Chapter 37 - Ah Sheng and Liang Liang.
Thank you for the Ko-Fi, Noelle~
People who only woke up around noon in their schedule of work and rest were destined to be enemies with You Liangxing. You Liangxing exited his WeChat and lifted up his phone to take a picture of the calm lake in front of him.
In the picture, the surface of the water was limpid and clear, and the rays of light casting shadows on it made the picture look extremely beautiful. The foliage within sight was jade green, and two swans were frolicking slowly in the lake.
You Liangxing: — Wake up and look at the scenery.
[don’t want to move] went quiet on his end. Soon after, he replied: — The picture is taken very well.
The sudden shift in topics made You Liangxing curl a corner of his mouth gently. It was rare for him to flip through his stickers, but he chose one and sent it over.
You Liangxing: –〖Cannot be Saved〗
Kang Shengzhe returned one immediately: –〖Crossed arms, proud〗
A small, impulsive urge to punch the other party appeared and the other corner of his mouth curled, and You Liangxing revealed a slight but real smile.
Meanwhile, despite implying that he was unwilling and staunch about his refusal to get out of bed, Kang Shengzhe was actually trying to clamber out of it.
After putting on his clothes, Kang Shengzhe spent a few minutes fixing his hair, and while he was getting ready to wash up, he placed the phone in front of the sink and glanced at it from time to time.
Alas, [Little Angel Liang Liang] did not reply and the topic ended there. Someone had to come up with another one because adding each other was merely the first step to becoming closer, and Kang Shengzhe did not want to end the conversation there.
He washed his face quickly, and as he was brushing his teeth, he used his other hand to pick up his phone and rapt out:
— Shall we play a game in a bit?
Since they met in the game, it was not possible for them to only chat on WeChat.
On the other end, [Little Angel Liang Liang] had yet to reply. The waiting process felt particularly long and slow, and after roughly ten seconds, [Little Angel Liang Liang] replied: — I’m outside, it’s not convenient to speak now.
Kang Shengzhe reacted. Yesterday, the both of them had agreed to use their microphones but the other party could not make it. Now that they were talking about game, it was hard to avoid thinking about it.
Kang Shengzhe explained: — There’s no need to open the speech function, we’re going to solo. Solo is just an one-on-one; when we’re playing 1v1 alone, we can’t hear each other’s voices.
You Liangxing replied: k2014; Okay.
To give an a.n.a.lysis, ever since You Liangxing and [don’t want to move] met up until now, they had always been team-mates and they had never played against each other. Considering how it was rare for [don’t want to move] to bring it up, such opportunities were equally hard to come by.
Yes, the other party was strong, and You Liangxing’s disposition made it such that he would never want to retreat even in the face of a powerful opponent.
[don’t want to move] sent him a smiling expression, but this one differed from the one in game. It was the type of smile that made people have the urge to hit their face.
You Liangxing no longer responded and logged into the game, and he was only online for a few seconds before [don’t want to move] sent him an invitation.
–【don’t want to move】invites you to partic.i.p.ate in a 1v1 on the Mohist School’s Mechanical Bridge.
The aforementioned Mohist School’s Mechanical Bridge was a map that was specifically set up for solo games. It did not have the three lanes of top, middle and bottom that 5v5 games had, instead, two players stood on a straight path and the winning condition was to shatter the opponent’s crystal nexus.
You Liangxing pressed accept and entered the hero selection stage, and he could not help but hesitate a little, however infrequent that might be.
What should he choose?
When they were playing normally, You Liangxing was more casual with his choices; he played whatever he wanted to play, and there were numerous instances where he would even try heroes he had never played before. But now that he was going against [don’t want to move], he unconsciously had some thoughts of picking someone safe.
After hesitating three times, You Liangxing finally settled on a hero he had previously played, Gong Sunli. The hero had high mobility, three of her skills allowed her to displace herself and she was highly adaptable when used. Even if she could not win the fight head-on, she could run away with her life without having much issue.
Despite locking in his choice, the game match did not start immediately. You Liangxing could not help but pause…
This meant that the opponent had yet to confirm their hero.
Whenever [don’t want to move] gamed with him, the other party was not an irresolute person either, which signified that he was also hesitating as he picked his hero. While he was waiting for the match to begin, You Liangxing switched out the spell that he had Gong Sunli bring from Ignite to Heal to give himself an extra level of insurance.
The game entered the loading screen. The hero You Liangxing chose was blue-haired and rabbit-eared, posing in her Flower Dance dress, and she was going against a Millennium-old Fox male hero that [don’t want to move] chose.
【don’t want to move】selected Li Bai.
The gears in You Liangxing’s head turned quickly. The hero Li Bai was known as the number one swordsman in the King’s Canyon. He carried an aura of literary excellence with his high mobility, and his first ability allowed him to dash thrice in succession. When compared to Gong Sunli, his flexibility was not lacking in the least.
It was already a powerful hero and now it was in the hands of [don’t want to move] and You Liangxing immediately put his guard up. The game began and he manipulated his hero to move forward quickly, and a line of minions followed soon after in a few seconds. You Liangxing gazed at the other party’s Li Bai, who was fighting against the minions in the middle of the road.
As they were developing in the beginning, Li Bai chose not to cast any abilities. Instead, You Liangxing made the first move as a declaration of strength, setting down his first ability and moving forward to attack but [don’t want to move] expected it and he quickly backed away to his tower.
The attack was useless.
You Liangxing could only continue to eat the minions as Li Bai kept his distance from him, but the latter still managed to clear his minions in an orderly and clean fashion.
After two waves of minions were whittled down, both sides were at level four and they had their full sets of skills. The only thing they were waiting for was an engage. In a 1v1 situation, there was no such thing as an ambush when there was only one lane, which was why it was the optimal battleground to mutually test each other’s technique.
Maintaining the principle of ‘If the enemy does not move, I will not move’, neither of them tried anything.
After dragging on the situation for about ten seconds, [don’t want to move]’s Li Bai broke the silence and stepped forward to release two of his abilities just as You Liangxing’s hands operated his first ability to dash forward.
Because their timings were too coincidental, they ended up jumping out of the range of each other’s attacks; a mere brush of the shoulders, with no one hitting the other.
The atmosphere was as embarra.s.sing as one could imagine.
You Liangxing reactivated Gong Sunli’s first ability again, which had a pa.s.sive of allowing her to return back to her original position if the second cast happened in a short time interval from the first. In a twinkling of an eye, Gong Sunli jumped back again.
And perhaps the world had that many coincidences – when Gong Sunli returned back to her old position, Li Bai happened to cast the last of his three dashes and proceeded to go back to where he first stood because his first ability had a similar pa.s.sive. At this point, no one had managed to land a hit.
They had used their abilities twice in vain.
A wasted hand.
After the deadlock, [don’t want to move] backed into his tower and typed: — This is probably…
— A Confrontation between Masters.
Seated in the park, You Liangxing suddenly laughed. Drawn by his laughter, a little girl looked over and stared at him for a good while.
His laughter did not stop, and let it be known that he was not a person who liked laughing, no matter how frequently he had been doing so recently. After thinking about it for a bit, he typed something in the chat.
Before the text was sent out, You Liangxing’s Gong Sunli suddenly lost half of her health. Although You Liangxing manipulated her to retreat in a hurry, Li Bai’s movements were even faster and he continued to chase as if he could not bear to part. Within a moment’s work, Gong Sunli fell to the ground, dead.
The blue-haired lady disappeared from the road, only leaving behind a small blue umbrella. It was an extremely pathetic sight.
You Liangxing: … Huh.
Being attacked while he was typing was a plot he never expected.
And as if killing him was not enough, [don’t want to move] raised a hue and cry in the all chat: — Can you even guard against it?
You Liangxing: …..
You Liangxing no longer bothered to reply. After Gong Sunli revived, he instantaneously controlled his hero to move forward to trade blows with Li Bai under the tower. Unfortunately, the rest of the game was akin to his troops being defeated in a landslide; he was killed twice by [don’t want to move] before You Liangxing’s crystal nexus was broken.
In a one against one, dying once had a great impact to the progression of the game. In the absence of an opposition, the enemy could seize the time to either develop or attack the tower. While the opponent had carried out a sneak attack, You Liangxing was not dissatisfied with the ending.
Truthfully speaking, the skill level of [don’t want to move] was higher than his. In a normal duel, You Liangxing was not confident that he could win.
It was not a question of technique or hand speed; the crucial part was that [don’t want to move] had a lot more gaming experience as compared to him. Most of the time, before You Liangxing even moved, [don’t want to move] had already predicted his pathing in advance.
Since the round ended, You Liangxing returned to WeChat, and [don’t want to move] sent a message over.
[don’t want to move]: — Won by a narrow margin.
Afterwards, he even attached a〖Smoker〗sticker.
You Liangxing flipped through his own expression stash, only to realise that his own resources were extremely scarce because his attempt to find an appropriate expression was coming up empty. He stewed over it and calmed down instead.
After a while, You Liangxing replied: — I have never asked, but how should I address you?
Due to the fact that the question had nothing to do with the previous topic, Kang Shengzhe could not help but stiffen a little. From a place where You Liangxing could not see him, Kang Shengzhe smiled slightly.
A murmur: Ah Sheng.
[don’t want to move]: — Call me Ah Sheng.
T/N: The chapter was a little more technical~ If there’s something you didn’t understand, please comment below, I’ll try my best to explain it!