"Alright, let's agree on this, see you in Okinawa in January!"
After the 2015 season awards ceremony, Lin Guanglai stayed for a while longer to continue chatting with a few good friends, including Yanagida Yuuki, Yamada Tetsuro, and Ohtani Shohei. They all agreed to et in the warm and pleasant climate of Okinawa in January for so pre-season self-training, sharing als and living quarters, and preparing for the new season together.
To avoid the fervent dia and fans, Lin Guanglai specifically left through the hotel's underground passage; as soon as he stepped outside, the crisp winter wind hit him, making him shiver from the inside out.
Fortunately, he quickly found the private car responsible for picking him up, and only after he settled into the front passenger seat and felt the warmth of the air conditioning did Lin Guanglai finally relax a little.
However, when he saw the person in the driver's seat, he was a bit surprised: "Mr. Tuan, why did you co in person today?"
Sitting there was Lin Guanglai's agent, Nomura Katsuhiko.
As a famous agent with many signed players, Nomura Katsuhiko should have a lot to deal with; usually, tasks like going ho were handled by the life assistant that Nomura Katsuhiko assigned to Lin Guanglai, as Lin Guanglai temporarily did not have a driver's license.
"It just so happens that there's not much going on today, and I thought I hadn't seen you in a while because I've been quite busy lately, so I decided to give Tanada (Lin Guanglai's life assistant) a break since you should be staying at ho for a while now…"
Nomura Katsuhiko explained, looking at Lin Guanglai with a cheerful smile, and congratulated him: "Congratulations, Guanglai—another fruitful season, you're the first in Nippon Professional Baseball history to sweep these awards for two consecutive years!"
Nomura Katsuhiko's congratulations were heartfelt. On one hand, he genuinely felt proud of Lin Guanglai from the perspective of an elder; on the other hand, the better Lin Guanglai perford and the more he earned, being his signed client, the more fa and commission Nomura Katsuhiko would receive as his agent. The two were mutually beneficial.
To his agent's complints, Lin Guanglai didn't show the surprise he might have expected; instead, he rely smiled and simply replied, "It's okay... After all, I already received these last year, getting them again feels just alright."
"Don't let other players hear you say that, otherwise, I might not be able to hold them back—any one of these honors is sothing countless baseball players can only dream of achieving their entire lives. You're really kind of Versailles-ing it there, hahaha," Nomura Katsuhiko joked with Lin Guanglai further.
Lin Guanglai still only smiled, but this ti he didn't respond.
The car started, drove out of the parking lot, and headed towards his ho in Tokyo; Lin Guanglai leaned against the glass window of the passenger seat, gazing at the bustling traffic and neon lights outside, and an inexplicable emptiness arose within him.
Yes, that's right, just like Nomura Katsuhiko just said, the honors he received in the past two years are things many players long for day and night; but for the current Lin Guanglai, while these awards can certainly make him feel acknowledged by everyone, they no longer bring him satisfaction.
As he grows older, Lin Guanglai increasingly feels that Japan's small peninsula can no longer contain his ever-expanding ambitions—never had he felt so eager to take a look at the world across the ocean, to step onto the highest stage of world baseball, and compete heartily with top players from all over the world.
"Ding dong—" His phone rang.
Lighting up the phone screen, the top ssage was from Bryce Harper, far away in the United States— they t during last year's Japan-U.S. exchange ga and had kept in touch frequently over the past year. It was also from this Arican friend that Lin Guanglai learned a lot about the Major League world.
[Bryce Harper: (image)(image) Lin, do you see? This is the National League MVP trophy! Now it's mine!]
Indeed, in the just-concluded season, Bryce Harper, who was once considered by many Major League players to be "the most overrated player," has now beco one of the best players in the Major League. Over the past season, he delivered a luxurious stat line of .330/.460/.649 with 42 ho runs, becoming the youngest MVP winner in Major League history.
[Bryce Harper: So, Lin, are you still going to stay in that small place in Japan? When can I finally see you over here in the United States?]
Harper's words were like a knife, piercing precisely into the most vulnerable part of Lin Guanglai's heart; he continued to ponder while looking out at the night for a while, seemingly making up his mind, and then he turned his gaze back towards Nomura Katsuhiko beside him.
Seeing Lin Guanglai looking over, the smooth-talking, atmosphere-loving Nomura Katsuhiko initiated the topic: "Guanglai, your contract with SoftBank will be up for negotiation soon. Your current salary is the second-highest in the team, at 300 million yen. This ti I'll strive to negotiate for more than 400 million…"
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