Summary of Volume 2
After finishing the second volume, I checked the word count using WORD and found that it was 864,000 words.
A bit more than the first volume.
This ending came to me when I was writing the last part of this chapter.
My wife and I had a chat about how to end this volume, and we originally had a scene in mind.
But the specific chapters are written down, and I think it would be better to end here.
So it ends here.
Use an award ceremony and a thank you speech.
After all, for Hu Lai, this is a stage in his career and a summary of his past football career.
Before moving forward, we must resolve the issues left over from the past and let go of the burdens we originally carried. Only in this way can your steps be light and powerful, and you can walk faster and better.
So I chose the symbolic scene of the award ceremony as the end of this volume.
Sometimes, writing a book is like this. When you start writing, you may only have a very vague intention, and many things come out of your mind as you write them. Of course, are there any things that are clear from the beginning? An author who has everything figured out? Sure, but I'm not that kind of person.
I am a writer who is not good at writing outlines or detailed outlines. Many times if I am asked to write a detailed outline, I will feel that the book cannot be written at all. But let me start writing the text directly. Many times I will be moved by the content that suddenly pops up in my mind.
The main content of the second volume is the first two seasons of Hulay's career, which is the beginning of his professional football career, but the main line is the relationship between him and his father.
Only this was decided before I started writing the second volume.
The plot of avenging my father in the FA Cup final was gradually taking shape in my mind before I wrote the second volume, so I had already thought of the title of that chapter before that, so I used the name Hedgehog Band. The lyrics of that song.
Because it really fits what I want to express.
The grievances and grudges of the older generation are resolved here by the young people.
Whether they are successful people or people who are doing nothing, people of the older generation will always grow old, and their things will also grow old with age.
Just like the law of development in this world, a generation, even the mainstream generation in this society, will eventually grow old. What will accompany them as they grow old are the so-called mainstream thoughts and concepts that their generation adheres to. , lifestyle, principles of doing things...
Many things will grow old, become no longer important, and disappear.
As for young people, those young people who are looked down upon by the older generation will gradually grow up and become the mainstream of society. The young people's code of conduct and way of thinking will gradually replace the aging generation.
Just like this, generation after generation, the cycle continues.
The whole society will progress because of this.
Otherwise, no matter how powerful and correct the older generation is, if they never grow old, how can the world continue to move forward?
I symbolized this truth with a football match and Hu Lai’s buzzer-beating goal.
Hu Lixin, the father, has always regarded himself as my father. He always felt that Hu Lai was still his son and a little kid who didn't understand anything. Even though his son is already a star with many fans and an adult who has achieved certain achievements in professional football, he has not changed his mentality.
Just like the Pug Gang sang in "The Second Half of the Ninth Inning": Maybe I'm an inconspicuous star on TV, but in their eyes, I'm just a kid who won't grow up.
This is not a special case of Hu Lixin, but a common mentality of countless parents and elders.
They always feel that they have eaten more salt than your kid has eaten, and they have walked on more bridges than you have walked. What scene have they not seen before? Don’t have more experience than you?
But today’s world is completely different from the ancient times when carriages, horses and mails were very slow. Today’s society is developing and changing rapidly. When we look back on ten years ago, we will marvel at how fast the world has changed, let alone how many years it has taken. Ten years is a lifetime thing.
So Hu Lixin's inherent experience made him stagnant and unable to get out. For a while, he couldn't accept his son's rapid progress. He was always worried that it would be a flash in the pan, and he was always afraid of waking up one day and finding that everything was back to where it started - why is this happening? Mentality? This is closely related to his original experience.
Weren't all his efforts and efforts shattered by Wang Xianke's kick?
This was his personal tragedy, but it was also the tragedy of that environmental era.
I saw that many readers scolded Hu Lixin for being unqualified as a father and a husband...I have to say that what you said is right. Hu Lixin is indeed such a person. I also deliberately wrote in this direction. .
He is not the kind of person who has the aura of a protagonist and can fight against repeated defeats and finally counterattack.
One blow might be enough to knock him down and prevent him from getting up.
It is precisely because of this that he is so dismissive of his son that he is disgusting.
The best way to solve this mentality is to let him see with his own eyes that no matter what difficulties he encounters, his son can face them head-on and defeat them.
So in the FA Cup final, he witnessed his son face the nightmare of his past, and then completed a hat-trick with a wonderful upside-down golden hook, knocking the high-altitude winner of life off the clouds and into the mud.
Complete a young generation to replace and surpass the older generation.
At that moment, his mentality changed.
The solid shell that once enveloped him was cracking.
He realized that the so-called strict protection he had done to his son was wrong, or... failed.
He once thought that as long as he kept his son away from the football that made him become the bad guy he is today, studied honestly and went to college, and followed the path that others were taking, he could ensure that his son would not make the same mistakes in his future.
From a father's perspective, he is actually right.
But from Hu Lai's perspective, the son's resistance and rebellion are naturally correct.
There are so many things in this world, how is it possible that everything can be divided into right and wrong?
After I made money by writing online novels to support myself, my dad still lamented that he still needed to have an iron rice bowl: He spent a lot of effort and human connections to provide his biological son, my dad and my mom, with After starting a family, he and his ex-wife have a son - they arranged for a job in a state-owned institution, with a salary of 3,000 yuan a month. The income is not too high, but it is stable and has a leisurely job.
In the eyes of people my dad's age, they have come from the era of iron rice bowls in state-owned enterprises. This job is envied by many people and he had to spend a lot of favors to get it. He has always been proud of this. He feels that he has arranged a good job for his son, and he is considered a competent father.
Of course, in fact, the money I earned from writing books was much more than the dead salary of that public institution. He now gradually stops talking about iron rice bowls and establishment...such things.
But can you say that my dad’s ideas are ridiculous?
When the economy goes down, I don’t know how many people think it is a dream to have a job that guarantees income during droughts and floods.
If I hadn't caught up with the explosion of online literature by chance, would I really be able to support myself and my family by writing books?
At that time, a person like me, who has low emotional intelligence, is not good at dealing with people, doesn't know how to make trouble, and offends many people with his bad words, will my living situation be much better than that of my brother by working for others?
But can we say that my father’s concept is right?
Given the tide of this era, how many young people will still stick to the establishment with limited quotas, waiting to die in a lifeless work environment until they retire?
Anyone who has any ideas will choose to leave.
During the Spring Festival the year before last, I returned to the state-owned enterprise compound where I lived when I was a child. In the compound, which used to be so bright and beautiful that everyone around me was envious of it, the buildings were dilapidated and the people living there were all old people. There were not many young people in sight, and it was very lifeless.
I think even if I didn't write a book, I wouldn't be able to live in this place for a long time.
No matter whether they have the ability or not, young people will always choose to step out of the places they have been familiar with since childhood and enter the vast world, from rural areas to cities, from small cities to big cities... to see and experience, whether they fail or succeed, is a personal wish. Strong push, or the tide of the times... these things will happen, regardless of personal preferences and will.
Back to Hu Lai and Hu Lixin, it's the same.
Hu Lixin's arrangement for his son is the optimal solution based on his experience and concepts.
Hu Lai's resistance and dissatisfaction with his father are based on his ability (plug-in) and what he considers to be the best route.
There is no right or wrong, and Hu Lai's current success cannot simply be used to completely deny Hu Lixin's persistence.
Of course, now that Hu Lixin has seen his son defeat his former enemy with his own eyes, the knot in his heart has been untied, and his opposition to his son's actions is no longer so strong.
He may still be worried about his son's future, but he also knows that his son has grown up, and no matter how good or bad his future is, it is up to him to solve it himself, not for the father to do it for him.
To put it bluntly: his son’s annual income is already over one million, which is many times more than the income of other children from ordinary families. This does not make him, a father, feel at ease. What about the parents of other ordinary families? what to do?
As for Wang Xianke, it is obvious that he has not reached his end yet. Hu Lai's revelations only sounded the first alarm for his originally calm and smooth life. He has not yet reached the end of his rope.
In my plan, the end of the second volume is not to beat Wang Xianke to death with a stick. The core of the second volume is the resolution of the conflict between Hu Lai and his father Hu Lixin. For now, it is basically resolved.
No matter what happens to Wang Xianke, Hu Lixin is no longer worried, and he can put aside the baggage of the past and move forward like a normal person.
But Hu Lixin has given up, which does not mean that Hu Lai has given up.
He took his father's burden and carried it on himself, intending to fight Wang Xianke to death.
This is the story of the next volume.
In fact, I have thought of some solutions on how to solve Wang Xianke's problem, but I am not willing to repeat the approach of Hu Lai and Sun He. On the one hand, the solution is too simple - of course, Sun He, as a small BOSS, can handle it so easily. That's right. It's not worth spending too much words on him, so I'll just beat him to death with a stick.
But Wang Xianke can't do it. He is the ultimate boss in the country. I mold him into a winner in life, a person with some weight in Chinese football, and I don't want to be defeated so easily in the end.
Moreover, deliberately kicking a teammate is really a sign of free will and lacks real evidence. Even if his former teammates are found, it can only prove that this happened, but it does not prove that Wang Xianke did it on purpose.
If he himself does not admit it, no one can convict him.
So I chose to solve this problem in another way.
For Hu Lai, it no longer matters whether Wang Xianke pleads guilty or not, and it doesn't even matter whether the public thinks Wang Xianke did it intentionally.
It was more important to him that Wang Xianke was completely finished.
But how to make Wang Xianke completely finished?
As Hu Lai said: See once and fight once.
This kind of beating is not just about defeating him on the court, but also an all-round attack on him.
But since it involves spoilers, I won’t go into details here.
Anyway, it is definitely not the kind of way where a former teammate falls from the sky and accuses Wang Xianke of intentionally hurting Hu Lixin, and then fans across the country revile Wang Xianke.
After all, if it were just like this, it would be far from being a real blow to Wang Xianke. He is now a successful head coach. As long as he can still lead the team to wins and championships, this kind of moral accusation has a limited impact on him.
In short, that’s all I have to say about Wang Xianke, just wait and see in the third volume.
※※※
The change in the relationship between Hu Lai and Hu Lixin is the theme of this volume. No matter how many goals Hu Lai scores, how much he pretends to be cool, how many championships he wins, how many flirty things he says... this The core of the volume is still this.
It is a process from confrontation to gradual reconciliation between father and son.
Of course, they haven't completely made peace yet, but a turning point has occurred.
Comrade Xie Lan finally saw the dawn of hope after all her efforts, and she was happy for her.
The two men were able to move from confrontation to reconciliation, and this woman was indispensable and the most important contributor. She was the number one contributor.
I particularly like my character Xie Lan.
I have written many books about the mothers of many protagonists, but this is my favorite and the one I am most emotionally invested in.
It’s not just Xie Lan, Hu Lixin also invested a lot of my emotions and writing in shaping it, and there are many other characters.
There is a lot of content that some readers may feel is enough to scan at a glance, all to create these characters and have them shape this fictional world.
Still the same problem, if someone thinks there are too many things besides football, including water, then it means you are not the audience of this book.
I have repeatedly emphasized before that I do not want to write one game after another, and the plot is completely divided and promoted based on the game schedule.
In addition to competitions, I will write a lot of off-site content, write about plots that are not the protagonist's pretense, and write about characters who may only have a brief relationship with the protagonist, or have never even met.
I know that mainstream competitive novels are still one game after another, using games to create conflicts, shape characters, advance the plot, and show off. All content is centered around the game. It might be okay in the early stage, but in the later stage it's basically one game after another.
I have written this kind of article before, and I have written a lot, but I don’t plan to write this book like this. I want to try another way of writing... It’s not called a new approach. For me, this is just a return in a sense. .
Whether it's "Do you care if I play football" or "We are champions", it's the same approach. Especially for the latter, I did not divide the plot according to the professional football season. All considerations and content are only to serve the plot, rather than the plot serving the schedule.
For the sake of plot development and considering the rhythm of the conflict, I can discard some completely unnecessary content and mention it in passing, or not mention it at all, or put it later and write it in retrospect after a big plot is over.
Make this book more like a novel than a strategy log for a football game.
This way of writing also allowed me to find more fun than before, so I have been very happy writing this book so far. Regardless of whether my grades are good or bad - when my grades are bad, as long as I indulge in novel writing, even if the writing itself is painful, my inner spirit will be full.
Before writing this book, I talked with Editor No. 72 (the author of Fake Heroes, Judgment, and Skywalker) about my thoughts on the new book. He asked me to write what I wanted to write, and maintaining the joy of writing is the most important thing. Yes, if this way makes me happy to write, then use this way.
I listened to his suggestion and decided to write the book "Fox in the Zone" in a fictional way and write more about the parts outside the football field.
Some readers complained that this is an urban novel, but I think sports novels are originally a subject matter under the urban category.
Because sports competition stories always take place in a modern urban background, the people in the novel cannot escape from this urban background. Therefore, when writing a sports competition novel, how could it not be about the city and the environment in which he lives?
As long as sports competition remains the core theme, the protagonist's way of success is still sports competition, and the resolution of plot conflicts is still through sports competition, then it is not a deviation.
On this basis, why not add more off-site descriptions?
The key point is: do these added things look good?
Are the off-screen scenes engaging and engaging? Are the stories of the supporting characters touching people's hearts? Are the descriptions of the world and environment realistic and believable?
These add up to the final criterion – does it look good?
If it looks good, what's the problem?
If it doesn't look good, something is definitely wrong. Even if it's all about the game, if it doesn't look good, no one will watch it.
Based on this idea, I will try my best to write the rest of this book according to my ideas.
If you really can't accept this approach, feel that there is too much outside the game, and feel that the content of the game describes too many people other than the protagonist is watery, then my very sincere suggestion is to let each other go, and there is no need to write a book review in the chapter. Tell me how to write it.
I understand what you are saying. Speaking of which, the average subscription of "Heart of a Champion" is almost over 10,000. There are not many sports and competitive books with average subscriptions of over 10,000. This means that I can still write a book that meets the psychological expectations of the vast majority of readers, right?
But as I said in the preface, this is a willful book, and I really don’t expect it to be recognized by everyone.
As I write this, I am already very happy to have achieved such results.
Seventeen years ago, when I first posted "Do You Mind If I Play Football" online, I said I hoped to find like-minded people.
Seventeen years later, I posted "Fox in the Forbidden Zone" online, also hoping to find people who could relate to the story after reading it.
I never thought that I would be able to write a book that would go viral all over the internet and cover all readers without any blind spots.
Sports novels are inherently niche, and my style of writing is even more niche within a niche. I know all this - before I started the book, Butterfly Lan asked me what I was writing about in my new book. After I told him the general idea, He said: Damn it, you are a niche within a niche, and your results may not be very good!
Of course I know, that's why at the end of the first volume, I felt elated that I had ordered 3,000 yuan.
I just want to write football novels for seventeen years, and it is inevitable that I will be a little tired of aesthetics - in the last book "Greenery" I found that the happiest part of writing was the interaction between Gao Zheng and Sister Feng - so I thought I want to rediscover the original impulse and fun I had when I decided to write the stories of Zhang Jun and Sophie in words.
The purest desire to talk is to tell you the feelings and thoughts I have accumulated bit by bit in my heart through the stories and characters I have conceived.
This book is such an opportunity for me to start over.
Good grades are of course important.
But the most important thing is to write a work that satisfies me and can give an explanation for my seventeen years of writing online competitive novels.
To be honest, I don’t know how long I can continue writing. After all, at first I thought I wouldn’t be able to persist for ten years. I remember that when I wrote "The Winner Takes All" in the tenth year, I made a ten-year summary and told everyone that I hoped to write another ten years, and then I would make a twenty-year summary.
Looking at it now, it should be no problem in twenty years, but I really don’t know in thirty years.
After all, I am getting older, and both my body and my brain have passed their prime. Like Hu Lixin, I am slowly failing to keep up with the times. Maybe I might—no, it should be certain—will be eliminated and replaced.
One hundred percent I will grow old.
Will I still be able to write something that continues to resonate with everyone? Will I still be passionate about writing? Will I still have a lot to say about the world?
I have no idea.
I was a little sad when Lao Mao retired some time ago. In his postscript, he used the lake outside the window as the title. I have been to his house and seen the lake. It is indeed beautiful. It is a blessing to be able to look up at the beautiful scenery outside the window while writing.
So I started to collect the photos of snow-capped mountains outside my study window that I had taken before. They were all the scenery I saw through the window glass while I was writing. I planned to write a long article with the title of the mountains outside my window when I retired. Postscript.
When the time comes to look back on my career, I will realize that there are a few books that are the most important to me. They can explain something to me and you, and I will be extremely happy.
And "The Fox in the Forbidden Zone" is a book I hope to put on the list.
Thank you all for listening to my ramblings.
Originally it was a summary of the second volume, but it was written as if it were a reflection at the end of the book...
In short, Hu Lai's story is still in progress and has not ended. Please look forward to the next story.
I will do my best to write it.
In my way.
Finally, I will give you some pictures of the mountains outside my study window, which are included in the Easter Egg Chapter. (End of chapter)