"The second half is underway!"
Derek Rae's voice buzzed with the static of a match poised on a knife-edge. "Leverkusen have come out swinging, clearly looking for an early equalizer to reset the balance. But The Wolves are wise to the game; their defensive lines are layered like armor, and they've dialed up the intensity of their press."
Hakan Çalhanoğlu tried his favorite parlor trick again—feinting a long-range blast only to slide a disguised through-ball toward the box. But Naldo, reading the game like a veteran general, shifted his massive frame horizontally. He stepped across Son Heung-min, intercepted the delivery, and immediately pinged it wide to Vieirinha.
The winger-turned-fullback had flourished in his new role, keeping the expensive summer signing Sebastian Jung firmly rooted to the bench.
"Close him down!" Castro roared, leading the charge as Die Werkself swarmed.
Vieirinha, unwilling to gamble with a risky pass deep in his own half, bypassed the immediate pressure and found Ivan Perišić. The Croatian winger wasn't just a physical specimen; he possessed the spatial awareness of a veteran, a trait that had earned him spots at both Dortmund and Bayern. With a deft flick, he guided the ball through the closing Leverkusen trap into the path of Kevin De Bruyne.
De Bruyne didn't release it immediately. David was being shadowed by Bellarabi, and Bas Dost was caught between defenders. The Belgian simply dropped his shoulder and drove forward himself. He rarely hogged the ball, but when he did, he was a nightmare to dispossess. Lars Bender lunged in with a heavy shoulder charge, but De Bruyne absorbed the contact with a brick-wall sturdiness that left the Leverkusen captain splayed on the turf.
"Look at that! The cherub-faced De Bruyne has turned into a tank!" Derek Rae exclaimed. "Mourinho once praised his physical gifts, and you can see why. He has the engine for the Premier League, let alone the Bundesliga. With Bender bypassed, the Leverkusen midfield has evaporated. De Bruyne has all the time in the world to pick his poison."
Across the pitch, David Qin saw Bellarabi break rank to close down De Bruyne. In a flash, David darted into the left channel, ghosting into the blind spot behind the twenty-year-old Tin Jedvaj. He held his run perfectly, glancing back to check the offside line.
Just as he reached the shoulder of the last man, the ball arrived. He didn't even have to call for it. The telepathy between him and the Belgian was becoming supernatural.
David felt a surge of pure adrenaline. He took the pass in stride, knocked it ahead with a heavy touch to burn the recovering Jedvaj, and found himself bearing down on Bernd Leno.
The twenty-million-euro keeper looked utterly desolate. His defense had become a sieve, leaving him to face the most clinical teenager in Europe alone. Even Oliver Kahn couldn't save this mess, Leno thought grimly as he rushed out to close the angle.
David remained ice-cold. He feinted a blast with his right foot, forcing Leno to flinch and drop, before executing a delicate, velvet-soft chip.
"The composure! The audacity!" Stewart Robson shouted. "A chip of absolute nonchalance!"
"2-4!" Derek Rae's voice boomed. "A hat-trick! Just 163 days after his Bundesliga debut, David Qin has his first professional hat-trick! This time, he won't need to borrow a fan's cap. He is rewriting the history books—the first Chinese player to ever score three in one of Europe's elite leagues."
In the BayArena, David was a blur of joy. Every cell in his body seemed to vibrate as he sprinted toward the away end to drown in the cheers of the traveling Wolfsburg faithful.
"Lupenreiner!" the fans screamed. In German, it means a "flawless" hat-trick—three goals in a single half without anyone else scoring in between. Technically, they were wrong, but in the delirium of the moment, nobody cared about semantics.
"With those three, you've overtaken Robben on the scoring charts, haven't you?" Perišić laughed, ruffling David's hair as the team swarmed him. "You're a monster, kid!"
"Hey! Toss the hats down!" Perišić yelled at the stands. "I'll buy you all new ones!"
The Wolfsburg fans obliged, sending a literal rain of caps fluttering onto the pitch.
"David! News just came in!" a fan screamed, leaning over the railing. "Bayern just put six past Hamburg! Robben and Lewandowski both got braces—they've jumped back ahead of you!"
"Damn it!" David muttered, shaking his head. "Bayern really want to kick Hamburg into the second division. Are they going for double digits?"
It was the eternal frustration of playing in the same league as the Bavarian machine. You could score a hat-trick of the century, and Bayern would respond with a localized massacre of a lower-table side.
"David! As long as I'm here, don't worry about the numbers," De Bruyne said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of a promise.
David's eyes flared with a predatory hunger. "Let's go then."
The nearby Leverkusen fans recoiled. The kid looked like he wanted four. The insult of a hat-trick at the BayArena was one thing; a "haul" would be a historic humiliation. They roared their club anthem, trying to inject some spine into their reeling players.
Roger Schmidt panicked. He burned two substitutions immediately, bringing on Hilbert and the young Julian Brandt to shore up his right flank. He was finally showing David Qin the respect of fear.
Hecking responded with veteran poise. He brought on Josuha Guilavogui and Sebastian Jung to lock down the midfield and neutralize Son Heung-min. The match ground into a stalemate for twenty minutes as the tactical chess match took over.
In the dying embers of the game, Hecking signaled for the final change. David Qin's number came up. As he walked off the pitch, the entire Wolfsburg section—and a significant portion of the neutral crowd—rose to their feet in a thunderous standing ovation.
"You've won them over, haven't you?" Hecking remarked, patting David on the back with a dry smile.
"Maybe they just like my face more than my footwork," David joked.
"Then I should have had millions of fans when I was your age," Hecking quipped back.
"Actually, boss, you have plenty of fans in China now," David added, leaning into the flattery.
"You've got a silver tongue, kid. I'll have to keep you away from my granddaughter; she's already been hounding me for your signed shirt and photos."
"Well, you could always introduce us," David said, dodging the inevitable playful swat from the manager as he retreated to the bench.
The final whistle blew shortly after. Bayer Leverkusen 2, Wolfsburg 4.
David sprinted back onto the pitch, heading straight for the referee. "Sir! Can I have the ball? It's my first one!"
"Of course! You earned it," the official replied, tossing the match ball to the teenager.
David tucked the treasure under his arm, wiping the grass stains off with his jersey. His first professional hat-trick. He felt like he had just taken a massive leap toward the summit of his dreams.
"Sign this for me, brothers," David told his teammates in the dressing room. "I couldn't have done it without you." It was a small gesture, but it cemented the bond. In a world of egos, David's willingness to share the light made him a leader they were happy to follow.
Later that night, the team celebrated in Leverkusen. After a quiet evening watching the play Drums in the Night—which left De Bruyne looking particularly melancholic given his own history with betrayal—the group ended up at a Karaoke Bar at Malanda's insistence.
David quickly realized that while his teammates were world-class athletes, their singing was a biological weapon. He watched as they butchered hit after hit.
"Let me show you how it's done," David laughed, grabbing the mic to save their ears. He chose a soulful Chinese track about brotherhood.
The melody was haunting, but as he reached the chorus, his teammates' limited understanding of Chinese phonetics took over.
"Women cheat!" they began to chant along, mishearing the lyrics completely.
The room went silent as everyone instinctively glanced at De Bruyne. The poor Belgian looked like he'd been struck.
"No, no! You idiots!" David shouted, waving his hands. "It's about destiny and friends! Let me translate!"
He spent the rest of the night acting as a linguistic bridge, translating the lyrics into German. By the end of the night, the entire squad was huddled together, swaying and shouting the translated lyrics with drunken sincerity.
Junior Malanda caught the whole thing on video and posted it to Twitter. Within hours, "David Qin Karaoke" was trending, a small human moment that transcended the sport and made the world fall a little more in love with The Wolves' new King.
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