The Copper Soul's Mighty Veins

I was reborn in a Guangxi county league stadium as the match-fixing middleman everyone despises. They don't know that every time I score a goal, another underground bronze pillar lights up. Each pillar that lights up means someone I know disappears forever. When the seventh pillar lit up, I discovered that my father, who had forced me to throw matches, was bound to it, smiling at me. “Son, your mother is waiting for you at the next pillar.” The girl who always smiles at me from the sidelines has quietly hidden her eighty-first diary. The last page reads: “I'll forget again in this cycle, but when he pats my head, the bronze pillar burns with pain.” A European tycoon arrives with a contract worth tens of billions: “Sell them. One million euros per bronze pillar.” As the whole stadium cheers, I blast the deciding penalty kick wide. Watching the fourteenth pillar slowly dim, I smile faintly at the sky. “I used to think lying flat was the safest choice. Now I understand that someone has been standing in my place for seven thousand years.” “Time to change shifts.” On the night the bronze pillars went completely dark, the sound of ancient bronze drums echoed beneath all of Guangxi. The girl who had waited seven thousand years for me slowly became the fifteenth bronze pillar in my arms. She said, “As long as we won.” Holding the bronze pendant she left behind, I head deep into Qingxiu Mountain. The real competition is only just beginning there: the future of fourteen cities is at stake, and the prize is an answer that will let everyone survive.