Chen Hao, 38, is a courier.
Twenty years ago, he was the No. 9 Of the A youth team, and the scimitar of his left foot could silence the entire audience. Twenty years later, he was watching the World Cup opening ceremony on a broken mobile phone in an express warehouse in the early morning.
The same day - the supervisor was fired in disguise. The national football push failed miserably. The wife said she wanted a divorce. The son said, "Can you stop talking about your past?"
That night he stood on an abandoned court and kicked a curve ball into the air. Exactly the same as twenty years ago.
"One less."
He took out the yellowed group photo - 11 young people wearing red jerseys, with ten names written on the back. He was going to get them all back.
Eleven middle-aged people. Altogether they are over four hundred years old. Some people drive online ride-hailing services, some flip skewers, some people have been eating box lunches on a 120-meter tower crane for eighteen years, and some people have been making passing gestures with their hands in prison for eight years.
They couldn't run anymore. But they're still playing.
