Chapter Four: The Boy Who Remembered the Score

The iron door held for twenty-seven seconds. Cheng Ye jammed a stretcher bar through its handle while Lin Xi rolled up the ruined seating plan. A maintenance slot behind the old scoreboard was barely wide enough to enter sideways. The door crashed down just as they slipped into darkness. The silver vests did not follow. From the opening, they said in unison, “The match is about to begin.” The shaft delivered them beneath the away stand at 6:58. Cheng Ye stopped beside North Zone Seven. A boy in a white Northern Union shirt was secretly emptying his free water into a planter. He had tasted it; silver-gray moisture coated his tongue. Yet he watched the blank scoreboard and murmured, “First a penalty, then three-all. No. Last time wasn't like that.”