Chapter 17

In the seventeenth round of the league, the last round before the winter break, perhaps because they had secured the winter break championship early, Bayern Munich relaxed a bit. They were held to a draw by Borussia Mönchengladbach in their own home stadium.

The next day, Borussia Dortmund defeated Hoffenheim 3:1 away.

This reduced the gap between them and Bayern Munich to two points.

A two-point lead for the long second half of the season was practically no lead at all.

This result cheered Borussia Dortmund.

Now they were just waiting for the winter break to end so they could go head-to-head with Bayern Munich.

Next, they would play one more German Cup match, and then the team would temporarily disband. The players could go on vacation and relax. In the second half of the season, there would not only be fierce competition in the league, but also the Champions League knockout stage.

Although there was still one game to play, everyone was already looking forward to the upcoming holiday.

Most of the German players had booked their plane tickets and hotels long in advance, preparing to go to warmer places for vacation.

For Germans, Spain was a very suitable vacation destination, especially Mallorca, which was simply a paradise for vacationers in Europe.

In fact, most of Europe is located at a relatively high latitude. For example, Germany's latitude is the same as Northeast China, so the winters in Germany are very cold, not to mention Dortmund in northwestern Germany.

Places like Spain and Italy, on the other hand, are at the same latitude as the Jiangnan region of China. Due to the influence of the Mediterranean climate, the winters are mild and rainy, and it is not cold here in winter, making it a popular vacation destination for many Germans and British.

Players from other countries mostly had to return to their own countries, back to their hometowns.

Zhou Yi was one of them.

He also planned to go back home for a while during this winter break.

Although his hometown was definitely not warm in winter, he didn't care. For him, going to scenic spots and tourist resorts for vacation was not as helpful for his recovery as sleeping in at home.

Zhou Yi had already made an appointment with Yang Muge to return to China together after the holiday.

But just when he had finalized the time, an unexpected thing happened that disrupted his plans.

※※※

That night, Zhou Yi, who had nothing to do, turned on his computer and logged into QQ, ready to chat with his friends in the group to pass the time.

Night is long and wonderful for many people with rich nightlife, but not for Zhou Yi.

He was a very disciplined professional player. He had to go to bed on time at night. He wasn't very interested in bars and nightclubs. If he had time, he would rather play video games at home, or chat with friends online, or just find something to watch online.

He was a homebody.

But Zhou Yi didn't think there was anything wrong with being a homebody. Everyone has their own favorite and habitual lifestyle, and as long as it doesn't affect others, no one can criticize anything.

In his student days, besides playing football, his favorite thing was to hang out online.

In the "Excluding Old Guo" group, Sun Pan didn't show up. Zhou Yi and Yang Muge teased his roommate: "...He must have gone to chase girls again. If he stays at Atlético Madrid because of a woman, that would be fun."

"Impossible, Zhou Yi," Yang Muge said. "I don't think there's any woman anywhere who can tie down Panpan."

"Pfft, you're a true roommate, you know him so well!"

As they were chatting, Zhou Yi's QQ icon flashed again. He glanced at it and found that a girl's avatar was jumping.

This surprised him.

His QQ was always invisible, and basically no one used QQ to find him, let alone women, which were scarce resources.

He put the mouse on it and saw an unfamiliar name: "Konggu Youlan" (Solitary Orchid in a Hidden Valley).

He had no memory of this ID at all, but it certainly wasn't a stranger, because his QQ required verification to add friends. He had never approved any strangers, so anyone who was on his QQ now was someone he had known for many years.

With curiosity and suspicion, Zhou Yi clicked on the icon of this "Konggu Youlan", and a chat window popped up.

"Hi, old classmate, do you still remember me?" This sentence was followed by a default QQ ghost face emoji.

Zhou Yi frowned and searched his mind for which of his "old classmates" this was. Their high school classmates' QQ group was quite lively, although many people were already seniors in college, and senior year was a busy time, busy looking for jobs, busy preparing for graduate school, busy with internships...

But everyone's friendship had not been affected too much. Zhou Yi didn't show up in the group very often, but every time he did, he was the center of attention. What could he do? He was the most promising person in the class now. Everyone was proud to be classmates with Zhou Yi.

Especially during the Olympics, during that time, every time Zhou Yi logged into QQ, he could see that the chat history in the group had exceeded a thousand messages—because the chat was so active, he had to choose to mute the group, which only displayed the number of chat records, but didn't beep anymore.

Whenever Zhou Yi had time, he would secretly peek at what everyone was chatting about, and happily accepted the praise and flattery from his classmates.

But in Zhou Yi's memory, he had never seen anyone named "Konggu Youlan" speak in the group.

But at this time, he couldn't directly reply with: "Who are you?"

That would be too hurtful. Then others would say that Zhou Yi became distant from his old classmates after becoming a big star, and that he was putting on airs.

Zhou Yi still cherished his friendship with his classmates.

So he racked his brains and thought carefully, staring at this simple sentence and an emoji, just like Sherlock Holmes solving a case, hoping to find some clues from it.

This cliché tone, this cliché expression...

An image of a person suddenly appeared in his mind.

So he replied: "Zheng Lulu!"

As soon as he sent the message, the other party immediately responded: "I'm so glad you still remember me, I thought you would forget me after becoming a big star!" After saying that, she sent a default QQ emoji of covering her mouth and snickering.

"What are you talking about, how could I forget my classmates?" Zhou Yi breathed a sigh of relief on the computer side—he guessed right! If he had guessed wrong, it would have been too embarrassing.

Thinking of this, in order to avoid embarrassment again, he quickly clicked on Zheng Lulu's avatar and filled in Zheng Lulu's name in the remarks.

"But why did you change your name?" he asked. "I almost didn't recognize you!"

"Changing your name is normal, like changing clothes." Zheng Lulu really had to add a default QQ emoji after every sentence. This time it was a whistling emoji.

Zhou Yi guessed her based on this clue. The name can be changed, but habits are not so easy to change.

Zhou Yi wasn't the kind of person who was very good at chatting with women. He basically didn't know what to say after chatting this far. He couldn't directly ask: "What's the matter with you looking for me?", because she would most likely reply to him: "Can't I just chat with you if I don't have anything to do?"

So Zhou Yi sent an emoji. Unlike Zheng Lulu's default QQ emoji, Zhou Yi's emoji library had collected a lot of emojis that he had collected from the Internet. This time he sent a cartoon figure running with his eyes closed. It was difficult to explain what this emoji meant specifically. It could be said that it had no meaning, or it could be said that it could contain all the meanings you wanted to express. But the most important function of sending emojis was to pass the ball to the other party. If the other party had something to talk about, they would naturally say it. If the other party had nothing to say and didn't speak, then it wasn't his responsibility if the conversation went cold.

After this emoji was sent, Zheng Lulu may have realized that it was time to get down to business, so she said: "Old classmate, are you free on the twenty-fourth?"

Zhou Yi was stunned after seeing this sentence. He didn't understand what Zheng Lulu meant. Fortunately, Zheng Lulu explained: "I'll be in Dortmund on the twenty-fourth, can we have a meal together?"

Zhou Yi was shocked: "You're in Germany?"

"Yeah."

"Here for fun?"

"No, I've been here for four years." Followed by a smiling default emoji.

Zhou Yi's mouth turned into a circle in front of the computer. He had always thought that he was separated from his high school classmates by thousands of miles, but he didn't expect that there was a classmate so close to him!

"Why aren't you talking?" Zheng Lulu sent a default emoji with a question mark on her head.

"No... I'm a little surprised. I thought everyone was in China. I didn't expect that someone would be in Germany, ha!" After recovering, Zhou Yi was also very happy. He had some friends in Germany, but these friends were different from his high school classmates. Thinking that he could meet his old classmates in Germany, which was thousands of miles away from his hometown, he was also very excited. "Okay, I'm free on the twenty-fourth. What do you want to eat? I'll book it!"

"Anything is fine, I'm not familiar with Dortmund, you decide."

"Okay, then I'll decide. Do you have any food restrictions?"

"No, I don't."

"Okay, let me think, how about this one?" Zhou Yi sent a screenshot of a store's webpage, "This store's barbecue is good, and the environment is also good... Ah, but it's not good for girls to eat too much meat, right? Or should we go for something more exquisite?"

※※※

Zheng Lulu held her mobile phone and quickly tapped on the nine-square grid keyboard on the screen with her left thumb, sending out "How to be more exquisite?"

Soon, the phone dinged, and Zhou Yi's reply popped up on the screen: "Hey, it's just that they put something the size of your little fingernail on a big plate. To put it bluntly, it's not enough to eat, but you won't gain weight..."

Zheng Lulu, holding her mobile phone, laughed, attracting the attention of her roommate: "What's wrong?"

Zheng Lulu quickly replied to Zhou Yi: "No need, let's just eat this barbecue, I'm not dieting."

After replying, she raised her head and said to her roommate: "Catherine, we can't spend Christmas Eve together."

"Oh? What's going on?"

"I asked him out, on Christmas Eve."

"That person you have a crush on?"

Zheng Lulu nodded: "Yeah."

Her blonde-haired, blue-eyed roommate widened her eyes and said with great surprise: "Really?! Oh, congratulations, Lulu! Come on! I'll support you in spirit! Don't worry about me, just go and enjoy yourself!"

Facing her roommate who seemed more excited than herself, Zheng Lulu could only smile at her.