Ficorpio
Chapter 1
“My dear Cristiano,
I can feel my time running short. I don’t know whether I’ll still be here to watch your final dance at the 2026 World Cup. I know Saudi Arabia was never truly where your heart wanted to go, and I know you won’t let this chance at the trophy slip away.
What I really want to tell you is this: a week ago, I went to the stadium that bears my name to watch a high school match, and I found a boy there—a boy who moved across the pitch like the wind. He wore white, and every long pass he played caught my eye. Over the course of that match, he completed eight passes of more than thirty meters. Every single one was accurate. Every single one dropped within a yard of his teammate. He created three assists that way.
Those passes were so brilliant they reminded me of David Beckham.
I went back and watched footage from his entire three years in the school league. He is a genius. The kind of genius who can skip the academy pipeline and step straight into professional football.
But what drew me most was how much he loves the game. It reminded me of you at eleven. I have never seen a boy of Chinese descent burn for football with such raw passion. Watching him made me wish, for just a moment, that I could have one more youth as bright as a diamond.
Damn it, I’m rambling again.
His greatest strength is his precision on cross-field passes of thirty meters and beyond. It’s as if his right leg were made of gold. If he ever shared a pitch with you, he would become your most valuable support. His name is Evan Brooks. He’s about to begin at the University of Lisbon.
I tried to find him back then, but unfortunately, he told me he wanted to go back and play in China. But from what I know of Chinese football, that place has no soil for a true talent to grow. He will come back.
Before next year’s World Cup begins, my boy, you must find a way to track him down and bring him with you. Let him go to the World Cup at your side. Maybe—just maybe—he’ll give you a miracle.
Aurelio Pereira.”
The weather in Lisbon was still pleasantly cool in May.
Cristiano Ronaldo stepped out of the private gym in his mansion, shirtless, his body still carved hard with muscle. He looked at himself in the mirror, and for the first time that day, there was something unmistakably dim in his eyes.
He was past forty now.
And the World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico was almost here.
It would be his last dance on that stage.
No matter how fiercely he loved the ball, time was undefeated. He had fought it with discipline, with obsession, with training that bordered on madness, but even he couldn’t keep his body forever at its peak.
Portugal still had young blood. It still had old comrades like Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes. Even so, Cristiano couldn’t help worrying.
France were still there. Brazil were still there. Argentina, the defending champions, were still there.
And Portugal—the Five Shields—had gone into the last World Cup with nearly the same core and still fallen in the quarterfinals.
What they lacked most was exactly what he couldn’t seem to find: someone behind him who could truly feed the game. Someone who could change everything with a single pass.
And that was why he had thought of the message his old mentor had sent him a month before his death.
“A boy of Chinese descent?”
“A kid who moved like the wind?”
Cristiano hesitated.
In his mind, a Chinese kid simply wasn’t supposed to outmatch Europe’s or Africa’s finest in football talent. There were Chinese communities in Portugal, sure, and a few boys played the game—but professional-level players? Almost none. A player who could bypass the youth system and step directly into real competition at eighteen?
Was that even possible?
He was due at the football authorities that afternoon. The head coach would announce the provisional squad there, and in another half month the final list would be locked in. If this kid wasn’t submitted now, changing the roster later would be incredibly difficult.
Cristiano stood there for a long moment.
Then, in the end, he chose to trust the man who had discovered him.
Aurelio Pereira had never been wrong about talent.
Even if the old man had aged, his eyes hadn’t failed him. He had found Cristiano when he was eleven. He had found countless other players too. And no matter how gifted a teenager was, talent alone couldn’t explain that kind of passing. To deliver accurate balls over thirty meters with that kind of success rate? In the modern game, only elite names like Kevin De Bruyne or Beckham himself could do it consistently.
No, that wasn’t luck. That was something real.
This boy—Evan Brooks—was the final inheritance Aurelio had left him.
…What if?
Cristiano had built his entire career on refusing to let opportunities pass him by. On the field, he chased every chance as if it might be the one that mattered. That was why he never stopped running: as long as he could still run, he could still score.
This was no different.
Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance Aurelio had found him a truly exceptional midfielder, Cristiano wasn’t willing to let that go.
Chapter 2
Maybe one day, when he finally couldn’t run anymore, he’d spend his time the way Aurelio had—standing beside youth pitches in Lisbon, watching the next generation, searching for the next miracle.
The thought settled his mind.
He changed course immediately, headed into the garage, got behind the wheel of his million-pound supercar, and drove toward the University of Lisbon.
The University of Lisbon was one of the top universities in Portugal, the kind of place that drew outstanding students from everywhere, including plenty of international students and students of Chinese descent.
So when Cristiano’s unmistakable Bugatti Centodieci rolled up outside the gates, the reaction was instant.
Students shouted in disbelief. Phones came out by the dozen. Heads turned all across the entrance plaza.
In Lisbon, there was only one man who could drive something that outrageous that openly and make it look natural.
Cristiano Ronaldo.
His appearance immediately threw the entrance into chaos.
The security guard at the gate called the university president at once.
“President Carter? Cristiano Ronaldo is here.”
Louis Carter froze when he got the message.
Cristiano Ronaldo was practically a national treasure. How could someone like that show up without warning?
He rushed to the entrance as fast as he could.
By the time he got there, the scene had already exploded. Young people crowded around the car asking for autographs. Cristiano was their idol—more than that, really. In Portugal’s football culture, a star player could eclipse movie stars, singers, anyone. And this was Cristiano.
A few especially bold female students were even tugging up their shirts and asking him to sign their backs.
Louis arrived sweating lightly from the run.
“Oh—Cristiano,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “What brings you here? Is there something the university can do for you?”
Cristiano gave him a gentlemanly smile. “Just a moment, Old Louis. I’m taking a few photos with the students. Sorry for dropping in unannounced, but this is urgent.”
Louis could only stand there and wait.
What else was he supposed to do? The man in front of him was more famous than anyone else in the country. Even at his age, he was still the dream of countless young people.
It took over half an hour before the crowd finally began to thin. Once everyone had their photos, signatures, and stories to post, Cristiano finally walked over.
“Sorry, Old Louis.”
Louis found it impossible to be angry. “Cristiano, what exactly are you doing here?”
Cristiano’s expression turned serious.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “A genius on the pitch. He has to be part of your football setup. A boy of Chinese descent.”
Old Louis scratched his head. “Uh… we don’t have any Chinese players on the university team.”
Cristiano frowned slightly. “His name is Evan Brooks. Or something close to that.”
Louis’s brow furrowed. “You know how it is—East Asian names can be hard to remember if you’re not used to them. But don’t worry. If I’ve got a name, I can find him quickly enough.”
At that moment, on a practice pitch at the University of Lisbon, Evan Brooks was trying to run himself into the ground.
He kept driving the ball forward and burying it in the net, over and over, as if sheer exhaustion could burn the frustration out of his chest.
Ever since coming back from China, he’d been furious.
He still couldn’t make sense of it. At the U18 selection camp, he’d put up the best numbers on the field—two goals, three assists, the standout performance of the entire tryout. With his god-tier Long Pass Talent, he had dominated the match.
And he’d still been cut.
Sure, they’d given him a “chance.” He could stay on as a training player, a glorified sparring partner. Put in three to five years helping the “real” prospects train, and maybe—maybe—he’d get another shot.
The best performance at the entire selection camp, and that was the reward? Practice fodder?
Eighteen-year-old Evan was many things, but humble about his football wasn’t one of them. In the best years of his life, he was supposed to settle for being a spare body in someone else’s drills?
At first, he couldn’t accept it.
Later, he understood.
He had won on the pitch and lost everywhere else.
What they were playing wasn’t football. It was connections.
The boys who made it through either had money behind them, family influence, or both. And him? No matter how fluent he was, no matter how much of his childhood he’d spent there, in their eyes he was still an outsider. A foreigner.
So yes, he was angry.
His father had always taught him that if he had ability, he should bring it back to China and build something there. That was why Evan had wanted to rely on the Heart of the Pitch System, make his name in Chinese football, go pro, and use that as a way to stay long-term.
But they didn’t want him.
Evan had been born in Portugal, but after the age of three he’d grown up and gone to school in China. The way he thought, the values he held, the things he took for granted—none of it was much different from any other Chinese kid his age. After finishing primary and middle school there, his family had brought him back to Portugal for high school. Thanks to the academic foundation he’d built in China, he’d crushed it here and gotten into the University of Lisbon with ease.
Chapter 3
When he was twelve, he’d awakened the Heart of the Pitch System and received a single god-tier talent: Long Pass Talent.
After that, the system had gone completely silent.
Still, that one gift alone had been enough for him to tear through players his own age.
He’d thought he could take that talent back to China and make something of himself there.
Who could’ve guessed it would end like this?
After coming back to Lisbon, he felt so stifled he finally understood, at least a little, why China had missed this year’s World Cup again. There had to be a reason things kept turning out the way they did.
So he had come to the university pitch to let off steam—and to think seriously about what came next. If he couldn’t go one route, then how was he supposed to enter the professional game without wasting the system entirely?
All in all, his life really had been pretty fortunate.
His family had originally left Asia generations ago, drifted from place to place, and finally settled in Portugal, where they had done more than well for themselves. They’d built a real foothold here and never moved back. Their trade business in Portugal exported wine to China and imported new-energy batteries back from it. The ties between the two places had never been severed.
And for Evan personally, the connection ran even deeper. He’d grown up there.
Yes, he held Portuguese citizenship, but he’d only truly lived in Portugal for a handful of years. He didn’t have that deep emotional attachment to it yet.
Money had never been an issue for his family. If anything, they had always preferred the idea of him returning to China. Europe felt less safe these days, while China’s development had become impossible to ignore. Even in European eyes, it had started to feel like the place everyone had to measure themselves against.
But life rarely cared what people preferred.
Evan didn’t lack money. The only thing he truly chased was football.
“If I make the university team,” he muttered to himself between breaths, “a scout should notice me sooner or later. Even starting in the Portuguese league would be fine.”
He thumped another shot into the net, then grimaced.
“And this stupid system… rewards only unlock in professional-level matches.”
He’d had the system for years, and besides the initial god-tier talent, it had given him nothing at all.
Because everything else required real professional competition.
Which meant he hadn’t improved through the system one bit since then.
What Evan didn’t know was that the university administration building was in an uproar.
“Evan Brooks? Does anybody know an Evan Brooks from China?”
“Chinese background? We’ve got a lot of East Asian students!”
“He plays football!”
“Found him! First-year business school admit—but he hasn’t officially checked in yet. His dorm assignment’s already been made, though. We can try his room!”
And so a noisy group made its way in force to the fifth floor of the men’s dorm.
They didn’t find Evan there.
Instead, they found his roommate in the middle of getting very cozy with his girlfriend.
Old Louis Carter’s face went green.
Still, he didn’t say anything. They were adults, after all. In Europe, that kind of thing hardly counted as scandalous.
But Evan, despite his Portuguese passport, had been raised in China and had never really adjusted to that kind of mixed-household, mixed-boundary campus lifestyle. Rather than deal with the sight of that shameless couple, he’d headed straight for the pitch to play.
And once Cristiano Ronaldo heard Evan was at the field, he stopped being in such a hurry.
He wanted to see the kid for himself.
So he told the others not to follow. Only Old Louis would go with him.
By the time the two of them arrived at the University of Lisbon football ground, a crowd had already gathered around it.
Several boldly dressed college girls were screaming from the sideline.
“Oh my God, the guy in the white shirt is so hot!”
“The way he passes is insane. Is that East Asian guy on our school team?”
“I’ve never seen an East Asian guy that handsome on campus!”
Even some of the male students had stopped to watch.
“That kid just hit a perfect forty-meter long ball,” one said excitedly. “Dropped right onto his teammate with nobody around him. Even the keeper didn’t see it coming—basically handed him an open goal. I got it on video. I’m uploading it to TokTik.”
“His midfield game is ridiculous. If he joins our university team, we could dominate the college league.”
“Hey, can I see that clip you just took?”
The two boys jumped.
They turned around and nearly lost their minds when they saw who had spoken.
Cristiano Ronaldo was standing right beside them.
“Ronaldo!” one of them blurted.
Ronaldo immediately raised a finger to his lips, smiling. “Shh. Mind if I take a look at your phone?”
“Of course!”
The boy unlocked it so fast he nearly dropped it.
Ronaldo quickly found the video.
On the screen, the young man in white was trapped near the left touchline. Three defenders had collapsed on him, hemming him in with a triangular press and leaving him almost nowhere to go.
Then he lifted his leg.
The motion was fluid and explosive, his body arching like a drawn longbow at full tension, and the ball flew nearly forty meters in an instant—cutting across the field and dropping straight to a Black student breaking into space.
A perfect gift.
An open path to goal.
Ronaldo stared.
Pulling off that kind of precise delivery while on the move and under a three-man press—sending the ball more than thirty meters onto a teammate’s foot with that level of accuracy—
For a split second, he saw the shadow of Luka Modric.