Chapter 62: The Voice of Youth (6)
Inside the stadium, the three most formidable men all coincidentally requested ten minutes of free time.
They made their way to the spectator stands together.
After the China Open, Lin Yiyang had done the same—no one could find him. Without needing to guess, Jiang Yang led a group of juniors from East New City straight to the stands and caught him red-handed.
It was a habit from their youth.
Lin Yiyang found a seat with a good view.
Jiang Yang sat beside him, while Meng Xiaodong took the outermost spot.
The vast stadium, now emptied of cheers and applause, felt as if none of it had ever happened.
Lin Yiyang finally shed the constricting shirt and short sleeves he had been wearing, now dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. His right arm remained immobile, while his left draped over the back of the seat as he gazed at the table under the lights. "I envy you two—you never left."
The golden years of life come only once. Regret was useless; they had already passed.
Meng Xiaodong smiled faintly, his gaze fixed on the same spot as Lin Yiyang. "And I envy your talent. I’ve been jealous since we were kids."
For someone who had always sailed smoothly through life, it was Lin Yiyang who first taught him what "defeat" felt like.
Jiang Yang removed his glasses. He had worn contact lenses all day during the competition and had just switched back to frames, his eyes unbearably dry. Propping his chin on one hand, he also stared at the table. "What’s with the mutual admiration between you two geniuses?"
In this field, the truly talented started competing and winning championships at twelve or thirteen. Jiang Yang, however, had only joined the club at fourteen. It was a regret. Though he and Lin Yiyang had become disciples in the same year, Jiang Yang had won a national championship a year earlier than him. Yet, despite pushing himself to such extremes, he was still labeled as a "hardworking, persevering" player—one with "little natural talent" who didn’t secure a true victory until eighteen.
"How have you been treating yourself all these years?" Jiang Yang asked Lin Yiyang. "Still dealing with old injuries?"
"Are there any athletes without injuries?" Lin Yiyang replied. "Whatever you’ve got, I’ve got just as many."
Hundreds of thousands of repetitive motions, day after day—even machines would break down. Everyone was the same. No exceptions.
Meng Xiaodong glanced at the two of them.
Jiang Yang, having faced off against Meng Xiaodong for years, knew him best. "Got something to say?"
"At the end of the year before last, I had surgery too," Meng Xiaodong admitted. Aside from his father, no one else knew.
"So that’s why you suddenly went into seclusion overseas for a year," Jiang Yang finally understood why Meng Xiaodong’s performance had fluctuated so much. "The Young Master’s pride really is sky-high."
Meng Xiaodong stared at Jiang Yang in silence. This is exactly why we can’t be brothers.
...
As expected, Jiang Yang still had Meng Xiaodong completely pinned down. Some things never changed.
A staff member walked onto the court, turning off the lights one by one. The stadium grew darker, while the moonlight and lights outside became increasingly vivid.
Just before the last light was switched off, someone finally noticed the three of them below and waved, signaling that they were about to leave. The person pointed outside the billiards hall and called out, "Your fans are still waiting out there!"
Jiang Yang chuckled in acknowledgment and patted Lin Yiyang’s back. "Let’s go."
Meng Xiaodong and Jiang Yang headed for the spectator exit.
Lin Yiyang, however, took the stairs on the other side down to the court. Today, he didn’t have the energy to vault over the railing and jump from the stands as usual, but he still followed his old route—cutting through the court to reach the backstage.
"Why do you always walk through the middle?" This mystery had puzzled Meng Xiaodong for years."He wants to touch the table—he always does this after every match." Every athlete has their own victory celebration, but Lin Yiyang doesn’t. At most, he’ll give a brief wave and that’s it.
His ritual comes after the match, when no one is around. He walks across the court to bid farewell to the table.
……
Lin Yiyang walked out from the darkened court, passing by the billiards table. He ran his fingers along the edge of the table and paused for a moment. Outside, he knew, there were lights, fans, and all the boys from his past.
But here, he was reminded of the backstage lounge when he was thirteen.
The younger ones were always seated at the outermost row, right by the door, resting in front of the lockers.
Jiang Yang, the reigning champion, was surrounded by admirers in the lounge. Meng Xiaodong, the young master of North City, was talked about endlessly even before he arrived. And Lin Yiyang? He was just that nameless boy sitting at the edge of a chair, not wearing a shirt or dress pants, not polishing his cue, not chatting with anyone.
That day, Fan Wencong was there too, as was Wu Wei. Chen Anan was still too young to compete.
Wu Wei, wearing small glasses, sat back-to-back with Lin Yiyang, solving problems in a workbook on his lap. Meanwhile, Fan Wencong burst into the lounge, gripping a spare cue borrowed from the referee, and shouted, "My Golden Cudgel has arrived! Where’s the Buddha? Where are the heavenly soldiers?"
A dozen boys turned to look.
No shame at all… Jiang Yang thought.
This is East New City’s crowd? Meng Xiaodong mused.
Lin Yiyang… didn’t think anything at all.
The voices of those boys—whether laughing or rowdy—still lingered.
In that tournament, he was the one who swept through like a storm, the one who stood tall, the one who made a single mistake and was crushed under the Five Finger Mountain, and the one who endured eighty-one trials to return here.
All glory in this world is forged through countless trials—without exception.
Backstage, the Chinese team hadn’t left yet, and neither had many other national teams. The fans outside were too enthusiastic, and the organizers wouldn’t let them exit, mainly to avoid crowd surges. They had to wait until the fans dispersed.
For a city without any Opens, this might be the only chance to see so many Asian star players. No one wanted to leave. Since there were no more matches, and with Wi-Fi available, everyone was watching movies, playing games, or scrolling through social media.
The team doctor spotted Lin Yiyang and scolded him quietly before pulling him to the lounge sofa, ordering him to sit still and not run around anymore.
Lin Yiyang scanned the lounge but didn’t see the person he wanted to see.
His phone vibrated, as if answering him.
Yin Guo sent a friend recommendation— Fruit in the Woods .
Lin Yiyang smiled.
This girl and her antics…
He guessed it was Yin Guo’s alternate account and added it.
After being accepted—
Fruit in the Woods: Check my Moments.
Lin Yiyang sat on the sofa and scrolled through the posts on this alternate account.
His thumb slid down the screen, torn between reaching the bottom and stopping. Every word that flashed past his eyes felt like a hook, pulling at him, urging him to pause and read carefully.
It was a chronicle of their long-distance relationship. Thankfully, he made it to the very first post.
Day 1: A photo of a return flight ticket.
"Zheng Yi’s been warning me—she says none of the long-distance couples she knows have worked out. Will we be the exception?"
Zheng Yi? Oh, her best friend.
Day 2:
"What are you doing right now?"
Lin Yiyang checked the post time. What else would I be doing…? Sleeping. Day 3.
"I want to see him. Zheng Yi says I might be crazy."
This best friend really needs to meet him—why can't she say anything nice?
……
He thought these little diary entries would be enough for him to read over and over again.
So he started skipping ahead.
Day 60.
"He called me, and there was a woman talking in the background, babbling with a heavy accent—couldn’t make out what she was saying. Asked him who it was, and he said he didn’t know her, just some woman who wanted a one-night stand with him???"
Lin Yiyang remembered that. The woman had directly asked if he wanted to go to her place for drinks and spend the night. When Yin Guo asked, he told her the truth, thinking she had heard everything since he was on the phone and didn’t see a reason to hide it.
Day 61.
"Tried probing him about it today, but he didn’t want to talk much… signs of a breakup…"
That was truly unfair. It had been a party, and after the girl saw he wasn’t interested, she gave up and started getting rowdy with others. Someone slipped something into her drink, and Lin Yiyang subtly signaled a friend to intervene and negotiate with those guys, making sure she stayed safe. He didn’t think it was worth mentioning—how did that become a sign of a breakup?
Lin Yiyang stared at this date for a long time, finally concluding it must have been—the three-month unstable phase.
Day 62.
"Video called today. He was shirtless, showing me his tattoo. Crisis averted."
…Averted way too easily.
Lin Yiyang’s fingers scrolled aimlessly across the screen, searching for the days around her birthday.
An important meeting. This time, it was a screenshot—words from a notes app. Apparently, the character limit on social media wasn’t enough for her to express her feelings that day.
"His dark circles were so heavy. When he opened the hotel room door barefoot, it was obvious he’d been exhausted and asleep. The room was pretty big, and so was the bed. Even holding his hand felt unfamiliar. Later, he sat by the desk while I was on the couch, facing each other. I really wanted to hug him, but since he didn’t make the first move, I felt too shy to… Luckily, he eventually pulled me into his arms. He just smelled like the stale airplane air—without a shower, nothing else could happen…"
The following description, from a girl’s perspective, recounted how they showered together that day. Yin Guo was initially hesitant, not fully comfortable, until Lin Yiyang held her and kissed her for over ten minutes, leaving her dazed and finally overcoming her mental barrier. The main issue was the overwhelming unfamiliarity after so long apart.
He was afraid too—that the distance would dilute her feelings for him. There was no other way but to be intimate.
That day was the most unsettling since they got together, even more than the days apart after New York. Being face-to-face yet feeling distant was terrifying.
Afraid that meeting might be their last… that their relationship would fade away after.
No one could be confident enough to believe they’d have a love that never changed. The more you cared, the more you feared losing it—in that regard, there was no difference between genders.
After the shower, she shooed him out, still in that early-relationship mindset, not wanting him to see her get dressed, especially since she had to deal with her period.
In the short time it took her to dress, Lin Yiyang fell asleep again.
He had rushed back from the Open, without a moment’s rest. Losing the match had left him in a mediocre mood, sustained only by the thought of seeing her. The shower relaxed his nerves, and the moment he let his guard down, his eyelids grew heavy the second his head hit the pillow.Before long, he heard the door click. She seemed to have taken the keycard and stepped out. When she returned, she was holding a plastic bag... The next thing he knew, the bed dipped slightly as her cool calf in a wool skirt brushed against his fingers.
His shoulder felt warm, and he could sense her fingers tracing the edges of the medicated patch, pressing it firmly into place.
After his shower, he had removed his clothes and peeled off the old patch. She had noticed and asked if it was an old injury.
Lin Yiyang glanced at the box—it was the same type he always kept in his medicine cabinet in New York. Yin Guo had seen it before, remembered it, and gone out specifically to find it. "I have something better," she said, rubbing the patch between her palms before applying it. "I'll mail you a few boxes next time."
His hand traveled up from her calf. "Another win? At the Open?"
Her eyes sparkled with laughter as she nodded.
But he had lost this match.
Yin Guo tucked the leftover plastic film from the patch back into the bag, picked up her phone, and nestled into the crook of his left shoulder to show him her prize money savings. "Guess how much I have saved now?" Like a child proudly displaying a treasure, she opened her online banking app and tapped a few lines. "These are all investments that can be withdrawn same-day."
"Same-day withdrawals have low interest rates. You should invest long-term." Still such a young girl, not thinking much about her situation—living at home with minimal expenses, no need to buy a house or car. Might as well invest in long-term products.
"What if you need emergency funds? Wouldn’t that be a hassle?"
Her voice was so close to his face, warm breath brushing against him.
Similar words had been spoken a year ago in a Washington hotel—
"If you ever need money, just tell me."
Lin Yiyang remained silent, leaning wearily against the white pillow, his hand resting on her waist. Her soft sweater carried her body heat. He thought about how pretty this outfit was—not something he had bought. Since meeting her, all her clothes, shoes, and bags had been beautiful, none of them his doing. Not a single piece of jewelry on her was his gift either. So how exactly had he managed to win her over? Sweet talk? None. His face? Passable at best, far from his youthful looks.
A seafood meal? A drink? The cost had been laughably low.
He was reflecting on himself.
In his arms, she had been admiring her hard-earned prize money when she suddenly noticed the time—she had to leave. She looked up at him, and Lin Yiyang leaned down to kiss her. Their lips met without urgency, lingering for a while before they pulled back, gazing at each other and smiling.
He had never seen her so sad, smiling through her sadness.
"What’s wrong?" he asked.
"Will you really go back to China?"
The words laid bare the biggest cloud hanging over them that night—their unease about the future.
He nodded, stroking her long hair.
That was all that happened that night.
Lin Yiyang couldn’t bear to look any longer, though he knew he would revisit this memory countless times in the future.
He closed the image.
Then he noticed that on the same day, after returning home, she had posted another update on her social media—a single line in English:
"You know you know I love you so."
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