Chapter 196: A Show Match – Physically in Cao Cao's Camp, but Heartily in Han's…
To be honest, Li Sishi didn't know much about the sports scene in Hong Kong. If it weren't for the fact that there was a star-studded football team in the entertainment industry, and that her cousin was currently trying to become a professional player, she would absolutely not have had the time or the inclination to learn about this field that was almost irrelevant to her.
But now that her cousin Zhou Huiguang has become a youth player for the Qizhi team, she can't help but subconsciously start paying attention to and recalling this information. For Li Sishi, the life journey of her uncle's family is another major event that she always keeps in mind, besides her mother Zhou Jiaxian who has settled down.
My aunt and uncle are stubborn and like to help others but don't like to be helped. So, Li Sishi went along with their small-town mentality of buying houses and land to save for a rainy day, and encouraged them to use their savings to buy land in Shanghai, which was not yet developed. Now, with the rapid development of Shanghai, my aunt and uncle, who own more than a dozen plots of land in Shanghai, don't need to worry much about their retirement.
As for my cousin Zhou Huichang, she was admitted to the design major at Hong Kong Polytechnic University this year. She is currently studying at the university steadily. In her spare time, she can also do the fashion design she likes through her business partnerships. Her works have been praised by professors at the university and many people for being talented and creative. As long as she continues to follow this path, she will basically have a bright future, whether she becomes a designer or any other profession.
The only person that Li Sishi and her family were worried about was Zhou Huiguang, who wasn't very good at studying.
Originally, Li Sishi wanted her cousin Zhou Huiguang to pursue a career in sports so that he could leverage his physical advantages to go further in his studies, and then find a stable job in the sports field later on. However, after she herself went further and more smoothly than expected, Li Sishi naturally raised her "expectations" for Zhou Huiguang, hoping that he could also go further than originally planned, just like her.
The fact that her cousin lost a leg while saving her in her past life was an extremely heavy burden on Li Sishi's heart. Even though her cousin and others didn't blame her in her past life, but instead blamed the gang members who hurt her cousin, she still couldn't help but feel that she needed to take some responsibility for it.
Especially after she became a wandering ghost in the car accident, she unexpectedly learned that the mastermind behind the kidnapping was her scumbag ex-husband who had planned the kidnapping to win her favor and intended to be a hero and save her.
Because Li Sishi always felt that she was the "trigger," which ultimately led to the birth of this "result."
Even strictly speaking, what truly causes harm is guidance.
This is a tribute to Li Sishi's scumbag ex-husband, who caused her tragic life in her previous life. However, many people think that without a "cause," there would be no "result."
Then they will feel hatred towards the "trigger" who is also a victim—and there are quite a few cases like this. When some people dare not hold a grudge against a powerful perpetrator, they will resort to the act of a victim wielding a knife against another victim.
Although Li Sishi did not suffer such unnecessary secondary harm, she still felt somewhat responsible for it. Therefore, in addition to her busy work and studies, she secretly used some "unknown" methods to eliminate a potential threat that could disrupt her peaceful life.
For example, in the past year or so
Li Sishi first used her maternal family, who were determined to exploit her family's wealth, to her scumbag ex-husband and distract him, thus controlling most of his energy. Then, she would occasionally show her annoyance towards a certain persistent suitor in front of Madam Li and Li Jinhao.
Therefore, the Zheng family, which is called a "wealthy family" but is actually a "nouveau riche" family, has recently been resented by two elders who are protective of their children. They have secretly contacted many relatives and friends with some connections to launch a joint attack from all sides, both openly and secretly.
According to Li Sishi's observation, the Zheng family is now in a mess and bankruptcy is inevitable—this is also Li Sishi's "revenge" for her past self in this life from another perspective.
Having confirmed that the hatred from her past life had been largely settled, Li Sishi naturally devoted all the time she had spared from her busy schedule to making up for the "regrets".
Zhou Huiguang still took the unconventional path of becoming a professional player. Even though Li Sishi actively supported him and persuaded his uncle's family to let him go, everyone couldn't help but pay more attention to him for taking this path.
Although the current situation in Hong Kong's football scene is not as thriving as the track and field circle, it can still be considered a somewhat popular circle. Every year, the football league can always attract the attention of some football lovers. If Zhou Huiguang's Qizhi can maintain its strength and return to the first division, its future can basically be guaranteed.
However, Qizhi Football Team is currently undergoing a major overhaul with many new players, and its strength is estimated to be somewhat different from before. Under this premise, most of the funding can only be provided by club sponsors, unlike professional teams in the top division who can get revenue from ticket sales and other income from various competitions.
So Li Sishi tried to spend more time paying attention to football, and then took on an exhibition match.
After becoming the cheerleading captain, try to communicate more with the members of the Gangcheng Celebrity Football Team to see if you can find some opportunities for your younger cousin.
Relying solely on sponsors for financial support is unsustainable. Even second-tier teams will attract some ticket buyers towards the end of the season if they can get a chance to appear in exhibition matches and perform well.
When Qizhi plays in the promotion matches, he will be more likely to gain more attention, which is a good thing for both Qizhi and his cousin who are currently at a crucial stage.
Jiang Zhiwei was naturally a shrewd person who could understand the subtle meaning behind the words. Li Sishi and he already had a fairly good relationship, and now she had done him and his friend Cheng Hesheng such a big favor. So he strongly promoted the invitation of the Qizhi team to participate in the exhibition match.
Qi Zhi and Zhou Huiguang were lucky this year because the qualifying rounds were held in a cross-year format and started right after the exhibition match, giving them a natural time advantage over the teams in Group A.
Furthermore, the two strongest teams in Group A, Southern and Western, are currently locked in a fierce battle for the spot to represent Hong Kong in the "Guangdong-Hong Kong Cup." Other Group A teams are also eager to capitalize on this opportunity to achieve better rankings than before. Therefore, none of the Group A teams are currently showing much interest in this exhibition match.
Therefore, Jiang Zhiwei further suggested to others that the strength of the celebrity football team was really not up to par. Rather than staging a match that would appear fake to anyone with eyes to see, or making their celebrity football team look too badly beaten in this somewhat politically charged exhibition match, it would be better to find a team that was relatively weaker than the top-tier teams, but still had more hype, to be the other side of the exhibition match.
After gaining considerable approval, Jiang Zhiwei strongly recommended Qizhi, which had just been relegated from Group A to Group B last year due to internal turmoil: the captain is the newly appointed Footballer of the Year, the team's level has temporarily declined due to a major overhaul, and they also have a youth training camp that other teams don't have...
This last point, in particular, is a huge advantage that sets Kichiji apart from other teams.
In the past, the teams in Hong Kong mainly relied on foreign players. However, after the policy changed, the number of foreign players in each team was greatly reduced. After that, the strength of the teams in the top division of Hong Kong declined, and many teams were poached by foreign players, causing many teams to fall apart. At that time, only the old team Qizhi was able to remain stable. Even though many players were poached, it still stood firm. This was because it had a youth training camp as a talent pool. When players were poached, new players were immediately brought back from the youth training camp to replenish the team. Unlike some other teams, it was almost depleted of its core players and faced disbandment.
If it weren't for Qi Zhi's recent actions...
The sponsor's reckless actions and internal strife caused a significant escalation, but it wasn't enough to drastically reduce their strength and force them to be relegated from Group A.
After Jiang Zhiwei's comment, and realizing that Qizhi's team was indeed quite "interesting," the organizing committee ultimately decided to arrange for Qizhi to lead most of the youth training team members to play in the next exhibition match against the Gangcheng All-Star Football Team.
Jiang Zhiwei, who facilitated the arrangement of this event, was very satisfied. The event organizers were also very satisfied, as were the members of the Gangcheng Celebrity Football Team: the youth training team members were young and energetic, which matched the theme of this exhibition match. Most importantly, they had some skill but were not too strong, which was a perfect match for the Gangcheng Celebrity Football Team, whose members were mostly amateurs!
Although their main profession is in the entertainment industry and playing football is just a hobby, being utterly thrashed in an exhibition match that can be watched by the entire city of Hong Kong would be just too humiliating. Even if most of the people on the football team are entertainers who can take a beating and aren't afraid of making a fool of themselves, they would still try their best not to embarrass themselves if possible...
Finding a worthy opponent like Qizhi, who is both intriguing and not too strong, is just right.
After figuring out the intricacies of the situation, Li Sishi felt genuinely fortunate for her cousin's luck, but she was also somewhat worried about her own "positional issues."
In particular, Shang Hanyou, who had just finished another round of concert tour and returned to participate in this annual event, came over to tease her about this issue during a break from practicing basketball: "Will you be 'physically present but mentally absent' this time?"
"How could that be? I support you one hundred percent!"
Li Sishi quickly clarified her position as the captain of the Gangcheng Celebrity Soccer Team cheerleading squad.
Anyway, support is one thing, but if you're going to lose, you'll still lose...
Back then, so many young and handsome guys and girls from the All-Star team ran the youth marathon, but they still couldn't beat the professional junior athletes. Now, you old fogies from the All-Star soccer team, do you really think you can beat the youth training players of the former champion team?
Indeed, after Li Sishi learned more about football news, she discovered that Qizhi had once won the league championship, but unfortunately, they declined and had been hovering in the lower half of the Jia League ever since...
But now, with Lei Shenglin, a talented and capable overseas returnee captain, leading a group of energetic youth training players, the once-revamped All-Star Football Team, after a major overhaul, is in jeopardy!
Seeing Li Sishi's obvious attempt to appease him, Shang Hanyou angrily raised his hands and pinched her cheeks: "Are you so two-faced? And you're supposed to be our cheerleader captain!"
"Even the best cheerleaders can't determine the outcome of a match. You should worry more about yourself—after all, you'll be facing Zhu Yu... Back when we were filming 'The Voice of Dreams,' the two of them watched Qi Zhi's training sessions quite a few times because Li Sishi went to visit Zhou Huiguang."
However, unlike Shang Hanyou, who used his excellent eloquence to win over Zhou Huiguang to the point where Zhou Huiguang almost called him brother-in-law, Zhu Yu, a fellow member of the team who joined at the same time as Zhou Huiguang, almost "hated" Shang Hanyou, who was trying to seduce his idol, Li Sishi, simply because he liked Li Sishi.
If the two had been in different fields in the past, Zhu Yu would at most have resented him but would have been powerless to do anything about it; but now that Shang Hanyou is about to join Qi Zhi as a member of the celebrity soccer team and play against him on the big field, and both of them are playing the right-back position, Li Sishi seems to be able to foresee some funny news, such as "A male fan takes the opportunity to 'beat up his idol's rumored girlfriend'".
"Good luck to you. Recalling Zhu Yu's over two-meter-tall, robust physique, which belies his name, and then looking at the slender figure of this Heavenly King in front of her, Li Sishi felt more and more like a troublemaking, irresponsible, gloating little rascal as she spoke...
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