Chapter 336: Past Regrets

Chapter 336: Chapter 269: Past Regrets

“Will any of this involve copyright issues?”

Ni Bingyan was a little embarrassed because she wanted to go to London for the second stop on her trip.

Once there, the two things she wanted to do most were to attend a huge concert by her favorite female singer and to see the “Red vs. Blue” clash between Chelsea and Arsenal with her own eyes.

Her desire to do these things wasn’t because she was a huge fan of music or soccer. It was purely because she’d never been to such events and longed for the so-called “fervor of youth” she was supposed to have had.

In her past life, a competitive wave of celebrity-chasing had swept through her class.

It all started when Leslie Cheung came to Rongcheng City to promote a movie. One of her classmates’ fathers was a high-level executive at the Rongcheng Business News.

While countless fans never even got a chance to meet him, this classmate had already gotten Leslie Cheung’s autographed photo and even had his picture taken with him.

For high school students, this was nothing short of a bombshell!

Thanks to this classmate’s high-profile bragging, the class talked about nothing but Leslie Cheung for a whole week.

It wasn’t until someone mentioned she had gone with her mom to a Zhang Huimei concert that the topic of conversation shifted.

Chasing after pop stars was way more exciting than following movie stars!

You could sing along to a singer’s greatest hits, but who would dare to act out scenes from a movie or TV show in public?

It’s not like when you were a kid, when you could just throw on a bedsheet and pretend to be an Empress without a care in the world.

After coming back from the Zhang Huimei concert, that female classmate became a total die-hard fan, humming her songs at every opportunity.

Good songs are incredibly catchy, and it spread from person to person extremely quickly.

For over a month, the girls in the class were either singing “Listening to the Sea” or screaming at the top of their lungs, “You are my Sisters, you are my baby.”

The academic workload in their advanced class was heavy. Their head teacher was relatively young and thought it was good for everyone to have some positive, healthy hobbies, so he would even organize class-wide sing-alongs during breaks to sing everyone’s favorite songs.

Later on, students would often go up on the ‘stage’ during breaks to sing their favorite songs or even play instruments they were good at.

Ni Bingyan had no money for talent lessons, no money for cassette tapes, no money for a tape player. She couldn’t even bring herself to buy a dedicated notebook just for copying lyrics.

She couldn’t remember all the lyrics, didn’t recognize the celebrities, and had no common ground with anyone. She could only blend into the crowd in silence, like an outsider.

Late at night, when all was quiet, she would sing the most popular lines of the songs and quietly wonder, ‘If I had been born into a good family, would my mom have taken me to see my idol’s concert? Would she have given me allowance money so I could freely pursue the things I liked?’

After all these years, she couldn’t quite say what she had envied about that classmate anymore. Was it the fact that she could go to a concert, or that she had a mother who would take her to one?

As for wanting to see a soccer match, that came from a male classmate who had gone to London with his uncle, and bragged about it nonstop after he came back from watching a game.

Just imagine: an incredible Premier League final that his classmates could only read a brief description of in the sports section of the *People’s Daily*, yet he was there in person. With a pair of binoculars, he could even see the sweat on the players’ faces clearly.

In that era, just going abroad was something to brag about. Experiencing something like this was even more brag-worthy!

By then, the students had grown tired of Zhang Huimei. After all, anyone would get annoyed hearing someone brag about going to a concert for that long.

This new, impressive foreign experience came at the perfect time!

Through her classmates’ vivid descriptions, Ni Bingyan learned about London, about the “Red vs. Blue” clash, about the basic rules of soccer…

Watching matches broadcast on CCTV, she witnessed the style and flair of top-tier players and began to dream of seeing a game in person.

In her memory, that was a part of her youth.

Unfortunately, by the time she had money, she was worked like a dog and had absolutely no time.

Now she had the chance to travel abroad, and as luck would have it, a match between Chelsea and Arsenal was scheduled during her trip, along with a concert by a singer she quite liked. It was perfect!

‘Didn’t they say I should do what I like?’

When she thought about going abroad, the first thing that came to her mind was making up for past regrets.

‘Who would’ve thought that besides fishing, she also likes watching soccer?’

Seeing Ni Bingyan’s travel plans, Song Fuling stroked her chin.

Her freshly done, peach-themed manicure was particularly eye-catching.

“We should communicate with them in advance. Getting verbal authorization should be fine, and once we’re there, we can get a written agreement to follow up. I have a lawyer who can handle this.”

A concert is so long, and a soccer match isn’t short either. The show couldn’t possibly broadcast the entire thing anyway.

As long as the communication is handled properly, there won’t be any problem at all.

Hearing her agree, Ni Bingyan breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile, “I’ve already bought the tickets for the concert and the soccer match. I’d like to invite you all to come along.”

The departure date had been set long ago, and the logistics team had already bought the plane tickets. She just needed to organize things according to the schedule.

“Okay, remember to make a copy of the receipts and whatnot later. The production team will reimburse you.”

Ni Bingyan was about to say she could just pay for it herself, but when she saw Song Fuling’s expression—which clearly said, “I’m not short on cash, and if you argue, I’ll get mad”—she thought about how it would involve the production team’s tax reporting and other matters, so she immediately nodded and agreed.

On the day of departure, the weather was clear and cloudless. Best of all, the flight wasn’t delayed; it even arrived half an hour early.

This time, Ni Bingyan had a complete plan prepared. She headed straight for the hotel after getting off the plane.

She carried her own luggage and checked in by herself the whole time. She didn’t wear any makeup, opting for comfort just like any ordinary person on a trip.

“Your English is really good!”

Pei Jin had started his routine chattering again.

‘My first impression of him being shy must have been a mistake.’

“I learned it from watching BBC News.”

The long flight was exhausting. Ni Bingyan just waved her hand and went back to her room.

London time is eight hours behind China. When she woke up, it was only four in the morning, even though she had tried her best to sleep in.

The soccer match was at ten in the morning. By the time she finished her workout, got ready, and double-checked her schedule for the day, it was only six-thirty when she arrived at the restaurant.

She didn’t have high expectations for breakfast in this culinary desert. After ordering a standard English breakfast, she found a seat by the window.

At the table next to her, two tall white men were also having breakfast.

Eating a tomahawk steak so early in the morning was quite unusual, and Ni Bingyan couldn’t help but stare for a few extra moments.

At first, she thought the two men knew each other, but before she could even finish a sausage, they started arguing.

They started off speaking English, but it wasn’t long before they switched to their native languages, probably because English was limiting their output.

One was speaking Norwegian, the other Russian. It was truly a case of a chicken talking to a duck.

Ni Bingyan pricked up her ears and listened for a while before she figured out what was going on. It turned out the two had met at the front desk the day before. They discovered they were both in town for the match and, since they were both dealing with jet lag, had arranged to have breakfast together. But they hadn’t even finished their meal when they found out they supported opposing teams!

One said his team had the better players, while the other was convinced the other team had superior teamwork!

Seeing that they were unable to convince each other and were about to come to blows, Ni Bingyan quickly stood up.

“Gentlemen, perhaps you need a professional translator?”