God’s Left Hand

2010 WCG China Regional Finals.

To be held in July at Shanghai, which was not far from the city where Ai Qing lived.

She still had two months of holiday left.  After she went home, she would go to Slide’s store whenever she was free.  It might have been due to Slide’s smiling face or the many semi-professional esports players that went there. Slide’s business was doing very well.  Earning several hundred thousand RMB in revenue per month and the profit certainly was quite sizable.

Originally, she had felt sorry for Slide, but now it looked like Slide was one of the few retired esports players who had done quite well.

“Starcraft II looks very promising.”  Slide sat on a chair, eating fried rice, while looking at news on the internet.  “Many players I know have begun to play it.”

Ai Qing just responded with an “en” and continued to play a car racing game on her iTouch.

“I saw some gossip on the forums that Solo and a newcomer had turned a plain CS tournament into a cla.s.sic Starcraft II match.  Were you there that day?”

Ai Qing “en” again and she crashed.

“Why’s it so difficult to talk to you?”  Slide sighed.

Ai Qing finally raised her head, snorted a couple of times.  “That’s because you are deliberately giving me a hard time.  Since you already saw the forum, how can you not know that I was there that day and that many things happened that day?”

“I know all of that.”  Slide opened his thermos with a smile. “I even downloaded the video about Solo’s team.  I’m thinking it might be useful for doing a promotion for my shop.  You see if I show the video here and have the sniper from the number one team here as sales, my sales will definitely go through the roof.”

Ai Qing glanced at him and was too lazy to respond.

She didn’t expect that Slide would really pull out the video from his computer and within three or four minutes, all the computers in the store were playing the video before she could stop it.  There were two teenage boys, buying computers at the store, who began excitingly discussing the most popular video on esports forums.

What’s worse was that the two kids started to point at Solo and Ai Qing and gossip about their past affair.

Ai Qing was getting a headache from listening to them.  She slid down from her chair to crouch behind the innermost counter. She was afraid to show her face.

“Why don’t you go watch the WCG finals?”  Slide continued to tease her.

Ai Qing continued to play the racing game.

“The result has come out already, do you know?”  Slide rested his head in his hands and slowly spoke with a smile, “The top three of Warcraft, do you know who the second place is?”

Ai Qing still played her racing game.

“Do you still remember Dt who led us to win the championship at the Asian Tournament that year?”

Ai Qing continued with her racing game.

“Ah?”  Slide stopped and suddenly stood up.  “Speaking of the devil.  Dt?”

She crashed again.

“Gou Gou, get up, quick.”  Slide called her.

“Don’t you trick me again.”  Ai Qing started over on her game. “I won’t be your store’s fortune cat[1].  Unless you take down the video, I definitely won’t come by your store again.”

She sat on the floor, with her back against the counter, and continued to look at her iTouch, pondering which race track she hadn’t memorized.

Then someone knelt down next to her blocking the light.  “Battery’s low.”

The voice was flat, with a texture in between a boy and a man.

Ai Qing couldn’t believe her eyes.  The face under the hunting cap, without much expression, continued to tell her,  “Your iTouch battery is very low, it won’t last for the entire race.”

She stared at him in a daze, still a bit befuddled.