Chapter 1 Nion's Headaches

To find a successor for Chen Yingxiong, Nion flew all over the world, not letting go of anyone, whether they were already famous, approaching the twilight years of their careers, or promising young talents. He tried his luck with each one.

Liverpool, a team with fourteen Premier League titles, thirty-two English top-flight league titles, seventeen FA Cup titles, eighteen League Cup titles, three UEFA Cup titles, one Europa League title, fourteen Champions League titles, twenty-six Community Shield titles, eleven Club World Cup titles, and fourteen European Super Cup titles.

Possessing so many dazzling honors, yet they couldn't even find a decent center forward.

It was all because of Chen Yingxiong's dominance. Liverpool's rapid rise and unification of the world in the past decade or so was thanks to Chen Yingxiong. But it was also restricted by Chen Yingxiong, unable to develop further.

Any forward, as soon as they thought about joining Liverpool as "Chen Yingxiong's successor," would get a headache. Because they would inevitably be compared to Chen Yingxiong. Chen Yingxiong brought so many championship honors to Liverpool, and if fans demanded the same standards from them, no matter how awesome they were, they were doomed to failure. Because no one could possibly win as many championships as Chen Yingxiong.

Chen Yingxiong was a breathtakingly high mountain. Everyone could only look up to him. As for climbing it? They didn't even have the idea, let alone the courage.

And as Chen Yingxiong's successor, it was even more miserable. Because they could only live in the huge shadow of Chen Yingxiong's mountain.

Who would be interested in a transfer that was destined to be a failure?

Therefore, Nion searched and searched, but couldn't find a suitable candidate. He couldn't even sleep well because of this.

As for the team's other transfer work, he handed it over to others, focusing solely on this transfer project.

※※※

Nion was having a headache—that was his job. Chen Yingxiong didn't have to worry about who his successor would be.

He knew about Amoruso. In the beginning, he even ran to ask Dracula if there could be a second person in this world with his kind of system.

Dracula's answer was very definitive: "Absolutely not."

He didn't know why Amoruso, this previously unknown nobody, seemed to have such a big opinion of him.

He had never known him before, and there shouldn't be any overlap between them.

But there were plenty of people in this world who hated him and were hostile to him, and he couldn't care about them all.

Knowing that this person didn't like him was enough.

Anyway, he didn't like him either.

After the season ended, he announced that he would retire at the end of the next season, and media from all over the world flocked to him.

Countless reporters wanted to interview him, which wasted a week of his time.

So it wasn't until a week after the holiday started that he truly had a vacation.

Now that he had a child, vacation arrangements were more fixed. First, he would take his child to a pre-selected resort for a trip. The resort was different each time. After the trip, he would take him back to China. Although he was born in England, his nationality was Chinese. As a Chinese child, what kind of person would he be if he didn't understand or was unfamiliar with his motherland, if he had never been there?

So every summer, he would take his child back to China for a short stay. Or even if he was too busy, he would have him stay with his grandparents for a while.

So Chen Yongxiang had been living in England, but his Chinese was fluent, and he was very familiar with and understood everything about China. He wasn't the kind of "banana," an ABC (American-born Chinese) who looked Chinese but had the heart of a foreigner.

Chen Yingxiong was very proud of this.

He didn't want his son to become a "Chinese" who spoke only English, couldn't speak his own mother tongue, and whose thoughts and habits were all Western.

This summer, the family's vacation destination was Saipan. It was also quite close to China. After playing, they would go straight back to China.

Reporters photographed Chen Yingxiong vacationing with his girlfriend and child in Saipan. In the photos, Chen Yingxiong was smiling happily, not at all affected by the nine-month ban. The sadness of retirement was absolutely not visible on his face.

It was as if the nine-month ban was just a long vacation, and retirement was as easy as getting off work.

Chen Yingxiong, who was shirtless and only wearing a pair of swimming trunks, had very firm and well-proportioned muscles, making it impossible to tell that he was already forty years old.

If you only looked at the photos, it was hard to imagine that this person's physical fitness had begun to decline.

※※※

Chen Yingxiong's family, who were vacationing in Saipan, returned to China.

After returning to China, he would be busy again, because he had to accept many interviews and visits from Chinese media.

After all, he had just announced the news of his retirement, and the Chinese media were very interested in this matter. Now that he was in China, he definitely couldn't escape these things.

The main topics were two things: the ban and the retirement.

These were both big events.

What were his thoughts on the ban, and did he struggle internally when making the decision to retire?

These were the things that fans cared about most.

Although Chen Yingxiong had retired from the national team for many years, his position in the hearts of Chinese fans was still unshakable. He was banned for nine months, and the most angry were the Chinese fans. He said he was going to retire, and the most sad were the Chinese fans.

Even if it was just to give these Chinese fans an explanation, even if he hated the media, he couldn't refuse these reporters' interview requests. Because ordinary fans could only learn about their idols in this way.

If he refused to be interviewed, it would be like closing the door of communication between himself and the fans.

Chen Yingxiong stayed in China for fifteen days, two weeks, and accepted ten various interviews and recordings of television programs, running around in a frenzy.

He repeated what he had said to the media again and again, and without any impatience.

This made the media sigh that Chen Yingxiong's temper was much better than before.

In fact, Chen Yingxiong thought that he was retiring, and the fans were the saddest, so he had to make some things clear to everyone.

He could actually continue playing. There was nothing wrong with his body. Even if his physical fitness began to decline after the age of thirty-six, it was relative to his previous abnormal physical fitness, not relative to ordinary people.

Compared to an average forty-year-old, his body was still very strong.

But he still wanted to retire, because he had nothing left to pursue.

In today's world football, there was no player who could compete with him. There was no team that could compete with Liverpool. Playing such a game too much would also get boring. From a young age, Chen Yingxiong had always liked to challenge particularly difficult things. But now playing football, for him, was no longer challenging.

Things that were not challenging naturally did not need to be continued.

So he was going to retire.

Of course, Chinese fans would feel pain.

But he had dedicated a professional career of twenty-two years to these people, which should be enough.

There was no banquet in the world that did not end. Even the most powerful heroes had to withdraw from the stage of history and leave people's sight. Sooner or later, magnificent or dim.

Chen Yingxiong's departure was late enough, and his departure was magnificent enough—he would use Liverpool's fifteenth Premier League title in history to send himself off.

The tone of the interview program on China Central Television was originally set to be sentimental, but no matter how the host teased, seduced, or hinted, Chen Yingxiong would not say what the host wanted him to say, and would not show the expression that the host liked him to show.

It wasn't that Chen Yingxiong really didn't feel sad about parting.

It was that he was a hero, and how could a hero shed tears in front of ordinary people?

That would be too devaluing!

Perhaps today's society is accustomed to deconstructing heroes. As long as they are heroes, even historically famous heroes, people always have to find their weaknesses and shortcomings, such as their poor private morals, or their love of beauty, or their inner hesitation.

It seems that only in this way is a real person.

But Chen Yingxiong didn't like this. He believed that heroes should not be human, and should have the qualities that only heroes can have. To find a lot of humanized things for heroes is just an attempt to pull heroes to the same level as the mediocre masses, so that anyone can step on them.

Perhaps his idea was a bit old-fashioned. But he himself did do it this way.

He never revealed his fragile emotions in front of ordinary people. So no one had ever seen Chen Yingxiong crying, frustrated, or dejected… The Chen Yingxiong in front of people was always holding his head high, high-spirited, with a stubborn face, and looking like he was at odds with the whole world.

Not likable, but always able to inspire others' fighting spirit.

Whenever you want to give up, look at Chen Yingxiong. That kid was hated by so many people, at odds with the whole world, but he never gave up, and he still won! What do you have to give up?

Not everyone can become a world-renowned, eternally famous hero, but everyone can not give up, persist, and at least be a hero in their own life, even if it's only for a moment.

Perhaps this is why so many people hate Chen Yingxiong, but also why many people like Chen Yingxiong.

※※※

After the trip to China ended, the pre-season training camp for the new season was about to begin.

Cabrela and the child, Chen Yongxiang, continued to stay in China to play, to spend more time with the two elders.

Chen Yingxiong returned to Liverpool alone to prepare for Liverpool's pre-season training.

Although he was still in the ban period, he still had half a season of games to play. For this half season, he had to prepare now.

He only played half a season of games, but he had to prepare as if he was treating the whole season. This way, he would be foolproof.

The reason why Chen Yingxiong was able to maintain such a high scoring efficiency even after losing the external system was inextricably linked to his professionalism.

At the age of forty, he already had children, so he naturally didn't need to go to nightclubs anymore.

An old man who focuses on playing football is just as scary.