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Ye Xiu kept his back straight and his face even straighter as he faced Cui Li while he explained the lore of Excellent Era’s fall in Ye Qiu’s hands. He knew where this was going. As much as he disliked to admit it, he saw this from miles away, sure, he didn’t expect them to pressure him like this.
“As you’re aware, we don’t have an extra account card for you, so you’ll have to make do as a training partner.”
Ye Xiu wanted to sigh. “No need. I want to cancel the contract.”
“Cancel the contract? You want to cancel the contract?” Cui Li said thoughtfully. “Alright then, since you already did a lot for us, we can discuss the cancellation fee and the conditions.”
“Give it straight to me, what’s the condition?” Ye Xiu asked.
“The condition is simple,” Cui Li smirked and Ye Xiu could feel Su Mucheng’s grabbing his sleeve and squeezed it harder. “Announce your—“
The offer never came.
Ye Xiu’s vision blurred heavily like he was going through a washing machine. He blinked and suddenly he was gazing eyes-to-eyes with different bespectacled in proper pajama-like clothes.
Zhang Xinjie raised his brows at him. “Captain, is something wrong with the schedule?”
Ye Xiu gazed down at the piece of paper in his hands and the familiar Tyranny’s logo at the top corner of it. “Oh God, I’m fucked.” Yup, he’s fucked.
Normally, Soulmates did a soul switch started from the age of fourteen. It was safe enough for minimum age, at least you’d be at ease knowing the other person on your body was fourteen and not five which would make them liable to get lost or get into an accident.
No one could imagine having a five-year-old in their body while probably out in the traffic or on the highway, there had been too many instances of working adults clinging to themselves because their young teenage soulmates just switched into their body, now imagine it wasn’t a teenage but a child, things would be murkier.
But it wasn’t a rule set in stone. The youngest record of soul switch was fourteen years old, not to mention soulmates were not that common, only occurred to 25% of the population and forty percent of that percentage was platonic, so it helped to lessen possible awkward situations.
Han Wenqing never thought that he had a soulmate, just like the rest of the 75% of the population. It was normal to not have one so people never really clamor about it.
But today, he was proven wrong.
He was having a captain-vice captain discussion with Zhang Xinjie before Zhang Xinjie could go to sleep, but suddenly his vision swarmed and he was suddenly in another place, gazing at a different man in glasses.
“-Retirement.”
Han Wenqing blinked.
“How could you do that?! You call that condition? Not pushing it?!”
Han Wenqing glanced to see Su Mucheng arguing with whatever the man in glasses had said.
“Ye Qiu is already twenty-five, if you make him retire now, he can only return when he’s twenty-six. That’s....” Su Mucheng bit her lips.
Han Wenqing temporarily left her out of his sight and looked around the place. The office was styled with Excellent Era’s logo in almost every corner, not to mention that three trophies with Ye Qiu’s name carved on it.
He glanced around and found the rookie- Sun Xiang, sitting audaciously by the table like he owned the place. Han Wenqing kept searching until he found a reflective surface of a glass cabinet to his left.
‘I see...’ Han Wenqing gazed at his soulmate’s reflection unimpressedly.
“Well, it is what it is.”
“Come again?” Han Wenqing asked.
Everyone looked at Ye Qiu in confusion, Su Mucheng stepped to his side and put a hand on his arm, she looked like she was struggling to come to terms with this.
“What?” The bespectacled man looked at him blankly.
“I said, repeat what you said,” Han Wenqing ordered emotionlessly.
The man seemed unhappy but complied. “Since you didn’t pay attention the first time I’ll repeat,” he said with disdain. “The condition of your contract cancellation is for you to announce your retirement.”
“What kind of condition is that?” Han Wenqing snorted. “A club has no right to deny a player’s wish to cancel his contract especially if he can pay the penalty, I never hear of this condition to retire.”
“Then do you have the money to pay for the penalty?” The bespectacled man sneered.
‘No...’ Han Wenqing didn’t think Ye Qiu had money to pay. That guy was always sloppy, his money management skill was quite pitiful, it wasn’t just once or twice that Ye Qiu shamelessly mooched off of Han Wenqing’s money for food if given the chance.
Han Wenqing could feel Su Mucheng’s flustered by his side. “Ye Qiu...?” No doubt she also didn’t have the solution.
“How long do I have left in the contract?” Han Wenqing asked.
“A year and a half.”
That would be a lot of penalty fee... for someone who didn’t get paid ten million a year like Han Wenqing anyway.
How much did Ye Qiu make a year?
Han Wenqing mulled about it. Su Mucheng saw his silence and grew even more desperate. Han Wenqing noticed this and nodded at her to ease her worry.
“How much is the cancellation fee?” Han Wenqing asked.
The people in the room looked at him in disdain, it seemed like the only one who wasn’t outright against Ye Qiu was Su Mucheng.
When Han Wenqing heard the number, he went silent again. That was quite huge, but he can pay it off.
“How much do I make a year?” Han Wenqing glanced at Su Mucheng.
Su Mucheng blinked. “Seven hundred thousand by salary, and a few thousand from the competitions,” she thought it was odd that Ye Qiu asked this now of all time, but Su Mucheng was used to account Ye Qiu’s income since the guy himself never really paid attention to how much he got and how much he spent.
Han Wenqing snapped his head to the side. “Seven—“
Three days later, a transfer offer came from Tyranny to Excellent Era. To the two teams’ fanbase’s absolute shock, they asked Ye Qiu of all people to transfer over.
The fanbases rioted, Tyranny’s fanbase was nearly frustrated to death, they couldn’t believe the club made such a decision?! Why?! Why would Excellent Era’s Ye Qiu accept this offer and why were they offering it in the first place?!
However, the next day, much to everyone’s shock- Ye Qiu accepted the transfer offer and Excellent Era sent him off with a cheap price of three million!
The three-time champion got shipped off to the rival team for such a cheap price?! Everyone couldn’t believe what they were witnessing.
Ye Xiu couldn’t blame them.
The soul switch persisted for two days, in those two days, Han Wenqing practically flipped off the entire Excellent Era, yelled at Tao Xuan, burned the retirement agreement paper with a match he found in Ye Xiu’s jacket. Gathered up all the ‘evidence’ such as his old and new contracts, also a few of his important papers before leaving for an inn down the street. Of course not with a parting message to Tao Xuan and Cui Li.
“Retire? No need. Someone else can buy off this contract with just a glance. Just wait.”
While Han Wenqing was doing all of this, Ye Xiu tried and failed to get Su Mucheng to convince him to retire in his body. She enjoyed the scene too much and didn’t really want Ye Xiu to retire so she just sits and watches as Han Wenqing (in Ye Xiu’s body) made his case point to the whole board of Excellent Era before borrowing some money from her to live in the inn down the road when the manager pressured him to move to a small closet so Sun Xiang can sleep in his room.
Ye Xiu didn’t have any choice but to turn to Zhang Xinjie to play chess while languishing his fate in Tyranny where everyone banned him from smoking and taint Han Wenqing’s perfect lungs.
“You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Ye Xiu asked in exasperation. “You know I may have prepared myself for retirement.”
Han Wenqing snorted. “Prepare? How much do you have in your saving?”
That. That wasn’t fair.
“How much do I owe you?” Ye Xiu asked. “I’ll try to pay it bit by bit.”
Han Wenqing glanced at him and narrowed his eyes critically. “Don’t think too much about it.” With that, Han Wenqing left for a bathroom break.
Ye Xiu turned to Zhang Xinjie. “So....?”
Zhang Xinjie answered. “Three million.”
“... That’s my entire transfer fee.”
“Your point?” Zhang Xinjie asked back.
“...”
“Also, the legal fee to threaten Excellent Era is three hundred thousand,” Zhang Xinjie said.
Ye Xiu nearly forgot about that. The reason why Excellent Era easily let him transfer was that Han Wenqing had pointed out the salary per year was minuscule so it couldn’t warrant a price higher than average.
“Not to mention, our stock market price dropped by seven percent in a day. The management team is crying tears of blood right now,” Zheng Chengfeng mentioned casually.
“If you want to account everything, your debt is...” Yu Tian clicked on the calculator in his phone. “Hmm? Eleven million,” he smiled kindly at Ye Xiu.
“Fuck, I never even keep that much in my pocket,” Ye Xiu blurted out.
“We know. We saw your contract,” Bai Yanfei said with pity. He initially despised Ye Qiu too, it was a thing of Tyranny’s players, but when he knew his living condition in Excellent Era, he felt compassion for the guy. The whole Tyranny also felt the same.
"Eleven million is only for one day's loss, by the way."
“I’ll never financially recover from this,” Ye Xiu murmured.
“Don’t worry!” Zhou Guangyi grinned. “You’re Captain’s Soulmate, naturally you’re different.”
“Different how?”
“Just marry the captain,” Zhou Guangyi said bluntly. “That way, you guys share financial plans. Debt cleared and we get to celebrate. Everyone is happy. You guys basically a pair trapped in unresolved sexual tension anyway, basically a lover.”
Bai Yanfei gazed at his friend, slowly paling. “Guangyi...” He hissed.
Zhou Guangyi ignored him. “Marriage will just confirm what is already there in the eyes of law.”
“Guangyi.”
Zhou Guangyi froze and shivered.
“Old Han, Little Guang just told me a viable way out of my debt, it’s quite interesting,” Ye Xiu said bluntly.
“No, no, no, it’s a ...joke,” Zhou Guangyi whispered.
“Guangyi, twice the training time for you and clean up corridor A, B, and C for the whole week.”
“Yes, captain!” Zhou Guangyi ran.
Everyone began finding excuses to get the hell out of there and soon enough it was only Han Wenqing and Ye Xiu left.
“Old Han, what is your thought about marriage?” Ye Xiu mused. “How about we get married?”
Han Wenqing flicked Ye Xiu on the forehead, feeling satisfied when he heard his soulmate squeaked in pain.