Chapter 21: Friday Night Lights

Saint Lester Royal Academy’s central stadium.

Tonight was the season opener of Friday Night Lights.

The sons and daughters of Saint Lester were born with silver spoons in their mouths. To them, this was as much a luxury social carnival as a football game.

Light sticks on the stands merged into a dazzling blue sea.

In the VIP area, the air smelled faintly of fine champagne and sweet cigar smoke.

The roar nearly blew the high dome off the stadium.

Xu Zhou kept his hands in his pockets, braced himself, and walked into the special aisle by the front row.

The first-row family seat Mateo had blown up his phone about was directly beneath the main platform.

Right behind and above that section sat the half-open VIP booths reserved for the school’s executives and the student council.

The moment Xu Zhou stepped in, he felt two almost tangible gazes stick to the back of his head.

He turned his head slightly and glanced upward.

In the booth, Gu Yanli sat in a dark gray overcoat, leaning back in his chair with a cold look, holding a disciplinary appeal form.

Not even a meter away, Ethan wore a long black trench coat and sat unhurriedly nursing a cup of hot coffee.

What made Xu Zhou’s eyelid jump was the silver tie clip on Ethan’s chest. It was still crooked.

He had not straightened it. He had left it tilted, in a way that made people imagine things.

The air between the two presidents was cold enough to freeze.

Xu Zhou looked away and pretended he had seen nothing.

He reached the front row and stopped before the single leather chair marked “No. 7 Reyes Exclusive Family Seat.” He sat down with only half his weight on it.

This spot was the focus of the entire stadium. Sitting here was like being roasted over a fire.

Gu Yanli’s gaze fell from above, slid past Xu Zhou’s shoulder, and stopped precisely on his right ankle, hidden beneath his baggy sweatpants.

He could not see it, but he could hear it.

When Xu Zhou shifted his foot warily, the lamb leather-lined chain gave a low, muffled rustle.

Gu Yanli tapped his fingers on the appeal form. Satisfaction flickered in his eyes.

Ethan, on the other side, set down his coffee cup.

Those gray-blue eyes locked onto the side of Xu Zhou’s neck from up high, and the smile at the corner of his mouth did not reach his eyes.

He leaned forward slightly and spoke to Xu Zhou below, his voice low and a little hoarse.

“Junior, the view is better up here. Want to come sit?”

Xu Zhou kept his back to them. He did not turn around. He just stared at the grass in front of him, playing dead.

At that moment, the “Friday Night Special Thread” on the Saint Lester anonymous forum was flying by at dozens of posts per second.

[BREAKING! Big drama at the Friday Night opener! The special-admit student sat in Reyes’s exclusive family seat!]

[1L (OP)]: Passing by at the front. For the uninformed: that seat is the private territory of the No. 7 captain. Anyone else who gets close gets ripped apart by Reyes’s own hands.

[12L]: Wait, look at the VIP booth above and behind him! President Gu and President Hawthorne are both up there watching him!

[35L]: President Gu’s eyes are terrifying… And President Hawthorne’s tie clip is actually crooked! What exactly happened between those two in the dance studio this afternoon?!

***

Bai Qi sat in the third-class stands near the aisle.

In his hand was a slightly creased VIP waitlist receipt.

He had gotten it that afternoon at the disciplinary office. Gu Yanli’s assistant had handed it to him.

In past years, he had always landed a front-row family seat for this opening game.

But this year, that single chair printed with “No. 7 Reyes Exclusive” was occupied by Xu Zhou, slouched in an oversized hoodie.

The classmate next to him shoved a hot canned coffee into his hand with an awkward look. “Bai Qi, don’t take it to heart. The school system really must have gone haywire. First the top floor of Arden, and now the seats for the opener.”

Bai Qi did not take the coffee.

He stared at the lazy back in the front row. His nails bit deep into his palm, and his knuckles turned a cold, bloodless white.

The privileges, the attention, and the affection that had once belonged to him were draining away in silence, like sand in an hourglass, flowing toward that special-admit student.

***

“BOOM!”

A nearly deafening explosion of screams burst from the stands.

“Wild Dog! Wild Dog! Wild Dog!”

The whole stadium chanted in unison.

At the tunnel entrance, the school team filed out.

The man at the front was tall and powerful. Beneath a professional black-and-gold helmet was a fiercely handsome face.

His striking red hair was plastered to his forehead, damp with sweat.

This was No. 7 captain Mateo Reyes.

He carried his helmet in one hand and radiated violent pheromones.

The moment he walked in, he punched his fist at the stands with pure arrogance, pulling in a tidal wave of cheers.

Then Mateo’s gaze swept the sideline.

Like a wild beast inspecting its territory, it locked onto Xu Zhou in the No. 7 exclusive seat in an instant.

Seeing Xu Zhou sitting there obediently, Mateo grinned, flashing a mouthful of white teeth.

But the next second, his gaze lifted and hit the booth above and behind Xu Zhou, where Gu Yanli and Ethan sat. His wild face went black instantly.

“Tch.”

He cursed under his breath. He did not even wait for the coach’s opening whistle.

He turned, stepped onto the board by the wire fence, and under the eyes of the entire stadium, crossed the barrier with force, heading straight for Xu Zhou’s seat.

The screams stopped for a beat. Then a mountain of murmuring erupted.

Xu Zhou watched the wild dog, reeking of sweat and cut grass, close in. His eyelids twitched violently.

Mateo stopped in front of him. He was far taller than the seated Xu Zhou, and his shadow swallowed the boy whole.

“The hell. You really came dressed like that?”

Mateo looked down at the plain gray hoodie with contempt and grabbed at his red hair in annoyance.

“So shabby. Didn’t I tell you to wear something decent?”

“Mateo.”

From the booth behind, Gu Yanli cut in coldly, striking the railing with the disciplinary file in his hand.

“Get back on the field. One minute to kickoff.”

Ethan turned his head too. His gray-blue eyes carried a smile with no warmth in it.

“Captain Reyes, abandoning your post at a time like this. The team will get a serious demerit.”

“Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you.”

Mateo did not even look back. He just spat in annoyance.

His beast-like eyes stayed fixed on Xu Zhou.

Then, with the whole stadium watching and the two presidents’ gazes turning icy behind him, Mateo stretched out a rough hand and grabbed the zipper of the golden No. 7 jacket on his body, the black-and-gold jacket that carried the highest honor of the school team.

“Riiip!”

The zipper was yanked open.

Mateo pulled off the heavy leather jacket, still carrying his burning body heat and the thick scent of grass and wood.

He pressed one knee onto the armrest of Xu Zhou’s seat.

He swung his arm with an unrefusable, brutal force and dumped the enormous jacket over Xu Zhou, covering him completely.

“Mmgh…”

Xu Zhou was thrown backward. In an instant, he was buried beneath the heavy, scorching jacket.

Mateo’s body heat and aggressive scent flooded over him like a tide.

Mateo even bent down to do it himself. He dragged the zipper all the way up, right to Xu Zhou’s chin.

Most of Xu Zhou’s pretty, stunned face disappeared into the stiff stand-up collar.

“When I’m playing, I don’t like my family seat being empty. And I don’t like other people hanging around it.”

Mateo’s thick fingers pressed hard on the zipped collar.

But his eyes lifted in provocation, sweeping coldly over Gu Yanli and Ethan.

“What’s so impressive about wearing Gu Yanli’s cheap chain?”

Mateo grinned with a beast’s arrogance.

“Wear my battle jacket, and every point I score out there counts for you.”

With that, he patted Xu Zhou’s shoulder, now round and puffy from the jacket, then vaulted over the railing and ran back to the field in long strides.

The whistle rang out sharp and clear. The game officially began.

Xu Zhou sat there in the oversized jacket that hung nearly to his thighs, curled inside it like a child wearing an adult’s clothes.

And at that exact moment, the massive broadcast screen, ten meters across above the field, switched images.

The camera did not aim at the player taking the kickoff. With unnerving precision, it locked onto the first row of the VIP family section.

It captured the boy wrapped tightly in the huge black-and-gold battle jacket, only a pair of beautiful peach blossom eyes showing, his face carrying an expression of total resignation.

Under the high-definition lens, Xu Zhou’s cool white skin almost glowed against the black leather collar.

Because of the stifling heat, a thin layer of sweat had formed on the tip of his nose.

The red at the corners of his eyes was magnified endlessly in the close-up, carrying a fragile, almost decadent beauty.

He pressed his dry red lips together in irritation. His long lashes trembled, and he lazily raised his eyes to glance at the camera.

That single glance was cool, languid, and touched with pure innocence.

The cheering in the stands paused for one strange second. Then came the most terrifying wave of sound of the night.

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