FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 44

Shi Luo looked at the familiar non-mainstream text and the corner of his lips ticked up. However, his throat felt like it was blocked up.

At that time, the two of them had just met. Somehow, Yu Sui firmly believed that he belonged to the Bury Love Family and in order to find a common topic of conversation, every day, he would chat with him using this alien language.

Back then, Shi Luo thought this was some kind of underage alternative lifestyle nutball and intended to keep a respectful distance away but somehow, he just couldn’t rest assured. Then this non-mainstream youth was suddenly unmasked and changed shape in a single shake. He was suddenly the league’s number one medic. And inexplicably, he was abducted from that shady internet cafe and brought into this group.

He’s only ever heard of “A look at Yang Guo, the mistake of a lifetime“. So, for him, what is this? “A look at Bury Love, the mistake of a lifetime”?

Shi Luo looked at his phone screen and was about to reply when the WeChat group “a whole family on friendly terms” buzzed alive.

[Puppy]: [I am here to make a small report. In the middle of training, a certain striker went out for a smoke and has been gone for almost half an hour.]

[Puppy]: [At the same time, a certain medic has been multitasking, playing the game while also fiddling with his phone and replying on his WeChat. It is simply most improper.]

[Whisper]: [R u sic in da head? Why do you just love being such a tattletale?]

[Coach·Old Qiao]: [? ? ? ]

[Manager·Zhou]: [? ? ? ]

[Whisper]: [... I forgot to switch back. ]

[Handsome Chen Huo]: [*Shocked* What’s with this situation?]

[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Yu Sui! Could it be that you’ve been hiding it from us? Are you secretly into Bury Love?]

[Whisper]: [Shut up. ]

[Evil]: [I’ll go back immediately. ]

[Manager·Zhou]: [It’s nothing, it’s nothing. No need to hurry. No rush. We’re not that strict here.]

[Manager·Zhou]: [*Satisfied* Yu Sui’s live broadcast today got particularly good results. Keep up the good work!]

[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Oh, really?]

[Handsome Chen Huo]: [Isn’t there anyone who cares about me? Laozi, this championship striker, for the sake of his f*cking brother, spent the entire night training with Wawa!]

[Puppy]: [#We Feel Sorry for Chen Huo#]

[Evil]: [...]

[Manager·Zhou]: [Oh, don’t be so petty. Everyone, go play for a bit longer. Later, let’s go out for a midnight snack. My treat. I trust no one has a problem with that?]

[Coach·Old Qiao]: [No problem. ]

[Puppy]: [No problem. ]

[Handsome Chen Huo]: [No problem. ]

[Evil]: [No problem. ]

[Whisper]: [No problem. ]

Shi Luo washed his face with cold water and returned to the training room to continue queuing up for games. At past 12 o’clock midnight, Zhou Huo happily came up to invite everyone to shut down their computers and go out to eat.

For some metaphysical reason, they no longer went out for hotpot but chose a place serving pretty good Shanghainese home dishes.

“There is good news, and there is bad news.”

After waiting for everyone to order, Zhou Huo said, “Let me first tell you the good news. The regular season schedule is already out. I will post it later in the group. You will be able to see it on the official website in a couple of days. I’ve looked through it and for us, this schedule is very favorable. It basically progresses from easy to difficult. The first half is basically filled with weak teams. We’ll only meet teams like Saint and NSN during the second half.”

“Although you were already teammates early on, it’s been a few years since you last played together. Moreover, this time Evil has transferred to being a striker. We’ll need time to get used to it. This schedule lets us get into gear bit by bit.” Old Qiao said, “For us, getting into the playoffs is pretty much a done deal but whether we can get into the finals depends on everyone.”

“Old Qiao is being too conservative. If it’s for the domestic finals, I think you can already be preparing for that. This isn’t what I’m worried about. I’m now going to tell you the bad news.” Zhou Huo took a drink of his tea. He looked at everyone and said, “I’ve just received word that sacred Sword has bought both the American Team Secret and the South Korean Team Devil’s Curse.”

“What the f*ck?” Chen Huo was incredulous. “They... bought two teams?!!!”

Zhou Huo nodded. “America’s No. 1 seeded team last year, Team Secret and South Korea’s No. 2 seeded team last year, Team Devil’s Curve were bought together.”

Puppy sighed, “Our former boss is really rich... I thought it was already pretty much their limit when they bought the three of us from FS back then. This time they’re even more ruthless. They bought two teams at once. Are they trying to build another Galactico warship again?

“How is this a warship? They’re obviously trying to raise a Gu!” Old Qiao gasped, “The three teams merged into one. They can continue to rotate their players throughout the regular season. They’ll come up one by one. Among these skilled starters, not performing well enough would mean being a substitute and if they perform even worse then they’ll be sold off. After a few months in the regular season, the ones who are left would form most powerful lineup.”

Puppy was made to recall some very unpleasant memories. He covered his face and bitterly said, “Back then, I was the one who was sold off. F*ck, Laozi played as a starter in China for so many years. I’ve never ever been a substitute. When I went overseas, I was sold off...what a disgrace.”

Chen Huo said coolly, “Back then, Laozi was made a sub and then sold off. I’m not that much better than you.”

Zhou Huo was speechless. “They’re rich, alright and his kind of method is indeed very useful. The only ones who can survive this hellish kind of method are those fierce characters who’re mentally strong. For instance, last season’s voodoo king.”

Everyone looked at Yu Sui. Yu Sui silently drank his tea. “Thanks, but I really don’t think that’s a compliment.”

“Yeah, just look at my Yu Shen. Look at what happened to his hair!” Chen Huo said, vexed, “The Sacred Sword Team is seriously toxic. They’re ruthless.”

Old Qiaolooked at Yu Sui. “You don’t seem the least bit surprised.”

“I’m not.” Yu Sui said while drinking his hot tea. “A month before I returned to China, Sacred Sword top management let loose some pretty harsh words.”

Shi Luo looked up. “What harsh words?”

Yu Sui put down the tea cup and slowly said, “A rough translation would probably be...’Whisper, why do you insist on leaving? If you go back, we won’t let you get the World Championship. Stay and you can remain as the World Champion. Why do you want to make things hard for yourself?’”

The room grew quiet.

This was also the first time Chen Huo was hearing about this. He asked carefully, “The manager talked to you? What did you say back?”

Yu Sui said with a blank expression, “What’da hafta do with ya?”

Shi Luo visualized that scene and couldn’t help letting out a snort of laughter.

Yu Sui smiled. “I didn’t get the accent right. I only know a little bit of Shanghai-ese.”

“Why were you taunting him!” Chen Huo laughed. He beat his chest and stamped his feet. “Look! You got them angry and they directly bought two teams to strike back at you.”

“They would have bought them regardless what Yu Sui said. This is just the way that club operates.” Old Qiao said coldly, “Back then, when they were looking to buy FS, I asked around. Since this club was established four years ago, they’ve never developed their own players. They don’t care about nationalities; they’ll buy whoever’s good. But after they’ve bought the players, they won’t cherish them. It doesn’t matter to them how long the player has played for them or how many championship that player has won for them, if their performance suffers a setback, they won’t even give the player the courtesy of being a substitute. They’re going to sell him right off.

Old Qiao shook his head. “They don’t have a shred of humanity. But it does produce results.”

“Yeah, just look at their attitude...” Zhou Huo sighed, “They feel like they’ve got this year’s World Championship in the bag already. This time, they’ve absorbed players from three teams to field a single four-player team. How can they not be powerful?”

Everyone was speechless. Yu Sui still had on that indifferent expression.

Zhou Huo thought optimistically. “However, we’re still at the early stages of building our team. We don’t need to think that far ahead just yet. I’m basically just sharing gossip. It’s doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with us.”

Zhou Huo laughed. “It’s not easy to say whether we can enter the World Championships this year. If we can’t then we won’t even see them at all. We’ve just established the team, we should first think about the domestic league.”

“This year NSN has last season’s most powerful sniper, ROD. Although they’re still missing a good medic, overall they’re a pretty strong team.” The food was served. While getting some food, Old Qiao said, “There’s no need to mention Saint. They were the domestic league champion last year. There’s also Bison. We can’t look down on that team. Their boss’ temperament is nearly the same as Sacred Sword’s. He’ll also buy whoever’s good. They’ve done some integration for this season and they’ve increased their strength considerably. Sigh...The more I look at it, the more I feel like...”

“Don’t say it.” Chen Huo had on a pained expression. “Next, you’re going to say, we should just disband. Stop praising other teams!”

Old Qiao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and hurried said, “I won’t say it. I won’t.”

Everyone concentrated on eating and once they had all eaten their fill, Zhou Huo settled the bill. They all piled into the car and headed back to the base.

On the way back to the base, Zhou Huo said, “Three days later, on Monday, we will have our first regular season game, um... guess who? One of your old acquaintances.”

Everyone was a little sleepy from eating so much. There came a lot of perfunctory “um, um”s but no one guessed. It was Old Qiao who opened his eyes and asked, “Who?”

Zhou Huo let out a ‘hehe’. “Team Bison.”

Shi Luo opened his eyes and then closed them again.

“Violent Shu’s been getting along pretty well these past few years. I heard that he’s already the captain.” Chen Huo said slowly. “It’s been a long time since I last saw him. I’m gonna need to teach him how to behave himself once I see him on Monday.”

“Okay, let’s agree right now. If you’re going to fight, do it in the game!” Zhou Huo warned them. “Violent Shu’s gotten a lot steadier nowadays. Don’t any of you go stirring up trouble. Puppy, if any of them get up to any little tricks, be sure to tell me.”

Puppy, who has developed a tattletale addiction, found this very interesting. “No problem!”

Shi Luo pouted. He was a lot steadier than Violent Shu.

“That’s pretty much it.” Zhou Huo arranged his work and started happily looking through Weibo. “Today’s live broadcast was good. We made a highlights video on our official blog. You can go check it out.”

Chen Huo and Puppy weren’t very interested and did not go to watch. Sitting alone at the backrow, Shi Luo’s eyebrows twitched. He took out his mobile phone.

Free’s official blog was something that was made in a hurry. The video’s title was also very direct. <<Whisper’s Slag Man Teachings>>

Shi Luo turned on the mobile phone’s video sound to mute and then clicked on the video. The video started with high energy and then it was that conversation between Yu Sui and Wawa.

Although he’d seen it briefly during Yu Sui’s live broadcast, he hadn’t been able to look through it carefully back then. Once Shi Luo had reconfirmed that no one was paying any attention to himself, he pulled back the video bar and re-watched that portion several times over.

Shi Luo guiltily let out a cough and closed Weibo.

There was nothing worth seeing.

When Shi Luo’s mobile phone vibrated. Gu Gan sent several messages to him on WeChat, all of which were pictures.

Gu Gan didn’t like to chat. It wasn’t at all usual for him to contact Shi Luo. Shi Luo opened it to take a look. They were several screenshots of a chat record.

After clearly seeing whose chat record it was, Shi Luo gulped.

[GU]: [Wawa has always been like this. He’s familiar with several skilled strikers and would often look for them to level up together. He doesn’t plan it in advance either.]

[GU]: [He’s a bit scared of me and basically won’t ask me to play with him. He also won’t ask to play with our team striker, Xinran. Because Xinran has a loose tongue and loves to bb him. ]

[GU]: [It’s only a trifling matter. If Evil can’t accompany him, he’ll go look for someone else. No one really takes it very seriously.]

[Whisper]: [It’s fine.]

[GU]: [I actually have something to ask you. ]

[Whisper]: [? ]

[GU]: [Your milktank play is pretty 6. It’s not as good as Angel Sword’s. Looks like you don’t play it much but it’s still pretty awesome.]

[GU]: [Was this skill a big move you were hiding?]

[Whisper]: [...You could say that.]

[GU]: [Really? ]

[GU]: [Isn’t it something you’re preparing for the regular season to catch us by surprise?]

[Whisper]: [...]

[Whisper]: [You’re thinking too much. My milktank play isn’t good enough to be used in an official game.]

[GU]: [Can I believe you? ]

[Whisper]: [You usually shouldn’t believe me when I talk to you about tactics but this time, what I told you is definitely true.]

[GU]: [Why am I still suspicious? Since you won’t be using it in an official match, then what were you practicing it for?]

[Whisper]: [I didn’t practice it. ]

[GU]: [Video link]

[GU]: [If it isn’t for the matches, what are you playing milktank for?]

[Whisper]: [In order to coax a child.]

[GU]: [...]

[GU]: [Aren’t you afraid I’d take a screenshot of this and send it to Evil?]

[Whisper]: [I’m afraid, so very afraid. Make sure to not not take a screenshot of it.]

[Whisper]: [Shi Luo, it’s time to get out of the car.]

Shi Luo saw the last sentence and flushed. Yu Sui was obviously talking to him through Gu Gan but it was like he was caught peeping and he suddenly looked guiltily ahead.

They were at the base. The car had already stopped.

Yu Sui, who was sitting at the very front row, put on his team uniform jacket. Expression completely normal, he said, “Stop looking at WeChat and get down.”