Chapter 40 – Stuff Them in the Trunk?
Afterwards, the LAP team members watched in shock as, under Shao Zhan’s command, Zhuang Bai and Jiang Ranan dragged Fat Tangyuan and Little Blue by their necks and ankles. With the help of a taxi driver, they were trying to cram the two into the back seat.
Normally, stuffing a drunk Tangyuan into the back seat involved three steps:
- Open the car door.
- Toss the person in.
- Close the door.
It was a bit of a struggle, but at least manageable. But now, with the two of them hugging each other, the difficulty had multiplied several times over.
Sweating from the effort, Shao Zhan stood with his hands on his hips and called to the driver—
“Pop the trunk. We’ll shove them in there.”
In the dark, the taxi driver looked horrified. “Hey… I’m a legit cab, not some shady operation.”
After finally managing to push the human dumplings into the car, Shao Zhan leaned on the roof and politely asked the LAP members for their opinion. It was a ten-minute drive to the base—should they all go together for now, or just package up the Smurfs and deliver them tomorrow?
Little Black and Little White raised their hands, saying they couldn’t leave their brothers stranded in an unfamiliar place. Frustrated, Yang Sa had no choice but to hop into another cab they’d flagged down from across the street.
Naturally, getting them in was hard—getting them out was even harder.
Zhuang Bai, White, and Black pulled from one end, while Shao Zhan and Jiang Ranan pushed from the other. After a long struggle with no progress, an exasperated Shao Zhan kicked Tangyuan’s pudgy back, and the others finally managed to drag them out.
The taxi driver, shocked by the whole ordeal, hit the gas and sped off into the night.
Uncle Zhou, the gatekeeper, jogged over and stared at the two collapsed figures on the ground. “What happened to them?”
“Nothing serious. They’re just overheated,” Shao Zhan said. “Let them cool off on the ground for a bit.”
“They’ll catch a cold like that,” Uncle Zhou said, concern etched on his face as he started to help them up, wrapped in his coat. But Shao Zhan stopped him.
“You go rest, Uncle. I’ll call a few youth trainees to carry them in later.”
Maybe it was all the bumping around, but drunk Tangyuan squinted his eyes open and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth as he stared at the Xinghai team’s emblem at the entrance. “We made it to the base?”
The next second, his chubby hands grabbed Little Blue’s shoulders and began shaking him like crazy. “Brother, wake up! I’m giving you a grand tour of my house!”
Little Blue opened his eyes in a daze. “Uurgh…”
Shao Zhan swallowed his rising anger and led the LAP members into the base. Since Fat Tangyuan was awake now and they were at their own doorstep, there probably wouldn’t be any more trouble. Once he sobered up tomorrow, Shao Zhan would just make him mop the floors as punishment.
As for Little Blue, the teammates who came with him seemed like they didn’t really want to take him back anymore.
Before Zhuang Bai and Jiang Ranan could go help, Fat Tangyuan was already dragging his rainbow-colored friend, staggering side to side as he charged toward the base like an under-evolved gorilla.
The moment they stepped through the base gates, everyone froze, stunned by the scene before them.
The earlier commotion had awakened the base’s only pet—a myna bird that had always believed itself to be a rooster. It was now flapping around the base in a panic.
Meanwhile, the drunken duo of Fat Tangyuan and Little Blue were leaping around like lunatics, chasing the terrified bird into a frenzy. Red-brown feathers flew everywhere as chaos erupted…
The poor, outnumbered bird was no match for four drunken hands.
Worried Uncle Zhou would be heartbroken, Shao Zhan rushed in to rescue the myna, which the old man treated like family. But no one expected that the drunken fat guy had somehow found superhuman strength—he had the bird locked tightly under him like his life depended on it.
No one dared to use brute force for fear of hurting the bird. Uncle Zhou was clearly distressed, but he couldn’t scold a drunk kid too harshly. All he could do was crouch nearby, gently coaxing the bird he’d raised by hand since it was a chick.
“There, there, don’t be scared. Your chubby big brother doesn’t mean any harm.”
To be fair, Fat Tangyuan truly didn’t mean any harm. He was just wasted and in full-on drunk madness mode, trying to make the bird his sworn brother.
On the other side, Little Blue couldn’t tell the difference between bird and person anymore. Slurring his words, he shouted that they had to “swear brotherhood to the heavens,” and somehow managed to pull a cigarette from Yang Sa’s pocket with nimble fingers.
That fired up Fat Tangyuan even more. With three cigarettes pinched between his fingers, his eyes full of drunken passion, he clutched the motionless bird tightly under his arm and suddenly bellowed:
“Let heaven and earth bear witness—today, the three of us… shall become sworn… sworn… sworn brothers!”
Little Blue sat up with a dramatic kip-up, held down the heads of both Fat Tangyuan and the bird, and shouted in a clumsy northeastern accent: “First… first bow to heaven and earth! Second… second bow to, to, to…”
“To parents,” Little Black chimed in helpfully, standing in a perfect T-pose with his hands clasped solemnly in front of him. When everyone stared at him in shock, he explained calmly, “There’s no reasoning with drunk people. Logic doesn’t apply.”
And he was right—until the whole ceremony was completed, no one was getting any peace.
So when Little Blue shouted, “Thir… third… husband and wife…”, Little White fearlessly stepped forward and declared, “Spouses bow to each other.”
The rest of the group wore expressions of grim determination. Zhuang Bai and Jiang Ranan stepped up and, bracing themselves, added, “Escort to the bridal chamber…”
The poor, helpless myna bird, teary-eyed and with feathers half-yanked out, was repeatedly forced to bow by the neck like a scrawny, molting chicken.
Shao Zhan, who hadn’t said a word until now, had a vein bulging on his forehead. He finally couldn’t take it anymore and gave the chubby drunk a solid kick. “Enough! If you’ve messed around enough, go to bed.”
The fat one yelped in pain and clutched his backside, while the traumatized bird flapped its wings and flew straight into Uncle Zhou’s arms for comfort.
After all that commotion and a well-deserved kick, Fat Tangyuan sobered up halfway—but not completely. Still holding his butt, he wobbled to his feet, wrapped an arm around his blue buddy, and went off to sleep. No one could persuade him otherwise.
The others didn’t bother trying anymore either, afraid the madness might rub off on them.
Still, with the fat guy dragging someone off to sleep, it saved them some trouble. The entire third floor was already full. Several rooms had been converted for Team One into a gym, a home theater, and a study—though no one really used them. Coach Lao Du mostly used the space as his personal training room.
There were two empty rooms on the third floor reserved for backup players. They were currently unoccupied, with fresh sheets on the beds—perfect for housing guests.
There was also one more room, kept for Lao Du’s six-year-old son. The kid was adorable—soft-skinned and charming—and whenever he didn’t have classes during the holidays, he always found ways to sneak into the base to hang out with the big brothers.
Shao Zhan was especially fond of the kid. Since Coach Du spent most of his time rooted in the team and rarely got to be with his family, Shao Zhan had simply allocated the room for the boy to stay in when he visited. The kid was thrilled and had filled the room with all sorts of toys. It just happened to be available now. Shao Zhan made a mental note to apologize to little Du next time he came.
Little Black and Little White were guided by Jiang Ranan and Zhuang Bai to the two spare rooms for alternates. Shao Zhan personally led Yang Sa to the children’s room, which had Transformers posters on the walls and cabinets full of model planes and toy cannons.
“The coach’s son stays here sometimes. The linens are freshly changed, and this is the cleanest room—our housekeeper keeps it spotless,” he explained.
After making arrangements, Shao Zhan returned to his own room and lay down without even changing clothes. Only then did he realize he’d forgotten to say something.
Staring at the soft white light fixture on the ceiling, Shao Zhan softly whispered: “Good night.”
Yang Sa pulled his gaze away from the ceiling and rolled over in bed, locking eyes with a figurine of Zoro from One Piece, swords slung over his shoulders.
“What are you looking at…” he muttered.
Suddenly, he felt something poking him from underneath. Reaching down, he fished out a clear, rubbery bouncy ball from under the sheets. Inside it was a tiny orange-yellow dinosaur, flailing its limbs in a dramatic pose.
Way past the age of playing with bouncy balls, Yang Sa casually tossed it away.
The round little ball bounced twice across the floor, rolled along a floorboard gap toward the door, wobbled a bit, then finally came to a stop.
At the time, Yang Sa had no idea that this careless little gesture would soon cause him a world of trouble.
Normally, Yang Sa had a strict diet. Food, to him, was nothing more than fuel—no likes or dislikes involved. Or rather, he didn’t have the energy to think about what he liked.
But the night before, with two back-to-back gatherings and a genuinely warm and cheerful atmosphere, he’d ended up eating a bit more than usual.
In the middle of the night, he got up in the dark to use the bathroom. The door creaked loudly when he opened it, but he paid it no mind.
On his way back, he discovered the true power of the bouncy ball.
No matter how hard he pushed, the door refused to budge—like a stone beast guarding a temple. He crouched down, peering through the thin sliver of light under the door, and saw the now-flattened orange dinosaur wedged right in the gap, mocking him from a distance with silent, gleeful contempt.
He gave the door another couple of shoves. All he got in return was the grating sound of the rubber ball being crushed between the door and the floor—no movement at all.
Technically, he could have forced it open with brute strength. But he was just a guest here. Getting the door stuck like this was embarrassing enough; breaking it down in the middle of the night was just not something he could bring himself to do.
Yang Sa thought about just crashing in a friend’s room for the night. He texted them, but no one replied. When they split up earlier to assign rooms, no one expected him to get locked out, so now he couldn’t even tell which rooms belonged to his teammates and which to the Xinghai team. He couldn’t exactly go around knocking on every door like some late-night creep.
He stepped back from the door where that smug rubber dinosaur had trapped him, and his eyes drifted to the room next door.
That was the Xinghai captain’s room. He had known that from the start. Three years ago, he had once…
His hand still seemed to tremble faintly at the memory of pushing open that door. He coughed once, pressing a fist to his lips, trying to steady his racing heart.
He wandered over to the lounge area near the stairs. Next to the warmly lit designer couch, a person-tall shelving unit was packed with green plants. He’d been to teams all over the country and abroad, but none of them had this many potted plants combined.
The most eye-catching part was the full row of vending machines lined up along the wall behind the couch. Snacks, drinks, instant meals—everything you could think of. In the dark, the machines glowed with a sinful, irresistible allure.
And yet, to his speechless astonishment, every single vending machine had a shiny QR code stuck to the top right corner.
This is… way too stingy.
Such a big team, and with any random sponsorship they must be pulling in tens of millions—how could they still charge for a bag of chips?
Sure enough, capitalists are all the same kind of greedy, even if that capitalist is Shao Zhan.
At that thought, the cold figure that had been etched into Yang Sa’s heart for years suddenly felt a little more human, touched by the mundane warmth of everyday life. Unconsciously, he actually smiled.
When he realized he was smiling, he quickly reached up to press the corner of his mouth and wiped the smile away.
Expression going cold again, he circled around the couch and let himself fall back onto it, staring up at the ceiling.