Chapter 154: Unt.i.tled
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Could it be that LittleDisciple had suddenly changed his nickname?
Ji Zhiyao pulled out his phone and found little disciple”s WeChat name, realizing that it had not been changed at all.
Simply too odd.
Unless Mo Huaifeng did not add his little nephew on WeChat.
Ji Zhiyao held two phones and sat solemnly on the edge of the bed. He deliberated for a while, an absurd thought gradually formed.
He unlocked Mo Huaifeng’s phone once more and searched for “switch accounts”.
“DB.MHF”.
“World’sBestJungler”.
…
!
Ji Zhiyao rubbed his eyes in incredulity.
There were two accounts!
This also means that, his little disciple, the little nephew that his Captain mentioned once in a while was a pretense by his Captain the entire time?
Ji Zhiyao was enlightened about the matter, his face instantly going dark.
But at the beginning when his little disciple acknowledged him as his master, they did use the voice chat. Little disciple’s voice was completely different from Captain’s, hence he had never thought about things in this aspect previously. What exactly was this?
Ji Zhiyao inhaled exhaled and inhaled again, forcing himself to calm down. He stay seated for another few minutes, then pushed open the door to leave, going into his own room and found a notebook to fill in for his excuse.
He went downstairs and returned to the training room once more. Mo Huaifeng looked up at him, slightly confused as he asked, “What took so long?”
“My notebook was buried right at the bottom, took a long time to find it.” Ji Zhiyao threw the notebook that was actually of no use at all onto the table, then pa.s.sed Mo Huaifeng the phone. “Captain, here you go.”
Mo Huaifeng took it and unlocked the screen. “I’m a little hungry, what takeaway do you guys want to eat?”
Following behind “pizza”,”cola”,”fried chicken”, Ji Zhiyao added leisurely, “My throat doesn’t feel too good recently, is there a type of food that can change a person’s voice after eating it?”
The finger scrolling the phone paused, Mo Huaifeng looked towards Ji Zhiyao with a frown. Ji Zhiyao stared back in all seriousness, not one bit of abnormality in his expression.
Perhaps it was because he didn’t make out anything, Mo Huaifeng continued to lower his head and search for food, not forgetting to grant a word of concern. “What’s wrong with you again?”
Ji Zhiyao twitched the corner of his lips.
Then it came to the time to play ranked matches after eating, Heng felt that the situation wasn’t quite right and was considering getting Nuo to bait the opponents that were hiding in the bushes to jump out. Nuo was sheepish about it, afraid that he would be killed, Ji Zhiyao said, “We can consider letting Captain a.s.semble a lolita’s voice, and seduce the opponents to surrender with their hands raised. This way Nuo won’t have to be bait anymore.”
Heng: “Noh.o.m.o, you must be kidding me, did you come out without taking your medicine again?”
Ji Zhiyao: “I’m being serious. Our Captain should be very suited for such roles.”
Yet Nuo was extremely cowardly, and did not dare to implicate Captain, and proceeded without hesitation to sacrifice himself and sent the entire team to victory. When the game ended, everyone took off their ear phones, Mo Huaifeng called out calmly, “Noh.o.m.o, come out for a moment.”
Nuo: “He’s doomed, Captain is dragging our pitiful Noh.o.m.o out to KO him.”
Heng: “My heart aches.”
Nuo: “Heartache +1.”
Yet Ji Zhiyao seemed to have antic.i.p.ated this outcome and quietly followed Mo Huaifeng out of the training room, closing the door as he walked out.
Standing in the corner outside the training room, Mo Huaifeng spoke in a tone like he was making a statement. “You’ve found out that… your disciple was a pretense by me.”
Ji Zhiyao had already made it so obvious, if he still couldn’t tell, then he would really be a fool.
He didn’t expect Mo Huaifeng to be so direct, Ji Zhiyao was first stunned, then tugged up the corner of his lips, his voice with some trace of doubt as he said, “I don’t understand why you wanted to lie to me. From the beginning till the end, LittleDisciple hasn’t really done anything to me.” Other than angering him.
Mo Huaifeng explained, “At the start I made friends with you for the sake of examining your standard, that’s why I got you to guide me.”
Ji Zhiyao thought carefully and nodded solemnly, indicating that he agreed with this account.
“Then, I gave you some suggestions on playing.”
Ji Zhiyao nodded continued to nod.
“After that… do you have no idea yourself?”
After that, what was it?
Ji Zhiyao thought back and forth to himself and realized that subsequently, it f*cking seemed like it was LittleDisciple who urged him not to get a girlfriend?
So Captain already harbored improper ideas about him then!
Ji Zhiyao took a step back into the corner, exclaiming in shock, “I’m still a child! Captain you’re a beast!”
Mo Huaifeng suddenly had the desire to pull an impromptu act and pulled his s.h.i.+rt before his chest downwards, lifting the corner of his lips. “Go ahead and shout. No matter how loud you shout there won’t be anyone who would come and save you.”
Ji Zhiyao went silent.
“Why, was my acting no good?”
Ji Zhiyao’s expression was a little dazed.
Mo Huaifeng felt that something was slightly amiss and looked backwards following his staring gaze and realized that Yuan Wei had walked in and was currently standing three meters away from them, a position where he definitely could have heard their conversation. His expression was blank.
d.a.m.n it.
…
“So it was Captain who turned you crooked?”
Yuan Wei sat on the sofa in the living room for a while, he’d just felt that his heart seizure seemed to have just recovered and almost fainted from choking on this line again.
Ji Zhiyao and Mo Huaifeng sat on two sides of the sofa. Upon hearing that, Ji Zhiyao nodded and said boldly and confidently, “That’s right, he first made a move on this little kitty that is me.”
Mo Huaifeng and Yuan Wei were speechless.
Yuan Wei clutched his chest. “Thankfully both of you haven’t done outside and get caught by fans, if not our battleteam would lose a third of our members at once, what are we to do then? Have you considered whether this fragile-hearted battleteam manager would be able to accept it when both of you decided to start a gay relations.h.i.+p!”
Mo Huaifeng snickered, “What are you afraid of, the club won’t fire you over this.”
“That’s true.” Yuan Wei calmed down, “In short both of you just be more cautious, we cannot have any news before the compet.i.tion, after that you can have as many scandals and gossip in however way you want it, n.o.body would care even if you take the number one spot in Weibo’s trending searches.”
Ji Zhiyao rea.s.sured him. “Don’t worry, we understand.”
At the thought that these two people did not have their training affected because of their relations.h.i.+p, Ji Zhiyao’s results even becoming better, appearing to be very understanding and aware, Yuan Wei felt that he could temporarily put his heart at ease.
It was enough that they were able to achieve all this, could he even forcefully make these two people change their s.e.xual orientation for the image of the battleteam?
Yuan Wei said, “Anyhow both of you take note. If someone asks just answer that it’s bromance or if it really doesn’t work, father and son relations.h.i.+p works too. If there are any problems that can’t be handled properly, let me know, I will contact the club to go through with public relations…”
Ji Zhiyao interrupted, “Yuan Wei, look, does my wristband look nice?”
“Not bad. Hold on! You don’t have to go on I don’t want-”
“I think it looks really nice too! Can’t help it, Captain’s taste is just so outstanding.”
“… d.a.m.n you get lost, get lost! These days even the gay ones can come and PDA before me, why do I not have a girlfriend yet?”
Mo Huaifeng answered him, “Because of ugliness?”
“Captain you get lost together with Noh.o.m.o!”
Mo Huaifeng and Ji Zhiyao shared a look and stood up at the same time. Ji Zhiyao patted Yuan Wei’s shoulder, as he spoke in all earnestness, “Anyway people with two legs or three are all equally easy to find, there might just be some blind ones. All the best Brother Yuan Wei.”
It would be better if he hadn’t spoken if this was what he wanted to say!
Heartache.
By dinner time, Yuan Wei felt as if he had become unbelievable.
Originally, when he saw Mo Huaifeng and Ji Zhiyao sitting side by side, with Mo Huaifeng placing a piece of meat in Ji Zhiyao’s bowl from time to time, he would always exclaim that the father and son have a great relations.h.i.+p. Now that he knew the truth, although they have not acted out of place, Yuan Wei always felt that…
Nauseating PDA was being casually slapped onto his face.
Halfway through the meal, Yuan Wei suddenly carried his bowl and crawled under the table with half of his body.
The others seemed to be frozen.
Less than two seconds later, Yuan Wei sat up straight again. Seated beside him, Xiaofei looked wholly confused with a pork rib in his mouth as he asked, “Brother, what’s wrong with you?”
Yuan Wei wiped his face with his hand, his expression like he had experienced many vicissitudes of life.
Actually there was nothing much, he was just observing if there was anyone secretly holding hands under the table.
Yet he definitely would not say these words out loud.
Ever since Ji Zhiyao and Mo Huaifeng’s gay relations.h.i.+p was exposed to Yuan Wei, he became Ji Zhiyao’s attack target. Ji Zhiyao would frequently run to Yuan Wei and tease him a bit, yet Yuan Wei could not teach him a lesson and could only bear it.
30th September, Mix battleteam’s last training tournament against W.J that was set before the compet.i.tion ended.
This also meant that the national qualifiers were about to begin.
…
Finally.
6th October.
Since 7AM, as long they were interested in eSports, most stayed before the television on certain sports channels or on the major livestreaming platforms, looking at the screen that had yet to cut towards the main subject and only showed a few staff members around from time to time, nervously commenting.
[Why has it not started? I’m so nervous that my hands are numb.]
[Nervous +1. Right now my expression looks especially constipated.]
[Fi-G.o.d hubby my love! I’m coming!]
[Already bought all the snacks, Tall Boots’ placing determines the number of bags I can finish eating.]
[Although I don’t hold any holds for the present situation of the local eSports scene, I still can’t control myself. [covers face] Hopefully this time we can restore our glory!]
S City Gymnasium, overcrowded.
Everyone’s faces or necks, arms, thighs, basically everywhere was pasted with the names of the battleteam that they were most supportive of. They held cheering sticks in their hands, some people even put up banners. The stage was still empty but the screams and shouts in the gymnasium were about to break the roof.
Held triennially, Heroes National Qualifiers, finally arrived.
Finally, countdown characters in gold appeared on the large screen.
Almost the entire audience held their breath and shouted together with the s.h.i.+ning electronic screen.
“Three!”
“Two!”
“One!”
The countdown clock on the screen exploded in the last second as gold fireworks shot up around the stage.
“Welcome to the live venue of eSports event Heroes’ National Qualifiers!” When the atmosphere of the scene was at its peak, a male voice came through the speakers. “Good morning, I am commentator Nian Nian.”
Another female voice followed. “h.e.l.lo, I am commentator Qing Tian.”
“Next up let us invite on stage the 20 battleteams that have qualified to partic.i.p.ate in the national qualifiers.”
“Welcome Lan Battleteam!
“Welcome W.J Battleteam!
“Welcome Bao Lu Battleteam!
“Welcome Nx Battleteam!
“Welcome Bug Battleteam!
“Welcome Tall Boots Battleteam!
“Now, we welcome the champions of the previous national qualifiers, Mix Battleteam!”
Alongside the loudest cheers in the gymnasium, after a smoke screen, seven boys dressed in Mix Battleteam’s team uniform stood right in the middle of the stage, waving to the audience.
Qing Tian: “Alright. Let’s have the members of each battleteam move towards the special seating area to take their seats, captains of each battleteam please remain on stage, next we will proceed with the drawing of lots to divide the 20 battleteams into two groups.”
The other members were brought to the special seating in the audience belonging to players, 20 captains remained on stage, before them was a sealed-off square box, to be used for the drawing of lots, on the top, only a s.p.a.ce around the size of a fist was left open.
Ji Zhiyao sat down at the seats for Mix battleteam and exhaled deeply.
Since he started playing eSports, this was his first time coming to the live venue and also his first time appearing as a professional player. When he stood on the stage earlier, he saw the audience all around who were cheering and rooting, it would be impossible to say that he wasn’t nervous.
Yuan Wei sat right beside Ji Zhiyao, seeing him breathing in deeply, he asked, “Nervous?”
“A little.”
“It might not be our turn to compete today, no need to be nervous.” Yuan Wei said, “Hopefully daddy Captain will have amazing luck and get us a good lot, it’s best that we don’t meet the wily old foxes of Tall Boots right at the start.”
Ji Zhiyao looked towards the stage, his Captain was standing before the drawing box, he put his hand in…
Then brought out a small blue ball.
The small blue ball represented group B.
With Mo Huaifeng being done with his turn, the large screen flashed out the groupings that was just decided.
Group A: Tall Boots, Nx. Skitter, Lan, Macaron, Bubbles, Wan Ning, Midsummer, LA, SILI.
Group B: Mix, Bug, Bao Lu, W.J, Rocket, Wenka. Wan Chuan, Miao Pai, X, Stickers.
At this point, the drawing of lots for the two groups officially ended.
Ji Zhiyao gazed at the names on the large screen. A matter worth rejoicing was that, such troublesome opponents as Tall Boots and Skitters were placed in the other group. And within group B, with the exception of Bug Battleteam, the other few battleteams had either been thrashed by Mix, or they’d never heard of those names at all, and would not pose a threat to them.
Yuan Wei also made that out, and could not hold in his excitement. “Our Captain is indeed still Captain, look at that luck, with the exception of Bug and Stickers, group B is essentially rookies pecking at each other.”
Ji Zhiyao nodded in firm agreement.
The small b.a.l.l.s that each captain drew out had a label pasted on it, the organizing committee sent their members to check and go through with registering. Hence three minutes later, the competing list appeared on the large screen.
Group A:
No. 1, Lan vs Tall Boots.
No. 2, Midsummer vs Wan Ning.
No. 3, Bubbles vs LA.
No. 4, Skitters vs SILI (tomorrow).
No. 5, Macaron vs Nx (tomorrow).
Group B:
No. 1, Bug vs X.
No. 2, Bao Lu vs Rocket.
No. 3, Mix vs Stickers (tomorrow).
No. 4, Wenka vs Miao Pai (tomorrow).
No. 5, W.J vs Wan Chuan (tomorrow).
This also meant that, Mix would not be competing today.
Ji Zhiyao s.h.i.+fted his gaze from the large screen onto Mo Huaifeng. Mo Huaifeng followed behind the staff members and exited the stage, preparing to spectate the following matches that were about to begin.
A few minutes later Mo Huaifeng sat down beside him, Ji Zhiyao clearly heard the exaggerated “ah” from the female audience 10 meters away from their seats and twitched the corner of his lips.
Mo Huaifeng asked, “What’s wrong with you? Not feeling well?”
“Do you hear the cheers sounding out from the audience at the back for you? I should rejoice that we’re seated far from there. If I was among them, perhaps after the national qualifiers end, I would have to go get myself an hearing aid.”