One Female Lead, a sports rebirth story
Berlin, 2009. A little tavern.
Chen Mo watched Bolt run 9.58 seconds, downed the last half cup of baijiu, and walked out of the tavern.
He was twenty-six that year. His Achilles tendon had snapped, and so had his dream.
Years later, at forty-three, he got drunk in his rented apartment. When he opened his eyes, he was back in 1998.
Fifteen years old, a high school freshman, with his Achilles tendon intact. Wang Jianguo was still alive, still shouting on the track until the veins stood out on his neck. Lin Zhiwan still turned back to wrinkle her nose at him, still put a can of peaches into his hands.
“The Ultimate Sprinter Training System has been activated. Host Chen Mo, welcome home.”
From 11.4 seconds at the school meet, to 10.9 at the city meet, to the national youth championship, to an Olympic bronze in Athens, and then to Berlin.
This time, he would end that 9.58 himself.
After the race, he walked up to the stands and held out his hand to Lin Zhiwan, in front of cameras from all over the world:
“Come home. Marry me.”
At forty-three, you swallowed your dreams along with your baijiu in the dead of night. Now you’re back at fifteen, not to become a prodigy, but to keep that forty-three-year-old version of yourself from sitting in a tavern once more, watching someone else make history.
Running results should be random. You seem to have preset it when you write it like this.