His name is Lu Yiqi, and this is his second life.

He was born in a small town in the inland south of China. Since childhood, he was considered a good student by his teachers because of his good memory and strong logic. This also made his parents have high hopes for him and hoped that he could become the first college student in the family and then shine on his family.

In the late 1980s, a gold rush fire broke out in southern provinces. His parents believed that this might become a turning point for him to change his life with wisdom, so they took him on this express train to the North American continent across the Pacific Ocean to find a way out for life and create a new world.

But living in Flushing, New York is not the "American Dream" that everyone envies by their neighbors, but the dishwasher curled up in the kitchen and the laundry workers hiding behind the dry cleaning room. Even school life is just the "Asian boy with good mathematics" mentioned by others.

In order to integrate into local life, to get admitted to a prestigious university, and to get scholarships, at the suggestion of the school's instructor, he took the initiative to sign up for the school sports team, and then joined the rugby team in a daze. At that time, he didn't even know what rugby was, and how to score with his hands or feet... Everything was fresh, just like a baby toddler.

Surprisingly, he fell in love with this movement of wisdom and power, and even began to fascinate him.

For most laymen, rugby is a sport of impact and rushing, full of violence and blood. Before modern rugby rules were improved, there were even many cases of player deaths. Even now, rugby injury problems are still very serious.

But in fact, the tactical game of rugby is as exquisite and profound as Go. The tactical manual of the professional league has more than 20,000 arrangements and combinations. Every professional football player must undergo IQ test before entering the league to join the team. Body confrontation and tactical game are indispensable. If you only have one of the abilities, you cannot stand out from it. Rugby is definitely not as simple as impact and rushing.

With his super learning ability and excellent game reading ability, coupled with his average physique, he successfully occupied a place in the team, mainly playing as a tight end and offensive forward.

More importantly, rugby is a completely collective sport - perhaps in other collective events, a player emerged alone, dominated the game, and became the hero of the entire team. This is a feat that could happen: basketball may be, football may be, but football cannot be.

The only way to win the game is that all players in each position and every link must unite, cooperate with each other to cover and support each other. The negligence and omissions in any link may become a turning point that ruins the entire game, truly interpreting the ultimate mystery of "collective projects".

It is precisely because of this that after becoming a member of the team, he quickly integrated into the team and campus, made many partners, and successfully stood firm in the strangeness and panic of a foreign country; and slowly, he began to adapt to the new life of the second generation of immigrants and started an adventure outside the plan.

From high school to college, that was another turning point in life.

With excellent grades, excellent paperwork and impressive extracurricular activities, he received admission letters from Harvard, Yale and Michigan State University.

In fact, these three are the top universities in the United States. There is no need to say anything about Harvard and Yale, which are well-known around the world. Michigan State University is also the top 20 top research universities in the United States. It is known as the "Public Ivy". It is not only one of the oldest research universities in the United States, but also one of the best universities in the United States. Seven majors rank first in the United States, and education and journalism are its business cards.

In addition, Michigan State University is one of the few universities in the United States to have multiple national football championships. It is also the first school in the United States to open up four major events: football, ice hockey, baseball and basketball. In competitive sports, it is not distinguished from its arch rival Michigan.

The difference between the admission letters of the three universities is that Michigan State University provides full scholarships, while Harvard and Yale University are half awards.

The decision to choose a university became the most serious and fiercest disagreement between him and his parents, and it also became the first time in his life to make a decision against his parents' wishes - they hoped that he could go to Harvard or Yale University, even if he had to pay expensive tuition fees, it didn't matter; while he chose to go to Michigan State University: the full prize was part of the reason, and the other part was his selfishness, football.

Michigan State Spartans football tight end coach Pat Shurmur provided him with a backup position on the team.

He knew that it was just a substitute position and would definitely not be able to compete with those players who rely on rugby to win scholarships - his scholarship was obtained through his own studies; he also knew that when entering university, he should still focus on studying, and rugby should be just an additional life outside of academics...

But his enthusiasm and passion are burning for football. He cannot and does not want to refuse the call in his heart. The impulse and blood of adolescence make him choose Michigan State University like a moth to the flame.

After four years of college life, pain and happiness coexist, and torture and happiness fly together.

On the one hand, he likes rugby more and more, and all his youth and passion are poured into this sport. Even as a substitute, he can still enjoy the game, enjoy every minute and every second standing on the stadium, breathing with the Spartans Stadium, and he even had the idea of ​​trying to become a professional player.

On the other hand, the pressure from his parents has never disappeared. He has experienced all kinds of methods of being gentle, tough, quarrel, cold war, crying, and all kinds of methods. They strongly oppose his behavior of spending countless time on football, but just look forward to him being able to graduate smoothly, find a stable job, and then get married and have children.

What's worse is - or rather, more realistically, he gradually couldn't keep up with his teammates on the court: his physical talent was still not comparable to those players who could be called monsters. Even as a substitute, the gap between them gradually widened with the progress of time; and injuries were even less helpful. Although there were no serious injuries that were absent from training for a long time, injuries of all sizes were always constant.

He must face a cruel reality: maybe his professional player dream is indeed impossible to achieve.

But he did not give up easily.

He is not the type of person who surrenders casually when encountering setbacks and difficulties. In his bones, he has a stubbornness, just like he took the initiative to participate in sports activities in school to meet all the challenges of difficulties. After setting the goal, he ran with all his might.

If he still cannot succeed after giving his all, and if he still returns without success after giving it a try, then he can also tell himself with a clear conscience: He does not regret it. He does not count everything before trying it. This is the core spirit of competitive sports.

He tried, but he failed.

In his senior year, he tried to participate in the draft, and he tried to participate in the trial, but he still failed to break the situation, and no team was willing to keep him.

Originally, he wanted to go to the professional leagues in Canada and Europe to try out, but the strong pressure from his parents made him unable to continue trying. Unfortunately, he rationally closed the door to his rugby dream with his own hands, and then quietly put the dream into the drawer and locked it.

He said goodbye to football, obeyed his parents' wishes, found a job in New York, successfully became a journalist, and embarked on a "regular" social life.

He once thought that he might have gone through the rest of his life step by step, and football was just a hobby, and dreams had to retreat to the second line in the face of the cruel reality of life. Those enthusiasms, passions, and impulses all became embellishments in memory.

Until one day, I sat in the office in Soho, Manhattan until midnight and felt very uncomfortable. After I forced myself to finish the manuscript, I lay in a daze at the desk and fell asleep. When I woke up and opened my eyes again, I found that I had returned to my first year of college, lying on the library desk, and all night to complete the report.
Chapter completed!