If you can start for the first team twice in a row, it means that your position in the head coach's mind is already very stable. So if Chen Yingxiong could do that, at least before Tekke recovered from his injury, Chen Yingxiong would no longer have to worry about his position.
The game was on Saturday, but after training on Wednesday afternoon, head coach Advocaat already announced the roster for the game the day after tomorrow.
This surprised Chen Yingxiong. According to normal practice, the roster was usually announced the day before the game...
It was no surprise that he was on the roster. He'd been training hard this week
But what surprised him were the expressions of his teammates... These teammates who were about to go on away games did not feel very happy, but instead had bitter faces.
Chen Yingxiong didn't know why, but he didn't dare to ask in front of the head coach. When he returned to the locker room, he told Denisov what he had observed.
Of course, Denisov was also one of those with a bitter face.
"Do you know who our opponent is this weekend?" Denisov said to Chen Yingxiong.
Chen Yingxiong nodded. "Light energy."
"Do you know what city it is in?"
Chen Yingxiong shook his head.
"Vladivostok!" Denisov lamented.
Chen Yingxiong didn't know much about "Vladivostok". He played football and was not serious about school, so his geography knowledge was very limited. Of course, he didn't know that this city was the famous "Vladivostok".
Vladivostok was once Chinese territory, but after the Second Opium War, the Qing Dynasty and Russia signed the "Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty", and the Qing government ceded about 400,000 square kilometres of the territory east of the Ussuri River, including Sakhalin Island, which held Vladivostok.
Vladivostok was the second-largest city in Russia's Far East.
This city was located in the eastern part of Russia, very, very close to China's Heilongjiang Province.
Denisov continued to wail. "Do you have any video game consoles?"
Chen Yingxiong shook his head. He didn't even have a laptop, let alone a game console. Otherwise, before he met Yesenin, he wouldn't have felt so lonely every night.
"Well...I advise you to go to sleep as soon as you get on the plane!"
"What?" Chen Yingxiong was still puzzled.
"Because we have to fly for more than ten hours!"
…
Chen Yingxiong finally experienced firsthand what Denisov's lament was about.
Five hours had passed since they took off from Pulkovo Airport, and the plane had just been flying and flying with no end in sight.
At first, he was interested in reading the magazines on the plane, but later he finished reading all of them. After staring blankly for an hour with nothing to do, he just chose to go to bed - in fact, it was almost time to go to bed anyway.
They had taken off from St. Petersburg at 8 p.m. local time and had been flying for five hours, which meant it was already past 1 a.m.
He turned over slightly and woke up from his drowsy sleep. In fact, he had never really fallen asleep in the first place. The roar of the plane and the turbulence when encountering air currents made his sleep quality not very good.
The sky outside the window was as dark as ink, dotted with stars, very beautiful and spectacular. However, Chen Yingxiong had no mood to appreciate the beautiful scenery outside the window - he just felt that his butt was numb from sitting.
Denisov was slumped over in the seat next to him, sleeping soundly and even snoring.
Chen Yingxiong stood up with some difficulty, then carefully stepped over Denisov and Anyukov.
After reaching the middle aisle, he stretched lazily.
The tall stewardess saw Chen Yingxiong, walked over, and asked enthusiastically, "How can I help you, sir?"
"Ah, no, I'm just moving around... my butt is numb from sitting." Chen Yingxiong rubbed his butt.
Seeing Chen Yingxiong like this, the tall and beautiful stewardess couldn't help laughing out loud.
Chen Yingxiong saw that there was nothing to do anyway and most of the people on the plane were sleeping, so he might as well chat with the flight attendant to relieve his boredom.
"How long does it take to fly from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok?" he asked.
"The flight time is thirteen hours." The flight attendant patiently explained to him.
"Oh... flying for thirteen hours like this, don't you feel bored?"
"That's our job, sir."
"Has anyone asked for your phone number while you were working?"
The stewardess smiled and said, "Yes." She was not ashamed to admit this and even looked quite proud. It seemed that a stewardess who had never been approached by someone was not a pretty stewardess...
"Can I get your phone number then?" Chen Yingxiong went straight to the point, as simple and direct as his football style.
The stewardess smiled even more happily.
Then she took out a pen and paper, wrote her name and mobile phone number on the production line, and handed it to Chen Yingxiong.
He looked down at the paper, then said to the stewardess. "You see... I'm still learning Russian... so my level is not very high. So I can't see the name you wrote clearly. Can you tell me what it is?"
The stewardess thought the tall man with black hair and yellow skin was really interesting. She smiled and replied, "You can call me Petrovna."
"What a nice name." Chen Yingxiong deliberately complimented in stumbling Russian.
"Are you also a player of Zenit St. Petersburg?" Petrovna asked.
Chen Yingxiong nodded. "Yes, I am."
"Why haven't I seen you before?"
"Uh... I just joined the team a month ago..."
"So you're new here? You don't look very old."
Chen Yingxiong thought that if he said he was only 18 years old, the stewardess would lose interest. "I just have a baby face, but I'm actually 24 years old!"
When Chen Yingxiong was about to continue getting close to the flight attendant, the cabin suddenly shook.
Petrovna motioned Chen Yingxiong to return to his seat and fasten his seat belt, while she quickly walked back to her area. Chen Yingxiong did not immediately obey and return to his seat but was admiring a beautiful scene - Petrovna's butt, which was tightly wrapped in her skirt, was swaying as she walked quickly.
I wonder how it feels... Chen Yingxiong thought dishonestly.
When he sat back in his chair and fastened his seat belt, Petrovna's sweet voice sounded over the radio. "Dear passengers, as the plane is encountering turbulence, please stay in your seats, fasten your seat belts, and fold up the small table in front of you..."
Denisov woke up from the bumpy ride, wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth sleepily, and saw Chen Yingxiong sitting upright next to him, looking forward.
"How long have we been flying, Hero?" he asked.
"More than five hours..." Chen Yingxiong replied.
"Oh, hell...it's only been five hours!"
He yawned, sat up and stretched, seeming to be more energetic. "You know why we don't like to play against Vladivostok away from home?"
Chen Yingxiong thought about his butt which had become numb from sitting just now, and nodded.
"It's so fucking painful..." Denisov complained, "I tell you, all the teams hope that Light Energy will be relegated as soon as possible! If they are relegated, we won't have to go through so much trouble. It takes 26 hours to fly back and forth to play an away game! Sometimes I think if Light Energy doesn't get relegated, let them win the Russian Cup or something! Then let them play in European competitions, that would be exciting! Haha! Can you imagine how painful it would be for an English team to fly for 20 hours and transfer in the middle to play away games? I bet that Light Energy's home stadium would become literal hell! No team will be able to have sufficient physical strength and be in good condition when they arrive in Vladivostok."
Denisov kept complaining.
Chen Yingxiong was listening nearby, thinking that this person's resentment was really deep...
But he was more concerned about the stewardess with a sweet voice.
He waved the paper in his hand towards Denisov.
"What?" Denisov was interrupted.
Only then did Denisov see a line of beautiful handwriting and a string of numbers on the piece of paper.
"Petrovna?"
"How is it? Not bad!" Chen Yingxiong was looking forward to receiving praise from the regiment commander.
But what he got was the head of the group's cold stare.
"A married woman. If you like this type, it doesn't matter..." Denisov shrugged and returned the paper to Chen Yingxiong. He was not interested in the stewardess who made Chen Yingxiong's heart beat fast.
"Huh?" Chen Yingxiong was surprised. "How do you know she's married?"
"The whole team knows about it, except for you, a rookie. Also, how old do you think she is?"
"About twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old..."
"Well, thirty-six without makeup."
Chen Yingxiong was so frightened that he almost jumped out of his chair—if he hadn't been tied up by a safety belt…
"Oh my god! Really?"
"You have to believe in the commander, hero." Ever since Chen Yingxiong gave Denisov the nickname "commander", Denisov has particularly liked to call himself that.
Chen Yingxiong looked at Denisov's disdainful expression and grinned.
I finally hooked up with someone, but in the end, I found out that I was the one being picked up... Damn it!
Chen Yingxiong was not interested in a 36-year-old married woman. Maybe her children would be almost as old as himself... He looked at the note in his hand, and finally, reluctantly, crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it into the garbage bag.
…
However, during the rest of the trip, Chen Yingxiong was continously "harassed" by Petrovna. Every time she passed by his seat, Petrovna would openly show Chen Yingxiong an ambiguous smile. That expression seemed to be saying, "Wait until the plane lands..."
The whole team knew that Petrovna had caught another fish. When Petrovna was away, they all smiled at Chen Yingxiong playfully.
Anyukov and Denisov, who were sitting next to Chen Yingxiong, laughed at the rookie.
Amidst the laughter, Chen Yingxiong buried his head in his hands...
This was the longest and most difficult flight he had ever taken.
When the plane landed at Vladivostok International Airport, Chen Yingxiong breathed a sigh of relief - he could finally get rid of Petrovna's female gaze.
Petrovna stood at the cabin door, leading all the flight attendants to see off the passengers.
"Thank you for flying with Vladivostok Airlines. I wish you a safe trip. You're welcome to fly with us again anytime!"
When Chen Yingxiong walked past the stewardess, he could still feel the two burning pupils and the meaningful smiles of his teammates behind and in front of him. He lowered his head again, pretending not to see, and hurriedly left the cabin door.
Denisov was waiting for him in front. When he saw him come out, he came up and hugged his shoulders. "Don't worry, Hero. You still have a chance to meet her - don't forget, we still have to fly back to St. Petersburg after the away game!"
Chen Yingxiong's face turned green. "Can I take the train?"
The teammates around him laughed happily.
…
For the other players of Zenit St. Petersburg, this was the most terrifying away trip in history. I'm afraid it was the same for Chen Yingxiong, but for different reasons.
But they obviously had different opinions on the cause of the "terror"...