God’s Left Hand

The men from Solo’s club were intently watching the compet.i.tion.  When she sat down, the man who sat next to Solo’s empty seat suddenly turned his head and smiled.

Ai Qing whispered,  “Have I missed anything?”

“It’s c.o.c.ky All.”  He jokingly made a shooting gesture.  “He shot through six walls and killed an enemy.”

Ai Qing couldn’t help but smile.  “I swear, it’s 80 percent luck.”

“Just luck for penetrating through six walls?”  He exhaled a long breath.  “For those two seconds, G.o.d must have stood right behind him.”

G.o.d definitely had stood behind him.

Ai Qing thought those words sounded very familiar.  She remembered after a while, that was a favorite phrase that Solo’s club liked to use whenever they were being interviewed.  She didn’t know very much about Solo’s club.  She would go meet him near the club only when she needed to talk to him and sometimes she would meet some of the top players of other events.

As the strongest club in China, SP recruited many top players and had became a peculiar legend in the esports circle.  Since it’s a legend, there were many hearsays about the club and it’s hard to get a true picture of it.

Every year, those SP top players would receive invitations from various tournaments around the world.  WCG was one of them.

The top SP players would use alternate ids to play on the three largest platforms, Battle.net, VS, and CGA, therefore, anyone could have the chance to play against real top players who were hiding behind the screen.

“Exploring the Mysteries of SP”, “SP Secrets”, “Talk About SP’s Affairs”......any post with a t.i.tle like these would become the hottest post on a forum.

“I’m Baona.”  The man who had an ordinary look, suddenly introduced himself.  “I’m the Chinese regional manager of SP club.”

Ai Qing was surprised and laughed.  “I thought ‘Baona’ was a woman.”

“It’s normal.”  Baona laughed and kindly said,  “Everyone says that.”

“Besides, you are one of the rare ones who uses a Chinese name as far as I know.”

“Sometimes, I would get embarra.s.sing names after translating from Chinese.  For example, I was called ‘baby’ very often.”  Baona pointed at her.  “You were called ‘little dog’ very often before.”

Ai Qing laughed.  “Why did you use this name in the beginning?”

“When I started playing esports, I would alway yelled ‘bao ne, bao ne[1]’.  So others started calling that.  After a while, I got used to it too.”

Ai Qing was quite amazed.  “You also played CS?”

Only those who played CS would understand where the “bao” in his nickname came from [2] …… you wouldn’t think that the manager of the best Chinese club had started as a CS player himself.

“Relax.  You won’t remember me even if you exhaust your brain.  I started playing in ‘01 and retired ‘03.”  Baona calmly said,  “At that time, CS in China wasn’t very strong.  Therefore, I chose to help from behind the scenes.  Your team didn’t appear until a year later.”

“So when you brought in funding to start the SP club, you thought about Solo first?”

No wonder, Solo was the first one to sign with SP China.

“Actually, I wanted to sign with all of you at the time, especially Solo, Gun, and you.”

[1]: 包呢, pinyin: “bao ne” means literally “bag where?” or in better English “Where’s the bag?”

[2]: “bao” in the raws is shorthand for 炸药包, pinyin: “zha yao bao” means literally “dynamite/explosive bag” which if you play CS should know that he’s talking about the bomb that one team has to plant and the other team has to try and defuse.  So really he’s yelling “Where’s the bomb?” all the time.