Green Field Eunuch

Chapter 72 League Loss
Emily quickly found an assistant for Shan Yongzhuo.

However, Shan Yongzhuo was quite satisfied with this assistant.

This is a 35-year-old Italian single woman named Marilena. It's easy to understand why she's single, because she's on the same level as Emily: 1.95 meters tall, with strong muscles, and her facial features are far less attractive than Emily's.

Moreover, the woman was serious and didn't seem to be affected by the fatal temptation at all.

This is what Shan Yongzhuo is most satisfied with. Fatal Temptation is a great skill, but it is also troublesome. For example, he often has to endure the ambiguous hints from Elena and Emily.

Elena is fine; she's pleasant to be around. But Emily's ambiguous hints are less comfortable.

At least, the woman wasn't affected, and that's the best part.

Mariena always had a cold face, but her cooking skills were in no way inferior to Emily's, which made Shan Yongzhuo very satisfied.

Although the salary is not low, with insurance, taxes and other miscellaneous expenses, Shan Yongzhuo has to pay 10,000 euros a month. However, considering that she can also work as a driver and bodyguard, Shan Yongzhuo feels that it is completely acceptable.

With Shan Yongzhuo having an assistant, he no longer needed to freeload meals, which made Elena and Emily very happy.

Then, things completely changed.

They started frequently coming to Shan Yongzhuo's place for meals, claiming that friends needed to eat together often to maintain their friendship.

Shan Yongzhuo didn't really care; he just considered it as returning it.

Moreover, as long as you ignore Mariana and Emily next to you while eating and only look at Elena, you can still have a good appetite.

Soon, it was late November, and the league resumed.

In the thirteenth round, Roma will host newly promoted Bari.

Bari's performance this season has been quite outstanding. After twelve rounds of league play, they have accumulated 18 points, placing them in the upper-middle tier of the league, which is quite surprising.

However, there was still a gap in strength between the two teams, and Roma easily defeated their opponents 2-0 at home.

Shan Yongzhuo's performance was lukewarm at best. He scored one goal in the first half, but then made no further contributions and was substituted off in the 70th minute.

The other goal, however, was quite unexpected and belonged to Mexes, which surprised many people.

After the match, the media praised the French defender's brilliant performance, as his goal was a spectacular 30-meter bicycle kick.

This goal was also voted the best goal of the round, and some media even predicted that it would be the best goal of Mexes' career, making Mexes very proud in the team.

In subsequent training sessions, Mexes remained very excited, believing that his training must have been effective. During team training, he and Totti had a heated discussion, constantly exchanging their training experiences.

Totti was surprised and envious of Mexes' goal. He was also annoyed that he had been focusing on his family lately and hadn't been diligent enough in his cultivation of qigong and magic, which allowed Mexes to get ahead of him.

"Damn Philip, his wife is in Italy, that's why he can concentrate on his training!"

Totti secretly resolved to work even harder in his qigong practice. He didn't expect to reach Shan Yongzhuo's shooting ability, but he definitely couldn't fall behind Mexes. "Francisco, Philipp, I'm telling you, it's really useless. Your goal has nothing to do with qigong, and I've never practiced qigong or magic."

Dan Yongzhuo, out of concern for his teammates, kindly tried to persuade the two, but it was to no avail.

Neither of them believed Shan Yongzhuo's words.

Totti seemed a little confused upon hearing this, but Mexes had a knowing look on his face. "Simp, you must be afraid that we'll tell everyone after we succeed in our cultivation, right? Don't worry, we won't."

"Of course, besides the younger generation on our national team, you will definitely teach magic to the younger generation on the Chinese team as well, right?"

"Are you saying this because you're afraid the Chinese team won't be able to beat the French and Italian teams in the future, so that we'll stop training?"

Dan Yongzhuo was speechless; these two guys seemed to be going further and further down the path of courting death.

And, well, they don't deserve any sympathy.

In their next match, Roma will travel to Atalanta for an away game, and Shan Yongzhuo was not included in the squad for this match.

Spalletti's main consideration was that Roma would be playing their Europa League group stage opponent Basel at home a few days later.

In Group E of the Europa League, both Roma and Basel have 9 points with 3 wins and 1 loss in 4 matches, while Fulham has 4 points with 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses. If Roma can defeat their opponents in the next round, they will qualify for the knockout stage.

In the first round of matches, Roma lost 2-0 to Basel away from home. Now, facing the same opponent again, and with qualification at stake, Spalletti doesn't want any slip-ups.

In addition, Atalanta has performed very poorly this season and its strength is indeed quite weak. It is still in the relegation zone. Spalletti did not take such an opponent too seriously.

Shan Yongzhu watched the match on TV at home. The team performed quite well away from home, taking the lead in the first half thanks to Vucinic's goal.

However, in the second half, the game took a dramatic turn. Atalanta seemed to be on fire, scoring two goals in the 52nd and 56th minutes to take the lead.

Roma then recovered and launched a major counterattack, while Atalanta set up a solid defensive wall and, with their tenacious defense, ultimately held on to the score until the end.

Spalletti was furious at the unexpected defeat, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Italian media outlets criticized Roma's performance after the match, accusing them of inconsistency. They noted that while Roma had a record of victories against Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus, and Fiorentina, they had also lost to teams like Livorno and Atalanta.

Some media outlets even accused Roma of suffering from a "Shan Yongzhuo dependency syndrome," criticizing their over-reliance on the Chinese striker's attack. They argued that Vucinic and Totti failed to deliver the expected performances, and Taddei seemed completely out of it throughout the match, essentially acting as a mole.

As a result of this defeat, Roma has once again fallen two points behind Inter Milan in the standings.

Spalletti remained silent during training, and the atmosphere was somewhat somber, with everyone holding their breath.

Finally, a few days later, Roma faced their Europa League group stage opponent, Basel.

In this match, Shan Yongzhuo got the chance to start, and the whole team was eager to vent their frustration from losing to Atalanta on Basel.

(End of this chapter)