Why Play Football Without Money?

Thrust back into the year 2017, Zhou Zeyan finds himself reborn as Zean Rider, a young prospect in Aston Villa's academy, armed with the game-changing "Salary Ball" system. Operating on a brutally simple premise, the system dictates that his on-field prowess scales directly with his financial worth: the bigger the paycheck, the more unstoppable the player. From the moment he signs his first professional contract, Zhou realizes that market value equals combat power and wages equal absolute authority. Soon, football legends like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mbappe, and Haaland are merely footnotes in the grand era of Zhou Zeyan. When a reporter later asks the superstar what fueled his ascent to the top, Zhou replies with a straight face: "Hard work and sweat." Pressed further about whether this means grueling 4-hour-morning training sessions, he laughs and says, "Don't ask where my effort went; just look at the sweat on my opponents' faces." When asked about his reputation as a solitary wanderer of the football world, he simply smiles: "You just don't know me. I'm actually a very pure person." Prompted if he means purely for the love of the game, Zhou shakes his head: "Purely for the love of money."