Chapter 1 Quarterfinals

After the Champions League quarterfinal draw results were announced, Dortmund's local media couldn't wait to anticipate the showdown with Real Madrid.

But for Klopp and his team, there was a more realistic task: securing the league title.

With eight rounds left in the league, Dortmund was currently five points ahead of second-place Leverkusen.

Playing on two fronts did have some impact on this young team.

In the twenty-seventh round of the league, Dortmund faced Mainz at home, while Leverkusen played Schalke 04 at home.

In this game, Zhou Yi played the entire match and contributed an assist and a goal, performing exceptionally well and helping Dortmund defeat Mainz 4-0 at home.

Although Leverkusen defeated the out-of-form Schalke 04 2-0 at home, they still couldn't narrow the gap between them and Dortmund.

After the game, Klopp gave the team a day off, and all the players who played in the match didn't have to go to the training base the next day.

Zhou Yi was naturally one of them.

So he slept in, getting up a little later than usual.

However, sleeping in didn't mean he was slacking off. In fact, by sleeping in a little longer, he could practice a bit more in the virtual space... If it weren't for the need to continue to improve his physical fitness and the need to get up early for morning training, he would still sleep in...

After getting out of bed, he stood on the floor and stretched, stretching his entire body well.

But at this moment, his body froze.

Because he felt some tightness and pain in the muscles of his left thigh.

It wasn't a stabbing pain like a needle prick, but it was indeed a pain that made him uncomfortable.

He tried stretching his left thigh again—he stretched his right leg forward, then lunged, dragging his left leg behind him and straightening it.

The uncomfortable feeling in the muscles of his left thigh came again.

Zhou Yi frowned.

He switched legs, arching his left leg forward and kicking his right leg back, straightening it. The muscles of his right thigh did not have the same discomfort as his left leg.

It wasn't that he hadn't felt muscle soreness after an intense game. When he first joined Dortmund, let alone an intense game, he would feel muscle soreness the next day after finishing a day of high-intensity training.

But he had rarely felt that kind of muscle soreness in the recent season, and that soreness was often felt in many parts of the body, but this time only the back of his left thigh was uncomfortable.

Although it wasn't very serious, Zhou Yi was still a little concerned.

He started to get dressed, wondering what was going on.

But even after he got dressed, he couldn't figure out the reason.

He had no choice but to continue frowning and go to wash up.

As soon as he went out, he ran into Cortana.

"Good morning," Cortana greeted him.

"Good morning," Zhou Yi responded absentmindedly, frowning, and then passed Cortana and walked straight towards... the kitchen.

"Are you going to wash up in the kitchen?" Cortana reminded him.

Zhou Yi then realized what he was doing, looked up at the front, and then turned to walk to the bathroom.

By the time Zhou Yi finished washing up in the bathroom, his frown had not eased, even when he sat down to eat breakfast.

Cortana, who was sitting across from him, finally couldn't help but ask, "Is breakfast not good?"

"Huh? No, no," Zhou Yi quickly shook his head.

"Then why are you always frowning? Do you have a toothache?"

"My teeth don't hurt, what hurts is..." Zhou Yi told Cortana what he had been thinking about.

After listening to Zhou Yi's words, Cortana pushed her cutlery aside and stood up.

Zhou Yi looked up at her in surprise.

"Take off your pants," Cortana said, looking down at him.

Zhou Yi panicked and covered his crotch: "What are you going to do? In broad daylight, under the bright sky, a single man and a single woman are alone in a room..."

Cortana rolled her eyes at him: "What are you thinking? I'm just checking you out."

Zhou Yi looked down at his jeans and then realized that when the team doctor examined him in the club, he also had to change his pants...

"Do I have to take off my underwear too?" Zhou Yi asked again.

"Pervert," Cortana said blandly.

Zhou Yi smiled and turned to go back to his room, and soon he came out in a pair of shorts.

Cortana pointed to the sofa: "Lie down."

Zhou Yi obediently lay down on it, and then felt Cortana's hand touching the muscles of his right thigh.

He "hissed" slightly.

"Is it that serious? I just touched your skin..." Cortana was very surprised.

"No, your hands are cold..." Zhou Yi said aggrievedly.

Although it was March, the temperature in Dortmund, which is located in northwestern Germany, was still quite low in the morning, and Zhou Yi, who was only wearing a pair of shorts, was afraid of the cold.

Zhou Yi was facing away from Cortana, so he couldn't see Cortana's expression, but he could guess that Cortana must have rolled her eyes at him at this time. Then he shrank his neck, ready to welcome Cortana's cold fingers again. But he didn't feel Cortana's hand put back on, but heard a rustling sound, so he glanced back and found Cortana was rubbing her hands together.

Cortana rubbed her hands and said to Zhou Yi, "Lie down properly." She spoke in a commanding tone.

Zhou Yi obediently lay down again.

The rustling sound continued behind him, and it didn't disappear for a long time before Zhou Yi felt his right leg being covered by a warm palm.

"Still cold?" Cortana's voice rang out.

"Uh, no, not cold..."

Then Cortana began to move and massage Zhou Yi's right thigh with her fingertips, making Zhou Yi's thigh numb and itchy. This feeling made him a little... he couldn't help but feel a little fluttery.

But just as Zhou Yi's little heart was just about to float up, a burst of pain rushed into his mind without warning, causing him to cry out, "Ah! Lightly, lightly, lightly, lightly..."

Cortana's hand moved away: "Did you stop and rub here near the end of yesterday's game?"

Zhou Yi was stunned for a moment: "Yes, there was such a thing..."

Yesterday he played the entire game and performed very well, but when the game entered injury time, he stopped and touched the back of his left thigh after passing the ball, because he felt something was wrong when he was exerting force at that time.

But if you say it hurt, it didn't hurt, it just felt a little tight in the muscles.

After he pressed it, he tried to move it, and didn't feel any pain, so he ignored it.

Later, he simply forgot about it.

If Cortana hadn't mentioned it, he probably wouldn't have thought of it for a while.

"Could it be at that time..."

"Otherwise, what do you think?"

"I thought I pulled it when I stretched when I got up... No, how did you know that I was near the end of the game yesterday..." Zhou Yi suddenly reacted, and he turned his head to look at Cortana with a smile, "Oh—I didn't expect you to watch my games too!"

"Don't be sentimental, I'm watching my brother's game." Facing Zhou Yi's teasing smile, Cortana said expressionlessly.

"But Mark was substituted in the seventy-seventh minute..." Zhou Yi was interrupted by Cortana's hand before he finished speaking—that hand was pressed on the place where Zhou Yi felt pain.

"Lightly, lightly, lightly..." Zhou Yi screamed in fright.

"Does it really hurt?" Cortana asked, pressing down.

After being startled, Zhou Yi also reacted. He tilted his head and felt it carefully, and then said, "It doesn't seem... to hurt that much..."

Cortana continued to press, and Zhou Yi continued to feel it. It really didn't hurt as much as he thought. The initial pain should have been a stress reaction of the brain in a completely unprepared situation. In fact... it really didn't hurt that much.

"Is there a stinging sensation?" Cortana asked, pressing on the place where Zhou Yi felt pain.

"Uh... no," Zhou Yi shook his head and said.

"Are you sure?" Cortana pressed harder.

"Sure. Really not," Zhou Yi said.

After pressing around again, Cortana took her hand back: "Muscle strain."

"Ah?"

"Muscle strain," Cortana repeated.

Zhou Yi's whole body, from his body to his facial expressions, froze, as if what Cortana said was a petrifying magic spell that froze him instantly.

"What?" Cortana asked when she saw him like this.

"Mu-mu-mu-mu-muscle... Muscle strain?" Zhou Yi stuttered. He wasn't imitating Guo Degang on purpose... (郭德纲 is a famous Chinese crosstalk performer known for stuttering as part of his comedic style.)

"Don't look like you've seen a ghost," Cortana said. "I know what you're afraid of, but it's not what you think."

Muscle strain is no stranger to professional athletes. Even when Zhou Yi wasn't a player, but a fan, he had heard the term many times.

Because the media would tell fans that muscle strain is a "chronic disease" that can recur repeatedly, so once a strained area may be strained again in the future if you are not careful, and the probability of strain will be higher than before. Although muscle strain is not a serious injury like a fractured knee meniscus or a torn cruciate ligament, it will accompany a player's career and come out to make trouble from time to time.

This is also the reason why Zhou Yi is worried. If his left leg is a muscle strain, let alone how many games he will miss, he is only twenty years old, and he has at least fifteen years in his career. Will there be a shadow of muscle strain accompanying him for these fifteen years?

Cortana saw Zhou Yi's worry.

"It's not what I think? Then what is it?" Zhou Yi asked.

Cortana held out three fingers: "There are three degrees of muscle strain, the first is minor muscle damage, the second is partial tearing of muscle fibers, and the third is muscle rupture." Then she took away the last two fingers and said to Zhou Yi: "And you are the mildest first type."

Although hearing that he was the "mildest" type seemed like good news, Zhou Yi was still a little skeptical and asked, "How do you know?"

"Don't you have any stinging sensation?"

"Yes, no..."

"If you have torn muscle fibers, you will have a stinging sensation, and you will feel that you can't exert force in this part of your right leg." Cortana put her hand on the place where Zhou Yi felt uncomfortable. "If you have a muscle rupture, when I press here, I will clearly feel a depression, because your muscle tissue is broken and displaced."

Zhou Yi reached back and touched it himself, and pressed it, and indeed didn't press any pits.

Seeing that he was really in the mildest situation, Zhou Yi breathed a sigh of relief: "The mildest is good, the mildest is good..."

He muttered repeatedly, like a Xianglin Sao.