Chapter 89 – Hollowed Out
“What happens after your leg’s healed?” Jiang Ranan asked casually as he pushed the wheelchair forward.
“When my brother’s leg gets better, who’s going to care about a thing like you?” Fat Tangyuan blurted out. Realizing what he’d said, he slapped a hand over his mouth in a panic. “Ah, d*mn—it just slipped out.”
Expressionless, Jiang Ranan left him and the wheelchair stranded in the hallway.
The fat boy spun his wheels frantically, following after him. “Hey, don’t go! I was just kidding…”
…
The results were no surprise.
Yang Sa hadn’t stayed long at Du Changcheng’s office. By the time he got back, both the training room and the dorm were empty—no sign of Zhao Yan anywhere.
He searched the whole building before finally finding him tucked away in the narrow space near the stairwell by the storage room, crouched down, clutching the team’s pet parrot and murmuring to it.
The poor parrot looked miserable, flapping its wings in an attempt to escape. But Zhao Yan held on too tightly. It considered biting him, thought better of it, and in its desperation, spotted Yang Sa—stretching out its neck toward him like a drowning man spotting a lifeboat.
It was the second time Yang Sa had seen that bird send a desperate SOS. The first time had been when Fat Tangyuan tried to force it into a sworn brotherhood ritual. Ever since then, the little parrot chased him around viciously, pecking him without an ounce of mercy.
“Tired?” Yang Sa sat down across from him, handing over a cup of freshly brewed coffee.
Zhao Yan shook his head, taking the cup with both hands. “Not tired.”
He really wasn’t tired—not physically, anyway. It was more like he felt completely hollowed out. Right now, his will to live and his fighting spirit were both hanging by a thread.
“Captain…” Zhao Yan hesitated, then asked, “Can I go back to the second team?”
Yang Sa didn’t respond. He simply gave him a look—one that said Do you really think that’s an option?
“Or…” Zhao Yan forced a smile, “maybe we could hold another open tryout? Like last time?”
He remembered clearly: that was how Yang Sa had joined them in the first place.
To be fair, Zhao Yan knew his own strengths—and his limits. He had made it to Second Team Captain by being steady, reliable, and by sticking around longer than most.
When Captain Shao had been injured and the team needed new blood, they had all been resentful. Until they watched Yang Sa’s matches—especially the miraculous counterattack he pulled off at the Asia Cup. After that, every single one of them had been convinced, fair and square.
They had thought that Zhuang Bai leaving meant it was finally time for the old guard to shine. But the first time they actually stepped onto the field with the First Team… they realized it wasn’t a chance to rise—it was a one-way ticket to seeing their dreams crushed.
It wasn’t that Zhao Yan didn’t love esports anymore. He just couldn’t keep up. The second he set foot on that stage, he had known: this gap between him and them wasn’t something he could ever cross, no matter how hard he tried.
Yang Sa sat in silence for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to explain Shao Zhan’s injury—and the true state of the team.
“Captain Shao’s having surgery?” Zhao Yan was practically shaking with nerves. “Is it serious? Did the surgery go well?”
Yang Sa said calmly that right now, Shao’s surgery wasn’t what Xinghai’s players should be worrying about most.
Of course, Zhao Yan knew that too. What they needed to focus on was the team’s performance.
“So that means… you didn’t pull me up here just as a temporary substitute, you… you…” The more Zhao Yan thought about it, the more terrified he became, clutching the parrot in his arms tighter and tighter.
“For the foreseeable future,” Yang Sa finished for him, “you’ll be starting on the First Team and playing in the matches.”
Even though Zhao Yan had already half expected it, hearing it said out loud still hit him like a punch to the gut. He froze on the spot, as stiff and stunned as the parrot that had long since given up struggling in his arms.
Yang Sa understood all too well—this kind of pressure on Zhao Yan was no less than what he himself had felt leading the team into the Asia Cup. He was just about to say something to comfort him when, surprisingly, the rookie spoke first.
“Captain, I understand. I’ll do my best.”
At that moment, Zhao Yan finally grasped why the team had arranged things this way. He also understood that Shao Zhan’s injury was a tightly guarded secret—absolutely not something that could be leaked. That was why this time, Xinghai couldn’t hold a public tryout to recruit new players.
In times like these, the less attention they drew, the better. They couldn’t afford to show any cracks to the outside world.
As long as Shao Zhan was officially still sitting at the helm, Xinghai would continue to exert an invisible, overwhelming pressure on every opponent they faced.
Zhao Yan stood up and released the parrot from his arms. “Captain, I know my skills aren’t the best. I’m not the most talented player out there. But there’s one thing I can promise: I won’t back down anymore. I’ll hold on. I’ll hold on until Captain Shao comes back.”
He bowed deeply, then turned and walked away.
When the coach had first called him up to the First Team, they had said he was just a stand-in. Zhao Yan had really thought it would only be for a few days—he had never imagined it would be like this.
In such a critical moment for the team, letting him step into the breach was the greatest show of trust.
Zhao Yan had never been a confident person, especially after witnessing firsthand how the First Team played during matches.
Even now, he didn’t suddenly believe in himself. But if the coach and captain were willing to trust him, it meant there must be something in him—something even he hadn’t realized was there.
This was an opportunity. Maybe the only opportunity he would ever have.
And he was determined to seize it. Determined not to let down the people who believed in him.
Truth be told, Zhao Yan’s solid, steady style was exactly what Xinghai needed in a substitute right now. Watching the young man’s retreating figure, Yang Sa felt a quiet certainty growing inside him.
After this regrouping, the reborn Xinghai team would fear no opponent.
Actually, during a meeting with Qin Chuan, Du Changcheng, and the others, Yang Sa had already discussed Shao Zhan’s situation. The plan was to keep it secret from outsiders—but when it came to their own teammates, it could be revealed to a certain extent.
After that conversation with the new captain, Zhao Yan practically locked himself inside the training room. He didn’t come out, not even for meals—his Second Team teammates had to deliver his dinner, and he barely picked at it.
Fat Tangyuan, who had been taking advantage of his injury to laze around and boss others around, was pushed in by his teammates, cradling his head miserably.
“What’s going on? What’s going on? Why does it feel like I’m looking at a younger version of our new captain?”
When Yang Sa had first joined Xinghai, he’d worked himself to the bone preparing for the Asia Cup, training day and night. The memory still stressed Fat Tangyuan out.
He wanted to comfort Zhao Yan—to tell him to train when it was time to train and rest when it was time to rest. But before he could, Zhao Yan grabbed him, bombarding him with technical questions.
Before all this, the timid little substitute would never have dared—he used to cling to the walls and bail at the first sign of trouble.
Before training began that day, Qin Chuan briefly explained Shao Zhan’s condition to the team, shocking Fat Tangyuan, who had still been daydreaming about slacking off until their old captain returned.
“You guys…” Fat Tangyuan’s gaze darted between Yang Sa and Zhao Yan. “You all knew?”
Qin Chuan placed a steadying hand on the furious fat boy’s shoulder. “It was a decision made by the coaching staff and me.”
“But why?” Fat Tangyuan couldn’t wrap his head around it. They were brothers who had fought side by side. Why would they keep something like this from him? “Am I that untrustworthy?”
“That’s not it. You know it’s not.” Qin Chuan sighed. “We kept it quiet because of Zhuang Bai. We didn’t want to burden him too much before he left.”
“How is that a burden?” Fat Tangyuan argued, grabbing Jiang Ranan to back him up. “Lao Bai’s just going to enlist. It’s not like he had to leave right this second! He could’ve waited until next year. We’re a team—shouldn’t we be carrying this together?”
“That’s exactly the point,” Qin Chuan said, frowning. “If he knew about Shao Zhan’s surgery, Zhuang Bai would never have left. That’s why we kept it from him.”
He paused for a moment before continuing, voice low: “Zhuang Bai’s father is sick. He didn’t tell us because he didn’t want to distract anyone. He joined the team in the first place to ease the burden on his family. His father’s greatest wish was to see him in uniform—see him fulfill the dream he had as a kid. We couldn’t be the ones to hold him back.”
“Lao Bai, you…” Fat Tangyuan choked up, muttering brokenly without finishing a full sentence. He lowered his head, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and then, still sniffling, opened his game interface.
“What are we practicing today?” he asked, voice thick with emotion.
“The training schedule was posted in the group chat hours ago,” Du Changcheng said, happening to walk by. Hearing Fat Tangyuan’s question, he immediately snapped at him, “You little pig—you spend all day stuffing your face, and you can’t even keep one serious thing in your head?”
After being thoroughly scolded by Du Changcheng, Fat Tangyuan’s brief bout of sadness vanished without a trace. Instead, he felt like every pore in his body had opened up, refreshed and alive.
“Serious stuff?” His eyes spun mischievously. “I also know about spicy rabbit heads, spicy duck necks, spicy hot pot… Coach, want to try some?”
Du Changcheng, hit right where it hurt, immediately recalled the “delicious agony” he’d experienced after his surgery. A certain part of him ached instinctively, and he hobbled off, clutching his knee, muttering as he went to do his daily rehab exercises.
After opening up and getting everything off their chests, the team’s dedication to training completely exceeded the coaches’ expectations. In the end, Du Changcheng had to physically kick the First Team players out of the training room.
“One bite at a time, idi*ts! You can’t raise your results in a single day. Go sleep. All of you—get to bed!”
Even so, one player still snuck back in to practice after the coach had gone to rest.
The pressure on Zhao Yan was immense. No pep talk or lecture could erase the psychological weight he carried.
Yang Sa took the newcomers to small tournaments whenever he could—not just to win, but mainly to temper their mentality.
Over time, Zhao Yan’s skills gradually built up too, accumulating slowly through failure after failure.
…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Shao Zhan’s surgery had gone relatively smoothly. After a series of follow-up tests, he soon entered the rehabilitation phase.
The secretary office had sent a new assistant all the way from China to help him—handling business matters based on Shao Zhan’s instructions, and looking after his day-to-day needs.
The newcomer’s first impression was: The boss must be in love.
Every little detail of Shao Zhan’s life had to be photographed and sent out: what he ate, what treatments he received, a stray cat he saw on the street—he even took close-up shots of his rain-soaked clothes after getting caught in a downpour. All the sappy, lovesick details—not even worth mentioning individually.
But after spending some time around him, the assistant started to wonder if the boss was… delusional.
He had noticed early on that while Shao Zhan sent a lot of messages, he almost never received any replies. At first, he thought maybe it was just a time zone issue and didn’t think much of it.
Until one night, during a late video conference where he was helping take meeting notes, he caught sight of Shao Zhan out of the corner of his eye.
When the meeting ended, Shao Zhan immediately pulled out his phone to continue his “love log,” mindlessly scrolling through it.
The secretary glimpsed the reflection on the glass wall behind him—page after page of green voice memos, not a single reply.
He couldn’t help feeling concerned about his boss’s mental state. Seizing a good opportunity, he gently brought up the topic in a roundabout way.
Normally stern and reserved, Shao Zhan immediately lit up with a brilliant smile and said proudly, “My partner is super sweet and caring.”
Then, just as quickly, he scowled and corrected himself, “No—no, I don’t have a lover. They don’t allow me to talk about them. It’s a secret.”
The way he said it—mysterious and defensive—was about as suspicious as it could possibly get.
The poor secretary ended up hiding in the restroom afterward, frantically Googling:[“Boss might be mentally unstable—how to keep my job…]