On the bus back to Birmingham, the players were still excitedly talking about the comeback.
Jacob Ramsey sat beside Zayn, replaying the equalizer he had assisted over and over in his head, muttering, “What a pass that was.”
Zayn ignored him.
He leaned back in his seat and pretended to rest with his eyes closed.
[Side Quest: First Win]
[Objective: Win your first official match]
[Status: Completed]
[Calculating Quest Reward…]
[Realization Rate +5%]
[Current Realization Rate: 20.05%]
The 5% quest reward was safely in the bag.
The extra 0.05% was probably the Realization Rate he had earned from coming off the bench for twenty minutes and scoring twice.
But it had only gone up by that tiny amount, probably because he had played for too little time.
Twenty minutes obviously could not compare to a full ninety.
More importantly, his weekly wage ranked only fourteenth in the squad, so he did not get any additional Realization Rate bonus.
If he could climb a few places, his realization efficiency would double.
But getting a pay rise in the Youth Team was not easy.
He had only just signed his contract, and unless he skipped a level to the U23s or the first team, his weekly wage would basically just crawl upward with seniority.
As he was thinking it over, the holographic screen refreshed again.
[Side Quest: The True Test]
[Objective: Win an official match outside the Youth Team, with the first team, reserves, or a team represented during a loan]
[Reward: Realization Rate +10%]
Zayn’s mouth twitched.
A match outside the Youth Team?
He had not even earned a U18 starting spot yet, while Steve Bruce’s first team was fighting tooth and nail for promotion.
The rotation squad was packed with veterans and ready-made players.
Who had the time to fish some green kid out of the U18s?
He could forget about this quest for the near future.
Zayn was feeling a little gloomy, while Ramsey beside him was still chattering on, analyzing how perfectly timed his assist had been and how beautiful the passing line was.
“Keep it down, Jacob.
Let the comeback hero get some rest.”
Ramsey: “???”
Didn’t you only play twenty minutes?
Still, he wisely shut his mouth.
What else could he do?
The guy had scored twice away from home and taken all three points.
Of course, the most important reason was that Zayn was a lot stronger than him.
He could not beat him in a fight.
…
The 5.05% increase in Realization Rate showed results in recovery training the very next day.
The most obvious feeling was that Zayn’s touch had become more delicate.
Yesterday in Brighton’s penalty area, his back-to-goal control, turn, and shot connection had indeed been clean and sharp, but that had been thanks to the [Super Sub] buff.
Today, even without the buff, his feel for the ball was more refined than it had been during yesterday’s match.
Even the awkwardness of using his weaker left foot had faded a little.
In the small-sided game, Zayn completed a sequence of controlling and carrying the ball past his man, then followed it up with a curling left-footed shot.
The ball did not go in, but the way it flew just past the post made the young goalkeeper break out in a cold sweat.
The system’s evaluation of Torres’s [Stable Ball Control (B)] on the Talent panel was: his technique is not especially delicate, but his feel for the ball while driving forward is reliable enough, and he rarely loses it at high speed. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Zayn had previously understood “not especially delicate” as “Torres’s ball control is average.”
Thinking about it now, who exactly was the system comparing him to when it said “not especially delicate”?
Probably Spanish midfielders like Xavi, Iniesta, and David Silva, players who controlled the ball as if it were glued to their feet.
Compared with those Spanish compatriots, Torres’s footwork really could not be called delicate.
On the sideline, David Hughes stopped twirling the pen in his hand because of Zayn’s left-footed curler.
His brows drew together slightly, and his eyes followed Zayn’s back for quite a while.
During yesterday’s match, he had thought those few touches in the box were just a burst of match-day form.
That kind of thing was not rare among young players.
Once they got on the pitch and the adrenaline kicked in, they could pull off all kinds of wonder goals.
But today, Zayn’s rhythm on the ball was even more composed than it had been yesterday.
“When a talented player is put in the right position, improvement really stops making sense.”
After thinking for a long time, Hughes could only explain Zayn’s exaggerated rate of progress this way.
“This kid was born to be a forward.”
Zayn’s ceiling might be higher than he had first judged.
…
Back at home,
Zayn gave Biscuit’s head his usual rub.
As always, the fur felt smooth and slick under his hand.
It was not until dinner that he belatedly realized something at home felt a little off.
There were only three plates of baked beans on the table, along with a few slices of toast.
Beans on toast was practically a national comfort meal in the UK, the sort of thing you could throw together quickly when you were hungry.
Brits liked it well enough for breakfast or dinner.
But for Anna, his mother, who usually cared a great deal about meals, this plate of baked beans meant, “I’m too tired to cook today, so this will have to do.”
George picked up his fork, looked at the food on his plate, then at his wife’s face, and asked,
“Anna, what’s wrong?”
Anna sighed.
“Do you remember the day Zayn signed his contract last week?
I got held up by work at the last minute.”
“I remember.” George nodded.
“That case.
I took it over last week, and there hasn’t been the slightest progress.”
Anna rubbed the space between her brows and began to explain.
The accounting firm she worked for had only three people in total, including the boss.
Their clients were mostly small business owners who struggled with the British tax system, including quite a few shops in Chinatown.
The UK tax system was extremely complicated.
Corporation tax, VAT, National Insurance.
Just figuring out what all those terms meant was enough to give someone a headache.
And the rules for calculating tax were difficult too.
For example, cereal bars and oatcakes could have completely different VAT rates.
The same kind of food might be subject to 20% VAT if eaten in a restaurant, but if bought cold to take away, it could be exempt or even zero-rated.
That was not even getting into the relief policies and filing deadlines tucked away in the fine print.
For shop owners whose first language was not English and who only half understood the local rules, finding a reliable accounting firm to handle tax matters was practically a basic requirement for doing business.
Anna’s firm was small, but it had a decent reputation in Chinatown.
The reason was simple. New chapters come out on g.com first.
They had an employee named Wendy.
Wendy’s aunt had married a man from the local Chinese community, and Wendy had learned fluent Cantonese and Mandarin from her uncle-in-law when she was little.
Because of that, most of the Chinatown work was handed to her.
But Wendy had gone on long-term sick leave two weeks ago.
As a result, all the cases in her hands had fallen to Anna.
“The other cases are all right.
They’re not in too much of a rush.
It’s just this newly opened restaurant.
The owner has been in the UK for less than three months, and he’s missing a huge pile of documents.
The worst part is that he doesn’t speak English at all.”
“Then how does he communicate with you?” George asked.
“Through his daughter.
The girl seems to have done pretty well on her IELTS, but her spoken English isn’t good, and she can’t understand the Birmingham accent either.
Every time I open my mouth, she frowns.”
“Then why not hire an interpreter?”
“There’s only so much money in one job.
The owner won’t want to spend extra on that.”
Anna sighed.
“I’ll have to keep going to that restaurant for a while and just push through it slowly.”
When Zayn heard this, he stopped chewing his toast.
A proper hot meal, restaurant food, something with real flavour.
The thought alone made him pause.
Then he looked at the plain plate of beans on toast in front of him.
It was fine, but right now, it suddenly felt a little too simple.
“mom, why don’t I go with you?”
Anna looked up at Zayn, doubt in her eyes.
Zayn kept a perfectly straight face and started making things up.
“There are quite a few Mandarin-speaking staff at the club.
I’ve picked up a fair bit from them over the past few years.
Basic communication shouldn’t be a problem.”
Aston Villa’s current owner was from China, and there really were quite a few staff at the club who spoke the language.
But Anna was his mother, after all.
“Zayn, are you just craving restaurant food?”
“…As a bonus.
Just as a bonus.”
Anna smiled and shook her head.
“All right.
I’ll take you with me next time I go.”
Zayn’s mood instantly improved, and he rubbed the dog’s head by his feet.
His little sister Lucy, however, curled her lip.
“That kind of food?
It’s all sticky and gloopy.”
She was at the age where she loved sweets, and in her eyes, only desserts mattered.
She had no interest in proper meals.
“You little brat, what do you know?”
Zayn did not even turn his head.