After the sports meet, the trio from the Family Compound went together to the hospital cafeteria for a meal. Huan'er's mother, as the parent representative, came downstairs to greet them. During the meal, noticing the medical tape on her daughter's hand, her tone immediately turned serious, "What did you get injected with?"
"Glucose." Having been too caught up in the excitement, Huan'er had completely forgotten about it. She pulled off the tape, and as she did, a bruise appeared around the needle mark, the previously flat skin now resembling a small, sudden hill.
Chen Ma grabbed her hand, scolding first, "Didn't I tell you not to get injections casually? Didn't I tell you!"
This sudden outburst startled Jing Qichi and Song Cong, who were eating. In their memories, Aunt Lina was humorous and lighthearted, the type who would dismiss even the sky falling with a casual "it's no big deal." She wasn't nagging, strict, or competitive—even when Chen Huan'er ranked second to last in exams, she thought it was fine, and after paying a hefty school selection fee, Huan'er still got a laptop as a reward. In short, if there were a martial arts contest for the best parent in the compound, Chen Ma would be like the young Guo Jing, effortlessly reaching the pinnacle.
Moreover, the white-coated residents here had seen it all. Most of the time, they were the type to calmly say "just dab some iodine on it" when a child fell and bled—judging severity was second nature to them, something they could do blindfolded.
But now, an experienced medical professional was overreacting to a slightly bruised IV mark—wasn't this making a mountain out of a molehill?
Huan'er tried to brush it off, mumbling, "Got it, it's no big deal."
But Chen Ma wasn't letting go, gripping her daughter's fingers tightly. "Answer me. Didn't I tell you?"
Each word was deliberate, the atmosphere freezing over.
"Auntie, today..." Song Cong, sitting next to Chen Ma, tried to explain. After all, he had suggested the IV, and though he didn't understand why she was angry, he felt responsible. Huan'er cut him off, "You did. I won't do it again."
"There won't be a next time." Chen Ma's attention returned to the hand. "The school nurse did this?"
Huan'er quickly defended, "Yes, but it's not the teacher's fault. Don't go to the school. I pulled it out myself because I was in a hurry to watch the race..."
"Careless!" Chen Ma snapped again.
"Um, Auntie..." Jing Qichi started but was pinched under the table by Huan'er, letting out a yelp.
"Just eat," Chen Ma said curtly, clearly still angry. A timely phone call saved Chen Huan'er. Chen Ma gave her daughter one last glare before answering and hurrying off.
"Occupational hazard," Chen Huan'er said with a bright smile to her friends. Seeing their confusion, she waved it off. "Ever heard of professional rivalry? My mom looks down on school nurses."
Jing Qichi went home and collapsed into bed. Half-asleep, he was roused by his mother—it was already dark, the exhaustion and tension of the past two days finally easing.It was rare for both busy parents to be home on time. After dinner, the family of three gathered in the living room to watch a soccer match. His love for the sport was inherited from his father—since he was babbling as a toddler, the TV at home was always tuned to sports channels. Even before he could walk steadily, he was already dribbling a ball all over the Family Compound. He had always been more agile than others. When he outmatched his peers, he played with older boys from the compound, remaining the smallest and skinniest on the field. Later, he was sent to after-school soccer classes, attending after school and on weekends. Jing Qichi never found these "extra classes" dull or tedious. On the contrary, he progressed from city-level to provincial-level youth tournaments, with coaches praising him as promising material for a professional career. This led to a disagreement between his parents. His mother was hesitant, considering it a distraction from proper studies, while his father fully supported him and actively sought advice on how to pursue a professional path. This dilemma was beyond the understanding of parents who expected their child to follow the conventional route of studying and finding a job. Even within the Family Compound, no one had treaded this path before. Just as his performance kept improving and his mother began to soften her stance, Jing Qichi suffered a severe injury during a casual match.
The injury affected his bones, and during that period, he saw Song Cong's father far more often than Song Cong himself did.
His mother tightened her stance: "Going to the Football Academy? Don’t even think about it."
Jing Qichi barely resisted. The days spent bedridden left him disheartened, and he had no confidence about whether he could still go pro.
After his recovery, it was his father who secretly took him back to the soccer field, defying his mother’s wishes. His father’s life motto was: Fight until the very last moment.
Jing's Father had once appeared on TV. During a factory fire caused by aging electrical wiring, his face was so blackened by smoke that his features were barely recognizable as he spoke into the camera: "You have to fight until the very last moment, right?"
Jing Qichi resumed training, even though he had already missed his chance with the Football Academy. Long-distance runs, shuttle runs, squats, push-ups—he kept the ball close at all times, training so hard that he sometimes hallucinated it rolling at his feet even when it wasn’t there. Disappointment and frustration never lingered too long because one thing was absolutely certain to him: This wasn’t the last moment yet.
It was his father’s motto—and now his own.
During halftime, he lounged on the sofa, chatting with his parents. "Our class owes Chen Huan'er big time for this sports meet. Who’d have thought she’d score eight points just from the four-thousand-meter race?"
Jing's Father was puzzled. "Eight points?"
"First place," Jing Qichi sat up straight. "Dad, you wouldn’t believe it—she ran ten laps around the track and didn’t even break a sweat."
"Chen Lei didn’t train his daughter for nothing," Jing's Father remarked. "To reach this point, it hasn’t been easy for them as parents, and even harder for little Huan'er."
"It was super easy for her!" Jing Qichi retorted emphatically, recalling the scene from earlier that day. "I’m not exaggerating—even a marathon specialist might not outrun her."
Jing's Mother chuckled. "Speaking of Chen Lei, I bet he’s getting an earful right now."
"Why?" father and son asked in unison.
"Training his daughter so well that she ends up competing in the sports meet—what if she gets hurt?" Jing's Mother shook her head. "Come to think of it, Lina had a face like thunder this afternoon, not cracking a smile for ages."
"Aunt Lina was acting really weird today," Jing Qichi scratched his brow. "The three of us were having lunch in the cafeteria when she suddenly gave Huan'er a serious scolding just because her hand was a little swollen from an IV drip."
"Huan'er is sick? Is it serious?" Jing's Mother asked him."It's not serious. She didn't eat much in the morning, and the long-distance run might have caused low blood sugar," Jing Qichi said dismissively. "After the IV, the school nurse wasn't there, and we were in a hurry to leave. I probably didn't press properly when removing the needle, so it bruised."
Jing's Mother suddenly raised her voice, "Jing Qichi, who told you to remove it? Couldn't you have gone to find the nurse if she wasn't there? Did you have to show off how capable you are?"
Her extreme reaction caught Jing Qichi off guard. He muttered under his breath, "It's just removing a needle, why get so angry?" Besides, Song Cong and Chen Huan'er were cut from the same cloth as him—what was there to show off in front of them? At most, Qi Qi's admiring gaze afterward gave him a small sense of accomplishment, and his mood had indeed been great at that moment. But that was beside the point—at the time, he had only been eager to get the patient to the game.
Jing's Father mediated, "Alright, alright. Son, Huan'er is delicate and younger than you. Aunt Lina and your mom are so close, and we all live in the same compound. You should take care of her and be more considerate."
This was the second time he'd heard this. In his eyes, Chen Huan'er—who had run 4,000 meters without breaking a sweat the day before and then breezed through 1,500 meters the next—had nothing to do with being "delicate."
"Why does everyone say Chen Huan'er is frail?" The boy sat cross-legged on the sofa, looking at his parents. "Aunt Lina said it too."
"None of your business," Jing's Mother snapped unkindly.
"But she—"
"Not watching? Then go do your homework."
"Mom, Mom." Jing Qichi clutched the remote tightly. "The second half has already started."
He didn't plan to press further. He had made a bet with his classmates about this championship game—the losers would have to treat everyone to cola for a week. No matter what, he had to support his team till the end. Besides, he was afraid that digging deeper might lead to something he couldn't handle, like Huan'er not being biologically related and thus not inheriting Uncle Chen's genes. But that didn't quite make sense either—she looked like a perfect blend of both Chen parents. Jing Qichi only vaguely sensed there was a secret about Chen Huan'er, one only the adults knew.
Monday brought the monthly exam as soon as school started, as if the teachers had gone straight from running laps to drafting test papers, seamlessly and diligently. Jing Qichi wasn't stressed to begin with, and Lao Xu treated him—a Special Enrollment Student—with no special favors: if he was sleepy after training, he had to stand during class; if he hadn't finished his homework, no going to the field until it was done; if he missed a problem-solving session during self-study, he had to make it up in the teacher's office. These completely normal demands, which he'd never faced before, made the exam seem easy when the papers were handed out.
Basically, he could remember where almost every question was in the textbook and the context in which the teacher had explained it.
The answers, however, were another story. He remembered the first line of the ancient poem but the exam tested the second; he knew the sentence but got stuck on spelling the word; the auxiliary line should be drawn this way, but where exactly should he start counting? The chemical reaction principle was crystal clear, but would the resulting liquid bubble or not? He couldn't recall.
Everything he knew was in the question stem—the teachers just weren't testing the right things.
But Jing Qichi didn't care. Compared to the exam rankings, he was more concerned about whether his targeted left-foot training had made any progress.
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