Qian Jianjun pondered for a moment: "You said you received a new package and a fax?"
The students seemed prepared to interrogate him, immediately pulling two sheets of paper from a document folder and placing them in his hands: "Stop with these mysterious games! Just tell us what really happened to Teacher Lin!"
After slowly reading through both documents and contemplating for a while, Qian Jianjun finally said: "I don't know what this is about."
"Teacher, you're still pretending!"
As they spoke, the students lifted the document folder higher, displaying various colorful handmade items inside: "You made these crossword puzzles, didn't you? Our teacher said it was you!"
Though it had only been about half a year since these items were last seen, Qian felt a wave of emotion seeing the students bring them out again.
"I did make these, though not alone," he admitted.
"Coach Jiang too! We know you worked together!"
Hearing that name, Qian Jianjun finally looked up. His gaze deeply scanned each of their faces.
Compared to half a year ago, these students had tanned skin and more athletic builds, with a determined look in their eyes that suggested they wouldn't give up until they got answers.
After wrestling with mixed emotions for a moment, Qian Jianjun finally resolved to speak: "You want to know what really happened here?"
"Yes!" the students chorused almost simultaneously.
After another pause, he said slowly: "Then come with me to a place."
Around Qingming Festival, Phoenix Mountain was always shrouded in mist - both from memorial fires and spring mountain vapors.
Qian Jianjun led the students off the bus, where a cool breeze greeted them and pine trees swayed across the mountainside.
Seeing the cemetery ahead, the students began to understand.
They fell completely silent, following Teacher Qian up the mountain path.
As they climbed the stone steps, Qian Jianjun began recounting the story.
His history with Coach Jiang wasn't complicated, and the students already knew most of it.
Years ago, when the country was promoting youth football education, their city happened to have a promising youth team. The old principal made an agreement with the team's coach for special enrollment. Hongjing No. 8 Middle School gained a football team, and that team's coach Jiang Lei joined the physical education department as their colleague.
During the students' first year, the team still had regular training and matches.
But in the second semester, Coach Jiang left.
Tombstones dotted the mountainside as far as the eye could see, with pine needles carpeting the entire stone path.
Taking in the scene, the students finally understood.
"He didn't go to Yongchuan for youth training? He lied to us?" Lin Lu asked incredulously.
"He did go to Yongchuan, but not for youth training. During the school staff physical that year, he was diagnosed with lung cancer - already at an advanced stage. His son brought him to Yongchuan for treatment," Qian Jianjun explained slowly.
Qian glanced at a road sign and turned onto a path to the left.
The students stood frozen in place.
Though they had suspected something when they arrived here, facing such a cruel separation in reality still felt surreal.
A thin mist rose through the mountain wilds.
Teacher Qian continued walking ahead without looking back.
Wang Fa patted the students' shoulders, signaling them to follow.
Qin Ao seemed to wake from a dream: "Then why didn't he tell us?"
Teacher Qian stopped before a tombstone.
The boys followed him over. Two luxuriant pine trees flanked the gravesite, creating a tranquil, cool little world beneath their canopy."I couldn't understand it before either. But our generation might always have this strange mentality of 'doing what's best for the children'." Teacher Qian crouched down, gently brushing away the thick layer of pine needles from the tombstone. "Jiang Lei probably just wanted you to play football happily, without every match being about 'our coach is dying, we must win for the coach.' He said he thought that would make him seem pitiful."
"But he clearly told us he was going to Yongchuan for youth training." Yu Ming's voice sounded lost, like falling ashes.
For the boys, they had always felt complicated about Coach Jiang. Deep down, they felt abandoned. But boys at this age, both proud and rebellious, would never admit it aloud.
"He said as long as we trained hard, and he established himself in Yongchuan's youth training program, we could follow him to the big city to continue playing." Zheng Feiyang said quietly.
But the tombstone before them was undeniably real.
【A lifetime of noble character, a hundred generations of virtuous descendants】
【Tomb of Jiang Lei】
Flanking the tombstone were elegiac couplets, with the name in the center.
Coach Jiang's smiling photo was affixed in the middle.
Only then did the students understand - those final words weren't so much a promise to them, but rather Jiang Lei's encouragement to himself.
If he could recover, there would still be a chance to take the players to Yongchuan, to chase their dreams on bigger green fields.
Unfortunately, that day would never come.
The date on the tombstone showed that Jiang Lei had passed away nearly a year ago.
The boys woke as if from a dream, clutching the document folders in their hands, sinking into greater uncertainty: "Coach Jiang died long ago? Then who gave us these things if not him?"
The students demanded to know the truth.
Teacher Qian stood for a while, then simply sat down on the steps before Jiang Lei's tomb. From his demeanor, he even seemed like he wanted a drink or two. "Jiang Lei cared deeply about you all. While receiving treatment in Yongchuan, he really wanted to know how you were doing. Several teachers from our physical education department, unable to refuse a sick man, helped keep an eye on you for him."
Teacher Qian's words carried profound meaning.
The students knew better than anyone - after Coach Jiang left, harboring hatred they themselves didn't understand, they began wandering aimlessly and giving up on themselves.
Although the school later assigned someone else to coach them, they never trained seriously. Their second-year coursework was difficult too - they were attending a high school they couldn't keep up with, and their grades plummeted. It wasn't until Fu Xinshu's leg injury completely shattered the football team that everyone simply stopped playing.
"Coach Jiang knew about everything we were going through?"
"He knew, and he blamed himself terribly, feeling he had failed you all."
On the narrow stone path of the cemetery, everyone gathered around Teacher Qian. They listened to these deliberately concealed stories, sinking into deeper confusion and silence, until this statement emerged.
"What does this have to do with him?" Fu Xinshu looked up, recovering somewhat from his grief. "Our failures are our own problems, they have nothing to do with Coach Jiang."
"He got sick and had to leave for treatment - that's perfectly normal. We can't say just because he raised us since we were young and taught us football, he's responsible for us our whole lives." Chen Jianghe also spoke with great seriousness.Only at this moment did Qian Jianjun fully realize the profound changes Lin Wanxing and Wang Fa had brought to the children. It wasn’t about their academic progress or improvements in football skills. What mattered most was their clear thinking and ability to distinguish right from wrong—this was the most precious growth.
Qian Jianjun thought that if Jiang Lei could have heard what the students were saying now, he might not have left this world filled with regret.
But the truth was, Jiang Lei had been deeply distressed in his final moments.
He knew that the children he had raised from a young age had become the school’s “problem students.”
He deeply regretted how his own love for football had stubbornly led them down this path.
The children had lost the chance to choose a normal life, and he was powerless to fulfill any of his promises.
They would all die in obscurity, becoming mere dust in the world—the only difference was a matter of time.
So Jiang Lei’s final wish was for the football team—the children he had nurtured from childhood—to be luckier than him, to have the chance to choose their life paths anew.
Everyone has regrets in life.
Among the countless final wishes that fill the universe like stars, very few are truly heard.
But on that day, in this cemetery, Jiang Lei’s wish was heard.
“It must have been a coincidence, but it was also surely fate’s arrangement.”
Qian Jianjun looked up at the sky, then gazed at the stone path ahead.
There, an elderly man was slowly walking toward them, holding a jar of wine.
Qian Jianjun waved at him and called out, “Old Chen, you’re here.”
A gentle breeze swept through the mountains, and another layer of withered pine needles rustled down, creating a thick, soft carpet underfoot.
The old man walked with a slight limp and had thick eyebrows. The students found him somewhat familiar and stared at him for a while.
Soon, the old man reached them.
He directly shoved the wine jar into Chen Jianghe’s hands, pulled three small wine cups from his pocket, placed one in front of Coach Jiang’s grave, and then turned around and scolded, “What are you standing around for, kid? Pour the wine!”
At these words, Chen Jianghe suddenly exclaimed, “Chen… Mr. Chen?”
The old man before them was none other than Lin Wanxing’s predecessor—the former custodian of the sports equipment room at Hongjing No. 8 Middle School.
Memories flooded Chen Jianghe’s mind, and he suddenly asked, “Was it you who put the Ball Borrowing Card in my desk?”
Old Chen didn’t answer him.
He stood up, walked around the pine tree, and headed toward the adjacent grave.
The students followed slowly.
As Old Chen placed the remaining two wine cups in front of the grave next to Coach Jiang’s, the students froze completely the moment they saw the names on the tombstone.
Those two names were all too familiar to them.
Or rather, it wasn’t the names themselves that were familiar, but the fact that they attended classes and played in that house every day. Though they had never met the couple, every corner of that home bore traces of the two elders, who felt as close to them as grandparents.
Dappled light filtered through the dense pine needles, falling on the tombstone: “Tomb of Lin Xunya and Shen Shuyuan.”
Lin Wanxing’s grandfather and grandmother.
Old Chen set the wine cups in front of the grave.
The layer of pine needles on the elders’ grave was much thinner than on Coach Jiang’s, and a bouquet of flowers lay in front—clearly, someone had visited recently.
With two soft clinks, Wang Fa snapped back to reality.
He took the wine jar from Chen Jianghe’s arms, knelt on one knee, and poured wine into the cups.
The amber liquid flowed steadily.“What exactly is the connection between Coach Jiang and Lin Wanxing?” Wang Fa asked softly.
Old Chen looked toward the tombstones of Lin Wanxing’s grandparents and said, “The connection lies right here.”
Old Chen explained that he had known Lin Wanxing for a long time.
He had started out working in the school cafeteria and was very familiar with Lin Xunya and Shen Shuyuan. During winter and summer vacations, he often helped out at Yuan Yuan Cram School, cooking and taking care of the students, so he knew that their granddaughter was a top scorer in the college entrance examination, outstanding in both knowledge and character.
However, because Lin Wanxing’s parents had a strained relationship with her grandparents, he had only met Lin Wanxing once.
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