green knight

Chapter 2: Natural Disasters

After the match against Lazio, Li Zihan was elated.One is that the team wins, and the other is that he can play in the next game.

But one thing that happened right away made him unhappy.

"At eight o'clock in the morning on the 7.0th, Beijing time, a huge earthquake occurred in Ya'an, Sichuan, China. Experts estimated that the magnitude of the earthquake reached [-]."

Li Zihan didn't know how he got here when he saw the news. His whole brain went blank, and his heart stopped beating. As for the words behind the news, he didn't hear a word.

His thoughts went back to five years ago, that summer, for the entire Sichuan people, it could be said that the day of the end of the world.

Some fragments of that time flashed vaguely in his mind. The car stopped in the middle of the road, and the roof collapsed and hit the car hard.

The huge teaching building collapsed in an instant, and before the students had time to show panic, they were never seen again.

The child was crying outside and kept calling for his mother.The man struggled desperately in the ruins with his own flesh and blood hands, even though his ten fingers were bloody and bloody, even though his eyes were blurred by tears.He didn't stop, he knew she didn't have time to grieve him, he just wanted to dig his wife out.

The empty square was full of people, and they were the wounded.Those who were not injured, or who were not seriously injured, were still rescuing their loved ones.

Li Zihan had never seen a corpse, so he knew what hell was like that day.

"The depth of the earthquake was about 13 kilometers, and the epicenter was about [-] kilometers away from Chengdu. Chengdu, Chongqing, Shaanxi Baoji, Hanzhong and other places all felt the earthquake. Sichuan Province immediately activated the first-level emergency procedures, and the military drills near the Chengdu Military Region have rushed to the front line At present, two helicopters have taken off in an emergency. The emergency office responds to everyone, and the volunteers going to the disaster area to rescue try their best to give way to ambulances, material transport vehicles and military vehicles."

Li Zihan woke up from the memory, he felt that he should do something.

He wiped away his tears and immediately went to Conte's office.It is the morning of April NO.20, Italian time, and the time difference between Italy and China is about six hours, so it should be almost afternoon in Sichuan at this moment.

"Boss, I want to ask for leave!" Li Zihan said in a hurry as soon as he entered Conte's office, because he didn't even knock on the door because he was in a hurry, which is very impolite behavior in Europe.

Conte was taken aback and didn't react at first.But then asked: "Why?"

Li Zihan choked up and said, "I, my hometown has an earthquake, magnitude [-], [-]!"

Conte froze for a moment, he really didn't know, because there was a league game with AC Milan this afternoon.So his attention was all on the arrangement of the game, and he didn't have time to watch the news at all.

Conte's face darkened and said: "I'm sorry, Li!"

Li Zihan pretended to be strong and said: "It's okay, boss, I just want to take a vacation and go back to my hometown. They need me, and I need to be with them at this time."

Conte hesitated and said: "I'm sorry, Li. I'm afraid I can't agree to your leave request." Seeing Li Zihan anxiously wanting to intervene, Conte immediately said, "You know we have a very important game this afternoon. In the competition, the opponent is AC Milan, one of our competitors to win the championship. Although we have a great advantage in the standings, if we are not careful, we can lose the championship. After all, we have not yet won the championship. Competition The roster has been submitted, you are in the starting camp, and the team needs you at this time. And even if you go back now, what can you do?"

Li Zihan was taken aback.Yeah, what can I do when I go back?
"Going back to be a volunteer? Carrying supplies, or participating in saving people? Believe me, there are people who are more professional than you in these things. You stay here to compete, and there is not much difference from returning to your country. Although you are staying in Italy, you My heart is with them, you can definitely go back after the season is over, and you can still donate money to participate in the post-earthquake reconstruction at that time.”

It has to be said that Li Zihan had no idea after being told by Conte.He used to want to go back as soon as his blood surged, just like five years ago, he went to nearby Mianyang and Deyang as a volunteer with some volunteers from Chengdu alone, without thinking about the places he had never been to. .

"Trust me, Lee. In the afternoon game, you play hard and try to win a big victory to tell the people in your hometown that you are with them. You can write what you want to say and what you want to do on the jersey The T-shirt inside, and then you can lift up the jersey every time you score a goal. Of course, you can’t take off the jersey, that will be a card. As for other things, leave it to me.” Conte looked sincerely Looking at Li Zihan, he said, "Trust me!"

Li Zihan looked into Conte's eyes, hesitated for a few seconds, and then nodded absently.

In the subsequent pre-match training, Li Zihan did not look like a professional player at all.He frequently lost his mind during training, and even had a pass that was easy, but he didn't use much effort and was cut off by the other player.

In the subsequent shooting practice, all the shots hit the plane, and Buffon didn't even make a save.

However, his teammates didn't complain about him. Perhaps everyone already knew about the earthquake and could understand Li Zihan.

Only assistant coach Massimo Carrera was a little hesitant to speak, sitting like a blanket.Conte looked at his constipated appearance by his side and asked, "What's the matter, Massimo?"

Carrera hesitated and said, "Although I'm sorry, this is football after all, professional football. Maybe Li's state is not suitable for starting, and even it is difficult for him to be a substitute. He is like sleepwalking. That's not to say I don't have compassion and humanitarian concerns, but."

Conte raised his hand, stopped Carrera from continuing, and said, "Don't worry, what's happening now doesn't mean it's the same in the game. The starting list has been handed in. Could it be that you let me not return it for 1 minute of the game? Use a substitution quota at the beginning? Besides, this will hit Li even harder. He needs to vent and needs a platform."

Seeing that Carrare was still worried, Conte continued: "It's okay, I have been with Li for a season. Don't you know what kind of person he is? He has a maturity beyond many young players of the same age, and The love of football."

Carrera sighed and said: "Listen to you, you are the head coach anyway."

The final game was held as scheduled, and the game was not postponed due to a disaster in a player's hometown.

It's just that after Li Zihan walked on the field, he found that today was different from the usual home game day.Usually, the singing and shouting of the fans in the stadium in the suburbs can be heard from the city center before the game starts, but today, the fans have not cheered and singing after all the players have entered the stadium, and it can even be described as silence.

It was only after he walked into the stadium that he realized that this black and white stadium was black and white as always.It's just that today's black and white is a little different from usual.

When Li Zihan looked up seriously, he realized that the slogans and banners drawn by the fans to cheer for the team were different.

In the past, banners such as "Come on Juventus", "Juventus must win", "We are with the soldiers of Juventus!", or slogans aimed at a certain star that some fans like.

But today
"Sichuan, come on!!". "Ya'an, hold on!!". "Today, we are all from Ya'an!!".
There are Italian and English on it. These banners almost completely covered several stands, even the stands for away fans.

The fans of the visiting team who didn't know what was going on started to wonder what was going on.But when entering the venue, the staff at the ticket gate told them what happened.I hope they can cooperate a little bit as much as possible. Although Italians have more racial discrimination, they still have a clear distinction on some major issues of right and wrong and humanitarian issues.

The banners on one corner of the stand were written in Chinese. Li Zihan looked over and found that the people holding the banners and slogans were yellow-skinned Chinese.

This should be the Chinese students and Chinese working in Turin.

In the stand where the fans usually sit, there must be a huge Juventus team logo canvas covering almost half of the stand.

And today there are, but not the Juventus team logo.It was a piece of black cloth, on which a map of China was drawn with white traces. At a certain place on the lower right of the map, a red ring was particularly conspicuous.

Li Zihan knew that that place was Sichuan, Ya'an in Sichuan.

Before he knew it, Li Zihan's eyes began to blur, and he tried hard to keep his tears from falling.

Li Zihan stood on the field, and he bowed deeply towards a stand.Then he changed direction and bowed deeply to another stand.Until he bowed all the stands around him, it was not for himself, it was just his gratitude to these caring people who had never met overseas on behalf of the people in his hometown.

The disaster five years ago took away too much.It also left a lot, and what left a deep impression on Li Zihan is the unity and support of the people of the whole country, as well as the help and support of people at home and abroad.

The voice of the live radio rang out, calling on the fans to stand up and observe a three-minute silence for the victims of the earthquake before the game started.

"Today in Sichuan, China, which is the hometown of Juventus player Li Zihan, a magnitude 3 earthquake occurred, so now the Juventus Arena is arranged like this by fans and staff. After the Italian Football Association and the League Committee And with the agreement of the opposing club, a [-]-minute silence ceremony will be held before the start of the game. I suggest that the fans in front of the TV join us in silence. In the face of natural disasters, there is no distinction between countries.” Hel Howe Si said in front of the camera, and when the scene of the stadium began to mourn, he took the initiative to stand up from his chair and mourn in silence.

After a moment of silence, the two sides prepared to kick off.Li Zihan stood in the middle circle, and Juventus kicked off first.At this time, the opponent's Brazilian player Robinho came up, patted Li Zihan on the shoulder and said, "My condolences."

What surprised Li Zihan was that he actually spoke Chinese.

Li Zihan expressed his gratitude politely: "Thank you, not only today, but also five years ago."

Robinho was taken aback for a moment before reacting.He smiled politely, then patted Li Zihan on the shoulder and returned to his seat.

For the disaster five years ago, many international football stars and friends expressed their concern and condolences.Among them, Robinho is one of them. Robinho is holding a banner with Chinese and Portuguese on it, which reads - "Today I am from Sichuan!"

Li Zihan remembered that photo deeply.

[I didn't want to write this chapter at first, but I finally wrote it.Xiao Qi is from Sichuan, and everyone may have discovered this a long time ago. He also went to 512 as a volunteer, and Ya'an was working in other places that day.It’s not well written, let’s read it by the way, I don’t know how to write this kind of thing, there will be more in the following chapters.I wrote it down just to tell myself, don't forget, there are many things that can't be forgotten, it's not that I can't let go, it's just that there are too many sad and moved things. 】