Chapter 1 The Afternoon Training

That afternoon, the Chinese Olympic team began their first training session since the match against South Korea. Before the training session started, team leader Guo Bing announced new team rules, forbidding Sun Pan from accepting any more interviews with reporters before the end of the Olympics. He also expressed his hope that the team would focus on training and competing, and not be affected by the outside world.

In reality, this was just a more euphemistic way of saying, "Everyone, keep your mouths shut and don't talk about politics."

Everyone knew what kind of reaction Sun Pan's words had caused outside, so it was just a gag order, and no one felt that the punishment was too severe.

Even Sun Pan himself didn't say anything.

After the training session, the team had a routine press conference. These press conferences were usually attended by the head coach and one player, so that the media could ask the coach questions and also ask the player questions. Even if it was the same question, the players and coaches would answer from different perspectives.

However, there were no fixed rules for selecting which player would attend. It was basically a random selection, trying to take care of everyone and give everyone a chance to show their face in front of the media.

But reporters always preferred to have famous players attend the press conference.

After Sun Pan's doggerel incident, the media naturally wanted Sun Pan to attend this press conference. They had prepared a bellyful of questions, intending to bombard Sun Pan and ask some explosive answers from his big mouth.

Just like yesterday.

But they were somewhat disappointed to find that the player representative who attended the press conference was indeed relatively smooth-tongued and would not easily leave any loopholes for the media... Zhou Yi.

Most reporters knew that interviewing Zhou Yi was a relatively boring thing, because he would not leave any gimmicks for reporters to hype. Although he was young, he spoke very maturely and knew how to deal with reporters.

After the last game against South Korea, Sun Pan was definitely not the only one who was interviewed in the mixed zone. Zhou Yi was also interviewed, and his words were impeccable, with nothing to hype.

Regarding the two penalty kicks, he only said that he was a little regretful about the two penalty kicks, but fortunately their goalkeeper Sun Pan saved a crucial one. He expressed his opinion, but it was all cliché and there was nothing to hype.

At this sensitive moment, the Olympic team let him come out as a player representative to attend the press conference, definitely with the intention of putting out the fire.

After everyone was seated, the press conference officially began.

Unsurprisingly, during the question-and-answer session, all the questions were related to Sun Pan's criticism of South Korea.

Blazevic answered insipidly: "Everyone has the right and freedom to express his opinion. I will not comment on whether my players are doing this correctly, and I don't think anyone can do such a thing."

Although his words were not very harsh, it could still be heard that Blazevic was protecting his players.

Seeing that they couldn't dig up too much explosive material from Blazevic, the old fox, the reporters turned their guns and aimed at Zhou Yi.

"Zhou Yi, what do you think of the South Korean media and fans criticizing the Chinese team's victory?" The one who asked this question was a Chinese reporter.

Zhou Yi shrugged: "I don't think much of it. It's quite normal."

"Normal?" The reporter who asked the question was very surprised. As a Chinese, Zhou Yi shouldn't think this was normal, right? But some reporters smiled. They had been calling on Chinese people to remain calm and rational. Now that Zhou Yi said this, didn't it mean they were right?

"Yes, normal." Zhou Yi nodded and continued. "As losers, it's normal for them to vent their emotions after the game. If they were to congratulate us on entering the top four after we defeated them, I would think that such a thing happening to Koreans would be abnormal."

Those reporters who were single-mindedly trying to create a big news story rolled their eyes secretly after hearing Zhou Yi's answer - this is why we didn't want Zhou Yi to attend the press conference today! Listen to what he's saying, it's all so safe and sound. Although it's correct, it's all nonsense!

In the words of a popular internet saying, that's "true, but useless." Words that reporters can't use to hype are meaningless.

But just as the reporters were rolling their eyes inwardly, Zhou Yi suddenly changed the subject: "It's normal for Koreans to do anything, after all, they are our opponents. We must allow them to vent their emotions after losing the game. But what I can't understand is some of our compatriots."

The reporters who had been wanting to yawn perked up collectively after hearing Zhou Yi's "but."

Zhou Yi continued: "I can't understand why, when we encounter accusations from our opponents, some of our compatriots don't help us speak up, but instead help our opponents speak up, asking us to reflect and examine ourselves. I have seen and heard a lot of these comments online. Those who say these things are still famous people with a lot of fans. Logically speaking, being able to have such influence must mean that they have outstanding abilities in some aspects, but I'm sorry, I haven't seen any outstanding abilities from those people in this Olympic Games. So I really can't understand how they got to where they are today? Did they buy all those hundreds of thousands of fans with money?"

Zhou Yi's cannon opened very suddenly. At first, everyone didn't react. After they understood, they were all excited and looked at Zhou Yi with shining eyes, hoping that he wouldn't stop.

Jiang Xiaojun, who was translating for Blazevic next to him, was also very surprised. He turned his head and looked at Zhou Yi in surprise. He knew everything about what Zhou Yi and team leader Guo Bing had talked about in the room. He thought that the matter would end there, but he didn't expect Zhou Yi to publicly criticize, and the criticism was even more direct and lethal than Sun Pan's!

"Among those who demand that we blame ourselves, demand that we reflect, and believe that we are of low quality, there are also many media reporters, which is regrettable. I have always believed that reporters should report fairly and restore the truth. But during the Olympic Games, I saw many media reporters in our own country who had no sense of fairness and unilaterally humiliated our own athletes. As long as we have conflicts with foreign countries, they will push the responsibility onto our own athletes. Is this normal? Do we really have so many mistakes that we need to reflect on? When our athletes are treated unfairly on the Olympic field, they think we should show magnanimity and tolerance. When we protest and express our opinions about these unfair things, they criticize us for being too sensitive. I can't understand where their sense of superiority comes from. Don't they feel angry when they see the slander against our country's athletes and sports? Aren't they Chinese?"

Zhou Yi spoke eloquently, without any pause in the middle, as if he didn't want to be interrupted.

"Just yesterday, we represented China and defeated our opponents in the Olympic Games, but I am very sorry to see that some people in the country are stabbing us in the back. To be honest, were there any problems with those two penalty kicks? Of course, they were definitely not 100% certain penalty kicks. But we didn't make trouble unreasonably. We used our actual performance to defeat our opponents. Was there anything wrong with our performance after the game? I don't think so. We are the victors, we are upright victors, why should we care about the feelings of a not-so-glorious loser? Sorry, I'm not the Korean's dad, I don't need to be responsible for the loser's mood. And those who demand that we apologize and be generous because the Koreans are angered by our remarks, why didn't they demand that the Western media apologize when Ye Shiwen was smeared by the Western media, but instead demanded that we be generous?"

"Some people say that we did have a dark history of using banned drugs in the past, so it is normal to be questioned after winning the championship. But the problem is that the Western countries have an even longer and more extensive dark history of using banned drugs than we do. So should we fully question the gold content of their medals after their athletes win the championship? Did Ye Shiwen take drugs? She passed the urine test, and the sample will be kept for eight years. During these eight years, her honor will be revoked as long as any banned drug ingredients are detected. But before this situation occurs, someone is already eager to put the blame on her. I can understand the Western media doing this as their natural hostility towards us Chinese people, but how should I understand our own compatriots doing this? Yellow-skinned, white-hearted banana people? Westerners who were born in the wrong womb? Did they take money from the West to speak out for them?"

"Walking upright is a sign of the emergence of human beings, but I'm sorry, I didn't see such a sign in many traitors in China this time. After the vast majority of Chinese people have stood up, some people are still kneeling on the ground. They have been kneeling for too long, their physical functions have degenerated, and they don't know how to walk upright anymore, so they can only continue to kneel on the ground. These 'kneeling people' even euphemistically call this humility and low-key, which is the traditional Chinese virtue and can win the respect of the international community. But what I want to say is that kneeling can't win respect, and it can't win goodwill. I have been playing football abroad for so many years, and I have many foreign friends, German and Japanese. They come from different countries, have different educational backgrounds, and believe in different religions. We even have different eating habits. But this doesn't prevent us from being friends. What I want to explain to everyone is that none of these friends were won by my bowing and scraping. You can't even walk upright, you don't even have the sign of a human being, how can you expect others to treat you as a 'person'?"

Zhou Yi's words became heavier and heavier, extending from the Olympic Games to the very heavy topic of human dignity. The atmosphere at the press conference also became serious, and the air seemed to be frozen. No one expected that Zhou Yi, a young man who was younger than all of them, was actually teaching them how to be human...

"This is the last time I will answer questions about those things. I hope everyone will not use such boring questions to affect the team. We are very busy. I said before the Olympic Games that our goal is the gold medal, the championship. This is not self-motivation, this is my goal, and it is not only my personal goal, but also the goal of the entire team. I don't care what others think of us, but we will work hard towards the championship. If anyone is still not convinced? Hold it in!"

Speaking of this, Zhou Yi paused and continued: "Finally, I have one more thing I want to explain and clarify - a reporter surnamed Zhang from *The Legal Evening News* said that Chinese players have no culture. I think he made a most basic mistake, which is generalization. I don't deny that there are indeed players with low education among the players. I myself don't even have a high school diploma. But I can't agree with such a general statement that players have low culture and low quality. Therefore, in order to prove to this reporter surnamed Zhang that we football players still have culture, I decided to send him two lines of poetry..."

Although Zhou Yi's words were targeted before, he didn't target a specific person, but used a group to replace them. This was the first time he directly named a person, although he still didn't say the full name. But everyone is in the media circle, so how could they not know who he was talking about? He even revealed the person's work unit.

They were very curious about what Zhou Yi was going to say.

Zhou Yi smiled slightly: "Your body and name will both perish, but the rivers will flow forever. I believe that with reporter Zhang's cultural level, he must know what these two lines of poetry mean."

After speaking, Zhou Yi stood up and bowed: "Thank you everyone for patiently listening to me say so much, goodbye."

Then he just turned around and left the press conference, leaving a group of reporters and Olympic team staff dumbfounded...

※※※

ps, some people say that what I wrote is exaggerated and fake. I recommend that you follow "Caijing Wang" on Weibo to appreciate its performance, so you can know that what I wrote is not real enough...