After his father left home, Hu Lai waited in the room for another five minutes, and then got up and found his mother who was cleaning up in the kitchen: "Mom, today is the birthday of my classmate Song Jiajia, and he invited me to his birthday party, but it is too lively, I may not be able to go home until later......"

Xie Lan didn't speak, just looked at his son quietly.

Under his mother's gaze, Hu Lai finally told the truth: "Okay, Mom, in fact, we are going to Jincheng to play the game, the Anton Cup final, and there should be an award ceremony after the game." So today...... I might be a little late to come back. If Dad comes back, will you tell him as I said earlier? ”

After he finished speaking, he was still a little apprehensive, for fear that his mother would not agree.

Unexpectedly, his mother looked at him and smiled: "Okay, you can go." ”

Smoothly came as Hulay as Hulay expected.

He added, "And that ...... I'm going to go out a little earlier today, we have to go to the school first, and then we will go to the East Railway Station to take the high-speed train together......"

Mom still agreed very happily: "Okay." ”

Seeing that his mother did not object to him at all, Hu Lai breathed a sigh of relief, and a smile appeared on his face: "Mom, you are so good!" ”

Xie Lan shook his hand when he saw his smirk: "Go, go, hurry up and do your homework!" ”

"Howler!" Hulay took the order and left.

※※※

When Li Qingqing came down from the second floor in his pajamas to wash, he saw his father push the door in, carrying two plastic bags full of vegetables.

"Dad, did you go grocery shopping?" Li Qingqing frowned and asked.

"Yes, you wash up first, and I'll go and warm up your breakfast. Then I'll make your lunch and dinner, and you'll only need the microwave when the time comes......" Li Ziqiang said as he walked briskly to the kitchen with the dishes. By the time he talked about the microwave, the man had already entered the kitchen.

Li Qingqing caught up and snatched the plastic bag from his father's hand: "Dad, I can cook by myself, you don't have to do it every time." Besides, today is the finals, do you still have the leisure to run to buy groceries? ”

"What are you cooking? Delay study......" Li Ziqiang said as he turned on the fire on the gas stove and heated the steamed buns and boiled eggs in the steamer on the stove.

Li Qingqing carried a plastic bag to the refrigerator to make food: "What are you delaying your studies?" I wrote everything I could write yesterday, and I still can't write if I spend a day today if I can't write. ”

Hearing this, Li Ziqiang's hands trembled: "You are quite reasonable!" What if you don't study well? ”

"Dad, are you alright?" Li Qingqing looked at her father at the kitchen door. "Didn't you say I should stick to football? It doesn't matter what my academic performance is, right? I don't go to university, do I? ”

Li Ziqiang was so choked by his daughter that he couldn't speak.

"So Dad, don't care about me, let's worry about the finals. Didn't you say that Jiaxiang High School was very powerful? Li Qingqing came in and pushed his father out of the kitchen.

"What's there to worry about in the final? Everything that should be prepared is ready, and then it's up to you to play on the spot. ”

"What if they target Luo Kai?"

"I have a backup plan." Li Ziqiang said.

Li Qingqing's eyes lit up: "What backup plan?" ”

She knew that her father had specially asked Hulai to only practice shooting, and she now wanted to hear her father say Hulai's name himself, such as "I would consider using Hulai as a backup plan to send Luo Kai on the court when he is targeted to death".

But Li Ziqiang said: "I asked Luo Kai and Tang Yuan to swap positions, so that Tang Yuan, who is good at right foot, can cut inside and try to shoot, and Chu Yifan should be more active in the penalty area, looking for shooting opportunities, when the opponent focuses on Luo Kai, it is Chu Yifan's opportunity." We've been working on this tactic in training this week. ”

Hearing her father say this, the light in Li Qingqing's eyes dimmed, but the smile on her face did not change, she still smiled and said to her father: "That's good, I'm worried that after Jiaxiang stares at Luo Kai, we won't be able to score......"

"Your dad isn't stupid." Li Ziqiang raised his hand and touched his daughter's hair.

"Hey, hey!" Li Qingqing smiled and lowered her head.

Where she couldn't see, Li Ziqiang's expression changed.

The daughter may think that she is hiding it well, but Li Ziqiang can see it clearly, her expression can be pretended, and the light in her eyes cannot be hidden.

Sometimes he really wants to ask his daughter openly and honestly, what is it about that stinky boy that attracts you?

But he was afraid that it would hurt his daughter, after all, this sentence was easy to ask, but what about after it was asked? How did his daughter face him, and how did he face his daughter?

So he could only suppress his emotions in the bottom of his heart.

※※※

Xie Lan bought a handful of garlic sprouts and a piece of pork belly in the vegetable market, and planned to make a garlic sprout back to the pot for her son and husband tomorrow.

After shopping, she dragged the cart with vegetables and walked back, stopping as she passed the fruit stall and looking at the red Fuji apples that were placed outside.

Although they are all red Fuji, they are divided into three piles, with different sizes, different colors, and different prices. The cheapest apples were all thrown in a basket with a few scratches on the outside. The most expensive apples are carefully arranged into a pyramid, each round and large, with a red skin and an attractive sheen, which is delicious at first sight.

Xie Lan did not pick and choose from the cheapest apple pile, nor did he look at the pile of apples with attractive color but the most expensive, but directly selected two small but best apples in the middle of the price and handed them to the boss: "Help me weigh them, boss." ”

The boss took it and put it on the electronic scale, looked at it and said, "Beauty, you can choose a smaller one and make up ten yuan." ”

Xie Lan shook his head and said, "No need, just these two." ”

At the same time, he took out his mobile phone and prepared to scan the code to pay.

Both of these apples were bought for Hu Lai, and she and her husband didn't eat them at home, so there was no need to buy too much, just buy two more when you bought vegetables in a few days.

Xie Lan, who had finished paying, looked at the time when she put away her mobile phone, it was now 10:37 in the morning, and she didn't know if her son had arrived at the train station.

Thinking that she would help her son lie to her husband at night, Xie Lan was still a little nervous.

She had lied to her husband for a long time. After all, she rarely returns to her mother's house in Jincheng now, so naturally she doesn't have to hide the ugly words of her mother's family from her husband.

No, you have to practice in front of the mirror when you go back, but you can't wear it.

Xie Lan made up her mind. The son left such an important matter to himself, and he couldn't mess it up for him, and betrayed his trust, and then he might not believe in himself, and he wouldn't tell himself anything again.

Now she is grateful for football, which allows her and her son to share a secret.

※※※

Hu Lai sat in the window seat on the high-speed train, with Mao Xiao in the middle, and Meng Xi in the aisle.

Half of this carriage is from the Dongchuan Middle School football team, and everyone is giggling and chattering, which makes the carriage seem a little noisy.

There were people in the carriage who were very dissatisfied with their noise, and repeatedly glared at them, but when they saw the number of sixteen or seventeen-year-old young men, they did not dare to make a sound.

Others noticed the uniform of the Dongchuan Middle School football team on their bodies, and they guessed their identities to some extent, looking at them with relief and approval.

The Anton Cup was an event that existed for many years before the unified national competition, but it was not well known until then, and no one knew about it except for the players themselves.

In recent years, with the national competition, the Anton Cup in the province has gradually become more famous. Everyone knows that if you can win the Anton Cup, you will be able to qualify for the national competition.

So they met such a group of people on the train, and they didn't care.

After all, youth always has to be noisy.

It's not the first time Hulai has played away games with the team, and it's not the first time he's taken the high-speed train to an away game. It's just that I used to come back right after the game, so I can still rush back before my dad comes home.

But this time, considering that it was the final, there must be a medal ceremony or something after the game, so the time was uncertain, so he asked his mother to help him cover it up.

Mao Xiao really knows about the national competition, and is introducing the venue of the finals to Hu Lai: "...... The final is in the provincial sports center, the best stadium in our province, natural turf, hardware conditions are not ......"

Meng Xi next to him snorted: "What's the use of good conditions?" Isn't it used for a concert yet? So many people are stepping on the turf, and even the best natural grass has been trampled bald! ”

"The stadium also has to be profitable, how can you make money if you don't rent it to singers for concerts, and it's not a small expense to maintain the turf at ordinary times." Mao Xiao explained. "Who let our province not even have a super team?"

Meng Xi rolled his eyes: "What does it have to do with me, I just hope that the venue will be better during the competition, but don't just finish the concert, and then it will be a vegetable field......"

"Don't worry, Meng Xi. For this Anton Cup final, the Provincial Sports Center has not held any large-scale activities for half a month, and the venue conditions are definitely not said. ”

Hu Lai felt strange: "I thought the final was on my own court at Jiaxiang High School, but I didn't expect it to be ...... at a neutral venue."

"What neutral ground? Isn't it still the home of Jiaxiang High School? Meng Xi pouted. What's the difference between that and playing at their school? Let me tell you, every Andong Cup final is held in the Provincial Sports Center, which is actually a high school that is nakedly biased towards Jincheng. At least they don't have to get up early in the morning to take the train to play. And they can also organize their own people to be cheerleaders - the Anton Cup finals are open to the public, and there are no ticket sales, anyone who wants to go can go to see it. But how do we, the schools in other cities, organize people to cheer? Spending money is not to mention the safety issue, which school is willing to toss so much? So when the time comes, we're going to have a thorough away experience. ”

Hu Lai didn't care about the away experience, he listened very carefully, because whether it was what Mao Xiao said or what Meng Xi said, it was a very fresh experience for him.

In the world he came from, it was impossible for a middle school student to play the final of a football match in a city in the best stadium in the city, and it was important to be able to play in a university stadium.

Here, the finals of the provincial high school football match are held in the best stadium in the provincial capital, and in order to ensure the quality of the turf, all large-scale events are refused to be held half a month in advance, and they are open to the public, so anyone who wants to see them can go to see them...... The level of importance is a world of difference.

"Is there a live stream?" He asked.

"Nope. However, there will be a live broadcast when it comes to the national competition, the last one was broadcast live on the online platform, and this one is said to be broadcast live on satellite TV. Mao Xiao introduced. Capital Satellite TV bought the broadcast rights for as if they were three years - almost all of them were given away before, and they were not worth a few dollars at all. But now, as the national competition becomes more and more popular, it can finally earn some licensing fees...... In addition, it seems that the Football Association has also organized representatives of various professional clubs in China to observe, just to open up the channel between the campus league and professional football, and show the outstanding players in the campus league to those professional clubs, to see if there are any lucky people who can be taken away directly by the professional clubs. Alas, we're kind of catching up with a good era......"

Mao Xiao was still babbling, and Hu Lai looked out the window as he listened. The high-speed rail EMU travels at high speed between farmland and green trees, and the display screen at the junction of the carriages is refreshing the current speed in real time, and the roar outside cannot be heard in the fully enclosed carriage, and the obvious tremor will only be felt when the two cars meet.

He is no stranger to the scene outside the window, he has also done this line of high-speed rail EMU train from Dongchuan to Jincheng, the two cities are closely adjacent, from Dongchuan East Station to the provincial capital city of Jincheng by high-speed rail only takes 35 minutes, only one stop in the middle.

When the high-speed railway was built, the media were promoting a "half-hour life circle", depicting the life blueprint of people living in Dongchuan and relying on the high-speed rail to go to the provincial capital Jincheng to commute to work every day, which caused the housing prices in Dongchuan to rise in a wave......

According to an article, China's developed high-speed rail transportation network has made it more convenient for many provinces to exchange football matches between schools, and objectively promoted the development of domestic middle school football games. Of course, in those provinces with a large geographical area, their secondary school football competition adopts a tournament system - all the participating teams are played in a period of time to determine the champion, avoiding going back and forth and affecting learning.

China's national soccer tournament for middle school students is different from the Japanese high school soccer tournament that Hu Lai learned about in Japanese comics and on the Internet, referring to some Japanese systems, but also incorporating China's own actual situation.

Chinese football is trying to go the other way.

Just like the high-speed train they are in, China first imported technology from Japan, Germany, and France, but after its own exploration and development, it eventually became a high-tech with independent intellectual property rights in China.

Now, a group of teenagers full of longing for the national competition are sitting in a train car made in China, driving at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour to the venue of the final of the Andong Provincial Qualifiers of the national competition, and also rushing towards their dreams and the future they yearn for.