"David, this one is yours. You drew the foul, you finish it."
Ivica Olić, Wolfsburg's primary penalty taker, was currently watching from the bench, which left the responsibility to the secondary option: Kevin De Bruyne. But the Belgian maestro was as perceptive as he was talented. He knew David Qin had only just returned to the Bundesliga and needed the clinical dopamine hit of a goal to truly find his rhythm again. With a nod of quiet, veteran generosity, he stepped aside and handed over the ball.
David didn't hesitate, accepting the offer with a confident grin as he stepped toward the spot. Under the suffocating weight of twenty thousand expectant eyes, he placed the ball, took three deliberate steps back, and waited. The referee's whistle cut through the tension. David surged forward.
One step. Two. Three. A violent swing of the hip. A thunderous strike.
Back during the Asian Cup, Alain Perrin had drilled them relentlessly on penalties to prepare for shootouts that never materialized, and now that muscle memory took over with lethal efficiency. The ball tore through the air like a shell from a telescopic cannon, screaming toward the bottom left corner. Oliver Baumann guessed the direction and threw himself across the line, but it was a fool's errand; the sheer velocity and raw power of the strike meant the ball whistled past his gloves before he could even blink, rattling the back of the net and sending the home crowd into a delirium of green and white.
David sprinted toward the corner flag, gripping his hem and hoisting his jersey to reveal the base layer beneath: I'M BACK!!!
A brace on his return debut made him feel ten feet tall. His teammates swarmed him in a huddle of pure adrenaline. While the match might have seemed routine to an outsider, the squad knew they had been skating on thin ice after a tepid draw against Frankfurt. If they didn't secure a statement win here, the momentum of their title charge would have evaporated into the winter air. Teams that collapse in the second half of the season usually do so because they lose that invisible, psychological edge—that collective belief that they are untouchable. By putting four past Hoffenheim, The Wolves had just rediscovered their bite.
On the touchline, Dieter Hecking shared a sharp high-five with Ton Lokhoff. The manager watched David with a discerning eye, noting that the boy who had come back from Australia seemed sharper and more predatory than the one who had left. There was a newfound arrogance in his movement—not the hollow kind, but the quiet certainty of a player who knew no defender in the league could truly live with him.
"Boss, we need to start thinking about our priorities," Lokhoff murmured. "Trying to conquer three fronts will gut this squad. We have to decide what matters."
The calculus was simple. The Bundesliga was the ultimate prize; breaking the Bayern Munich hegemony would be a feat of historic proportions. Then there was the Europa League, a secondary continental trophy that still carried immense prestige. The DFB-Pokal was the obvious casualty. Hecking had lived long enough to know you couldn't chase two rabbits and expect to catch both, and hard decisions had to be made now before the schedule made them for him.
Across the pitch, the Hoffenheim players looked like they had seen a ghost. They had arrived hoping to exploit a tired Wolfsburg, but instead, they had been dismantled by a David Qin-shaped hurricane. The telepathic understanding between David and De Bruyne hadn't withered during the winter break; if anything, it had fermented into something more intoxicating as they moved in perfect, lethal synchronization.
"And there is the final whistle!" Derek Rae's voice boomed over the international broadcast. "A comprehensive, professional, and quite frankly terrifying display from Wolfsburg. Four goals, a clean sheet, and three points that keep the pressure firmly on the record champions."
"It was clinical, Derek," Stewart Robson added. "David Qin's return has flicked the switch for this team. Look at the table: Bayern top with 49, The Wolves right behind on 47. With fourteen rounds to go, we are looking at a straight shootout for the Meisterschale. For David Qin, the dream of becoming the first Chinese player to lead a side to a major European title as a mainstay is no longer a fantasy—it's a probability."
At the post-match press conference, Hecking brought David along to stifle the transfer rumors that had been swirling like a blizzard. When asked about the man of the match, Hecking cracked a rare, dry smile. "Hard to choose from such a performance, but since David is sitting right next to me, I'd better say him, shouldn't I?"
The room laughed, but the reporters quickly pivoted to the man of the hour. "David, a brace in your first game back. What's the message to the fans?"
"I'm just happy to be home," David replied. "But I hope this is just the start. I want a perfect season."
"And what does 'perfect' look like?" a reporter pressed. "The title? The Golden Boot? The Europa League?"
David leaned into the mic, a playful, shark-like glint in his eyes. "Only children make choices. I want the lot."
The internet exploded almost instantly as the quote began to circulate through fan forums and social media feeds.
@WolfsburgWagon posted: "I used to think Messi at 17 was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, but David is genuinely hunting for the Golden Boot in his first full season."
@DasCynic replied: "Did you hear Kahn's latest? Saying David will 'return home' to Bayern eventually. The arrogance is staggering. They act like they own every blade of grass in Germany."
@Bundesliga2Banter added: "Kahn is just noise. The real comedy is watching Erik ten Hag in the Bayern dugout. Imagine being the man who let David Qin walk for nothing. He's going to be looking for a new job in Holland by June just to escape the shame."
The pressure was indeed mounting on Ten Hag back in Munich. The "Blind Man" label was starting to stick. Even as he led his own side to results, the shadow of the boy he let go loomed larger with every goal David scored. Ten Hag had already begun to contemplate a return to the Netherlands at the end of the season, fueled by a pathological need to find a talent even better than David—someone who could prove that his failure to spot the boy's genius was merely a statistical anomaly.
David, however, was preoccupied with the business of the game. His phone had become a battlefield for the world's most powerful agents. He had already passed on Volker Struth; while Struth managed the likes of Kroos and Reus, David had read about his public spat with Pep Guardiola over Mario Götze's playing time. To David, that was amateur hour. Attacking a manager in the press was a scorched-earth tactic that only ended one way for the player, and he needed someone with more finesse.
The list was a who's who of footballing royalty. There was Casey Wasserman, whose WMG empire dominated the Premier League and global sports marketing. There was Jonathan Barnett, the man who had turned Gareth Bale into the world's most expensive player. There was the legendary disruptor Mino Raiola, and of course, Jorge Mendes, the architect of the Cristiano Ronaldo brand. David weighed them carefully, knowing that Mendes offered the clearest path to the Ballon d'Or and global commercial dominance, while Barnett was hungry to crown another king after Bale. He knew that in this sport, the resources of an agent were finite, and to win the highest honors, he needed the machinery behind the scenes to pull the levers of narrative and commercial value.
The decision wasn't one to be made in a day, but the schedule didn't care about his off-field dilemmas. Three days later, the Wolfsburg bus was rolling toward Leverkusen.
David leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the city of Bayer roll by. Unlike the gritty, industrial heart of Gelsenkirchen, Leverkusen felt pastoral and almost serene. The "Die Werkself" faithful weren't screaming in the streets; they were walking toward the BayArena with the quiet, rhythmic pace of people heading to a weekend retreat. It was a deceptive calm, for underneath that tranquility sat one of the most efficient and dangerous footballing machines in Germany. David checked his boots as the bus slowed. The peace of the city was about to be shattered.
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