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"Ahhh!!! God Lance!!!!"
"Ahhh! De Bruyne!!"
"Look this way!!"
"God Lance, I love you!!!"
Complete madness.
This kind of hysterical screaming usually only appears at fan meetings for pop idols or concerts for big-name superstars. Hearing it on CCTV5's sports channel was something else entirely. Zhang Bin was stunned. Kevin De Bruyne, making his first public appearance in the country, looked genuinely lost.
"Huh? What's going on?"
De Bruyne shot Lance a pleading look. Lance had no choice but to pat him on the back, just out of the camera's view, signaling him to relax. Back at Bayer Leverkusen and with Belgium, whenever De Bruyne got anxious, Lance had always settled him down this way. It had become a conditioned reflex. De Bruyne's shoulders dropped immediately.
"Nee-hao~~~ Host! Wo shi Kevin De Bruyne!"
De Bruyne introduced himself to the fans in stiff, halting Mandarin. The studio erupted.
Zhang Bin was delighted. "Wow, De Bruyne's Chinese is really something, wouldn't everyone agree!"
After the applause, it was Lance's turn. In every previous interview he had done, Lance had spoken in pure Mandarin. In the documentary Top of Europe, Mandarin was his everyday language. Without knowing his background, most people wouldn't be able to tell he hadn't grown up here. When he opened his mouth now, fluent and natural, the crowd went wild all over again.
"Hello everyone, I'm Lance. I'm very happy to be here in the capital to meet you all. I've been a fan of Tianxia Football for ten years. I grew up watching this show."
"Ahhh! Lance is so handsome!!"
"God Lance!!!"
The studio lit up. Tall and composed, sharp-featured, eyes bright, wearing a easy smile and speaking in a warm, steady Mandarin voice. He had the whole room in an instant. Standing next to him, Ma Fanshu's cheeks had gone noticeably pink.
Lance caught it out of the corner of his eye and kept his expression perfectly neutral.
After some brief back-and-forth with the audience, the energy settled enough for the program to actually move forward.
First, representatives from the Bayer Leverkusen fan clubs came on stage to present gifts to Lance and De Bruyne. Before Lance had ever made his debut at Bayer Leverkusen, clubs had already existed in various cities, though the team was niche enough that the presence was small. Then Lance arrived, and a unified national fan organization gradually took shape, growing exponentially until it became the largest of its kind. When Lance later moved to Atlético Madrid, the group simply became the "God Lance Support Club," extending the same warmth to teammates like De Bruyne and Griezmann.
"God Lance!!"
After a female fan representative handed De Bruyne his gift, she turned and suddenly threw her arms around Lance. He didn't see it coming. Zhang Bin, standing nearby, went visibly stiff.
Ma Fanshu stepped in with a smooth smile. "Lance's charm is just too much. The fans can't help themselves."
Lance could tell clearly that the last part had been said through gritted teeth. The fan realized she had overstepped, let go, and hurried back to her seat with a red face. The recording resumed.
Once the fan club segment wrapped, the three of them settled onto the sofa for the main interview. Under Zhang Bin's guidance, they moved through the past season, the European Championship, and a few moments from behind the scenes.
"I've always wanted to ask De Bruyne this. The media reported that Atlético Madrid considered signing you so you and Lance could be club teammates again. Why did you choose Manchester City over Atlético?"
De Bruyne looked slightly confused. No translator was needed on set. Lance was the translator.
After a brief exchange, De Bruyne smiled and nodded.
"At first, I really did want to play at the same club as Lance, and I even invited him to join Manchester City. Then he told me he preferred us to stay as opponents. And then this guy knocked us out of the Champions League..." He laughed. "Being opponents is actually very interesting. I'm looking forward to returning the favor next season. But in the national team, we work together beautifully. I'm very happy we won the European Championship side by side."
Lance translated. The studio broke into applause again. The rivalry and friendship between the two of them seemed to have its own energy.
Zhang Bin guided the conversation toward Belgium's group stage. The inconsistent results, the front three that hadn't clicked, the team that gradually found itself in the knockout rounds.
"Lance, what was actually going on inside the squad during the group stage? Why were the results so shaky? And what changed later that allowed the team to come together?"
This had been one of the biggest talking points of the tournament. The fans leaned in.
Lance and De Bruyne exchanged a look, and Lance spoke into the microphone.
"The three of us had a fight. I won, so I got the final say."
It was obviously a joke, and the room relaxed into laughter.
Lance had been like a stand-up comedian all afternoon, dropping lines with perfect timing. The entertainment value was off the charts.
"Honestly, national team chemistry is never quite the same as at club level. The training windows are short. You need to gel quickly and build real cohesion in very little time. Sometimes teams get knocked out before they ever manage it. Everyone is under pressure. We were lucky to find our rhythm. I think in the next major tournament, we'll be even sharper."
Flawless. Zhang Bin gave a quiet thumbs up behind his notes.
He had gone into this recording genuinely worried that a 19-year-old in front of a live studio audience might overreach or say something reckless. Instead, Lance performed like someone who had been doing this for years. Relaxed, natural, funny without trying too hard. Every sports star who had ever sat on this sofa looking stiff and monosyllabic now seemed, by comparison, hopelessly out of their depth.
Zhang Bin didn't doubt for a second that Lance could walk into the entertainment industry tomorrow without a single day of training and become a genuine top-tier name. The face, the presence, the voice. An unbeatable hand.
But Lance's ambition never left the field. Football was his domain. Putting him anywhere else would simply be a waste.
The hour-long recording moved easily, the two guests chatting and laughing as though the cameras weren't there. Zhang Bin finished satisfied, already imagining the numbers when the episode aired. Tianxia Football breaking out of its niche and landing on Weibo's main trending page. That was the pull of a real superstar. Back when Yao Ming and Liu Xiang were at their peak, it probably hadn't felt quite like this. With the internet behind it now, Zhang Bin could see a very bright light indeed.
At the end of the show, Lance and De Bruyne each performed freestyle football for the studio.
The simplest task for any player turned out to make Lance work for it. He couldn't draw on the [Bachira Meguru] template in a studio setting, so he fell back on [Nagi Seishiro]'s Muscle Memory. He didn't embarrass himself. Not even close. The ball at his feet moved as though it belonged there, the juggling growing more intricate and fluid with each touch, drawing sustained applause from every corner of the room.
In the lounge, Chloe watched on the monitor, a quiet smile at the corners of her mouth.
"He really does love football."