FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 60

The moment Yu Sui’s voice came from Shi Luo’s live broadcast, his live broadcast room exploded.

[*Crying* I never thought I’d ever be able to hear Yu Shen’s voice in Evil’s live broadcast... Two months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it even if you killed me.]

[When watching Shi Shen’s live broadcasts, you must have a strong heart to withstand the ups and downs of life...]

[Is it fun scaring us? Is it? Is it?]

[I’ve really devoted so much to stanning this team...]

[Stanning this team is too difficult. Every day, my mind is filled with worry whether there’ll be disharmony between the medic and striker.]

[Aren’t you supposed to watch their live broadcasts for their skills? What the heck are all you fans worrying about?]

[We came to watch their skills. But is it so wrong to want the players to also get along?]

[Is there something wrong about fans worrying about their team?]

[Don’t accuse the fans of being oversensitive. Whisper’s team is too prone to mishaps. My Yu Shen’s teams have really bad luck. ]

[Don’t accuse the fans of being oversensitive +1]

[Don’t accuse the fans of being oversensitive +2, Their original team, FS, was really unlucky. The fans are constantly on edge, thinking that some sort of sh*t could crop up any minute and cause the team to disband. ]

[Don’t accuse the fans of being oversensitive +3, I’ve always felt that the surrounding feeling between these two was strange. I can’t really describe it. It’s just weird.]

[When you really think about it, it really is a bit strange... Yu Shen’s attitude towards Evil has always been confusing. He was the one who heartlessly left Evil in the past, and now he’s also the one who’s giving Evil preferential treatment.]

[Your Yu Shen’s attitude has always been confusing when it comes to our son, Shi Luo. It’s been that way since two years ago.]

[Is there any need to ask? This is obviously a display of deep affection towards one’s child.]

[Is there any need to ask? This is obviously the special care one shows for the player one has personally brought into the industry.]

[Is there any need to ask? This is the team friendship within Team Free that exists only between Yu Shen and our son, Shi Luo.]

Shi Luo hurriedly glanced at the live chat, coughed, and clicked to continue queuing up.

On his side, Yu Sui also clicked to continue queueing up. Yu Sui was deliberately teasing Shi Luo. For their matches, he still continued to play focusing only on his own play. Shi Luo was repeatedly given the Chen Huo experience free of charge. Shi Luo ground his teeth. It would be too embarrassing to ask Yu Sui to heal him. It’d been Shi Luo himself who’d told Yu Sui not to treat him as a boyfriend. It was also he himself who’d asked Yu Sui not to treat him too well during a live broadcast. The other party was just following what he wanted. It’d be really hypocritical of him to take it back now.

Shi Luo bore the burden of his own mistake. In each match, he pretended not to have a medic and took it as additional training. Shi Luo had no choice but to also play to the extreme. Over on the other side, Yu Sui was happily going on a killing spree. These two played like this for six or seven matches. Miraculously, they managed to maintain a winning streak, and for a while, they climbed up the rankings.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Zhou Huo entered the training room at around half past midnight. “I’m going to head to bed now. But before that I want to talk to you guys about our arrangements for the day after tomorrow as well as a small matter. If you’re in the middle of the broadcast, you can just turn off your mic and webcam. This will just be a moment.”

Everyone did as they were told. They took off their headphones but kept their eyes on the computer screen; multi-tasking so as not to lose any time.

“Yu Sui, Shi Luo, you’re not arguing, are you?” Zhou Huo first asked with concern. “I just took a look at Shi Luo’s live broadcast room. Why did someone say that you two were quarrelling?”

Shi Luo’s face went a little hot, and he said vaguely, “No, We’re just playing around.”

“That’s fine, about the day after tomorrow... Oh no, it’s already after twelve o’clock so it is already tomorrow.” Zhou Huo patted his head, “Tomorrow we’re having our regular season match against NSN. NSN’s home stadium is in Shanghai, so it’s not too far. There’s no need to get up early, but still make sure that you get enough rest. Don’t sleep too late night before. It’s our first time to meeting with a strong team this season. Don’t let your guard down. People in the forums have already begun gossiping. They’ve done such in-depth analyses even I’m kind of convinced. NSN’s fans and our fans have secretly been matching strengths against each other. Everyone should work hard. It would be best if we could keep our winning streak.”

“It’s been quite some time since the season started, and now, last season’s champion Team Saint is still pretty stable. The regular season determines the playoffs, and the playoffs determine the World Championships. There are only two spots for the World Championships. It’s not that difficult for Saint to maintain their current state. So, for the last spot, if it’s not NSN’s, then it’ll be ours. Given that it’s the first year for our team, we shouldn’t have such big ambitions, but I don’t need to tell you, all players want to go to the World Championships. You all know this.”

Zhou Huo then added, “There’s one other thing...”

Zhou Huo sighed, “I’ll tell you first, so that you won’t get even angrier when you hear about it yourselves. Sacred Sword that sh*t team, tweeted about playing against the teams in our region just now. Being schooled by someone across the ocean, you can all just imagine how nasty the insults the netizens are leveling at you guys.”

“They didn’t mention us. They don’t have the face to do that.” Zhou Huo was dumbfounded. “The reason is also very simple. After us, Sacred Sword behaved themselves for a few days, and then they scheduled practice matches one by one with all the teams in our division and won.”

Chen Huo laughed, “Practice matches one by one? Are they sick?”

“They sent out a tweet with an image saying they’ve unlocked the achievement of a complete victory over the Chinese division.” Zhou Huo said helplessly. “They’re technically right. We didn’t beat them, after all. And... frankly speaking, if the fight had continued on, the probability of us winning wasn’t all that high.”

Shi Luo said coldly, “We could set a rematch.”

“In my opinion, I don’t want a rematch. Of course, my opinion is secondary. As for Sacred Sword, they’ve made it clear that they don’t want to set another match. Last time I ridiculed their manager and Sacred Sword replied that they’re still breaking in their new team. After they’ve broken in the team, they’ll consider continuing.” Zhou Huo looked at around at them and shrugged, “Of course, I also had to save face for us. I said we’ve just established the team and we’re also still breaking in the team. We also have a player who has no World Championship experience.”

Shi Luo, the only one who had no World Championship experience, didn’t speak. He fired a shot and took away his opponent’s head.

Puppy pondered for a while and felt something was wrong. He turned to look at Zhou Huo, “Hmm...how come the netizen over here know about what sh*t Sacred Sword posts? The moment they said something the forums found out and started spewing insults?”

“I’m getting to the important bit.” Zhou Huo glanced at Shi Luo, and then swept his eyes towards Yu Sui. He said, “It’s just a coincidence, but an hour before Sacred Sword tweeted, NSN’s sniper, ROD, posted on Weibo. It was a post celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday, the picture shows him blowing candles with his girlfriend.”

Old Qiao was speechless, “It’s over, they’ve poked the hornet’s nest.”

“There’s no reasoning with the fans. Even though ROD clarified, even though their practice match with Sacred Sword wasn’t even today, even though he’s only taken one leave this month, the sprayers don’t care. For them, if you lose a game, it’s because you didn’t fight well. If you didn’t fight well, it’s because you didn’t want to win. Why didn’t you want to win? It’s because your mind is full of thought about dating.”

Zhou Huo smiled bitterly, “Is there any logic? No. Does anyone believe it? Too many do.”

“The competitive region was completely wiped out. The players felt ashamed and wanted to find somewhere to vent. ROD was also unlucky. They leveled their muzzles at him. His Weibo has already been blasted.

“And so......”

Zhou Huo didn’t look at Yu Sui and Shi Luo again. As though only casually mentioning it, he said, “I just want to remind everyone that for now, it’s best not to post your daily life on Weibo, especially anything related to relaxing. The worst you could possibly do is to suddenly announce that you’re seeing someone. The players’ anger hasn’t subsided yet. Let’s not be cannon fodder, shall we? If you must post anything on Weibo, it would be best if it were something related to training. Me and a few of the managers of a few of the other teams we’re on good terms with are keeping each other informed. For now, just behave yourselves a bit. The official Weibo will be posting about your painstaking training, try to alleviate the tension a bit.”

Chen Huo was nearest to Zhou Huo and Zhou Huo took a look at his monitor. “You don’t need to look at the live chat. There’s bound to be ones who want to make this an issue. Don’t mention this during your live broadcasts. It’s already late today so this issue hasn’t really had enough time to pick up momentum. Tomorrow, there’ll definitely be more people talking about it. Let’s not go asking for trouble.”

Zhou Huo said a bit pointedly, “If you’ve really got something unrelated to training or the competition that you really want to make public, please hold off on it for now. Let’s wait for this issue to die down before making it public.”

Shi Luo never intended to make it public but he knew that Zhou Huo was implying his and Yu Sui’s situation. He said directly, “I know.”

Zhou Huo smiled, “That’s good. Train hard, everyone and try not to let it get to you.”

It has always been like this in the industry. Win and boast, lose and get sprayed. There’s no use trying to dissuade them. If you haven’t gotten any good results, you deserve to be sprayed. Everyone has long been used to this kind of thing and didn’t think much about it. They simply kept playing.

At two o’clock, just as he used to do, Old Qiao pushed open the door of the training room and reminded them loudly, “Cancel your queue. If you’re in the middle of a match, finish it and don’t queue anymore. Time to go to bed!”

Shi Luo and Yu Sui had just finished their match. Shi Luo took off his headphones and didn’t queue up again, but he didn’t turn off his computer.

Shi Luo glanced at Puppy and Chen Huo. Puppy canceled his queue, shut down his computer and left. Chen Huo had been randomly matched up with Ten Thousand Mountains’ Xiao Jun and the two of them were happily killing.

Shi Luo clicked open Candy Crush and clicked here and there.

Shi Luo chewed furiously on his bubble gum. Inwardly, he said, ‘he said we couldn’t make it public, but he didn’t say that we couldn’t do something privately’.

Over by the other side, Yu Sui turned off the game client. Before shutting down his computer, he glanced at Shi Luo, watching him turn himself silly playing Candy Crush. He instantly understood what Shi Luo was thinking. A barely discernible smile flashed across Yu Sui’s eyes. He decided not to shut off his computer and instead, cleaned his desktop of unused review materials.

Shi Luo had amazing hand speed and after playing ten rounds of Candy Crush, he turned to look at Chen Huo. Chen Huo still wasn’t finished with his match.

Shi Luo frowned, “You haven’t finished playing yet?”

“Huh?” Chen Huo turned to look at Shi Luo, puzzled, “Not yet. Why...why are you waiting for me?”

Shi Luo said nothing and continued to irritably play Candy Crush, thinking he must be crazy, staying up half the night, waiting for him.

Yu Sui, who was already playing on his phone while sitting to the side, chuckled softly.

Shi Luo stared at his computer screen. Hearing Yu Sui’s soft chuckle, his ears instantly turned red.

He was waiting for Chen Huo to scram so that he could get some benefits from Yu Sui here in the training room!

He wasn’t allowed to make things public and now he wasn’t even allowed to seize some benefits?!

On the second floor, beyond the training room, were the players’ dorms. Past the dorms were Old Qiao and Zhou Huo’s rooms. There were six people living upstairs, except for Zhou Huo, all the rest were energetic night owls.

After signing off at two am, these people would still go and order take out or go up and down the stairs to get something to eat from the first floor. There were eyes everywhere. Whether they go to Yu Sui’s room, or Shi Luo drags Yu Sui off to his room, there was a high chance that they’d be discovered. The only safe place was the training room. Once these people leave here, they never come back.

Shi Luo had been trying his best to hold back the urge to do something since yesterday. Today, Yu Sui’s teasing has got his blood hotter than usual. Now, his mind was filled with thoughts of stamping his seal on a certain medic. But! But! But! What could he do with someone still in the training room!!!

Shi Luo played two more rounds of Candy Crush but Chen Huo still hadn’t finished.

“Can you finish this match or not?!” Shi Luo simply couldn’t bear it any longer. Looking at Chen Huo, he said, “You... Just...get up! I’ll fight for you.”

“Why?” Chen Huo was startled. His head was filled with question marks, “Have you gotten addicted to playing with other people’s accounts? It wasn’t enough that you got to play a round with Yu Sui’s before, now you want a go at mine?”

“No, thanks.” Chen Huo refused as he fought. “Let me tell you clearly. This account of mine is my little wife. What’s more, she’s my little wife that I’ve once lost and have now gotten back. During my 21 long years of being a single dog, she’s the one who’s spent the most time by my side. No one is laying a finger on her.”

Chen Huo said with the confidence of one who was justified and well-founded, “Not to mention that my account is even a female account! You want me to let you have a go at her? Does that sound right to you?”

Shi Luo was dazed. “Who doesn’t treat their own account like their own wife? Isn’t it the same for everyone? So what? I even used Yu Sui’s account, what of it?!”

“What? What did you say?” Chen Huo shielded his keyboard. He threw out some powerful and resounding words, “His account is no longer clean! Dirty!!!”

A certain medic who was still playing on his phone looked at the phone screen and didn’t refute. He nodded, “En, I’m already unclean.”

“If you’re that addicted to using other people’s accounts, then go be a power leveler on the sly. A pro-player, last season’s no. 1 striker on the national server. If you go and be power leveler, you’d def make millions per month.” Chen Huo controlled his little wife and mumbled to himself, “Stop trying to win the affections of my little wife. I can get at least five points after I play this game. It’s not easy getting points so stop bothering me.”

Chen Huo got Shi Luo so angry, his lungs were starting to hurt. He then looked at the man sitting all relaxed by the side; the man he could look at but couldn’t touch — Slag Man Yu. His thoughts were burning with rage. He said irritably, “Never mind. I only wanted to help you ‘cuz you’re obviously struggling.”

Shi Luo turned off his computer and vexed, went back to his dorm room. Chen Huo calmed down but was still guessing in a low voice, “That guy never has any good intentions. Even if I thought with my thighs, I could already guess what he was planning. He was def going to cause me to lose points. That little whelp has always been against me.”

Yu Sui, who had already decided to leave Chen Huo to fend for himself during their next team up, didn’t say anything. He got up to head back to his room. As he passed by Chen Huo, Yu Sui casually pressed Chen Huo’s burst firing key.

The sudden burst of gunfire, immediately exposed Chen Huo’s position. Chen Huo cursed Yu Sui as he hurriedly looked for cover.

————>>>>>>>

Translator’s note:

This has nothing to do with the story or BL even. But, I would just like to get it out there that for fans of old school, turn-based, story-driven, immersive, PS-one pixel-type JRPGs out there, please check out this kickstarter for Eiyuden Chronicles, the spiritual baby of the Suikoden series from the people who made the Suikoden series (but are no longer with Konami, because Konami is never gonna make another Suikoden game. Huhuhu)

Check out the videos they have on there. The original bare-bones game already sounded great but with so many of the stretch goals hit, this promises to be excellent, outstanding, superb! Despite that there are still a lot of other stretch goals that have yet to be hit. This is their last week, I highly advise anyone interested to go check it out. The staff working on this are veterans in the industry which lends tremendous credibility to this kickstarter and the reward tiers they have on offer are amazing (check out the FAQs if you want add-0n rewards).

So, that’s it, please check it out.