The rain came down even harder.
Stamford Bridge's drainage was being pushed to the limit, and the Manchester City players on the pitch were suffering the same torment.
Seventy-five minutes had been played.
The scoreboard still read 0-0, yet those seventy-five minutes felt like a century to City's midfield brain, De Bruyne.
'So this is what they call beautiful football?'
Lin Yuan scrambled up from the turf, wiping a handful of mud from his face. Moments earlier he had flattened Rodri—man and ball—with a sliding tackle from the side that screamed aggression.
The whistle blew. Foul, no card.
Anthony Taylor jogged over and barked a warning; Lin Yuan answered with a curt nod, his eyes fixed on Rodri still sprawled on the ground.
The man widely touted as the world's best holding midfielder, the pivot of City's attack and defence, had seen his metronomic passing rhythm shredded by Lin Yuan in tonight's quagmire.
'Don't just lie there,' Lin Yuan said, looking down on Rodri, his voice cutting through the rain. 'The grass is freezing—you'll catch cold.'
Rodri thumped the turf in frustration; he had never felt so stifled in the Premier League. Every time he received the ball, the Chelsea madman in the No. 44 shirt homed in like a shark scenting blood, not after the ball but after the body.
City still monopolised 65 per cent possession, but it was sterile, aimless possession around the fringes. The moment the ball crossed into the thirty-metre kill zone, Lin Yuan raised a wall of despair.
In the 82nd minute Guardiola prowled the touchline, raindrops beading on his trademark bald scalp. He waved his team forward, desperate to swamp Chelsea's exhausted back line with sheer numbers.
'Push up! Get it to Erling!' Guardiola roared.
Bernardo Silva collected the ball on the right and shaped to cut inside.
Cucurella, already off-balance from B Silva's feints, looked set to be left behind as the diminutive Portuguese darted into the box.
Bang!
A dull thud of muscle on muscle echoed around the corner-flag area.
Lin Yuan, a runaway tank, arrived from nowhere, shoulder-charging the slight B Silva clean off the ball in a perfectly timed, rule-book-edge 'fair' collision.
B Silva flew like a snapped kite, crashing into the advertising boards beyond the by-line.
'Hey! What d'you think you're doing!' Foden rushed in and shoved Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan didn't even meet Foden's eyes; he simply puffed out his chest and sent the City winger stumbling half a step back, the sudden menace in his aura unmistakable.
'This is a man's game, shorty,' Lin Yuan said, looking down at Foden, eyes flat and cold. 'Want to dribble? Hit the gym first.'
The 89th minute brought the match's defining defensive moment.
City had a lightning counter. De Bruyne, finally gifted a pocket of space, threaded a world-class through-ball that dissected Chelsea's entire back line like a scalpel.
Haaland exploded into life!
The Norwegian beast left every defender for dead, bearing down on goal—clean through!
Stamford Bridge fell deathly silent, save for the roar of the City end.
Just as the stadium braced for the killer blow, a deep-blue blur gave physics the finger and surged back in pursuit.
Lin Yuan, teeth clenched, lungs burning, ignored the empty stamina bar on his system panel and forcibly triggered [Adrenaline Surge].
The instant Haaland cocked his foot to shoot, Lin Yuan hurled himself in from the side.
It wasn't a tackle; it was a kamikaze block!
Thud!
Haaland's thunderbolt smashed into Lin Yuan's out-thrown thigh, ricocheting inches wide of the post with a sickening crack.
Momentum carried Lin Yuan skidding into the upright, shoulder-first.
'Oh my God!!!'
In the commentary gantry Gary Neville clutched his head. 'Lin Yuan! He just threw himself in front of Haaland like a lunatic! That's the defensive moment of the Premier League season—bar none!'
Haaland stared, disbelieving, at the Chelsea No. 44 struggling to rise beside the post.
Lin Yuan hauled himself upright, thigh screaming, a livid bruise already blooming, yet his face was a mask of savage exultation. He threw his arms to the stands and let out a guttural roar.
'Roarrrr!!!'
The sound detonated Stamford Bridge. Forty-thousand Blue faithful leapt to their feet, applause thundering, chanting in perfect unison:
'LIN! LIN! LIN!'
The four minutes of added time became pure will-power warfare. Every City pass was snapped up by those ever-present legs, every shot smothered by the figure that never seemed to tire.
At last.
Anthony Taylor raised the whistle to his lips and blew.
Peep—peep—peep!!!
It sounded less like the end of a football match than the termination of a long execution.
0-0.
The red digits on the scoreboard glowed almost balefully through the rain.
No goals, no dazzling dribbles, scarcely a fluent move in the swamp—yet the Shed End erupted as if Chelsea had lifted the trophy itself.
Because Chelsea had stopped Manchester City.
The finely honed sky-blue machine, the reigning champions who had sliced through Premier League and Europe under Guardiola, had been ground to a halt tonight by the rawest, most brutal means imaginable.
Kevin De Bruyne bent over, hands on knees, gasping. Rain dripped from his blond fringe into the grass. The game's premier midfield conductor felt a suffocation he had never known.
It came not just from exhaustion but from a deeper, psychological pressure.
He lifted his gaze toward the figure in the deep-blue No. 44 shirt.
Lin Yuan stood head back, letting icy rain wash the mud from his face. His chest heaved like an old diesel engine at full throttle, every exhale a plume of white mist.
Above his left brow the scar earned in the Portuguese Cup throbbed crimson, a vicious centipede etched on skin.
'Is this guy made of iron?' De Bruyne thought bitterly, turning down the tunnel. For ninety minutes, wherever he moved, the scent of blood and that crushing presence followed.
At the other end of the pitch.
Lin Yuan spat, a pink streak of saliva mixing with blood—his gums had bled from clenching too hard when he blocked Haaland's shot.
[Ding!]
[Match concluded.]
[Hidden achievement unlocked: Suffocating Kevin.]
[In head-to-head duels with Kevin De Bruyne, reduce his key passes to 0 and passing accuracy below 75%.]
[Reward: Free attribute point +1, notoriety points +2000.]
The system's chime rang in his skull, but Lin Yuan had no energy left to check. After ninety minutes of trench warfare, his muscles sang with pain and a strange, fierce elation.
"Hey, tyrant."
A deep voice cut through the curtain of rain.
Lin Yuan turned around.
Erling Haaland loomed like a walking mountain of muscle, splashing through the mud. The Norwegian monster's shirt had been stretched out of shape, a rip at the collar—Lin Yuan's handiwork from a first-half corner.
There was no fury in Haaland's eyes after the goalless draw; instead, they gleamed with the wild recognition of one predator spotting another.
"So this is what they call 'no feel for the beautiful game'?" Haaland flashed a grin at the scoreboard, voice thick with media mockery.
"Art comes in many forms," Lin Yuan said, studying the beast who'd nearly snapped his ribs. The corner of his mouth curled, savage. "Crushing an opponent's bones—also an art."
"Ha!" A short bark of laughter. Without another word Haaland crossed his arms, caught the hem of his shirt, and peeled it off.
A torso carved like a Greek statue emerged, mottled red and purple. A livid welt bloomed across his chest—souvenir of their thirty-ninth-minute collision at the center circle.
He held out the mud-soaked, sweat-soaked Manchester City No. 9 shirt.
"Trade?" Haaland asked. "Your bones feel harder than mine, but next time at the Etihad I'll still send you flying."
"Any time."
Lin Yuan skinned off his own No. 44 just as cleanly.
With the two battered physiques bared beneath the storm, photographers circled like sharks catching blood, shutters rattling.
The scene hit like a punch.
The league's sharpest spear and its rising iron shield, both bloodied, both streaked with mud. In an age of dives and complaints, it felt like a throwback twenty years to the Premier League of steel.
Lin Yuan slung Haaland's shirt over his shoulder. The reek of sweat, earth, and grass wasn't pleasant, but it reeked of raw testosterone.
"Ice that chest when you get home," he tossed over his shoulder. "Or you won't get out of bed tomorrow."
"Worry about yourself." Haaland rubbed his ribs and grinned through the pain.
Stamford Bridge mixed zone.
Reporters packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Tonight's 0-0 had generated more headlines than Arsenal's rout next door.
"Lin! Lin, over here!"
Flashbulbs turned the dim tunnel to daylight as a shirtless Lin Yuan appeared, a towel draped round his neck and the Man-of-the-Match trophy—a yellow champagne bottle—looking like a toy in his hand.
A Sky Sports reporter stepped forward, eyes flicking to the bloody scrape across his chest. "Lin, congratulations on MOTM. But after the match Guardiola said Chelsea played 'rugby,' that your clashes with Rodri and Bernardo were 'murdering football.' Any response?"
The corridor hushed, every ear straining for the new enforcer's retort.
Lin Yuan stopped; the temperature seemed to drop.
His dark eyes swept the cameras, emotionless.
"Murdering football?"
He let out a cold snort. "Tell Mr. Pep if he doesn't want his players hurt he can ask the FA to let them play in tutus. This is the Premier League, not a greenhouse. If it hurts, go home and drink milk.
Ignoring the uproar, he shoved through the throng toward the dressing room.
The changing-room door swung open.
A wave of liniment, sweat, and damp hit like a wall.
Teammates slumped on benches; even joker Jackson was too drained to speak. The match had cost more than two normal games.
"Heads up!"
A hoarse roar broke the silence.
Mourinho stood at the tactics board, trouser cuffs caked in mud, his Armani coat soaked through, yet he looked more alive than ever.
The Special One swept his gaze around and settled on Lin Yuan.
"This is Chelsea. This is the Chelsea I want!"
He slammed the board, magnets clattering. "Look at those City pretty-boys—terrified! The possession-obsessed geniuses who pass the ball into the net were wetting themselves tonight!"
Tired laughter rippled through the room.
Mourinho stepped to Lin Yuan, clapped a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Brilliant, Lin," he said, pride thick in his voice. "That block saved us."
"Just doing my job, boss." Lin Yuan tossed the champagne trophy to the kit man; "Anyone wants a drink, help yourselves."
"No one's got the energy."
Club captain Reece James sat on a bench, leg in a brace, eyes complex—relief mixed with the dawning worry that this side was morphing from a slick youth brigade into a gang of blue-clad bandits.
And the bare-chested, scarred No. 44 in the middle was their ringleader.
That night Lin Yuan's Instagram updated with a single photo.
No caption—just a black-and-white shot:
Two mud-caked backs exchanging shirts in the Stamford Bridge rain: No. 44 Lin Yuan and No. 9 Haaland.
Back home, forums exploded again over "Is Lin Yuan too violent?"—but for the first time supporters drowned out the critics. A Chinese player who'd forced Haaland into a shirt-swap? Unprecedented.
Yet amid the noise, no one noticed Sterling in the corner, scrolling idly, unimpressed by the blood-and-thunder draw.
"What's to celebrate about nil-nil…" he muttered, booking a VIP booth at a famous London club.
The fuse on an internal bomb quietly burned down.
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