In truth, Lin Wanxing didn’t understand Wang Fa at that time.
She thought his mention of the phone was partly a joke and partly meant to imply that "just as playing games requires hardware, playing football also demands excellent physical fitness."
Wang Fa said these things out of his sense of responsibility as a coach.
But later, Lin Wanxing wondered, why was he still willing to try again and again?
She truly didn’t understand Wang Fa.
=
Early the next morning, Lin Wanxing was awakened by a series of knocks on the door.
The students had stayed late yesterday, and she still had to work today, so she had set her alarm for 8 o’clock.
But now...
Lin Wanxing rolled over and picked up her phone, feeling a bit disoriented by the time displayed: 6:30.
She quickly changed her clothes and opened the door to find a group of bright, energetic faces outside.
Chen Jianghe, Qin Ao, Fu Xinshu, Yu Ming... and Wang Fa???
How could Wang Fa possibly be standing at her door with the students at this hour?
Lin Wanxing glanced at the rising sun in the sky and concluded she must be hallucinating.
She closed the door, intending to go back to sleep.
Her head had just touched the pillow, and she hadn’t even pulled the covers over her head when another round of knocking began.
Knock, knock, knock!
"Teacher, get up already!"
Knock, knock, knock!
"We agreed to go for a morning run today!"
Knock, knock, knock!
"Think of the muscles! Think of the abdominal lines! Hurry up and get out of bed!"
Lin Wanxing threw off the covers and sat up, rubbing her face to confirm it wasn’t an illusion.
=
In the late summer and early autumn, the mornings were still quite hot.
When Lin Wanxing opened the door again, the morning light was already glaringly bright.
A piece of fried dough stick and a pancake were shoved into her hands, and without a word, the students crowded around her and ushered her downstairs.
In her dazed state, Lin Wanxing found herself standing in the small teaching storeroom of Yuan Yuan Cram School. The musty smell of old books hit her, jolting her slightly awake.
"Ready to study hard and make progress every day?" she asked, looking around at the small room packed with students, utterly confused.
"Teacher, how can you be so forgetful!"
"Didn’t we say yesterday that you wanted us to design a plan?"
"You’ve already designed it?" Lin Wanxing asked in shock.
"Of course not!" Lin Lu said proudly. "But we have a coach."
"Huh?" Lin Wanxing looked at Wang Fa, who yawned, looking as sleep-deprived as she was.
"You said yesterday that we should design the plan ourselves, but honestly, we don’t really know how to do it. It’s like school—we just do whatever the teachers or coaches tell us to do."
Lin Wanxing laughed. "But when the teacher told you to study hard, you didn’t follow instructions either."
"Don’t interrupt," Qin Ao waved his hand.
"Mm," Lin Wanxing nodded, signaling for him to continue.
"But we thought, just like studying for exams, the point is to know where we stand and understand our own capabilities. We need to know our current football level to set goals..."
Watching the students seriously analyze these issues, Lin Wanxing grew quiet.
"There are many areas we need to improve, like... some are essential. The coach has been reminding us all along—it’s about physical fitness. We don’t really know how to improve it, but we feel we first need a test."
She listened as the students worked hard to analyze, propose directions, and attempt to plan and organize. Though there were many imperfections in their efforts, the attempt itself was remarkable."So, what help can I offer you?" Lin Wanxing asked after listening to Qin Ao's explanation.
"Can you fix a printer?" Qin Ao inquired.
"Huh?" Lin Wanxing touched her ear, wondering if she was still dreaming.
"We want to print something, but the printer isn't working." Qin Ao patted the machine beside him.
The students all looked at her with hopeful eyes. After a moment's thought, Lin Wanxing pointed at the printer and asked, "What's this?"
"A printer!" the boys chorused.
"And this?" She pointed at another object on the table.
"A computer!Their voices echoed through the room filled with various clutter.
They sounded completely confident.
Lin Wanxing nodded calmly and said, "Well, since the computer is here and the printer is there, and the printer isn't working, why don't you use the computer to look up the problem and fix it yourselves?"
"We tried, but it didn't work."
"It's connected to the computer, but nothing prints out."
"Probably the printer is just broken."
The students chimed in one after another, sounding somewhat aggrieved.
Lin Wanxing remained silent, quietly listening to their complaints until eventually they all ran out of things to say.
Lin Wanxing: "I don't understand. Can you only look up how to fix computers online, but not how to fix printers?"
"Well..."
"It's just..."
The students faltered again.
Actually, Lin Wanxing understood the students' perspective very well. It wasn't that they didn't want to try fixing the printer or making more effort, but they seemed to think such specialized tasks should be handled by adults. Because no one had ever told them they could do it, and they'd never done it before.
Lin Wanxing: "It's okay, feel free to try. If you break it, I'll take responsibility."
The small teaching storage room at Yuan Yuan Cram School was crowded with people and quite warm. After speaking, Lin Wanxing and Wang Fa stepped out to give the students time and space to handle the matter themselves.
She stood at the end of the corridor outside the room, facing the window, unwrapping the plastic bag from her breakfast and taking a bite of fried dough stick.
"Did they come looking for you?" Lin Wanxing asked the person beside her while eating her breakfast in the morning breeze. "What convinced you to help?"
"They said they bought fried pancake and dough sticks for Teacher Lin, but got me fried dough stick wrapped glutinous rice and meatballs - better than what you're eating." The young man's leisurely voice sounded.
"..." Lin Wanxing's bite got stuck in her throat, suddenly making her meal seem less appetizing.
Soon, loud noises came from inside the room, and the door opened again. The students rushed out as if they'd discovered the key issue, speaking over each other excitedly.
"Teacher, it's a Hewlett-Packard laser printer!"
"The drum cartridge isn't broken, it's just out of toner!"
"We want to try adding toner to the drum cartridge first. Although the process is a bit complicated, we think we can try. If it really doesn't work, we'll have to replace the drum cartridge."
Fu Xinshu finally took out his phone and said, "I just checked toner on Taobao, along with compatible drum cartridge prices. Can we buy the toner first?"
At that moment, Lin Wanxing hadn't finished her fried dough stick yet. The students looked at her with excited and expectant eyes.
Lin Wanxing said, "No need."
"Why no need?"
"Teacher, did you have a change of heart and decide to get us a new printer?"
"There's toner in the teaching storage room. You can go get it directly," she said.
"Ah, how did you know?"
"Did you know the printer had problems beforehand and bought it in advance?"
"Because of my grandfather. He's the kind of person who prepares for everything."The students indeed found the toner in the cabinet where teaching supplies were stored, but refilling the drum cartridge was no simple task.
Though they often joked about "just going to the factory to tighten screws" if things didn’t work out, certain screw-tightening jobs were actually skilled trades.
Carefully, they pulled out the positioning pin, removed the drum core, unscrewed the fastening bolts, and slowly added the toner.
When the first test print succeeded, the room filled with enthusiastic applause, as if they had collectively accomplished some major project.
After completing the tests, they moved on to the actual printing. Sheet after sheet of forms were swiftly spat out by the printer.
Only then did Lin Wanxing see what the students had wanted to print. As they had mentioned, it appeared to be a series of physical fitness test items.
Lin Wanxing examined the entries closely. Unlike conventional tests like the 50-meter dash, there were terms she couldn’t decipher, such as "Agility 30 yards," "T-drill," and "F-drill."
"Did you design these forms for them?" Lin Wanxing stared at Wang Fa in shock. "You traded oil pancakes for stuffed steamed buns—how is this any different from selling your soul?!"
Yu Ming immediately grew anxious. "Coach, how could you betray us?"
"You promised not to tell the teacher!"
Wang Fa, however, maintained his usual leisurely composure. "It’s fine. Your teacher won’t get jealous."
Lin Wanxing: "..."
=
Each person received a clipboard, forms, a pencil, a tape measure...
Wang Fa had many requirements. The tape measures were eventually found in the school’s sports equipment room.
Having known Wang Fa for so long, Lin Wanxing was used to seeing him carry nothing more than a thin notebook and a pencil in his pocket. She had never seen him prepare so meticulously and thoroughly as he did now.
Holding the clipboards and forms Wang Fa had requested, she followed everyone to the old sports field’s turf.
The students lined up in order, with Wang Fa standing before them.
Wang Fa said, "You probably understand better than I do how important a 'good phone' is for 'playing games well.' But a phone’s hardware specs are fixed from the factory and only degrade with use. People are different.
For humans, one fortunate aspect is that from birth, we continuously learn how to control our muscles and use our bodies. Through proper training, everyone can experience comprehensive improvement in their athletic abilities. Though innate conditions vary, unless you’re an extreme case, training can fully enable your body to handle the competitions you’re about to participate in with ease."
Wang Fa spoke pragmatically, without any flashy encouragement or promises. Precisely because of this, the students felt that they could try—and succeed.
"What we’ll accomplish today is the 'Speed, Agility, and Reaction Test.' You may have done similar drills before, under various names. But no matter the label, these three elements are crucial foundations for many sports, including soccer."
The boys nodded earnestly.
"I will explain every item on the forms. If anything is unclear, keep it in mind. There will be a Q&A session after the explanation."
He spoke concisely, but his explanations about the training items were precise, his tone clear and firm. Thus, the students listened attentively. After he finished, they asked quite a few questions.Some questions were answered on the spot by Wang Fa, while others were deferred for further demonstration during specific tests.
Wang Fa: "If there are no theoretical uncertainties, we will now proceed with the first test."
Standing beside Wang Fa, Lin Wanxing instinctively gripped her pencil upon hearing his words. Bathed in the morning sunlight, she felt a spontaneous sense of mission to assist in completing the tests.
Wang Fa: "You'll join as well."
Lin Wanxing pointed at herself.
Wang Fa nodded.
"Aren't we doing this together?" Lin Wanxing shook her clipboard, tilting her head slightly to ask him.
But Wang Fa casually took the "assistant" tool from her hand and said, "What I meant was, I'd like Teacher Lin to complete these tests together with the students."
"Me? Doing physical fitness tests with the students?" Lin Wanxing was bewildered.
"Yes. If Teacher Lin has any unclear points, I can explain them to you separately. Would that be necessary?" Wang Fa asked.
Lin Wanxing looked up, the glaring sunlight washing over her entirely. She felt convinced she still hadn't truly woken up today.
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