Chapter Twenty-Seven: Your Path

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“Are you alright? Bisheng!”
Yin Xiuping, who had been smiling as she watched her son running toward her, was startled by Long Bisheng’s dramatic fall. She hurried down the steps, ready to help her son up.
But just as she reached the bottom, she saw Long Bisheng spring to his feet, dusting the snow from his clothes as he sheepishly said, “Heh, I was walking too fast and slipped. It’s alright, it didn’t hurt!”
Relieved, Yin Xiuping walked over to help her son brush off the dirt, chiding him as she did, “You’re almost ten, yet you still don’t watch your step when you run... Good thing you’re sturdy. Otherwise, that fall could’ve been much worse...”
Though her words sounded like scolding, her tone was filled with deep concern.
Long Bisheng grinned, not the least bit impatient. To him, his mother’s nagging was nothing but heartwarming.
After she finished cleaning him up, Yin Xiuping finally took a good look at her son and said with a smile, “You’ve grown taller again, my boy. Soon you’ll be taller than your mother. By then, I’m sure you’ll be as tall and strong as your father—a true man!”
At one meter seventy, Yin Xiuping was quite tall for a woman.
“Hurry up, dear, is dinner ready? Both your son and I are starving!” Long Yuyun walked past them, carrying luggage, urging them along.
“It’s been ready for ages!” Yin Xiuping led her son back up the steps, “But both of you need to take a bath first! No dinner until you’re clean!”
Long Bisheng, following behind his mother, couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed that even after being away from home for nearly five months, some things never changed—like the rule that you had to wash up before eating...

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After a refreshing bath and a delicious dinner, Long Bisheng finally sat down to tell his parents about life at football school.
“What kind of school is this? They promised four to a dorm, then the moment your dad left, it became seven! And bunk beds, too. Tell me you didn’t sleep on the top bunk?” After hearing about her son’s last five months, Yin Xiuping immediately raised her voice.
As a mother, her main concern was whether her son was living well—how he played football mattered little to her. But the thought of him sleeping on the top bunk, knowing his slight fear of heights, was intolerable.
“No, I was on the bottom,” Long Bisheng shook his head. He was the biggest kid in his dorm, perhaps in the whole school, so no one fought him for the lower bunk. For those youngsters, the top was more comfortable anyway.
“That's more like it,” Yin Xiuping nodded, finally satisfied. Long Yuyun, however, frowned.
“So your classmates were fine at first, but later started pretending to be sick to skip training? And your coach just let it go?” Long Yuyun asked.
“Yes,” Long Bisheng nodded, “The coach just keeps to the schedule. There’s no roll call or anything. If they skip training after class, they just go off to the video halls or game rooms nearby.”
“Oh? Did you ever go with them? I mean during your free time,” Long Yuyun asked with a smile. He knew his son would never shirk training; in fact, he probably wished for even more.
“I never went,” Long Bisheng shook his head. “At first, they invited me a few times, but then they stopped.”
The “they” obviously referred to his dorm-mates.
“Why not? They asked you, you should go with them. It’s your free time, after all—as long as it’s nothing illegal, there’s no harm. You’re only ten, still a child. It’s normal to want to play with new things.” Long Yuyun sounded puzzled. “Don’t you like watching movies or playing games?”
“I do, I like watching good movies and playing fun games,” Long Bisheng spread his hands. “But... I don’t have any money.”

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“How could you not have money?” Long Yuyun was surprised. “Didn’t I leave you fifteen hundred? What about the card?”
Long Bisheng fumbled in his pocket and produced the card. “Here it is. I haven’t used it once.”
Long Yuyun breathed a sigh of relief. “Then why not use it? I left you money so you could spend it.”
Long Bisheng looked at his father, puzzled. “I kept it in case the school asked for more fees. How could I dare spend it? What if I used it up and the school asked for more money? My classmates all live close by, not like me.”
“Judging from this term, although the principal charged a lot at first, he didn’t raise fees later on,” Long Yuyun sighed. “Next semester, you can use that money—go to the movies, play games, do whatever a child should do in his free time. As long as you don’t spend more than a hundred a month on that, it’s fine.”
Seeing Long Bisheng remain silent, Long Yuyun sighed again. “I know you’re sensible and don’t want to burden the family with extra expenses... But don’t forget, you’re only ten! Ten is the age to want to try everything new! But look at you now, like a jaded old man in his thirties or forties. Besides football, you should experience new things, whatever they are. You need to try and understand them... And more importantly, you must build good relationships with your classmates. Maybe not the whole school, but at least your dorm-mates. You should fit in and interact with them—at the very least, don’t let them see you as an outsider!”
Long Bisheng opened his mouth to speak, and Long Yuyun smiled, “You’re wondering why I want you to get along with these classmates who likely won’t become footballers, aren’t you? You think it’s pointless, since you’ll all be strangers after leaving football school, right?”
Long Bisheng nodded vigorously. That was exactly what he’d been thinking, though he hadn’t found the words to say it.
“You have to learn to get along with others, understand? I never insisted on this before, because I wanted your character to grow freely—I didn’t want to constrain you with my expectations. But now it’s different. If you pursue professional football, you’ll face many things alone... If you still don’t know how to make friends, your path will be much harder.”