Chapter 67:
In the second floor corridor, the cleaning aunt was mopping the floor. Yu Sui greeted her as he looked through his phone, leaning against the wall near the gla.s.s doors leading to the terrace.
The auntie glanced at Shi Luo on the terrace, and uttered a few words in Shanghai-ese, repeating her same old admonitions that smoking at such a young age was not good for the lungs. Yu Sui nodded in agreement, “Yes, I will talk about it to him later.”
Auntie quickly mopped the corridor and headed for the first floor with the mop and bucket. Yu Sui then turned and pushed open the door to the terrace.
Shi Luo had his eyes narrowed slightly as he leaned against the railing. He had almost finished the cigarette between his lips. Yu Sui walked over and plucked the cigarette from behind Shi Luo and threw it into the ashtray on the terrace.
Yu Sui was very close to Shi Luo and Shi Luo instinctively glanced back. He saw that the corridor floor was empty before he leaned back on the railing.
“What are you afraid of? If someone sees, then let them see.” Yu Sui leaned against the railing next to Shi Luo. He paused for a moment and said softly, “Just now, did you say that to deliberately make me feel bad?”
“Not this time.” Shi Luo was a little embarra.s.sed and explained, “I didn’t want to mention it but I wasn’t paying attention and… Anyway, it wasn’t intentional this time.”
Yu Sui nodded and repeated, “Wasn’t intentional this time…”
Yu Sui smiled, “So you admit it. You used to deliberately mess with my head?”
Shi Luo uneasily pulled out the thorns from the cactus, “I admitted it a long time ago. Stop asking… at least for now, I don’t want to make you feel bad.”
Yu Sui once again grasped the key point, “At least for now?”
“You’re so good to me now…it makes me kinda not want to look for trouble with you.” Shi Luo took the pot of the cactus and turned it around. He continued to pinch off the thorns from the cactus’ other side. His expression was cool but his tone was somewhat tired, “I’m waiting for when you’re not being good to me. Then I’ll go turn over old accounts with you.”
Yu Sui listened quietly, his heart aching a bit.
“So, before, every time you said something to deliberately make me feel bad, that was…” Yu Sui said softly, “because you thought I wasn’t being good to you? Did I treat you badly that often?”
Shi Luo pursed his lips and did not refute. After a while, he whispered, “You were going to send me to NSN. I can’t possible still be grateful to you, right? Sigh, I said I wasn’t going to turn over old accounts… Let’s not talk about this.”
“It’s fine, let’s talk a little bit about the past. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.” Yu Sui didn’t want to discuss everything about what happened two years ago but Yu Sui wanted to know everything that had anything to do with Shi Luo. “Why didn’t you challenge me to a match to delete our accounts before?”
Shi Luo’s reasons were not so tenable. At that time, both of them had changed teams and had new accounts, but regardless, if they had really played a match with their accounts on the line, it would have been injurious enough.
It was very troublesome for professional players to delete an account. After deleting your account, you would need to apply with the league for a new professional account. You would also need to explain clearly what happened to your last account and why you abandoned it. “I accepted a challenge from someone with our accounts on the line. I shamefully lost the match and now my account has been deleted. Please give me another official pro-player account.” If this was the reason submitted to the officials, news of it would spread instantly throughout the four divisions and render the league officials absolutely shocked.
With Yu Sui’s understanding of Shi Luo, this kind of suicidal revenge was entirely something Shi Luo would do.
Yu Sui has been playing professionally for nearly six years, and Shi Luo was the most ruthless players he’s ever met when it came to dealing with problems.
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo, “I treated you that way before and you still didn’t have the heart to do it?”
“No, I was…” Shi Luo couldn’t stop himself from damaging the cactus. After a long while, he said vaguely, “I knew I couldn’t beat you.”
Yu Sui: “…”
Shi Luo frowned, “If I was practically certain that I could beat you, I would have challenged you to that match. But at that timek2026; I really couldn’t win.”
“My skills weren’t as good as yours. It was already embarra.s.sing being cycled over thirty times. After I challenged you and I had to delete my account because you beat me. It would have been just too embarra.s.sing.”
“The most hateful thing was that you were still in Sacred Sword at the time. If Sacred Sword’s management saw that I played like trash, they would have been so overjoyed that they didn’t buy my contract too.” Shi Luo a.n.a.lyzed point by point and said, “When I go crazy, I dig pits for myself but this time, I obviously wouldn’t have been able to gain anything from it. Even if I was so angry then that I was about to go crazy, I wouldn’t have gone so far as to… why are you laughing?!”
Yu Sui tried his best to endure, but soon couldn’t help it.
Shi Luo was too cute.
Shi Luo flushed a little, and said irritably, “I told you to stop asking… It’s all very shameful. I didn’t want to talk about it at all, and…”
Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo seriously, “And what?”
“Given your personality, that you could send FS to the chopping block yourself, there was a high probability that you wouldn’t throw the game for me.” Shi Luo whispered, “If you didn’t show mercy at all in our account deletion match, after you’ve just left me so decisively, I might have never been able to recover…”
Yu Sui smiled. Shi Luo was sure he had let himself be seen through completely.
Yu Sui opened his mouth. Just as he was about to say something, there was a knock on the door to the terrace.
“What are you doing?” Old Qiao had been pa.s.sing by the terrace when he saw the two of them there. He knocked on the gla.s.s door and pushed it open. “Our scheduled training match is going to start soon better start your computers.”
“Let’s go.”
Yu Sui seemed to be calling out to Shi Luo. In front of Old Qiao he put his hand on Shi Luo’s shoulder, in Old Qiao blind spot Yu Sui gently squeezed Shi Luo’s hand.
Shi Luo held his hand back. There was too little time for a break. After their hands touched, they immediately separated. Each of them adjusted their jackets and headed to the training room.
Despite not having any regular season games today, they still had high-intensity training. It seems that Saint was fully preparing for their regular season game against Free. Angel Sword sent a message to Old Qiao, saying that before their match, they wouldn’t be scheduling any practice matches with Free. He said he didn’t want to expose too much of their tactics. The toughest team in the country except for Saint was already NSN. Old Qiao made an appointment with NSN in the afternoon and with a North American team in the evening; five hours in the afternoon and five hours in the evening.
After playing for ten consecutive hours, with only half an hour’s break and only so that they could eat, Zhou Huo couldn’t stand it anymore. That night, after their practices matches with the North American team, Zhou Huo went to the training room and said, “No more high intensity training for tonight. Either do a game review or do a live broadcast for fun.”
Zhou Huo was saying it to Old Qiao, who nodded, “No use doing a game review. That will take time. The data a.n.a.lysts and I will watch the video first. After summing up the problems, we’ll do one tomorrow. You guys do a live broadcast.”
They haven’t been able to broadcast a lot this month and no one had any objections. They rubbed their shoulders and tidied up their appearance for the live broadcast.
Naturally, what they meant by tidying up was that Shi Luo smoothed out his sleeves that he had bunched up his shoulders; Chen Huo ran his fingers through his hair to fix it from how his hood-type earphones have messed it up.
Chen Huo grabbed his hair and complained, “You’re the only one who turns on the webcam. How come the whole team has to join you in trying to maintain your idol image? Can you just not turn it on?”
“No can do.” Puppy said lazily. “The popularity of my live broadcast room is supported by this camera. Basically, people who come to my live broadcasts want to see you guys through my camera. If I turn it off, all your fans will run away… …So, let an unpopular player have a means of livelihood, alright?”
Zhou Huo was about to leave but turned around when he heard this, “Don’t do a boring broadcast if you want to be more popular. Why don’t you do a double row?”
“Spare me.” Puppy didn’t even think about it. Showing complete resistance, “We already normally double row to brush up on our teamwork. We’ve been teamed up for over ten hours today already. If I had to double row with them again, I’m going to hit someone. I don’t even want to see their IDs anymore.”
“That’s why I said ten consecutive hours of practice matches weren’t good. This is just too intense. You guys didn’t listen.” Zhou Huo was helpless. He glanced at Shi Luo next to him and he suddenly had an idea. He said, “Hey! Then how about you guys play something else?”
Shi Luo tilted his head to look at Zhou Huo, “What would we play?”
“Let’s play that account deletion game you mentioned today. I’ll post it on our Weibo to bring in some hype. It will definitely be popular.” The more Zhou Huo thought about it, the more he thought it was just perfect. “Can’t we play 1v1 on our custom server? You can play like this.”
“You…” Shi Luo looked at Zhou Huo in disbelief, “Did you get so excited about it that you wanted to see an account deletion game on the first day you found out about it? Is there any deep and b.l.o.o.d.y hatred within the team that we need to play this?”
Chen Huo looked at Zhou Huo warily, “I’m not playing. I’m not going to kill my wife for the popularity of a live broadcast.”
“We’re not going to be deleting your accounts…what are you thinking?” Zhou Huo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Can’t you just bet something else? If you lose, you won’t need to delete you account. Just pay for takeaway. ”
Zhou Huo spread his hands, “This way you can relax, Puppy’s live broadcast will be popular and we’ll have a midnight snack later.”
“Nice, nice, nice! Come on, come on.” When he mentioned popularity, Puppy’s eyes lit up. He was totally on board. “Since I’m the only one with a webcam turned on, more of the viewers will come to my broadcast. Let’s play!”
Chen Huo nodded as soon as he heard that he didn’t need to delete his account, “Okay, if you lose, at worst you’ll be asked to order takeaway.”
Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo, tone very pointed, “Do you want to play or not? It doesn’t have to be takeaway. If you’ve had enough of midnight snacks, you could bet something else.”
Zhou Huo stressed the words “something else”. Shi Luo’s eyes lit up slightly. He raised no other objections and tacitly agreed.
Zhou Huo finally looked at Yu Sui, thinking of Yu Sui’s job, he said uneasily, “Uh… Yu Sui… this…medics can’t really play 1v1, right?”
Yu Sui was very direct. “It’s okay, it’s the same.”
“Alright!” The team members agreed. Zhou Huo was very satisfied. This was the first entertainment event since the founding of the Free team. Zhou Huo was very happy. “I’ll make a post on Weibo to commemorate it. It hasn’t been easy, it hasn’t been easy. Old Qiao, draw up a custom map and pull them in.”
Old Qiao also wanted to watch the excitement so he nodded and logged into the Free’s server on his computer, and built a 1v1 map.
Old Qiao pulled all four of them into the map and turned to hurry up Zhou Huo, “Have you posted it?”
“Okay, okay.” Zhou Huo hurriedly revised the punctuation marks, “Posted! Come on…”
Zhou Huo sent the notice on their official blog and the popularity of their live broadcasts suddenly increased.
“We’ll play wheel matches.” Old Qiao clicked the randomizer. “The first match up will be random. After that will be wheel matches. If you win, you can select who you’ll fight next. Winner gets to ask the loser to do one thing. Don’t go too far. .”
“They get it already.” Zhou Huo urged, “Hurry up.”
Old Qiao said, “I already clicked it, we’re just waiting for the system to do the match up.”
Zhou Huo was very interested. He stretched his neck and looked at Old Qiao’s screen. After waiting for half a minute, the system displayed: Shi Luo and Puppy.
“Tsk…” Puppy was speechless, “Job limitations. I’m a sniper, how am I supposed to beat him?”
Shi Luo didn’t say anything. After the countdown, he appeared out of the resurrection stone.
In the 1V1 mode in the custom server, the map of both parties were free of poisonous fog and both sides have a clear line of sight, it was a wide expanse of flat land. Both players hid behind bunkers. As soon as they killed their opponent, this match was done.
“I can’t fight like this. It’s impossible.” Puppy couldn’t help shaking his head as he chattered endlessly. “There isn’t even any way to upgrade our equipment. This base-level gun can’t be fired continuously. I need to reload after just one shot. Can’t fight, can’t fight, can’t fight…”
Puppy seemed to be slacking around. He kept moaning about his inability to fight, but his eyes were very focused. He opened the lens and locked onto Shi Luo’s position. When Shi Luo was about to grope his way forward, he was met with a steady, accurate and relentless ‘bang’.
It was a pity that Shi Luo reacted too quickly. A change in position let him avoid the key point. Puppy had predicted his position but still only managed to hit Shi Luo on the arm.
Chen Huo was also on the map, and he could see from a bird’s eye perspective. He couldn’t help but say, “…am I dirty or is my Puppy dirty.”
Puppy sighed regretfully. Since he missed his shot, he had to reload. While reloading, he was absolutely no threat. Now that he had fired that shot, Shi Luo didn’t need to look for a cover. For a whole 1.5 seconds he simply walked straight towards him.
But there was no helping it. The striker job cla.s.s was designed to be more flexible and maneuverable. Shi Luo was young, at the age where his reaction speeds were the highest. It was too difficult to catch him. Fortunately, due to job limitations, for now, he couldn’t fire his striker’s gun yet. Puppy had at least five more shots. Puppy held his breath and stopped talking, he waited until Shi Luo came over to his side and then fired the second shot, the third shot, the fourth shot…
The last three shots. .h.i.t air. By the time of his fifth shot, Puppy was within Shi Luo’s range. Puppy’s fifth shot hit Shi Luo’s leg. Shi Luo shot him until he had only a sliver of life left but Shi Luo himself only had a little bit of life too.
Shi Luo had already closed in. Puppy couldn’t hold off Shi Luo at this distance, and there was no time to reload. Puppy resigned himself to his fate and took both hands off his keyboard.
Shi Luo emptied out a cartridge of bullets, taking Puppy’s head, “Spicy Frog Legs, extra spicy and two bowls of rice.”
In Shi Luo’s live broadcast, the live chat was laughing like crazy. The fans filled the screen with “666”s.
Puppy shook his head, opened the takeaway app and sighed, “What do you guys want to eat? I’m ordering…”
Everyone ordered their own midnight snacks. Old Qiao restored the map to its original state and said, “Okay, it’s reset. Next one.”
Zhou Huo happily freeloaded a takeaway meal off from Puppy and looked up at Shi Luo.
Shi Luo exited the map.
Everyone was stunned. Without waiting for the others to ask questions, Shi Luo logged on to his medic account that he had abandoned two years ago.
Shi Luo said, “Next, Whisper.”
Translator’s note:
You just know Puppy would be that kind of friend who keeps saying he’s sh*t at mario kart and then proceeds to slaughter you all.