Chapter 1 Yang Pan

Yang Pan was always the last player to leave the training ground each day. After training, he would give himself an extra half-hour of practice, mainly on free kicks and crosses during high-speed dribbling. No one asked him to do it; it was entirely self-motivated.

Yang Pan was very clear about his situation. The head coach was willing to use the only non-EU player spot to bring in a rookie who had only played for one season, which meant he must have seen something in him. Therefore, he wouldn't be sitting on the bench for the entire season. Of course, if his skills didn't meet the requirements, being abandoned was the only option. That's why he was working so hard, trying so hard to adapt to the team and Serie A as soon as possible.

Although he ultimately stayed in Serie A while Zhang Jun returned to the Netherlands in disappointment, did staying really mean embarking on the road to success? The pressure and difficulties you face in Italy are definitely several times greater than in the Netherlands. With the Serie A season about to begin, more and more Chinese reporters were coming to Bologna's Stadio Renato Dall'Ara. Although Zhang Jun had been scoring consecutive goals in the Netherlands recently, he was receiving even more attention than Zhang Jun.

Everyone would ask: Will Yang Pan play in the first round of Serie A? Will Yang Pan be able to secure a starting position? When will Yang Pan's first assist come? When will his first goal come? Can Yang Pan succeed in Italy?

Perhaps he was shouldering greater expectations because of his countrymen's Serie A complex?

But on the other hand, Yang Pan was also very clear that he was not a genius compared to Zhang Jun. That guy was a true genius! He invented Long Teng (Dragon Soar), and after watching Jiu Shi Du (Ninety Degrees) a few times, he could perfectly reproduce it and even use it in conjunction with Long Teng… He was only slightly more hardworking than others, and coupled with being with Zhang Jun all the time, he was able to achieve his current success. And there was one more thing, the biggest difference between him and Zhang Jun. Zhang Jun could play professional football with a happy-go-lucky attitude and still win the Silver Boot award. But he was different. He had a clear goal from the beginning: to win championships. In junior high school, he wanted to win the national junior high school championship, and he did. In high school, he wanted to win the national high school championship, and he did. In college, he still wanted to win the national championship, and he got his wish. When he got to professional games, he had even bigger goals – to lift the World Cup! It was these goals that had led him all the way from a city in western Henan to the Netherlands, and from the Netherlands to Italy. One day, he would stand on the World Cup podium!

It was precisely because he had these goals and knew his own abilities that Yang Pan was working so hard. Alone in Italy, there was no one he could rely on. The only thing he could trust was his own two legs. Wasn't the achievement of each of those goals dependent on those two legs?

The most realistic goal at the moment was to play in games as soon as possible, but the most immediate goal was… to find a delicious and affordable restaurant to fill his stomach.

※※※

As everyone knows, Yang Pan can't cook. That's why Zhang Jun was worried about him living alone in Bologna. When he first arrived in Bologna, he lived in a hotel, and the hotel provided three meals a day. Later, he moved into an apartment provided by the club, and he began searching the city for restaurants. Perhaps it was because he had been with Zhang Jun, a chef, for too long, and his palate had become picky. He couldn't get used to many restaurants in Bologna, and he was still at the stage of looking for restaurants with a map. On that map, any place that had been crossed out indicated that he had eaten there and the taste was not good, and now there were fewer and fewer restaurants on it that hadn't been crossed out.

Today's restaurant was a Chinese restaurant located at the entrance of Metro Line 1. The name was strange, called "Chinachina Restaurant." How should this be translated? Because of this name, Yang Pan decided to take the subway for fifteen minutes to have a meal – he hadn't gotten his driver's license yet and didn't have a car – he didn't have high hopes for the taste of the food; it was the name that attracted him.

Many years later, Yang Pan would be grateful for his decision.

A very, very ordinary restaurant, at least it looked like that from the outside. Compared to the Mexican restaurants, Japanese restaurants, and Brazilian barbecue restaurants next to it, it was much worse. There was no sign of any "China" characteristics, or "china" characteristics.

Yang Pan decided to push the door open and see. He had already come, could he turn around and leave? There were no customers in the restaurant, so it seemed that the taste wouldn't be very good. Behind the bar, a brown-haired waitress was busy with something, her head lowered. Hearing the sound of the door, she quickly looked up.

In an instant, Yang Pan thought he saw the famous French actress Sophie Marceau from when she was eighteen and starred in *L’Amour Braque*: lively and clear brown eyes, a high nose bridge, fair skin, and smiling red lips. He stood stunned at the door.

Seeing a person with black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin, the waitress quickly bowed and said, "Koneecheewa!" (Japanese: Hello!)

Yang Pan turned his head to look around and didn't see any Japanese people. Until he heard the other party say "Koneecheewa!" again, he realized and pointed to himself, "Are you talking to me?"

The girl smiled and bowed again: "Koneecheewa!"

"No, no!" Yang Pan hurriedly waved his hand and said in English, "I'm not Japanese, not Japanese!"

Seeing that Yang Pan could speak English, the woman switched to English and asked, "Then you are Korean, sir?"

Yang Pan rolled his eyes. Did foreigners only see short Japanese people and small-eyed Korean people when they saw people with yellow skin and black hair? "I'm not Korean either, miss," he said unhappily.

"Not either? Then let me guess… um, you are North Korean? No? Then Mongolian? Still no? Could it be Vietnamese?"

Yang Pan slapped the bar, "What's the name of your restaurant?"

"Oh!" The woman clapped her hands, "You are Chinese, sir."

Yang Pan didn't know whether to laugh or cry because of this woman, and he didn't have an appetite to eat anymore. He turned around and wanted to leave, but he was stopped by the other party: "Sir, please wait! Aren't you here to eat?"

"I wanted to eat, but I don't have an appetite now."

"But I was just joking with you! Actually, when you were anxious to say that you were not Japanese, I knew you were Chinese."

"Miss, some jokes are not to be made to Chinese people." Yang Pan wanted to leave again, but was stopped again.

"I'm sorry, sir. I know I was wrong, so to apologize to you, this meal is free, is that okay?" The girl's voice and expression were very sincere.

Yang Pan looked at the woman: "Free?"

"Free!" The woman nodded affirmatively.

※※※

"Hehe! What would you like, sir?" The woman changed her apron and stood beside Yang Pan's seat with a large tray in her arms. Yang Pan then noticed that the woman hadn't been wearing any work clothes at all.

Yang Pan flipped through the menu written in Chinese, Italian, and English, and didn't know what he wanted, so he just pointed at random: "That one."

"Okay, one Yang Zhou fried rice. Please wait a moment, sir."

Very quickly, the steaming fried rice was brought up by the woman. "Yang Zhou fried rice, enjoy your meal, sir."

Yang Pan scooped a spoonful, blew on it, and put it in his mouth to chew. But he threw the spoon aside after taking the first bite, and shouted to the woman who was busy behind the bar: "Miss, call your chef out!"

The woman ran out: "Is there anything wrong, sir?"

"Call out the chef who cooked this rice!"

"I made this rice."

"This rice is cooked… you made it?" Yang Pan asked in surprise, pointing to the rice on the table. The woman nodded.

"Okay. The outside is hot, but the inside is still cold, not heated through at all… how did you make it?"

"With a mi… microwave." The woman replied in a low voice, perhaps she was frightened by Yang Pan.

"Mi… microwave?!" Yang Pan's eyes were about to pop out, "Using a microwave to make Yang Zhou fried rice? You're quite capable, miss!"

"The che, chefs are not here, and you wanted to eat something, so I had to put the instant food in the microwave to heat it up. But it was the first time I made it, and I didn't expect it to be so, so bad…" Her voice became smaller and smaller.

"I'm really defeated by you, miss!" Yang Pan didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Using instant food to entertain guests, you really know how to do business, miss!" He thought there would be no good things happening today when he first came in, and sure enough, this was the ending. He took out the money from his pocket and put it on the table, then got up to leave. This time, no matter how the woman called him from behind, he didn't look back and walked straight out of the restaurant.

Only when he released the handle to say goodbye to the restaurant completely, something hit his hand. He noticed that there was a sign hanging on the handle. When he touched it, it flipped over, and it was written on it: "Closed today." Yang Pan remembered that when he came in, there seemed to be a sign on the handle, but it just so happened that a gust of wind blew it over, and the blank back was facing the door...

※※※

"Carlo (Carlo Nervo), the first league game is in three days, are you okay?" Tamas Locatelli asked the team's right midfielder Carlo Nervo.

Nervo gave Locatelli a white eye: "Why is everyone asking me this question lately? Do I need to hold a press conference specifically?"

Locatelli chuckled twice.

"I know what you mean, you want to ask if I can still be a starter, right? You've all seen it, Yang is working hard. But for him, the Italian league is not that simple. He needs time to adapt here. Italy and the Netherlands are very different. So I will still be the starter, and Yang still needs to hone his skills on the bench… um, what are you writing?"

"What you said," Locatelli wrote quickly on a piece of paper.

"What are you writing my words for?" Nervo was a little surprised.

"For the reporter, haha!" Locatelli dodged Nervo's thick leg that was reaching over. As the two main left and right wingers of Bologna last season, the two had a good relationship. Such jokes were common in the eyes of the teammates, and it would never become news in the newspaper like "Two players of Bologna team fought in training".

The two were joking when a crisp sound attracted everyone's attention. The assistant coach looked innocently at the head coach Mazzone, and Mazzone sighed and walked forward. In the free kick practice, Yang Pan took a powerful shot, the football drew an arc, but rubbed the upper left corner of the wooden wall. The head of the "player" on the far left was cut off by the strongly rotating football!

Yang Pan stood there somewhat at a loss, facing head coach Mazzone who was walking towards him step by step.

"Remove the moving wall. Yang doesn't need these things when practicing free kicks." Mazzone shouted to the assistant coach, and then he kicked a football to Yang Pan, "Shoot towards the near corner of the goal, keep the height as high as above the knees and below the head."

When Yang Pan heard the translation, he was startled: "But, coach. There's a wall there!"

Mazzone smiled: "I want you to kick at the wall." He saw that Yang Pan was still hesitant, "This is a tactical need, what you have to do is to keep the stability and power of the ball flying as much as possible. If you understand, continue to practice!"

Yang Pan didn't say anything, put a row of footballs in front of him, and began to practice.

Nervo swallowed: "Does the coach want to deliberately murder someone?"

Locatelli on the side quickly wrote on the paper again: "Hmm, hmmm, Bologna's main player Carlo Nervo is frightened, and is willing to be behind Yang in the fight for the starting lineup…"

"…"

※※※

After finishing his extra practice, Yang Pan took a shower and changed in the locker room, and then went around with a small bag and a map to find a restaurant. His few leisure activities in Bologna now, apart from listening to music, are looking for places to eat. By the way, he used this to familiarize himself with the place where he would stay for an unknown amount of time.

Yang Pan didn't understand why he had come to this place again, "Chinachina Restaurant." Before pushing the door, he checked again to make sure that there was no sign hanging on the handle saying "Closed today." No, he pushed the door open, and there were many customers, and there were not many empty seats left. It seemed that it was not that the food in this restaurant was not good, but that it was indeed closed yesterday.

As soon as Yang Pan went in, he didn't hear the crisp female voice from yesterday, nor did he see her. He was a little disappointed. Behind the bar was a tall, bearded man, about fifty years old. "Sir, what would you like?" he asked politely in English.

Yang Pan thought for a while: "One Yang Zhou fried rice."

"Okay, one Yang Zhou fried rice, please wait a moment, sir," the bearded man replied.

Yang Pan found an empty seat near the bar and sat down, and began to look around the small restaurant. It was really a very ordinary small restaurant. As a place that mainly serves Chinese food, there was not much Chinese atmosphere in the decoration.

Soon, the steaming Yang Zhou fried rice was brought up by the bearded man himself. Yang Pan didn't move, but looked up and asked in English: "This is not heated by a microwave, right?"

The bearded man was very surprised: "How is that possible, sir? This is made by our Chinese chef himself!"

"Oh." Yang Pan was relieved, the bearded man was about to leave but was stopped by him. "Sir, I want to ask a question, why is this restaurant called 'Chinachina Restaurant'? Is there any meaning?"

The bearded man smiled: "Many customers who come to our store for the first time have asked such a question. Look at this…" He picked up a ceramic ashtray on the table and turned it over. There was a line of small red characters at the bottom: madeinChinA. "Including the plates and spoons you are using are all from China. All the ceramic products in our store are produced in China. I went to Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China to buy them."

Yang Pan was taken aback. He carefully lifted the plate and tilted his head to look at it. He could indeed see the words madeinChinA at the bottom.

No wonder it's called "Chinachina," so it's "Chinese ceramics"! But… well, the name is worthy of the name. Yang Pan sighed in his heart. Seeing that the bearded man was about to leave again, he stopped the other party again: "Um, sorry, sir…"

"Is there anything else, sir?" The bearded man seemed very polite and patient.

"Uh, it's like this, yesterday I was at…"

"Dad!" The door was pushed open, and a crisp female voice rang out. Yang Pan was stunned. The bearded man quickly turned his attention to the door. "Why are you free to come over today?" He used French that Yang Pan couldn't understand.

"Anyway, there's nothing to do. Dad doesn't want his daughter to come and see you often?" The girl answered in French as well.

Yang Pan looked in the direction of the voice, and it was the girl from yesterday. The girl also seemed to see him, because she was stunned for a moment. "It's you?" She shouted in English first.

"It's me." Yang Pan didn't know what to say, and he honestly replied.

"You know each other?" The bearded man was taken aback.

The girl came over, "Huh? Yang Zhou fried rice again, this time it wasn't heated in the microwave, right?"

"What are you talking about! This fried rice was made by your father's Chinese chef himself!" The bearded man was confused.

"Yes, the Chinese chef made it himself," Yang Pan said, looking at the girl.

"Humph!" The girl turned her face to the side.

"Hey, hey, what's going on between you?"

"Dad, I helped you yesterday…"

"It's like this, sir. Are you the owner of this restaurant? Your store was closed yesterday, but because the sign was blown over by the wind, I didn't notice it. When I came in to eat, I ordered a Yang Zhou fried rice." Yang Pan pointed to the fried rice in front of him. "Your daughter very enthusiastically used a microwave to heat the fried rice to entertain me, that's how it is."

After listening to Yang Pan's words, the bearded shopkeeper laughed. "Sir, first of all, please allow me to apologize to you. My restaurant had something to do yesterday, so it was closed for a day. Originally, I planned to lock the door directly, but my daughter…" He patted the girl next to him, "Yilan, she volunteered to guard the store for me. I didn't expect you to come in, so, so… haha!" After laughing, he patted Yang Pan on the shoulder, "Don't worry, eat it with peace of mind, there will never be microwave-heated Yang Zhou fried rice again. I'll treat you to this meal today, as an apology for my daughter's behavior yesterday!"

"Dad!" Yilan was unwilling, "Why do you have to apologize to him? He didn't see the closed sign himself, I just didn't want him to go hungry…"

Yang Pan stood up, took out a piece of money from his pocket, and put it on the table. "No need to apologize, thank you for the Yang Zhou fried rice." He turned and walked towards the door. When he was about to push the door out, he stopped, pointed to the top, and turned back to the shopkeeper and said, "Sir, about your shop name, the grammar is wrong…" After saying that, he pushed the door open, put on his sunglasses, and walked straight out.

"Hey! Wait for me!" The bearded man shouted and wanted to rush out, but was stopped by Yilan: "Dad!"

"That's because the author's English level is poor, kid!" The bearded man still shouted towards the door.

※※※

It was a little after nine o'clock in the evening, and the restaurant's business was at its busiest time of the day. The relaxed and colorful nightlife of the Italians was just beginning. The bearded man was still sitting behind the bar in charge of everything, while his lovely and diligent daughter Yilan had already changed into a waiter's apron and was busy shuttling through the restaurant.

When Yilan handed the money given by another table of guests to her father, the bearded man exclaimed: "I remember!"

Yilan was startled: "What did you remember, Dad?"

"He's Yang Pan!" The old man gently clapped his palm.

"Who's Yang Pan?"

"Yang Pan, not Yang Pan. It's the Chinese winger who transferred to Bologna Club this summer, a player with lightning speed. It is said that his powerful long shots and accurate crosses after fast breakthroughs are the main reasons why the club took a fancy to him. After joining the team, he snatched the veteran Nervo's number 7 jersey, and is favored by many experts…"

"Dad, who are you talking about?" Yilan listened in a daze.

"Yilan, you really should brush up on your football lessons. How long has it been since you cared about football?" The old man sighed.

"My studies are heavy! I'm graduating in a year. Besides, I have to come to your grammatically incorrect restaurant to work part-time for free." Yilan pouted her small mouth, "Where would I have the time!"

"Hey, don't mention that grammatical mistake again… The Yang Pan I was talking about just now is the guest you served microwave fried rice to yesterday, and also the Chinese boy who had dinner with us this afternoon."

"He's Yang Pan?" Yilan was also a little surprised.

"Yes, I always felt like he looked familiar, but I just couldn't remember who he was. It's all your fault for scaring him away, it's a pity. If I had known, I would have asked him for an autograph to hang in the store. This is the first time our small store has had a VIP visit, and it was twice…" The old man stroked the beard on his chin, and said regretfully.

"Hey, wait a minute, Dad! Why do you say I scared him away…" Yilan suddenly remembered that plate of microwave-heated Yang Zhou fried rice, and she stopped talking. Finding that her father was looking at her, she quickly picked up the tray: "I'm going to clean up, hehe!"

Dad looked at his daughter's energetic back and sighed: "What a pity!"

※※※

For three days in a row, Yilan would come to her father's restaurant in the afternoon to help as a waitress. This surprised her father: "Yilan, aren't your studies heavy? Aren't you graduating in a year? Why are you still helping me, I won't give you wages."

"Hehe! My love for you, Dad, is heavier than my studies!"

Business was so-so today, and not too many people were needed, so Yilan persuaded her father to go upstairs to rest. She herself was behind the bar as the little boss. But most of the time, she was just resting her chin in one hand and spacing out.

He hasn't come for the third day. Yilan sighed, it seems that she really scared him away, humph! A small-minded man! After being angry, Yilan slumped on the bar a little dejectedly.

She had bought the newspapers in recent days, only paying attention to news about football, about Bologna Club. From various reports, she learned that due to Italy's new transfer policy, Bologna only had one non-EU spot in the transfer market this season, and the team used this spot on the Chinese boy Yang Pan. The right winger, who transferred from the Dutch super team Volendam, was the team's assist king and third scorer last season. The Italian giants AC Milan own 50% of Yang Pan's ownership, which also means that if he performs well in Bologna this season, he is likely to transfer to AC Milan as a domestic player within the next two years.

A promising rising star!

However, it seems that he is still in a period of adaptation, a period of integration with the team. Although he took the number 7 jersey from Nervo, it is not so easy to take away the position of the main right winger who performed well last season. Although Chinese reporters gathered in Bologna are still trying to verify the odds of Yang Pan starting in the first round of Serie A against Parma this weekend. The Italian media has asserted that it would be a great success for Yang Pan to appear on the bench.

Yilan suddenly reacted: "What am I thinking about these things for?" She knocked her head and said to herself.

※※※

Yang Pan was lying alone on the bed in his apartment, listening to the MP3 he had just bought in Italy. That CD player had been left to Zhang Jun, along with a large box of CDs. He rested early today, because tomorrow was the first round of the 03-04 season of the Italian Football League Serie A. On August 31, 2003, Bologna would face Parma, one of the seven sisters of Serie A, at their Stadio Renato Dall'Ara.

At the end of training today, Mazzone told him that he was selected for the nineteen-man roster, but he did not tell him whether he would start in tomorrow night's game. He knew that it was his hard training in the past month that moved the old coach. He did not have Zhang Jun's amazing talent, he only had hard training, and then grasped it when the opportunity came.

Maybe tomorrow will be an opportunity.

Yang Pan turned over, damn it! Resting too early made him unable to sleep. He should have called Zhang Jun in the Netherlands at this time to tell him that he was selected for the roster, and the two of them would be happy together. But he didn't, because there had always been a view from the outside that Zhang Jun was dependent on Yang Pan. Perhaps even Zhang Jun would think so?

But only he himself knew that he was not relying on Zhang Jun? When the two played at the same time, as long as there was this silly boy by his side, he would inexplicably feel a lot more at ease. He could also play to his normal level in the game. Now that he was alone in Bologna, he had to learn to face the situation without Zhang Jun, and he had to clearly know that after he passed this ball, the person receiving it in the middle was no longer Zhang Jun. And the person who hugged him to celebrate the goal would no longer be that boy with a sunny smile.

On this eve of the first round of Serie A, Yang Pan forced himself to calm down. Without Zhang Jun joking and talking to relieve boredom, it was a bit difficult to do so. But Yang Pan had to do it, because he didn't want to continue living in Zhang Jun's shadow.

August 31, 2003, 10:43 p.m., eighteen hours and forty-seven minutes before tomorrow's game, good luck, Yang Pan.