Almighty Coach

Dai Li called five parents consecutively and got three people to say "yes" out of five. The other two had said they needed to think about it, which was code for "no." It was easy for Dai Li to tell from their tones that they were just rejecting him in a more gentle fashion.

Three out of five, that’s more than half! I figured out before that I could make back the cost of the school as long as I could get two students to enroll. I already have three, which means I can make a profit off every other student I get to sign up. It’s not a failing business! Dai Li suddenly felt relaxed and dialed the next number on the list.

Youcai Wu, he ran 12.11 seconds this afternoon, which was the best record among all of the students. And it was his father who timed him. I would think he must be very satisfied with the training result. I bet this Youcai Wu will stay.

Dai Li called confidently.

...

In Youcai Wu’s house.

"Honey, this Coach Li is really talented. Our son’s record has improved a lot after just one day’s training. Guess what our son’s record was in the 100m sprint. 12.11 seconds! Almost 12 seconds flat! I suggest we leave our son with this Coach Li. I bet our son can reach the standard of a national second-class athlete after two months of training!" the father said with great joy.

"12.11 seconds? How’s that possible? His record was 12.81 seconds on the school test. How did he become 0.7 seconds quicker in just one day? I’m not buying it. Don’t fall for that Coach Li’s trap," the mother said.

"I didn’t. I timed him myself. I tested him in the morning when he had just gotten there. The time was 12.88 seconds. In the evening I tested him again, and it was 12.11 seconds. I was surprised too!" the father continued.

"12.11 seconds? That means there is only 0.61 seconds left before he reaches the standard of national second-class athlete!" The mother didn’t look very happy though. Instead, she frowned and began to think.

"Honey, I think this Coach Li is really skilled. And there are no more than ten students, which would be a very nice environment for our son. He can learn in a small group. The training result might be even better than the sports school. Why don’t we just send our son there since the prices are the same anyway!" the father began.

"Are you dumb?" the mother asked, glaring at her husband. "It’s because our son is talented that he makes progress very fast. If he can make a big improvement under a nobody coach, then he would make even more progress if we send him to a professional coach! We are sending our son to the sports school. We are not wasting our son’s time on that Coach Li! I will go to the sports school when the training class starts and tell the coach how talented our son is to attract more attention. They will put more effort towards training our son that way. We might have a world champion in our home in the future!"

Youcai Wu’s father was about to argue when the phone rang. He picked it up and saw "Coach Li" on the screen.

"Coach Li is calling us. How should I respond to him?" the father asked.

The mother grabbed the phone and said, "Give it to me! I’ll say no to him!"

...

Dai Li didn’t expect for Youcai Wu’s parents to say no.

His record was 12.88 seconds in the morning and 12.11 seconds in the afternoon. The fact that he was 0.77 seconds quicker is a big improvement. His parents are still not satisfied? They say that they are afraid I might waste their child’s time. If they ask another person to train their son, I bet he won’t even be able to run 0.1 seconds faster! What’s more, he would never run 12.11 seconds without my explosive force halo, Dai Li thought to himself angrily and deleted Youcai Wu’s name from the list.

Well, I don’t want to be stuck in a bad mood anymore. I’ll continue calling the others. Dai Li calmed himself down and dialed the next number. In the end, seven students out of the original thirteen were going to be sent to Dai Li by their parents. Two were still considering it and four were sure that they wouldn’t come.

Seven—more than half the students that came to the trial class. That’s pretty nice, actually. 15,000 yuan per student. Seven students makes 105,000. Even after subtracting what I paid, I’ll still have almost 80,000 yuan profit. 80,000 for two months. Running a training class is a good business to make big profits with little capital! Dai Li’s gloominess went away as he thought about the money. He was full of enthusiasm again. 80,000 yuan in two months was unbelievable for someone who had just graduated from college.

...

Dai Li was very lucky that one of the two parents who were hesitating ended up choosing him. This meant he had eight students in total.

The 100m sprint training class in the sports school was scheduled to begin at almost the same time as Dai Li’s. As the most profitable class, the 100m sprint training class attracted a lot of attention. As the director of the training department, Shouren Zhao came to the opening ceremony. He looked at the list of students’ names and frowned a little bit. A sense of dissatisfaction flashed across his eyes. "The number is less than we expected."

"Yes, seven to eight less," the training coach in charge said.

Shouren Zhao nodded and didn’t give it any more thought. He couldn’t take a penny from this training class anyway, because it belonged to the sports school.

He pointed at the list and asked, "Are there any potential students here?"

"There are a few. For example, this Youcai Wu has the best record of 12.11 seconds without any professional training. It is said that the record was made last weekend. His mother came here personally this morning just to ask us to pay more attention to him," the coach right next to him said.

"12.11 seconds without any professional training? That’s very impressive! He is already 17, which is not very young, but it shouldn’t be too late. He still has a chance to become a professional track and field athlete." Shouren Zhao nodded and continued, "However, we can’t just believe all that she said. We have to test him to see if it’s real or not. Let’s do a test before the training to see how these students perform."