FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 52:

Yu Sui tried his best to restrain himself and warned himself not to ruin the care and preparation he’d been doing these past few days on a moment of impulse.

Yu Sui leaned against the balcony railing with both hands. Dropping an indirect hint, he said, “And… Shi Luo, I’m not the kind of straight man who doesn’t know when I’m being made the subject of some scheme.”

Being a veteran in this industry, the number of times people have attempted to seduce or entice Yu Sui wasn’t exactly few. Back then, Yu Sui rushed to the top of the industry as soon as he made his debut, not to mention internet celebrity anchors, he even normally ran into small time entertainment celebrities. The entertainment circle was shallow. There was no lack of minor celebrities who relied on this somewhat good looks to chat and flirt with a star player to either rub off on their popularity or to make a quick buck. Since entering the industry, Yu Sui has been affixed with the dazzling “rich” label. He had the face and the reputation. Naturally, there were quite a lot of people who saw him as a target for easy profit.

Expressly confessed to, secretly seduce, Yu Sui had seen it all from when he was in his teens to now.

It wasn’t that Yu Sui had absolutely no clue about Shi Luo’s little occasional schemes.

Yu Sui never thought of those as scheming.

When people he didn’t like schemed, those were scheming.

When the person he liked schemed, that was called acting spoiled.

Even if this spoiled act was a tad bit intense, consequently earning him stomach trouble and landing him in the hospital for an overnight stay.

But Yu Sui himself was a willing party in all this.

Shi Luo hadn’t yet recovered from when Yu Sui said, “After I went to Germany, I only had a stomach problem once.” He looked at Yu Sui and said guardedly, “You… don’t you think I’m being unreasonable?”

The wind on the terrace was a bit strong, and Yu Sui held down the team uniform jacket he had on. He shook his head. “I told you. I’ve already accepted this.”

Shi Luo’s lips moved.

He wanted to ask Yu Sui whether he’d let himself fall for anyone’s repeated disaster-courting traps or if he’d only do so for Shi Luo’s disaster-courting traps.

But just now, telling Yu Sui that he’d deliberately thrown away his life in order to tell him the real situation had already exhausted up all his courage for the day.

All the replies he’d gotten from Yu Sui so far have been so gentle. He said that he had fallen ill after knowing that Evil was Shi Luo himself and he said that he had been distressed.

Yu Sui hardly ever lies. Shi Luo didn’t want to hear something similar to “I didn’t recognize you at all” that could pierce his heart, nor did he want to destroy the rare tenderness that was between him and Yu Sui at this moment.

Shi Luo lit a cigarette. This was enough.

If Shi Luo didn’t ask, there was nothing to regret. This was answer he’d finally gotten.

Not long after the two returned to the training room from the terrace, Old Qiao called everyone to the conference room to start the game review. The contents of their match against Sacred Sword could truly make one feel unwell. Fortunately, Zhou Huo was very good at maneuvering everyone’s emotions. In the middle of the review, he used the projector to show them the comments posted on Free’s official Weibo. The comments under Zhou Huo’s impassioned post insulting Sacred Sword had already surpassed 10,000 comments. From beginning to end, the fans all insulted Sacred Sword. After reading the first 100 top comments, they resumed the review.

Everyone dug into dinner as they did the game review. It was ten o’ clock in the evening by the time they finished. Old Qiao said, “I’ll compile all the things you need to pay attention to and send them to you separately later. There are also things you need to personally pay attention to. Remember to take a look at it.”

Zhou Huo sleepily stayed with them til the end of the review. Seeing that it was finally done, he hurriedly told them, “Ok. Tomorrow, we’re flying to Chongqing. We’ll wrap up things here for today. Go and hurry to sleep.”

“You don’t really need to sleep if you’re not tired.” Old Qiao refuted. “You can start a live broadcast or whatever.”

Without waiting for Zhou Huo to speak, Puppy said helplessly, “I really can’t sleep right now. If you force me to go to bed, I’m just gonna play on my phone. It’s not as though we can change our biological clock in just a single day, right?”

“All right…” Zhou Huo said helplessly, “Just don’t stay up too late. Let’s agree now. When you’re called tomorrow to wake up, don’t complain or laze around in bed, okay?”

None of them returned to the dormitory. They all went to the training room.

After their one-to-one match with Sacred Sword today, an alarm sounded in everyone’s hearts. They would joke around but they stifled a sigh in their hearts. None of them were willing to delay their training time too much.

“Come on, come on. Agreed. Let’s practice our cooperation.” After entering the training room, Chen Huo reluctantly said, “Shi Shen&#k2026;I know you don’t like teaming up with me. As it happens, I also don’t like teaming up with anyone who isn’t a medic but during today’s practice match we were practically coming apart. Sigh, let’s go&#k2026;”

Normally, Shi Luo also pairs up with a medic. Naturally, he wasn’t willing either but pairing up would indeed be the best way to practice their cooperation. Frowning, he said unhappily, “Add me.”

Puppy looked at Yu Sui “We don’t need to practice our cooperation, right? There’s nothing for us to practice. I will go play some matches by myself. You…you’ll do a live broadcast?”

Yu Sui shook his head. “I’ve gotten enough hours this month already. I’ll play some matches.”

Puppy nodded and went to queue up. Yu Sui turned on the game client, logged in to the game, and started queuing up as well.

Yu Sui sometimes suspected that he must be some sort of jinx.

Whatever it was, as long as it was something bad and he mentioned it, it would basically happen for certain.

That afternoon on the terrace, he’d mentioned that he’d been the subject of others’ scheming before and that evening it was like he had summoned it.

Actually, at first, there was nothing the matter. Yu Sui quietly leveled up on the national server. He used his main account and when his passersby teammates see him, they would bluster loudly for a while, or they’ll be super excited or they would confess to being a fan; basically, how they treat most every professional player. Yu Sui was accustomed to it. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t reply; only occasionally, when he was in a good mood would he type a few words. Coincidentally, today, Yu Sui was in a very good mood.

Actually, what Shi Luo said that afternoon on the terrace pricked his heart a bit but for Yu Sui, who perpetually walked on mountains of swords and seas of flames as though he were walking on even ground, he was able to easily accept this.

Shi Luo might not have noticed it but the relationship between the two of them had become increasingly ambiguous.

The ambiguity made Yu Sui more and more unable to restrain himself.

Were it not because their two years of separation had left too deep an impression, Yu Sui would have let himself indulge already.

Just when Yu Sui was in such a good mood, his passerby striker teammate flooded their chat, expressing his admiration for Yu Sui.

[EE anchor]: [The real Whisper? Whisper, I like you so much! And Evil too! ! ! ]

When Yu Sui saw Shi Luo’s ID, he replied with an emoticon. His passerby striker teammate immediately responded even more enthusiastically. Yu Sui didn’t reply again. Only when he had killed enough of their opponents in the game, did he show a little bit of consideration for his passerby striker teammate. He gave the other timely shield cover and even replenished a bit of her health.

Not everyone can stand having a pure assassin-type medic for a teammate. Those that could were teammates Yu Sui had cooperated with for years already. Yu Sui would occasionally do these things when he did single row and got matched with completely passerby teammates. He did these things without any thought.

It was also very coincidental. After they quickly finished one round, Yu Sui continued to queue up. Of the three games, he played after that, he was matched with this striker for two of them.

They were all playing to gather points. There was nothing strange about bumping into the same people. Yu Sui played however he needed to play. After the three rounds, Zhou Huo knocked on the door of the training room with an embarrassed expression. “Whisper, you… are you playing single row? Did you happen to meet an anchor?”

Yu Sui turned his head and glanced at Zhou Huo. “That striker called EE something? What’s wrong?”

“She’s an anchor for an enemy station of the live broadcast platform that we signed up with. Of course, no one’s blaming you. She has nothing to do with you. She’s just someone you happened to run into coincidentally. But…” Zhou Huo’s expression was a little dumbfounded. “Your fans, in order to see you, went to her live broadcast room to watch. She’s a small-time entertainment anchor whose main content is singing. Most of the time, her broadcasts only reach a million in popularity. At the moment, her live broadcast room has already reached 5 million in popularity.”

“You too… A few days before you were pretty active in trying to raise your rank. If you could’ve entered the top ten of the national server a little earlier you wouldn’t have been matched with these entertainment anchors.” Zhou Huo was helpless. “Right now, it’s pretty embarrassing. Sending people traffic for nothing.”

Puppy, who had just finished a round, turned to his gaming chair around and looked at Zhou Huo. “Did our live broadcast platform’s manager call you? Does he think Yu Sui’s attracting traffic for the rival station?”

Zhou Huo showed everyone his WeChat chat interface, and smiled bitterly. “Yes, and the manager of the live broadcast platform feels that the other party is deliberately targeting Yu Sui.”

Yu Sui took off his headphones and frowned, “Even if she is targeting me… how could she have known she’d be matched with me continuously?”

“The problem is here.” Zhou Huo pointed to a screenshot sent to him by their contracted live broadcast platform’s manager. “Do you know what title she put on her live broadcast?”

Shi Luo, who was in the middle of a match with Chen Huo heard a bit of their conversation but wasn’t clear on the situation. He took off his headphones and set them on the table. He heard Zhou Huo read off that screenshot, “Taking You to See Whisper’s Gentle Milktank Play from a Girlfriend’s Perspective.”

Splendid. Now, his exclusive milktank was gone.

Shi Luo’s face went cold. He emptied out a whole cartridge of bullets and directly took three of the opponent’s heads.

The completely out of the loop Chen Huo kicked up a fuss and yelled, “Shi Luo, what’s the matter with you? Can you just break it up? What’s the matter with you?”

Shi Luo acted like he hadn’t heard it. He upgraded his own equipment and continued taking down their opponents.

Zhou Huo had been painstakingly trying to bring together Yu Sui and Shi Luo but still had no results to show for it. Now, their team’s core player had been plundered. He couldn’t help grumbling, “You even played milktank for her?!”

Yu Sui sneered. “Played milktank, my ass.”

Zhou Huo thought so too. He couldn’t help saying, “These economic companies these anchors have signed up with are f*cking shameless when it comes to attracting popularity… Forget it, it’s not worth arguing with them. Just stop playing single row for now. Your rank bracket must be really similar to hers’ right now. It’s too easy to target you. You need to get up early tomorrow anyway. Go get some rest. Once the viewers in her live broadcast room can’t see you anymore, they’ll disperse soon enough.”

“I’ll take care of the rest. These people who try to piggyback off on other’s popularity and create ambiguities are really the most troublesome ones.” Zhou Huo lowered his head and typed on his mobile phone. “We’ll need to warn them off, otherwise this will happen a lot more often in the future. You guys do what you need to do. I’ll go contact their live broadcast platform’s manager. I’ll have them change the title of her broadcast.”

Yu Sui combed his fingers through his hair and said lightly, “I advise you not to send the warning.”

“Why?” Zhou Huo cursed without thinking. “If we don’t scold them, this kind of thing will keep happening. Even I’m not willing to use up your popularity, why should we let them use it?”

Yu Sui was all too familiar with this kind of scheming. As expected, within three minutes, Yu Sui received a friend request on his WeChat.

Yu Sui unlocked his phone and glanced at it–

[EE anchor]: I’m sorry, Yu Shen. I was that striker just now. I’ve inconvenienced you. I just like you too much. Can I add you as a friend? I would like to apologize in person. TAT

Yu Sui looked at Zhou Huo. Zhou Huo was stunned by how she had carried out this scheme. “Although I know that your WeChat account is no secret, but…aren’t they really proficient at this? After apologizing, are they going to post their chat record with you?”

Yu Sui, who has long been familiar with these cheap tricks, threw his phone aside. “What do you think?”

“These people…damn it. Looks like I’ve run into someone today who’s even better at marketing than I am.” Zhou Huo was so angry, his head was going to explode. “This is endless, right?! What should I do? If we rebuke this kind of small anchor from some small-time platform, we’ll just be sending them publicity. Does this still depend on us? Damn it, f*cking…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Yu Sui said coldly, “I’ll handle it.”

Yu Sui actually didn’t care that she tried to piggyback off on his popularity. He was long used to that. He was a bit angry right now though was because he was worried that a certain someone in the training room was now upset.

And judging by Chen Huo’s anguished wailing and the exceptionally heavy clacking of a certain someone’s keyboard, that certain someone truly was upset.

Yu Sui ground his teeth lightly. He had finally made a little progress with Shi Luo today. He wasn’t about to let some nobody interfere with that.

Yu Sui started his own live broadcast.

If you wanted to reduce the popularity of the other anchor’s live broadcast, wasn’t the best way to open one yourself to snatch it all back?

Yu Sui opened his in-game friend interface where all his friends’ status were displayed. Shi Luo had just finished his team-up with Chen Huo.

Yu Sui immediately invited Shi Luo to team up.

Yu Sui sent a message to Shi Luo through the friend interface.

In his live broadcast, in order purely to let others see, he typed—

[Whisper]: [Playing single row is boring. Can you team up with me for a while? ]

The fans frantically flooded the live broadcast’s barrage. Everyone jeered. Sharp-eyed fans grabbed onto Yu Sui’s “Playing single row is boring” and they began to mock and ridicule the rival broadcasting platform’s anchor for her self-directed performance.

[Aiyo, Yu Shen himself said playing single row is boring. 】

[╮(╯_╰)╭Of course it’s boring. How can pro-players play when they’re matched up to mere entertainment anchors? They wouldn’t be able to perform to their best at all.]

[It’s still more interesting to watch them pair up with teammates.]

[Ha ha ha ha ha, the popularity of a certain anchor’s live broadcast suddenly dropped by 2 million. 】

[It’s so disgusting. Just now that anchor even opened her webcam to show that she added Yu Shen on WeChat. She says she wants apologize to Yu Shen. The faker. *throws up*]

[She just wants to brag that she knows Yu Shen’s WeChat. Sigh.]

[I don’t know which executive gave her that WeChat account. Although a lot of industry insiders know Whisper’s WeChat account, can you please respect the pro-player’s privacy? 】

[Okay, stop giving publicity for the enemy live broadcasting platform. Calling Shi Shen.]

[Calling Evil+1]

[Calling Evil+2]

[Calling Evil+757. What’s wrong? Where’s Shi Shen? Why isn’t he replying? 】

Yu Sui also wanted to know. Yu Sui tilted his head and glanced at him. Shi Luo was obviously not in the middle of a game or doing anything else. He was just staring at his computer screen with a blank expression.

Yu Sui continued typing.

[Whisper]: [Can you? ]

[Whisper]: [you gonna sleep already? ]

[Whisper]: [Shi Luo? ]

Shi Luo still didn’t reply.

Yu Sui took in a light breath. Was he really angry now?

Then, it seemed that simply doing a live broadcast was not enough to coax him.

Yu Sui was about to get up when his phone buzzed.

Yu Sui clicked to open——

[Evil]: [Keep typing…]

[Evil]: […Be a bit gentler. ]

The corners of Yu Sui’s lips couldn’t help but tick up. He tried his best to keep from laughing.

What a bag of vinegar.

Yu Sui put down his phone and opened the game client that was being shown on the live broadcast. He started typing amidst all the howling in the barrage.

In front of another computer, Shi Luo was beginning to regret that he’s been a bit too unreasonable. But within a couple of seconds, messages began popping up on his friend’s chat interface.

[Whisper]: [If you want to sleep already, it’s okay. But if you’re not yet sleepy, should we play for a bit?]

[Whisper]: [Do you want to maybe play for a bit?]

[Whisper]: [I’ll play milktank for you and help you level up.]

[Whisper]: [Is that ok with you?]

[Whisper]: [Why won’t you reply?]

[Whisper]: [Reply back, okay?]

[Whisper]: [If you don’t want to reply, you can also just click to agree.]

[Whisper]: [I’ll be waiting for you.]