Chapter 114 113: Conflict Intensifies
After lunch came a forty-five-minute tactical meeting, followed by official practice on the field.
Lu Ke, Logan, and Marcus followed the crowd, slowly making their way toward the tactical meeting room. The other two took turns sharing tips about tactical meetings, which were apparently a whole different ball game from college.
"...but I'm sure you'll be fine," Logan said as he walked into the meeting room. The next second, the entire room fell dead silent. His voice, suddenly magnified, echoed in the quiet. Startled, Logan whipped his head around to see thirty-odd pairs of eyes trained on him—
Or more accurately, at Lu Ke, who was right behind him.
Logan's abrupt halt made Lu Ke stop short as well. Marcus promptly crashed into Lu Ke's back. "Damn, bro, traffic jam." A chorus of complaints followed from outside the doorway, a scattered, noisy chatter.
The gazes were scorching and sharp, each with a different temperature, shape, and style: disdain, provocation, contempt, ridicule, sarcasm, anger, mockery… The looks of spectators waiting for a show were like sharp thorns, stabbing mercilessly into Lu Ke's skin. In less than a second, he had become a human pincushion—riddled with arrows.
Some thirty-three or thirty-five players stood with their arms crossed and chins held high, forming a gauntlet as they waited for Lu Ke to approach. Their powerful, surging presence alone was enough to strike fear into anyone's heart, like a monster with its great maw agape, waiting for its prey to walk right into the trap.
'As expected, a player of Chinese descent gets special treatment. The scale of this welcome is truly extraordinary.'
A glint appeared in Lu Ke's eyes. He straightened his back and walked forward with a composed gait. The path behind him cleared, and the room once again filled with noise as if everyone had resumed their idle chatter. But their gazes remained fixed on Lu Ke out of the corners of their eyes, catching his every move.
After a quick scan of the room, Lu Ke chose a seat in the front row and sat down, calm and composed.
From his years living in the United States, Lu Ke knew that being of Chinese descent was like wearing a fluorescent yellow safety vest. His very existence was conspicuous. Even if he tried to keep a low profile and blend in, he was still a beacon, easily becoming the most obvious target for attack. Laying low wouldn't solve the problem. In that case, he might as well be bold—bolder, even.
'The gauntlet was already set. Rather than trying to dodge it, he might as well break through head-on.'
Marcus stared at the seated Lu Ke, dumbfounded. Just like in a classroom, everyone tried to hide in the back of the tactical meeting room to stay off the coach's radar. But now, Lu Ke had brazenly sat right in the front row, putting himself directly under the coach's nose. He was practically walking right into the lion's den.
Logan nudged Marcus's shoulder, a confident, expectant smile on his face. "Relax. Sit down."
As a childhood friend and neighbor, Logan knew Lu Ke. He was definitely not the type to come out on the losing end. High school in the United States could be cruel and unforgiving. If he didn't have a few tricks up his sleeve, there was no way Lu Ke could have survived on the football team.
A moment ago, Logan had noticed the glint in Lu Ke's eyes. So, far from being worried, he was actually a little excited. Looking at the bewildered Marcus, Logan said just two words before sitting down beside Lu Ke.
"Bloody Bambi."
Marcus didn't seem to fully understand, but after a moment's hesitation, he also took a seat on Lu Ke's other side.
Suddenly, an explosion of laughter erupted from the back of the room. It was so loud and vicious, so deafening, that everyone turned to see what was happening. No one answered. There was only whispering, the hushed sounds spreading from one person to the next, before triggering an even bigger wave of laughter.
"What's wrong with them? Have they lost their minds?" Marcus frowned, asking in confusion.
Lu Ke arched an eyebrow. "I'll bet you a bag of chips it's about me."
The laughter continued in sputtering fits. In an instant, it seemed like the entire back half of the room was in on the joke, while the front row was still in the dark. The feeling of being left out was deeply unpleasant.
"Hey, rookie," a voice called out. Lu Ke knew it was directed at him. He turned his head just as a white, cotton object flew through the air and landed on his head. The room exploded with wild laughter, so loud it felt like the walls were shaking.
A T-shirt. It was a cotton T-shirt, a clean one.
'These veterans' pranks are pathetic,' Lu Ke thought with some detachment. 'Too childish, too tame. If it were me, I'd have messed with the T-shirt itself—soaked it, for instance. As for what kind of liquid… well, you can use your imagination.'
Amid the roaring laughter, Lu Ke calmly took the T-shirt off his head. He didn't rush to respond, instead unfolding it to take a look. It was a graphic tee with black letters printed on it: "I Just Want To Blow Dicks." Next to the text was a speech bubble pointing to a headshot of Lu Ke from the Rookie Training Camp, making it look as though he were the one saying it.
It was a lowbrow and crude prank, but it was also simple, brutal, and effective. Most importantly, it was direct. Especially among athletes, the cruder the joke, the better the reaction.
"Whoa, Bambi! I didn't know you had a hobby like that!" someone yelled. The room erupted like a volcano as the laughter exploded completely.
Logan and Marcus exchanged a look, their expressions grim as they glanced worriedly at Lu Ke.
Unexpectedly, Lu Ke slowly stood up. Under the watchful eyes of the entire room, he deliberately pulled the T-shirt on. Then he turned to face all the other players, a smile spreading across his face.
As Lu Ke calmly put on the shirt, and as his smile widened, the laughter in the room gradually faded. The rise and fall of the noise felt like something out of an absurd comedy. Finally, everyone was just staring, dumbfounded and bewildered, unable to figure out what Lu Ke's angle was.
Colin looked around, unable to hold back any longer. He stepped up and shouted, "So, buddy, how is it? You like it?"
"Of course. Why not?" Lu Ke replied with a calm smile. "Does anyone on the team need my services? You can form a line right here. I had no idea so many guys on the team had already come out of the closet."
Self-deprecation is always the best way to counter a prank. And Lu Ke wasn't just passively taking the hit—he was launching a counter-offensive.
Silence. A dead silence. There wasn't a single sound. The prank was meant to humiliate Lu Ke, but by owning it and firing back so brazenly, he'd splashed the insults right back onto them. Caught completely off guard, everyone was stunned, staring at one another.
Colin gritted his teeth and spat out furiously, "Faggot."
"That's one," Lu Ke said, raising his right hand and holding up a finger to start counting. Colin Kaepernick was the first to "come out." Now, no one dared to speak, deathly afraid of being the second.
Incidentally, the finger Lu Ke had raised was the one in the very middle.
He scanned the room once, then again. No one even dared to meet his gaze. Then they heard Lu Ke's voice. "Come on, guys. It's just a joke, right?" Lu Ke, who had launched the attack, was now the first to defuse it. The awkward, tense atmosphere dissolved, leaving the veterans stunned into silence.
In the blink of an eye, the victim of the prank had turned the tables and seized control.
Lu Ke pointed to his T-shirt. "I mean, this T-shirt, it's just a prank, right?" His tone implied that his own response was just part of the joke, and no one should take it too seriously. "Or… is there really someone on the team with a secret crush on me? Is this their love confession?" He finished with a goofy grin, as if trying not to hurt his supposed admirer's feelings.
A prank clearly intended as a personal, discriminatory attack had, through Lu Ke's back-and-forth, not only been defused but also filled with banter and humor. Subtly, some of the unfamiliarity between the players dissolved, closing the distance between them.
Attack, defense, counter-attack. The entire exchange happened so fast that before most of them had time to react, Lu Ke had already taken control of the atmosphere in the room. In a daze, they watched as the situation was completely reversed. For a moment, everyone was just confused and bewildered, not sure how to react.
"Pfft." Aldon Smith was the first to break, letting out a snort of laughter. Then came Logan and Marcus, followed by the other players, who all began to chuckle softly. Unconsciously, the atmosphere in the tactical meeting room had lightened.
'Are we... supposed to laugh?' The players exchanged uncertain glances. It was hard to tell, but smiling seemed like the correct choice, so they did.
Sitting amidst the crowd, Colin's face was ashen, his glare so intense it looked like his eyes would pop. He was too furious to speak.
"Clown." A voice cut through the room. The laughter died instantly as all eyes shot toward the source. The same voice shouted again, "An attention-seeking clown! That T-shirt means you're a faggot! You can't even figure that out? You thought we were just having a friendly joke with you? You're dumber than a bag of rocks."
Lu Ke's comeback to the prank had been too clever, too witty, and too smart. With casual ease, he had not only reversed his defensive position but had also launched his own attack, even managing to ease the tension between the rookies and the veterans. The whole thing unfolded so quickly that someone hadn't been able to keep up, their reaction speed too slow. And so, they had "helpfully and kindly" stood up to explain.
Little did he know, his so-called explanation had made him the real laughingstock. To put it bluntly, he just wasn't smart enough. He was the real clown, making a fool of himself without even realizing it.