Chapter 72: Picking Up Trouble Part 1
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was almost one month since that soul-crushing semifinals playoff match. Although Tang En had long recovered from the defeat, he still dreamed about being disqualified, and this time he suffered an even more miserable loss—0:4, his team completely unable to retaliate.
The team had already ended all of its matches for this season, and a team like Nottingham Forest, which struggled in the second level of the English Football League, did not have any commercial matches to play. The team had been disbanded on the day after the match, giving the players and managers a long holiday to enjoy themselves.
The 02-03 English Premier League season had long ended its last round of matches on May 11th. The end result was just as Tang En had said. Manchester United, which was trailing behind Arsenal by five points, began to mount a comeback after Christmas. In the end, they even managed to lead Arsenal by five points to become the champions. Tang En won the bet between Burns and him, but he was not in the mood to make Burns pay up, because Gavin had just passed away. The bet that had been made in the bar was disregarded, but Burns fulfilled another promise. From that day forward, all of Tang En’s drinks in Forest Bar would be free of charge. After that incident, Burns looked at Tang En as if he were a gypsy fortune teller.
In between, there were many other things that happened. Ferguson kicking a boot at David Beckham took place on schedule, garnering worldwide attention for a brief period of time. Everyone thought that Beckham and Ferguson’s 11 years of mentor-mentee relationship had finally come to an end, as well as his fate with Manchester United. However, there was much speculation regarding his next stop, with most people leaning more toward the idea of him going to Real Madrid. This was because in the previous Championship match, Beckham had been exchanging glances with Real Madrid. However, Real Madrid’s president, Florentino, firmly denied that Real Madrid would buy Beckham.
There’s no Story Between Real Madrid and David Beckham
Tang En bought The Times from the newspaper stand on the street. He skipped past all the political and economic news and flipped directly to the ninth section, the sports segment. The first thing that greeted his eyes was the large title. The season had just ended, and the media had already started to speculate excitedly about the transfer of some players. The transfer market was like that every year, but that year was particularly crazy and bustling due to the addition of a superstar.
He looked at this piece of news which was reported with a definitive tone and felt extremely disgusted. Looking at the hottest topic of discussion in that year’s transfer market from the perspective of someone who had been through it, it could only be described as a farce.
Real Madrid kept clarifying: We won’t buy Beckham. How is it possible for us to buy Beckham? There’s no way we can buy Beckham! We have a good relationship with Manchester United, and we are all part of the G14. How could we do something like poaching him?!
And everyone else believed them. But in the end, look what happened.
When Beckham, who once wore the Red Devils’ captainship armband and fought for Manchester United, held the white-colored Real Madrid Jersey and took a picture with Florentino, as well as Honorary President of Real Madrid, Di Stefano, the Manchester United fans around the world felt that they had been deceived. Yes, they had ample reasons to bear grudges against it. However, if they had been smarter, they would have realized long ago—Real Madrid’s promise of “We will definitely not buy someone” should not have been taken at face value. Think about how Ronaldo came over. Beckham going over to Real Madrid was only a matter of course.
Tang En browsed through the newspaper for that day and found out that most of the news was related to Beckham transferring clubs. If his team had successfully been promoted, he would have been really fond of reading those kind of tabloids. However, the matter of fact was that, currently, he was not in the mood to care about the fate of others.
Rolling up the newly bought newspaper, Tang En threw it into the trash and decided to wander around as a form of relaxation.
Tang En had originally wanted to go to China with Yang Yan. After much interaction with Yang Yan, he then realized that Yang Yan had not emigrated, but only came to Nottingham to study. After she graduated, she would return to China. Her family members were all currently situated in Sichuan Province, but a sudden epidemic outbreak completely foiled Tang En’s plans.
Over the span of a few short months, SARS had plagued all of China, and there was virtually no place that was lucky enough to be free from it. May was the peak of the epidemic, and even in June, Beijing remained a travel-restricted area. Even if Tang En did not fear death, he had no means of travelling to China. Right after Tang En finished his matches in May, the period when the epidemic was the most serious, he had once pretended to phone the wrong number and called home to check on their situation. Everything was fine, which made him slightly relieved. In any case, Tang En still wished that he could see his parents with his own eyes and see that they were still alive and healthy. During the one-month holiday, he was mainly busy with trying to get to China, but there was nothing he could do to obtain a visa to travel to there.
As for the other Tang En…. He remembered that he was extremely unlucky in the year 2003 and had lost two phones over the span of the first half of the year. He had changed his cell phone number countless times. As such, he could no longer remember the phone number which he had used then. He had no means of contacting himself even though he wanted to, and he could only pray that the other him was just like he was in 2003, safe and sound. As for the two phones which he had lost, he considered them a kind of payment for staving off disaster.
Actually, besides returning to China to visit his parents, he had had another very important goal—to spend time alone with Yang Yan. He had not expected his plans to go down the drain. After muttering “it’s not meant to be”, Tang En whipped out his phone to call Landy to drive him downtown.
It was at that moment, he suddenly realized that there was a girl standing beside him. He was uncertain of how long she had been standing there. From the looks of it, she appeared to be around 16 years old and wore a pleated, red, short skirt, revealing two long, slim, tender legs. The light grey t-shirt had a picture of a cute teddy bear printed on it, which was looking at Tang En.
The girl had dark-brown, shoulder-length hair, with neat bangs on her forehead. Beneath her finely curved eyebrows were a pair of extremely big eyes, and they were so clear and bright that they resembled a clear spring. In addition, Tang En noticed that the girl’s eyes were not commonly seen among westerners. They were not a blue, green, or hazel color, but instead they were the same color as her hair, dark brown.
The girl raised her head and looked at him, while Tang En lowered his head and looked at the girl. In that way, the two of them stared at each other by the street.
Tang En did not know why the girl was staring at him, and he was sure that his face did not have any bread crumbs, butter, or grains of any sort on it. Tang En was also very sure that he had zipped his pants properly before he left the house.
Tang En treated it as a contest of patience, and the winner would be the one that could outlast the other in terms of keeping quiet, forcing that other one to admit defeat.
“Sorry for disturbing. Sir, may I ask if you know the way to 13 Bradford Garden Street?” the girl surrendered first and asked. Her crisp voice contained a sliver of shyness, and she spoke extremely fluent English with a London accent. The words which were spoken from the pink, tender lips were simply a form of enjoyment to the ears.
However, Tang En shook his head and muttered softly to himself, “Too bad it’s a washboard…”
Upon hearing Tang En, the young girl was startled and frantically raised her hands and blocked her chest.
“Mister!” The girl pouted and stared at Tang En as she scolded, “I’m going to call the police!”
“Ah? Police…” Tang En turned his head around and saw a patrolling yellow-vested policeman walking toward him. I can’t be that unlucky, can I? If he got arrested for sexually harassing a young girl, then he could forget about getting through the summer in peace.
Tang En very much wanted to hide, but the policeman seemed to have already seen them and was making his way straight for them.
The girl was extremely happy that the policeman had noticed what was happening, and she walked up to him with the intention of lodging a complaint. “Mr. Policeman, this guy…” She pointed toward Tang En, but realized that the policeman appeared to have not seen her and walked directly past her. After that, he opened up his arms and walked toward the man she was pointing at.
“Ah ha! I really didn’t expect to see you here, Mr. Twain!” the policeman elatedly greeted Tang En. However, both the girl and Tang En were momentarily dumbfounded.
“I saw the last match. Truth to be told, we were extremely unlucky!” As his back was to her, the young girl did not know what kind of expression the policeman had. However, from his voice, it was very easy to tell the mood of the patrolling policeman. “As for that child’s death, I am also terribly sorry… I wasn’t on duty at that time.”
Tang En finally understood—the policeman he met was a Forest fan! He immediately retracted his shocked expression. “I’m terribly sorry, for not being able to let the team successfully promote…”
“No, no, that’s a small matter, Sir. I believe that as long as the club gives you one more year, you can definitely do it. I really like to watch you direct the Nottingham Forest matches, you know why? Because we will always be able to win, haha! Don’t be disheartened! The next season, we’ll definitely do it the next season! Forest! Forest!” The amusing policeman shouted the fan slogan twice before patting Tang En’s shoulder and leaving. He completely did not see that there was still a pitiful girl who was waiting for him to save her.
Upon seeing that the policeman was quite some distance away, Tang En lowered his head and looked at the shocked girl with a triumphant look. Then, he gave her a smile that he thought was most charming and said, “Young lady, what were you going to ask me?”
The girl did not reply to Tang En, but instead softly cursed, “Darn it!”
“It’s not good for girls to utter vulgarities.”
“It’s none of your business!” The girl shot an angry stare at Tang En.
Tang En sized up the girl from head to toe. She was wearing a pair of comfortable white sneakers and a short dress. She had a black and white Adidas sports bag slung across her back. In addition, she spoke fluent English without any Nottingham accent and appeared completely different from the usual English girls. From that information, Tang En knew that the girl was a tourist. He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m only trying to help a foreigner like you out of goodwill… Very well, since it’s none of my business, I’ll leave. Goodbye, little girl.”
He waved his hand and was about to walk away.
This time, it was the girl’s turn to admit defeat. She shouted, “Do you know how to get to 13 Bradford Garden Street?”
Tang En, who had his back to the girl, got a triumphant smile on his face that only victors wear. After that, he smiled kindly and turned around. “You’re really lucky, I happen to live on Bradford Garden Street.” The place where they stood was less than 50 meters away from the newspaper stand where Tang En had bought his newspaper, and the newspaper stand was only 500 meters away from Tang En’s house.
The girl looked at Tang En with suspicion. Perhaps she felt that this perverted weird man, who stared at her chest not long after they met, did not seem like a good person.
“What? You don’t believe me? You think that I’m lying to you?” Tang En opened his hands and shrugged his shoulders innocently. “I happen to stay at 13 Bradford Garden Str…” Upon saying this, Tang En suddenly stopped and looked in shock at the girl opposite him.
“…. Street…”
Both of them were momentarily stunned.
