Chapter Two: Eight Minutes at Twenty-Seven

Zhao cleared. The final whistle sounded. Two-one. Cape City's eleven-match winless run was over. As teammates lifted him, Zhou asked, “How did you know he'd go just left of center?” “The valve on the ball faced right when he placed it. Players who push left like it that way.” Sitting on the grass, Gu painfully straightened his knee. “I studied him.” Shen understood then: the Echo had supplied eight minutes. The rest of the victory belonged to everything a veteran had learned in twenty years. At the press conference, microphones crowded Gu's face. “A goal after four hundred and thirteen days—does this prove you're back at your peak?” “No,” Gu said. “A peak doesn't return. A man only decides how he travels through the valley.”