Chapter 22: A Blessing in Disguise, Igniting the Legend
The football was smashed viciously into the net by Xia Qi!
The Emirates Stadium exploded with a roar: "Xia Qi!" (voice cracking)
Xia Qi hadn't expected the AI to be this explosive. It seemed he still didn't truly understand the system.
"Snatching the second point" was just one attribute, but the work it could do was plentiful!
Xia Qi closed his eyes and ears, replaying in his mind the AI's judgment of the pass's landing point and the timing of both his start and his jump.
Such an outstanding teacher shouldn't be wasted.
6:1!
Southampton was numb. With one less player on the field, the Southampton manager substituted his core player, afraid he might be kicked into depression.
With a wave of his hand, Wenger took Xia Qi and Arteta off as well.
Arteta wanted to support Xia Qi as they walked, but Xia Qi waved his hand.
The pressure from Southampton was still too little; for the first time, Xia Qi could walk off the pitch by himself.
The feeling of not needing support to walk off was truly great!
Xia Qi and Arteta clapped their hands above their heads, responding to the thunderous applause from all around.
After Xia Qi came off, Walcott and Chamberlain had more screen time, but their performances were really not good.
Southampton was an "earthenware pot"—they played very roughly. Although the two Arsenal players were "porcelain," they couldn't be too delicate.
Although the Premier League was evolving toward a technical style, it was still the Premier League after all. Playing while hiding from contact would only make people look down on you, and you couldn't produce any highlights that way.
The match continued. Arsenal's butcher knife remained sharp. In the 82nd minute, the substitute Arshavin set up Podolski, who scored with a sliding shot to complete a brace.
In the 90th minute, Djourou suddenly surged forward and blasted a shot from the left side of the penalty area. It hit Fox, and Podolski followed up with a chip shot, claiming his first hat-trick in the Premier League.
Southampton had created two god-tier strikers in one match!
Xia Qi, who scored five goals (glut), and Podolski, who performed a hat-trick.
The score of 8:1 was also the final score.
"Ding! This match has ended. Calculating rewards..."
"Host played 72 minutes in this match. Participation: A-, Performance: A+. Reward: 10 Attribute Points."
"Ding! Host completed the first 'Glut' (Five Goals) of the season. Reward: 20 Attribute Points. Reward Skill: Park Ji-sung's Three-Lung Perpetual Motion Machine!"
"Ding! Host won the Premier League Man of the Match. Reward: 5 Attribute Points."
"Ding! Regional Legend +1."
"Ding! Regional Legend +1."
"..."
Xia Qi looked at his Legend points, which had already risen to over 500,000. He was at most two matches away from lighting up the Regional Legend status.
...
...
In the post-match interview, when asked about Hooiveld's slip and fall, Xia Qi explained for him: "I practiced the Horse Stance from Chinese Kung Fu."
Seeing the confused expressions of the reporters, Xia Qi demonstrated a stance right there.
The reporters suddenly realized—the power from the mysterious East... They wrote about Chinese Kung Fu with heavy ink.
After the report, enrollment in Chinese martial arts schools across Europe became full...
After the interview was over,
Passing by the fan zone, there were two little fans, about five or six years old, a boy and a girl, in the stands. The little girl was on the second step, the little boy on the third, shouting Xia Qi's name with all their might, asking for his autograph and jersey.
How do you split one jersey between children from two different families?
Xia Qi pointed to the jersey on his body and the match ball.
"You, is or it?" (intended: You, this or that?)
Although his Chinglish was grammatically incorrect, the meaning was roughly understood.
The two kids were quite interesting; they flipped a coin to decide the winner.
The winning boy asked for the football. The girl could only choose the jersey, though judging by her expression, it looked as if she were the winner.
An enthusiastic fan handed over a marker pen. Xia Qi took off his shirt and wrote the Chinese characters "Xia Qi" and the time on the bottom right of the front hem.
The little girl shouted loudly, "Maria! My name is Maria, cute Maria."
Xia Qi wrote in English in the center of the jersey: To: The cutest and most beautiful angel - Maria.
After handing the shirt to the little girl, she didn't mind the smell of sweat at all. She put it directly on her body and kept showing it off to the people around her.
This made the little boy on the third step envious to death.
Soon, Xia Qi wrote the boy's name on the football: Sean, and his own name. He also noted that this was the match ball from his first five-goal haul.
This note would make the football far exceed its own value.
The third step was a bit high. Xia Qi didn't think to throw it with his hands—as a football player, naturally, he used his foot.
Inertial thinking!
But the current him was a Xia Qi with only 78 ability points. Looking at Wu Lei's many comedic 1-on-1 misses would clarify Xia Qi's accuracy at this moment.
The football veered off by a full three meters. The error wasn't too excessive, considering it was from a static position. But a bald man with flower tattoos three meters away snatched the football and ran off without looking back.
The little boy was dumbfounded, tears swirling in his eyes.
Xia Qi, transforming into the heroic Zixia Fairy (a reference to a character known for righteousness), immediately placed his hands on the railing, vaulted into the stands, and chased after him.
The fans in the stands hadn't fully left yet. A few enthusiastic fans helped to block him, but the bald flower-tattooed man was a ruthless character from some gang.
One punch for each, knocking two people down.
This infuriated Xia Qi, who was chasing from behind.
The two of them, one after the other, rushed into the stadium's commercial area. Although Xia Qi was in "Zixia Fairy" mode, he was still an athlete after all, and he soon caught the man.
The bald flower-tattooed man had probably done this kind of thing often. He was very experienced and stuffed the football under his clothes.
Grinning, he asked Xia Qi, "Do you have a problem?"
Xia Qi shouted angrily, "Hand it over."
"Stadium rules: whoever grabs it owns it."
"That was for a child. Do you have no shame?"
"Shame? Hehe... If there's nothing else, I'm leaving."
Xia Qi was only 18, precisely the age of youthful vigor. He lunged forward, lifting the man's clothes to grab the football, and the two wrestled together.
While resisting, the man shouted loudly, "A star is hitting people! An Arsenal star is hitting people..."
Xia Qi became even angrier. Wasn't this slander?
In a fit of rage, he gave him two punches.
Now, the matter blew up...
The masses, unaware of the truth, pulled out their phones to take photos and called the police. The sharp-nosed reporters also arrived...
Xia Qi's martial prowess was still higher. He finally snatched the football back. Before leaving, he looked down condescendingly at the bald flower-tattooed man playing dead on the ground and said, "The Emirates Stadium and Arsenal do not welcome you. You are not allowed to appear here again."
The young Xia Qi didn't know he was in trouble. Humming a song, he carried the wind of justice to find the little boy named Sean...
The matter couldn't just be a small interlude.
An hour later, Xia Qi, who was having a late-night snack with his parents, was taken away by the police.
Although half an hour later, Wenger and his parents bailed him out.
However, the matter was already out of control.
That same night, the news of Xia Qi hitting someone made the evening news.
The highlight of this incident wasn't just the violence, but that he had hit one of his own fans.
Was Xia Qi not black (shady/bad)?
Who was black?
The entire British public was condemning such violent behavior. An FA official explicitly stated that Xia Qi would be banned.
Arsenal's mortal enemy, the owner of White Hart Lane—Tottenham—also took the opportunity to snatch the hearts of North London fans.
Tottenham chairman Levy said on Twitter:
"A player hurting his own fan is simply appalling. We welcome this fan to change his allegiance to White Hart Lane, and we welcome other fans disappointed with Arsenal. We are your true family!"
Xia Qi's notoriety spread far and wide. Even the "Big Eyes Monster" (Ozil) from the Bundesliga jumped out to stomp on him a couple of times: "This behavior cannot be forgiven. He must be banned. Inside and outside the stadium, we must oppose violence. I swear I will never compete on the same field as such a person."
By 2 AM, a tweet from Wenger pushed the matter to an even higher heat.
The post described the sequence of events and attached the name of the little boy involved and the signature on the football.
Clearly, the person who fought Xia Qi was not named Sean.
The football was not his.
Wenger said that Arsenal and he himself had always opposed violence, but "this time I support Xia Qi. Xia Qi's private lawsuit will be converted into a lawsuit between the club and that bald flower-tattooed man."
The "Bloody Sunday" that happened last year and the years of grievances between the two teams made Tottenham's Levy lose the ability to distinguish right from wrong. He remained unrelenting:
"Whitewashing! This is whitewashing! Tomorrow someone will report that the poor guy who got beaten up isn't a good person. First whitewash, then smear. I understand."
But as reporters conducted in-depth interviews, the sequence of events was presented to the fans.
More and more people supported Xia Qi.
Many Arsenal fans agreed with Tottenham's view: that man did deserve White Hart Lane, because they were the same kind of people.
The next morning, facing reporters' questions, Ferguson said: "I don't know that kid's (Xia Qi's) character, but I trust Wenger's character. In this matter, I support Arsenal."
Ferguson's support made Xia Qi completely turn the tables and become popular.
Many non-Arsenal fans joined the army of supporters for Xia Qi, including famous star Gerrard and ordinary citizens...
This incident wasn't entirely bad. At least it made Xia Qi learn a lesson and grow, and there were tangible benefits.
That is, the Regional Legend status—it was lit up.
No wonder people say "black-red is also red" (any publicity is good publicity).
As the saying goes: A blessing in disguise! (Sei Weng Lost His Horse)
(END CHAPTER)
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