The locker room smelled of damp concrete and desperation. Lin stared at the accounting spreadsheet projected onto a mold-stained wall, the numbers bleeding into each other like ink in the rain.
327.46 yuan.
The decimal point burned brighter than the flickering overhead bulb. Chen Mo—the buzzcut boy genius—sat cross-legged on a pile of discarded shin guards, wolfing down cold baozi filled with some unidentifiable meat. His left kneecap bore fresh cement burns from yesterday's construction site shift.
"Medical supplies?" Lin asked.
Su Qing tossed him a Ziploc bag containing three bandages and a rusted scalpel. "We've been using spiderwebs for wound dressing since April."
A crash echoed from the showers. Zhang Ye emerged shirtless, his surgically-reconstructed chest glistening under flickering fluorescents. He hurled a locker door across the room, revealing a hidden compartment stuffed with liquor miniatures.
"Emergency reserves," he grinned, popping a baijiu bottle with his teeth.
Lin's prosthetic knee locked. Seven years ago, his national team contract paid 180,000 yuan per match. These men hadn't received salaries in fourteen months.
"Training starts in twenty," he said.
Chen Mo choked on his baozi. "But the derby's tomorrow! Coach, we need to—"
"Today we learn how to fall."
The stadium's eastern stand creaked like a dying beast as they gathered on its decaying framework. Lin handed each player a motorcycle helmet spray-painted with club colors. Fifty meters below, the tidal flat glimmered with sharp-edged oyster shells.
"Header drills," Lin said.
Even Zhang Ye's perpetual smirk vanished. The team stared at the makeshift "training ground"—a grid of exposed rebar marking where seats had been ripped out for scrap metal.
"Capitalism lesson one," Lin kicked a ball into the void, "when they take your pitch, you conquer the sky."
Chen Mo was first over the edge.
The boy's scream tore through Lin's carefully constructed numbness. He watched Chen's body pinwheel toward certain impalement, calculations exploding behind his eyes—terminal velocity 53 m/s, wind shear 9 knots, oyster bed rotation relative to...
A rope snapped taut.
Chen swung upside-down three meters above death, giggling hysterically as his helmet skimmed jagged shells. The team's climbing harnesses—repurposed from demolition crews—creaked in morbid harmony.
"Angle your torso at 67 degrees!" Chen shouted, blood dripping from his nose onto the tidal flats. "The Coriolis effect adds 0.3 seconds to—"
"Silence!" Lin barked. "Pain is data. Remember its taste."
By dusk, twelve men hung suspended like grotesque wind chimes. Zhang Ye swung lazily in his harness, sipping baijiu as the setting sun set his scar tissue ablaze.
"Clever trick," he drawled. "But can physics calculate how many bones we'll break when those ropes fray?"
Lin's phone chose that moment to vibrate. The text notification froze his blood—a CCTV screenshot of Chen Mo hauling bricks at a construction site, his club jacket clearly visible under the safety vest.
**Unknown Number**: *17-year-olds can't sign pro contracts. 50,000 yuan deletes the evidence.*
The ropes creaked. The tide rose. Somewhere in the rotting stands, a rat gnawed on last season's trophy.