clowns made Wagner's parents laugh.

But after Zhou Yi and Mark finished fooling around, he saw Konata's smiling face: "I have a gift too. Merry Christmas."

When he saw Konata, the expression on Zhou Yi's face was a little awkward.

He always felt that there was some other deeper meaning in the faint smile on Konata's face. Was it mockery, or was she teasing him?

Because the word "kiss" was what he joked with Mark, and it also happened to be a keyword between him and Konata.

Did his joke make Konata misunderstand something?

He quickly accepted Konata's gift and said thank you.

Now that all the gifts were collected, it was time to open them.

The gift-givers seemed to be more excited and expectant than the gift-receivers. Mark and his mother kept urging Zhou Yi to open the gifts.

Zhou Yi opened them in the order he received them. The first one was from Mrs. Wagner. Inside was a scarf of very good quality. Zhou Yi wrapped it around his neck and immediately felt a warm sensation around his neck.

Mrs. Wagner smiled when she saw Zhou Yi wearing the scarf, "It looks quite good on you. Fortunately, I was afraid the color wouldn't match."

"Thank you, Mrs. Wagner. I like it very much!"

Old Wagner gave him a pair of sneakers. Zhou Yi also tried them on. They fit very well and were very comfortable to wear.

Mark gave him a... PS3 controller.

"A limited edition, exclusive to you!" Mark said proudly.

Zhou Yi looked at the black controller in his hand. It looked very ordinary, not like a limited edition at all. As for how it was exclusive to him, he couldn't tell at all.

"Turn it over," Mark said.

Zhou Yi turned the controller over and found that the Chinese character "Zhou" was crookedly engraved on the back of the controller with a knife... A perfectly good controller was messed up with knife marks.

"Mark-made, Zhou Yi exclusive limited edition controller! Only one in the world!" Mark announced triumphantly, raising his hands after Zhou Yi discovered this.

Zhou Yi suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and said, "Thank you very much!"

"You're welcome, you're welcome, hehe!" Mark didn't hear the irony in Zhou Yi's tone at all.

Finally, there was only the gift from Konata left.

After Zhou Yi opened the simple packaging, a book appeared before his eyes. The title of the book was...

"How to Get Out of Being Single. Study hard, Chinese boy." Konata winked at Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi looked at her smile, listened to her tone, and then looked down at the book in his hand. He felt a deep sense of... malice from Konata!

Was she mocking him for being a virgin!

Damn it, what's wrong with being a virgin! Virgins have human rights too, virgins have dignity too!

So Zhou Yi glared at Konata fiercely, but the face of Konata, who was glared at by him, still had a faint smile, as if she was mocking Zhou Yi.

※※※

Christmas is the most important holiday in the West, similar in importance to the Chinese New Year.

Therefore, during the Christmas period, the Bundesliga will be suspended and have a holiday.

German football is different from English football. There is a winter break in Germany.

The winter break generally lasts from mid-December to the end of January or early February before the competition restarts. Players can enjoy a half-month vacation to fully relax and rest, and then gather in early January to start training and prepare for the second half of the season.

On the eve of Christmas, the most important thing in German football is the ownership of the winter break champion.

This year, the winter break champion unexpectedly belonged to a small team, a very, very small team—Hoffenheim, from a small town with a population of only three thousand.

This team was only promoted from the Second Bundesliga this season. When they first entered the Bundesliga, no one took them seriously. Analysts judged that they would be relegated back to the Second Bundesliga after one season. The Bundesliga was not a game that small teams like them could afford to play.

But when the league started, Hoffenheim shocked the entire Germany, and even Europe, with an unbelievable performance.

They achieved a record of eleven wins, two draws, and four losses in seventeen league games, and finally won the winter break championship!

This simply stunned the entire Germany.

You know, in the Bundesliga, the winter break champion has a very important meaning. Statistics show that there is a 70% probability that the team that wins the winter break championship will eventually win the league championship. In the forty-five-year history of the Bundesliga, thirty-one winter break champions have eventually been crowned.

Around Christmas, whether it was television, newspapers, the internet, or radio, everyone was discussing whether Hoffenheim would repeat the "Kaiserslautern miracle."

Kaiserslautern ranked last in the Bundesliga in the 1995-1996 season and was relegated to the Second Bundesliga. In the second season, they returned to the Bundesliga as the first place in the Second Bundesliga, and in the 1997-1998 season, their first season back in the Bundesliga, they won the league championship.

However, if Hoffenheim could win the Bundesliga championship, their magic would be even greater than that of Kaiserslautern that year.

Because Kaiserslautern was actually a strong team before being relegated. They had won the Bundesliga championship in the 1990-1991 season. This was a team with a foundation.

But what about Hoffenheim? In 1989, they were still a small team that entertained themselves, playing in the seventh-tier league in Germany, and were relegated to the eighth-tier league that year...

Then they started seven consecutive leaps and shocked the world this season.

This matter had a great impact, and even in Dortmund, people could be seen discussing Hoffenheim everywhere.

A grassroots team was able to win the Bundesliga half-season championship, and they became a model of inspiration.

It also brought a lot of inspiration to Zhou Yi.

In his opinion, Hoffenheim was his role model. What they could do, he could also do.

Hoffenheim killed their way to the first place in the Bundesliga, why couldn't he also complete a three-level jump in the Dortmund youth team?

From U17 to U19, and then to the first team!

So even during the vacation, Zhou Yi did not forget to persist in his physical training.

His biggest problem now was that his physical fitness was not good. The physical coach, Bartlet, told him that jogging at a constant speed in the park could not improve his physical fitness. The most important thing for physical fitness was the recovery ability during the interval.

So he changed his strategy. Instead of jogging at a constant speed in the park, he would sprint for a while, then switch to jogging, and then continue to sprint at full speed after jogging for a distance.

He repeated this cycle, training his body's ability to recover aerobically after anaerobic exercise.