Chapter 335 – All Star 24 (1)
From up above in the hotel, the bright Samsara stadium could be seen from the window. They were already busily preparing for the final day.
The All-Star Weekend was a three day event and only had a one-day pa.s.s and a three-day pa.s.s. Chen Guo had managed to obtain three-day pa.s.ses. But just from their retail price, it could be seen that the ticket for the third day was the most expensive.
There was only one event on the third day: the All-Star Compet.i.tions. The 24 players that were chosen by the fans, in other words, the 24 most popular players, would be split into two teams and would compete in an official match format with an individual compet.i.tion, a group compet.i.tion, and a team compet.i.tion.
Even though the compet.i.tion was simply just for show, the number of viewers and the ratings it received could be compared to those of the finals in the regular season.
As a result, Chen Guo would be very conflicted as to whether she wouldn’t be able to watch the All-Star event live at the stadium. Tang Rou and Ye Xiu, on the other hand, didn’t really care. Tang Rou still hadn’t logged out of the game, while Ye Xiu was still giving her pointers. They would only turn their heads around whenever Chen Guo said something.
“In reality, your family all know that you’re a pro player, right?” Chen Guo suddenly asked Ye Xiu.
“Yeah.” Ye Xiu didn’t turn his head around this time.
“Then why are you still afraid of revealing yourself?” Chen Guo found the chance to dig deeper.
“Initially, I didn’t want them to find out, but later…… I didn’t want to embarra.s.s them. In their eyes, no matter how great I become, I’m just a failure to them.” Ye Xiu said.
Chen Guo fell silent. She realized that she shouldn’t have dug so deep into Ye Xiu’s roots. Perhaps he didn’t want to remember these things, but she had helped him in bringing them up. She felt extremely bad for doing so.
With this ounce of regret, Chen Guo immediately patted the TV: “Forget about it, then. We won’t go tonight. We can just watch from the TV.”
“Actually, it’ll be fine if only I don’t go. It’s not like it matters if you two go.” Ye Xiu said.
“Oh, that’s true! When the reporters come, I can give my Internet Cafe some advertis.e.m.e.nt.” Chen Guo spoke her thoughts.
Tang Rou turned her head and said: “But if you do that, when the customers come, they might be there to crowd around instead of going online, no?”
“Oh……” Chen Guo sighed in lament: “I forgot about that.”
“Go, go! You guys go ahead!” Ye Xiu stood behind Tang Rou and urged them.
“What are you going to do?” Tang Rou turned her head to look at him.
“You’re going to watch the event, no? Let me play!” Ye Xiu exclaimed.
“That isn’t your actual reason, is it? You just want to play the game!” Chen Guo said.
“No way. Didn’t I already tell you about my difficulties?” Ye Xiu said. It was just that his tone was very casual and didn’t sound pained. Chen Guo doubted for a second, but then decided not to say anything more and turned towards Tang Rou.
Tang Rou obviously knew that no matter what, Chen Guo still wanted to go very much. It hadn’t been easy getting the tickets. Missing the big event like this would be something that no fan wouldn’t regret. As a result, she got up and gave the seat to Ye Xiu: “Then we’ll be going now.”
“Go, go!” Ye Xiu waved his hands. He swiftly logged out of Tang Rou’s Soft Mist account and logged on to play his Lord Grim.
“You’re not going to watch the All-Star event?” Chen Guo asked.
“I will, but it’s still early, no? When the time comes, I’ll watch, while playing the game.” Ye Xiu said.
Thus, the two girls left the room, leaving Ye Xiu alone.
The All-Star Compet.i.tion deserved to be comparable with the finals. It greatly impacted the number of players online. In the afternoon, the leveling areas were still quite crowded, but as it got closer to the peak hours at night, there were fewer players. Playing while watching? That wasn’t something easy to do. An intensive game like Glory didn’t allow for much room to be distracted when fighting.
As a result, Ye Xiu played for a bit and then, when he saw that it was almost time, he logged out of the game and turned on the TV.
The press conference began before the compet.i.tion. At this moment, the 24 All- Stars hadn’t yet got onstage yet, when suddenly they were swarmed by reporters.
The first one to be interviewed was at the pro player seats. He had arrived early, the upright Team Tyranny vice captain, Zhang Xinjie.
“h.e.l.lo, vice captain.” The reporter hastily went forward.
“h.e.l.lo.” Zhang Xinjie nodded his head.
“Even though it’s the All-Star event, you’ve still kept your habit of arriving onstage thirty minutes earlier!” The reporter began to talk.
“Yes.” Zhang Xinjie nodded his head.
“I’m sure our audience is looking forward to how the teams will be split. Could you give us an early reveal?” the reporter said.
Zhang Xinjie looked at the reporter strangely: “Isn’t one of the rules not to reveal things early?”
“Ha ha, it’s about to start in half an hour anyways. It’s not like it’s going to matter much!” the reporter said.
Zhang Xinjie shook his head: “No comment.”
The atmosphere stiffened. The reporter could only switch to a different topic: “With vice captain’s cla.s.s, you’re probably going to be competing in the team compet.i.tion. As one of the Master Tacticians, could you have already prepared some sort of amazing strategy?”
“You’ll know when the times comes.” Zhang Xinjie politely replied. His tone didn’t reveal anything.
“Thank you, vice captain……” The reporter was helpless and could only end this pointless interview.
Afterwards, he looked around and saw that someone was already sitting at Team Excellent Era’s seat: Su Mucheng, one of the 24 All-Star players.
The relations.h.i.+p between Su Mucheng and Ye Qiu wasn’t a secret and it was currently an extremely good topic to talk about. The reporter wouldn’t let this opportunity slip and immediately rushed forward along with the cameraman.
“Mucheng, could you give the audience a wave?” the reporter said.
“Hi!” Su Mucheng waved her hands at the camera: “Are you watching TV?”
Ye Xiu, who was sitting in front of the TV, was completely speechless. Wasn’t that wave a bit personal?
Sure enough, the reporter caught it and laughed: “Your wave was a bit special. Was there some sort of special meaning to it?”
Su Mucheng smiled: “You understand.”
“Were you waving to Ye Qiu?” the reporter understood.
“Yup!” Su Mucheng confirmed.
“So you’re saying…… Ye Qiu won’t be coming to watch today?” The reporter immediately became aware of this issue.
“I actually have no idea!” Su Mucheng said.
“But you just waved your hands at the camera!” the reporter said.
“Isn’t it the same thing? If he’s watching in front of the TV, then he’ll have seen me. If he’s at the stadium…… then he’ll see me on the big screen, as well.” Su Mucheng pointed to the big screen in the stadium, which was broadcasting this interview.
“So it’s like that. Thank you, Mucheng.” The interview ended. The frame temporarily cut off and the reporter went to find another target.
The broadcast turned the camera around towards the audience. Ye Xiu looked. Wasn’t the camera pointed at Chen Guo and Tang Rou? The broadcast team had clearly prepared for this and began to focus in on them. These two beautiful girls very naturally looked good on camera. Even though it didn’t have the same feeling as it did yesterday, they were still pleasing to look at. However, the feature clearly wasn’t towards them. The camera turned and turned and then stopped at the empty seat beside the two of them.
After the reporter found another All-Star to interview, the camera turned back to the interview. For matches like these, the pros were more relaxed. Very few of them would be as official like Zhang Xinjie was. They joked around with the reporter and made fun of pros they were friends with. The thirty minutes before the event officially began went by quickly.
When the event officially began, the stadium’s lights turned off. Even though the list of which 24 players were chosen had been released on the first day of the event, the true All-Star event really only began on the final day.
The spotlights flashed on. The first to come up onstage was Samsara’s ace player, Zhou Zekai. Under the dazzling lights, he stepped onto the stage and a projection appeared beside him, which was Zhou Zekai’s character, Cloud Piercer. The crowd gave a deafening cheer for their home team’s ace. Zhou Zekai also acted very appropriately. Along with his looks, he gave off an air that was fit for a G.o.d.
The second player to come up onstage was also a Samsara player: Jiang Botao. His character Empty Waves was a Spellblade and was second in Team Samsara only to Zhou Zekai.
Only the player’s name and character was introduced, so the introductions went by very quickly. After Samsara’s two players, next up was Team Blue Rain. They had three players in this year’s All-Star event:
Yu Wenzhou. Character: Swoksaar. Cla.s.s: Warlock.
Huang Shaotian. Character: Troubling Rain. Cla.s.s: Blade Master.
Yu Feng. Character: Brilliant Edge. Cla.s.s: Berserker.
Next came Team Misty Rain’s two players:
Chu Yunxiu. Character: Windy Rain. Cla.s.s: Elementalist.
Li Hua. Character: Dark Forest. Cla.s.s: Ninja.
Team Hundred Blossoms:
Tang Hao. Character: Delillo. Cla.s.s: Brawler.
Zou Yuan. Character: Dazzling Hundred Blossoms. Cla.s.s: Spitfire.
The two Team Hundred Blossom players were somewhat of an anomaly. Tang Hao was a rookie who had only been a pro for two years. His character Delillo wasn’t anything special in the pro circle, but based on his outstanding performance in the last year, he had won over many fans and was able to obtain a spot as an All-Star despite his mediocre account.
As for Zou Yuan, he was the exact opposite of Tang Hao. This hastily-found subst.i.tute, using their original team captain Zhang Jiale’s Dazzling Hundred Blossom, didn’t have much going for him. The reason he was able to become one of the 24 All-Stars was largely because of Dazzling Hundred Blossom’s popularity. There were too many Glory fans who didn’t want to see this G.o.d level character missing from the All-Star stage.
Zou Yuan clearly understood this. On the stage, he quietly stepped back when the projection of Dazzling Hundred Blossoms appeared.